It’s raining men AKA as John Key’s job summit

Hat tip the Standard and the person who send them the video.

Alan Bollard warns summit of severe recession

Allan “Nincompoop” Bollard tells us to have a thought for our bankers. Look at John Key in the background he can barely contain his smirk.

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House building hits rock bottom

House building activity hit its lowest ever recorded level in January.

Statistics New Zealand said that just 812 dwelling units, including apartments, were authorised for construction during the month. That’s the lowest number since SNZ started recording the figures in 1965.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, the number of approvals plunged 8.2 percent in the month.

The figures, which point to future building activity, have been falling substantially since the housing boom started running out of steam in mid-2007.

Today’s latest figures will be likely to put further pressure on job numbers in the building industry. Economists have previously suggested there are many thousands too many people in the industry now relative to the amount of activity.

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Anthrax spores don’t match dead researcher’s samples

Poisonous anthrax that killed five Americans in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks doesn’t match bacteria from a flask linked to Bruce Ivins, the researcher who committed suicide after being implicated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a scientist said.

Spores used in the deadly mailings “share a chemical ‘fingerprint’ that is not found in the flask linked to Bruce Ivins,” Roberta Kwok wrote in Nature News, citing Joseph Michael, a scientist at the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Michael analyzed letters sent to the New York Post and offices of Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, and found a distinct “chemical signature” not present in the flask known as RMR-1029, which Ivins could access in his laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

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Some background on Lord Ashcroft

To most New Zealanders Michael Ashcroft is the guy who forked out $ 200,000,- to buy back some old war medals and since most Pakeha and Maori folk still believe that they are fighting in just wars whenever the US calls on them to sacrifice some more young people that immediately bought him the goodwill of every gullible Kiwi of which there are plenty. And so when John Key announced last week that Lord Ashcroft in his imperial goodness found it in his heart to come over and have a wee chat with our esteemed Prime Minister nobody thought any thing of it in fact when Lord Aschroft let it be known that he wanted to initiate an anti crime phoneline where people could phone into anonymously they all thought that that was real swell.

However philantrophy is not all the Lord does. In fact Philantrophy is only a tiny sideline.
Among his many endeavors is financing the Tory party being their backroom strategist and he is a Banker. In fact he owns a bank in Belize but more importantly he is a major share holder n a group known as the Carlyle group. Now for those of you who don’t know that the Carlyle group is and what it does it pays to watch the documentary below. Dont worry, only the introduction is in Dutch, the documentary is in English and well worth watching.

To watch it is to understand that with Lord Ashcroft the eye of Mordor has come to New Zealand.

The Oscar for Denial

German society is still – and may always be – in recovery, not just from the atrocities committed in its name, by its leaders, but from the silent acquiescence of the millions who lacked the will to speak up against what they knew was wrong.  To sweep the crimes and excesses of the Bush-Cheney years under the rug would destroy the American soul.  The world needs the American sense of justice now more than ever.  But we forfeit our moral authority if we do not take responsibility for the crimes of the Bush-Cheney years.

Kate Winslet’s Academy Award for Best Actress in The Reader surely disappointed and outraged Ron Rosenbaum. Amid the torrent of nonsense glutting U.S. media since the movie award nominations were announced, Rosenbaum’s objections to The Reader were far more substantive and accusatory.

In his Slate column, Rosenbaum attacked the “essential metaphorical thrust” of the film, which he said aimed “to exculpate Nazi-era Germans from knowing complicity in the Final Solution.” Rosenbaum decried the notion of honoring “a film that asks us to empathize with an unrepentant mass murderer and intimates that ‘ordinary Germans’ were ignorant of the extermination until after the war…”

Rosenbaum indicted “the Kate Winslet character’s ‘illiteracy’: She’s a stand-in for the German people and their supposed inability to ‘read’ the signs that mass murder was being done in their name, by their fellow citizens.  To which one can only say: What a crock!”

In fact it is a crock, a willful misreading of The Reader to lump it in with a genre of films which exploit the Holocaust (e.g., Life is Beautiful, winner of several Academy Awards).  Bernard Schlink, author of the novel on which the film of The Reader is based, told an interviewer in December: “It’s definitely not a movie about the Holocaust.  It’s about a generation trying to come to terms with what they had to learn about their parents’ generation.”

But Rosenbaum’s Shoah sensitivities are Manichean.  He concedes nothing to the moral and emotional complexities within or between the characters, especially in the film’s central relationship between Michael and Hanna.

Michael’s passionate affair with the much-older Hanna at first uplifts his adolescence.  But when, as a law student, he witnesses her murder trial, along with other former Nazi concentration camp guards, he is devastated.  Michael believes that Hanna has admitted to writing a report about the death of 300 Jewish prisoners, trapped in a burning church, in order to avoid revealing her illiteracy.

Michael tells his law professor (Bruno Ganz) that he has knowledge relevant to the trial, perhaps in the defendant’s favor.  The older professor urges Michael to speak up: You don’t want to be like us and do nothing do you?  Here Ganz is referring to his own silent wartime generation.  But Michael cannot bring himself to visit Hanna during her trial, even though he knows her illiteracy has probably condemned her to a far greater penalty than her equally – or perhaps surpassingly – guilty comrades.

The other guards have no moral sense.  But they are rewarded for their lies and stonewalling, receiving much lighter sentences than Hanna, who simply blurts out the truth, takes the rap and ends up sentenced to life in prison.  She admits to having no moral sense, and therefore must be the more strongly condemned.  Does this really create undue sympathy for Hanna, as Rosenbaum suggests?   At the end of the film, an escaped victim (Lena Olin) explicitly asks the adult Michael (Ralph Fiennes) if he thinks Hanna’s illiteracy mitigates her guilt.  And he says no.

As one of the law students in the film declares, the question is not who knew about the extermination of the Jews.  There were hundreds of camps all over Europe.  Everybody knew.  ”My parents, my teachers, everyone.”  The question is, what did they do about it?  The answer is: Nothing.  As the student says to the bemused Ganz: “The only question is why you didn’t all just kill yourselves?”

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Afghanistan: U.S. Escalates the Illegal Drug Industry

It is common knowledge that Afghanistan remains the primary source of the world’s supply of opium and heroin. A recent United Nations’ report claims that three quarters of the world’s heroin comes from the provinces of Helmand and Kandahar. But there is also recognition that poppies are grown in almost all of the country’s 34 provinces.

The western media argues that most of the production of illegal drugs is being done by the Taliban or that the Taliban is protecting the farmers. The fact that there are well known drug lords in the government of President Hamid Karzai, and many are members of the parliament, is usually ignored. Yet the Asian press carries photos of “narco palaces” in Kabul and describes the local “narcotecture.” The Afghan population is well aware of the close ties between the drug lords and the government.

Of course this is quite embarrassing to the U.S. government, which put Karzai in office and created the present Afghan constitution and system of government. Thus Hillary Clinton, nominated for Secretary of State, created quite a shock when she referred to Afghanistan as a “narco state” in her testimony before the U.S. Senate.

Forgotten in all this is the key role that the U.S. government played in the development and expansion of the illegal drug industry in Afghanistan. It goes back to the decision made in July 1978 by the administration of Jimmy Carter to give aid and assistance to the radical Islamists in their rebellion against the leftist government of the Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan.

The CIA and the Afghan Drug Trade

The U.S. government devoted billions of dollars to the proxy war in Afghanistan. Most of this was funneled through the Pentagon’s infamous Black Budget, secret funds for secret operations. In 1981 this budget was estimated at $9 billion but rose to $36 billion by 1990. The CIA obtained cash to buy weapons and other equipment which was then channeled to the Islamist rebels.

In the Afghan operation the CIA provided cash to the Pakistan government, primarily through its accounts with the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), best known for laundering illegal drug money. As John Cooley notes, “The CIA already had a history of using corrupt or criminal banks for its overseas operations.” In the 1980s the CIA and the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency were using the BCCI for covert operations. First American, in Washington, D.C., was one of the CIA banks of choice, and it had been acquired by BCCI.

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The “Geithner Put”: It’s time to break up the big banks

“We will preserve the banking system that is owned and managed by the private sector” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Timothy Geithner is putting the finishing touches on a plan that will dump $1 trillion of toxic assets onto the US taxpayer.  The plan, which goes by the opaque moniker the “Public-Private Investment Fund” (PPIF), is designed to provide lavish incentives to hedge funds and private equity firms to purchase bad assets from failing banks. It is a sweetheart deal that provides government financing and guarantees for illiquid mortgage-backed junk for which there is no active market. As one might expect, the charismatic President Obama has been called in to generate public support for this latest addition to the TARP bailout. In this week’s address to Congress he said:

“This administration is moving swiftly and aggressively to restore confidence, and re-start lending.
We will do so in several ways.  First, we are creating a new lending fund that represents the largest effort ever to help provide auto loans, college loans, and small business loans to the consumers and entrepreneurs who keep this economy running.”

The Obama administration is clearly afraid to use the unpopular Geithner to sell this boondoggle to the American people. Geithner’s last performance set off a political firestorm and put the equities markets into a swan-dive. No one wants to see that again.

Details of the plan remain sketchy, but the PPIF will work in concert with the Fed’s new lending facility, the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF, which will start operating in March and will provide up to $1 trillion of financing for buyers of new securities backed by credit card, auto and small-business loans. Geithner’s financial rescue “partnership” will also focus on cleaning up banks balance sheets by purging mortgage-backed securities. (MBS)

In Monday’s New york Times, Paul Krugman summed up the Geithner plan like this:

“Now the administration is talking about a “public-private partnership” to buy troubled assets from the banks, with the government lending money to private investors for that purpose. This would offer investors a one-way bet: if the assets rise in price, investors win; if they fall substantially, investors walk away and leave the government holding the bag. Again, heads they win, tails we lose.
Why not just go ahead and nationalize?”

Why not, indeed, except for the fact that Geithner’s main objective is to “keep the banks in private hands” regardless of the cost to the taxpayer. The Treasury Secretary believes that if he presents his plan a “lending program” rather than another trillion dollar freebie from Uncle Sam, he’ll have a better chance slipping it by Congress and thereby preserving the present management structure at the banks. Keeping the banking giants intact is “Job 1″ at the Treasury.

The PPIF is a way of showering speculators with subsidies to purchase non-performing loans at bargain-basement prices.  The Fed is using a similar strategy with the TALF which, according to the New York Times, could easily generate “annual returns of 20 percent or more” for those who borrow from the facility.

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I.O.U.S.A.

A view to the crisis crippling the world

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Hawke’s Bay wind farm rejected

A wind farm project, selected by the Labour Government to be fast-tracked through the resource consent process, has been turned down by the Environment Court.

The proposed 34-turbine wind farm near the Te Waka Range in Hawke’s Bay was rejected in a court decision yesterday, lines company Unison company said.

The company refused to say why the court had turned down its proposal, but chief executive Ken Sutherland said on the basis of this decision a legislative change would be needed for such schemes to succeed in the future.

“The decision sends some seriously disconcerting signals to companies trying to undertake environmentally friendly energy production,” he said.

“Unison and its business partner in this proposed venture have spent more than five years going through legal processes to go this far, and have spent significant sums pursuing consent for this excellent energy source.”

Mr Sutherland said three turbines had been removed from the original design at a loss of renewable electricity for 3000 homes per year in order to cater for Maori concerns.

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Fight against terror must mean the end of ordinary people’s privacy, says ex-security chief and Lord Ashcrofts “Crimebusters”

In eastern Europe under Communist workers paradise rule the most effective weapon the authorities had was the willingness of citizens to spy and tattle on their neighbours (take the STASI for example).

Malevolence and distrust served the rulers to keep absolute control over their populations. Fear and paranoia where wielded when “upstanding” citizens reported “deviant” behaviour to the authorities and it cost millions and millions of people their lives and their loved ones.

With the undemocratic and intrusive spying on prominent citizens and Politicians such as Keith Locke and god knows how many average citizens for just speaking their minds and supporting other ideologies than the predominant Capitalist one you might have second thoughts about Lord Aschroft’s wish for  a tittle tattle line to fight Crime.

Come to think of it, why would we accept help form a guy who doesn’t live here, has ties to the Banking world in the most unsavoury ways and who is at this very moment under investigation for illegal actions himself.

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Personal data of innocent citizens must be made available to the Government to combat terrorism, according to an influential former security chief.

Sir David Omand, Whitehall’s former and security and intelligence coordinator, called for unprecedented Big Brother powers to allow access to private details – including phone records, emails and travel information – to be given to the intelligence services.

Setting out a hugely controversial blueprint for the future of national security  he said ‘moral rules’ about individual privacy would have to be broken.

His 17-page report calls for the creation of a vast state database to gather information about terrorist groups which are increasingly recruiting and operating online.

But he argued that a citizen’s right to privacy would have to be sacrificed to allow ‘intrusive’ intelligence techniques.

‘Finding out other people’s secrets is going to involve breaking everyday moral rules’, he wrote.

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Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street

The Gaussian copula formula.

“The most dangerous part is when people believe everything coming out of it.” Mr. Li, the inventor of the Gaussian copula function.

Key explains: “I had a whole lot of people working for me who were at the cutting edge of delivering quite complex and new and innovative products. They tended to either be a new product or into a new market, usually the emerging markets, Russia, Brazil, Argentina. I wasn’t the guy sitting there dreaming it all up, but I was the guy who was responsible for those people.” Did he foresee the problems which resulted in the sub-prime crisis? “Was it hard to predict? Not really.” John Key, 19 July, In search of John Key.

The mr. Li named in this article was never employed by Merrill Lynch, he was however by no means the only “Quant” on Wall street. John Key knows all about quants and what they are capable of. It was after all two of the original quants that made Merrill Lynch both rich and poor while John Key was both Global head for Foreign Exchange and European head for Bonds and Derivatives when Merrill Lynch stood to loose $ 1.5 billion (according to John Key) when the LTCM hedgefund collapsed after their computer model turned out not to cater for the fact that Money markets (in this case the Russian Rouble) can actually default. It was after all the fact that he was tasked to fire all his colleagues and he did so with a big grin on his face that people started to call him the “Smiling Assassin”.

In the mid-’80s, Wall Street turned to the quants—brainy financial engineers—to invent new ways to boost profits. Their methods for minting money worked brilliantly… until one of them devastated the global economy.
Photo: Jim Krantz/Gallery Stock

Road Map for Financial Recovery: Radical Transparency Now!

A year ago, it was hardly unthinkable that a math wizard like David X. Li might someday earn a Nobel Prize. After all, financial economists—even Wall Street quants—have received the Nobel in economics before, and Li’s work on measuring risk has had more impact, more quickly, than previous Nobel Prize-winning contributions to the field. Today, though, as dazed bankers, politicians, regulators, and investors survey the wreckage of the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression, Li is probably thankful he still has a job in finance at all. Not that his achievement should be dismissed. He took a notoriously tough nut—determining correlation, or how seemingly disparate events are related—and cracked it wide open with a simple and elegant mathematical formula, one that would become ubiquitous in finance worldwide.

For five years, Li’s formula, known as a Gaussian copula function, looked like an unambiguously positive breakthrough, a piece of financial technology that allowed hugely complex risks to be modeled with more ease and accuracy than ever before. With his brilliant spark of mathematical legerdemain, Li made it possible for traders to sell vast quantities of new securities, expanding financial markets to unimaginable levels.

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Medical Professionals for 9/11 Truth

Once again a brave group of highly trained professionals calls for a new and independent investigation into the events of 911.

At this moment over 70.000 people of over 50.000 where the heroic first responders who risked and probably lost their lives as it turns out when they responded to the mayday calls on the September 9 2001. They worked non stop to find survivors and to help wherever they could for months and they are paying a heavy toll.

They breathed in the buildings when they came down in a pyroclastic flow and in the weeks after they breated in the toxic fumes, the asbestos, the heavy metals and other carcinogenics.

Now a group of highly trained medics confronted with the evidence and the result in illnesses from that day have united in order to give voice to the thousands of medical personel who are fighting to save lives and who want answers to the many guestions that remain.

Among them people such as:

Jonathan Weisbuch, MD,MPH
Former Chief Health Officer
States of Wyoming and North Dakota
Joined February 24, 2009

Michael D. Knox, PhD
Distinguished Professor
College of Public Health
University of South Florida
Joined February 24, 2009

Fred Burks, RN
Registered Nurse
Former interpreter for Presidents Bush and Clinton
Joined February 24, 2009

To name but a few.

Visit their website and give them your support.

Army shifts $2m contract to China

I don’t have any sympathy for armies and their suppliers they are as far as I am concerned merchants of death but isn’t it typical that while the global economy is collapsing and job after job after job is disappearing that the very group who is supposed to defend New Zealand and it’s population chooses to dump the very people they are supposed to defend in it and  shop abroad for better deals and this while our government states that unemployment is their single biggest issue.

A small-town clothing manufacturer has been dealt a blow on the eve of the Government’s jobs summit after being told a $2 million contract to supply the army is shifting to China.

Levin’s Swazi Apparel has made wet-weather gear for troops for the past three years, but the Defence Force says his contact will be cut by 93 per cent – more than $1.9 million – this year.

Swazi owner Davey Hughes said he had been told the work was going to China. He was “saddened and deeply disillusioned”.

“For a small town like Levin, that is a big chunk of work to lose. As a New Zealander, I feel deeply betrayed. As an employer, I am lost for words to deliver my staff.”

News of the contract cut comes a day before the much-heralded summit called by Prime Minister John Key to find ways to protect jobs as the recession deepens.

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Financiers Used “Hotline” to SEC Examiners

How cool is that? It’s like you can do anything you want and you call the police to stop investigating you. That’s how cool it is.

During the hearing, Congressman Lynch said that current and former SEC employees complained to him about the existence of a “hotline” used by Wall Street firms to call directly to top SEC officials to “stop an investigation or slow it down.”

Washington, DC – In a hearing which exposed failures by the government’s financial police, Congressman Stephen Lynch (D-Massachusetts) highlighted the existence of a “hotline,” which he said could be used by Wall Street firms to call off government inspectors. The existence of a “hotline” has been confirmed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), though its purpose has been disputed.

The SEC – the federal agency tasked with policing the financial industry – has come under heavy criticism for incompetence and negligence in its role as the regulator of the giant Wall Street firms, the collapse of which has already cost taxpayers billions of dollars and continues to threaten the world economy. The most prominent example of SEC failure is the decades-long $50 billion Ponzi scheme – likely the largest financial fraud in history – orchestrated by Bernard Madoff. The fraud was identified by money manager and private investigator Harry Markopolos, the star witness at the February 4 hearing before the House Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises.

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Report on 9/11: Truth at the Transpartisan American Citizens’ Summit in Denver

From February 11^th to 15^th , 2009, at the American Citizens’ Summit in Denver, people from across the political spectrum gathered to speak and identify priorities demanding attention at a time of converging global crises. Processes included meeting in circles, listening, open space, and innovative feedback technologies that allowed everyone to vote on issues, ideas, and positions–anonymously and instantly–and to reflect the information to the group.

An interim Sunshine Cabinet–including Cynthia McKinney (2008- Green Party candidate for President), Congressman Ron Paul, Grover Norquist, Liberty Coalition co-founder Michael Ostrolenk, Barbara Marx Hubbard, humorist Steve Bhaerman and Committee for a Unified Independent Party director Jackie Salit–spoke about their top priorities. They included transparency, dismantling the national security state, a non-interventionist foreign policy, peace, justice, dignity, promoting liberty, following the Constitution, creating a Peace Room, and addressing the collapse of the economic system by creating a local/global sustainable economy that values solar energy, food, human invention and love.

The history and evolution of the Transpartisan Movement was mapped.  Processes, some of which were developed from high school classroom ground rules and from rules adopted at the first Bipartisan Congressional Retreat, were explained.  Spiral Dynamics allowed everyone to understand a framework to help people consciously transcend the limits of bipartisan thinking. People were encouraged to leave their egos at the door and to be open to all points of view, deeper truths, and surprising synergies, so they could create space in which ideas or solutions drawn from the collective wisdom of a diverse group of people could emerge.

Mark Gerzon, a pioneer in the movement, candidly admitted that the Stimulus Bill (which President Obama publicly signed into law February 18th, 2009, in Denver), was a result of bipartisan thinking and give and take, creating ammunition for future arguments and battles between Republicans and Democrats.  A genuine effort to rationally examine measurable effects of past efforts to improve the lives of individuals, communities, and regions–to meet people’s needs and ameliorate economic conditions–was thwarted by Congress.

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Bank’s stick their bailout funds in accounts in “Tax havens”

Lord Aschcroft owns a tax haven in Belize it the biggest donor to the UK tories and their most powerful strategist. The good old boys are back again.

Tories face £5m black hole after launch of inquiry into Ashcroft

They say you will be judged by the company you keep so why the hell would John Key be seen with Lord Aschcroft? What’s more why did he meet with him in Secret?

David Cameron faces embarrassment and the prospect of a near £5m black hole after the electoral watchdog began a formal investigation into the Tories’ biggest donor.

The Electoral Commission has launched an inquiry into donations made by a company controlled by Lord Ashcroft, the party’s deputy chairman and key strategist. The move follows complaints that £4.7m of gifts to the Conservatives from Lord Ashcroft’s company, Bearwood Corporate Services, could have breached electoral laws.

The party could be ordered to pay back the money if it is judged to have wrongly accepted it.

Related articles

• Nigel Morris: Money talks – and this man wields huge power

Bearwood’s registered address is in Southampton but it is reported to have received its income from companies based in the central American country Belize, where Lord Ashcroft still has extensive business interests.

Political parties are only allowed to receive donations from companies that are registered in Britain and do business in this country.

The Conservative Party insisted yesterday that the donations were “legal and permissible”. “We are confident these contributions to the party are entirely acceptable,” Liam Fox, the shadow Defence Secretary, said.

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New World Order alert: Brown: World needs ‘global New Deal’

BERLIN, Germany (CNN) — The world needs a “global New Deal” to haul it out of the economic crisis it faces, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom said Sunday.

Gordon Brown addresses a press conference following a G20 preparatory meeting in Berlin, Sunday.

“We need a global New Deal — a grand bargain between the countries and continents of this world — so that the world economy can not only recover but… so the banking system can be based on… best principles,” he said, referring to the 1930s American plan to fight the Great Depression.

Brown was speaking as the leaders of Europe’s biggest economies met to try to forge a common position on the global financial crisis ahead of a major summit in London in April.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the world’s response to the global financial meltdown had to be profound and long-lasting, not just tinkering around the edges.

“Europe wants to see an overhaul of the system. We all agree on that. We’re not talking about superficial measures now or transitional measures — we’re talking about structural measure, which need to be taken,” he said.

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Despotism 101: Communist Officials Train to Disperse Unrest

It seems that the simple method of dispersing unrest with brutal police force is no longer expected to do the trick so the Chinese leaders are going back to school. Their course? How to manipulate and disperse unrest by any other means.

The directors of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) some 3,000 county level Public Security Bureaus are set to go through a training course on quashing mass dissent.

According to Radio Free Asia, the first group, consisting of 450 directors, arrived Wednesday in Beijing for a 10-day course. A further 6 sessions, which are expected to last half a year, have been planned for the remaining 2,630 bureau directors, according to an announcement on the communist regime’s website for the Ministry of Public Security.

In communist China, apart from what could be considered the normal government, at every level, there exist the communist party secretaries. Not long ago, the county-level secretaries of the communist party received this training and now the directors’ of public security get their turn.

That the Chinese regime is going to such lengths to train county level entities on counter-unrest measures shows its anxiety about the current societal stability in China, says social analyst Liu Xiaozhu says.

“In the past, top communist party officials would let the local police quell the unrest, with any means,” said Liu. “Recently across the country the mass incidents of unrest have been taking place on larger scales—many have spread across different areas—and this trend has gained momentum… simple crackdowns may not work too well anymore.“

“Top officials have begun to realize how serious the unrests have turned out to be. Currently if the usual suppression tactics are used, most likely an even larger scale incident would occur and this could even spread into nationwide turmoil,” Liu says.

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Big Brother spy planes that track the Taliban may soon hover over your homeBig Brother spy planes that track the Taliban may soon hover over your home

Pilotless planes used to track the Taliban could soon be hovering over our streets, it has emerged.

Remote-controlled drones are already used widely by the military. Now ministers believe they are likely to become ‘increasingly useful’ for police work.

Armed with heat-seeking cameras, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles would hover hundreds of feet in the air, gathering intelligence and watching suspects.

The Microdrone has been trialled by Merseyside police. The white top features GPS technology, which allows officers to navigate it. It contains a memory card to store recordings from several flights

In theory, their advantages are clear. They are cheaper and quieter than conventional helicopters, can circle their target for hours without refuelling – and they don’t get bored on long surveillance missions.

However, their use is likely to further fuel concerns about our march towards a Big Brother state. Britain already has more CCTV cameras than the rest of Europe put together.

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Monsanto’s Bt Cotton Kills the Soil as Well as Farmers

Biosafety refers to ensuring that GMO’s do not harm the environment or health.

The soil, its fertility, and the organisms which maintain the fertility of soil are a vital aspect of the environment, especially in the context of food and agricultural production.

A recent scientific study carried out by Navdanya, compared the soil of fields where Bt-cotton had been planted for 3 years with adjoining fields with non GMO cotton or other crops. The region covered included Nagpur, Amravati and Wardha of Vidharbha which accounts for highest GMO cotton planting in India, and the highest rate of farmers suicides (4000 per year).

In 3 years, Bt-cotton has reduced the population of Actinomycetes by 17%. Actinomycetes are vital for breaking down cellulose and creating humus.

Bacteria were reduced by 14%. The total microbial biomass was reduced by 8.9%.

Vital soil beneficial enzymes which make nutrients available to plants have also been drastically reduced. Acid Phosphatase which contributes to uptake of phosphates was reduced by 26.6%. Nitrogenase enzymes which help fix nitrogen were reduced by 22.6%.

At this rate, in a decade of planting with GM cotton, or any GM crop with Bt genes in it, could lead to total destruction of soil organisms, leaving dead soil unable to produce food.

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Did Vladimir Lenin Predict The Banking Disaster Of 2008?

Ooh oops.

“Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism”

By V. I. Lenin
LCW vol.22,

Lenin enumerated the following five features characteristic of the epoch of imperialism:

The epoch of imperialism opens when the expansion of colonialism has covered the globe and no new colonies can be acquired by the great powers except by taking them from each other, and the concentration of capital has grown to a point where finance capital becomes dominant over industrial capital. Lenin enumerated the following five features characteristic of the epoch of imperialism:

(1) the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life;
(2) the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation on the basis of this “finance capital”, of a financial oligarchy;
(3) the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance;
(4) the formation of international monopoly capitalist associations which share the world among themselves, and
(5) the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed. Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed. [Lenin, Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism, LCW Volume 22, p. 266-7.]

“[Imperialism] is something quite different from the old free competition between manufacturers, scattered and out of touch with one another, and producing for an unknown market. Concentration [of production] has reached the point at which it is possible to make an approximate estimate of all sources of raw materials (for example, the iron ore deposits)… [throughout] the whole world. Not only are such estimates made, but these sources are captured by gigantic monopolist associations [now called multi-national conglomerates]. An approximate estimate of the capacity of markets is also made, and the associations “divide” them up amongst themselves by agreement. Skilled labor is monopolized, the best engineers are engaged; the means of transport are captured – railways in America, shipping companies in Europe and America. Capitalism in its imperialist stage leads directly to the most comprehensive socialization of production; it, so to speak, drags the capitalists, against their will and consciousness, into some sort of a new social order, a transitional one from complete free competition to complete socialization.

“Production becomes social, but appropriation remains private. The social means of production remain the private property of a few. The general framework of formally recognized free competition remains, and the yoke of a few monopolists on the rest of the population becomes a hundred times heavier, more burdensome and intolerable.” (p. 205)

“The development of capitalism has arrived at a stage when, although commodity production still “reigns” and continues to be regarded as the basis of economic life, it has in reality been undermined and the bulk of the profits go to the “geniuses” of financial manipulation. At the basis of these manipulations and swindles lies socialized production; but the immense progress of mankind, which achieved this socialization, goes to benefit… the speculators.” (p. 206-207)

Monopoly, oligarchy, the striving for domination and not for freedom, the exploitation of an increasing number of small and weak nations by a handful of the richest or most powerful nations – all these have given rise to those distinctive characteristics of imperialism which compel us to define it as parasitic or decaying capitalism. … It would be a mistake to believe that this tendency to decay precludes the rapid growth of capitalism. It does not. In the epoch of imperialism, certain branches of industry, certain strata of bourgeoisie and certain countries betray… now one and now another of these tendencies. On the whole, capitalism is growing far more rapidly than before.”
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, VI Lenin, Selected Works in one volume, p 260

(ch.7) Parasitism and the Decay of Capitalism…parasitism is characteristic of imperialism… the deepest economic foundation of imperialism is monopoly. This is capitalist monopoly, i.e., monopoly which has grown out of capitalism and which exists in the general environment of capitalism, commodity production and competition, in permanent and insoluble contradiction to this general environment. Nevertheless, like all monopoly, it inevitably engenders a tendency of stagnation and decay….Certainly, the possibility of reducing the cost of production and increasing profits by introducing technical improvements operates in the direction of change. But the tendency to stagnation and decay, which is characteristic of monopoly, continues to operate, and in some branches of industry, in some countries, for certain periods of time, it gains the upper hand…. imperialism is an immense accumulation of money capital in a few countries, amounting, as we have seen, to 100,000-50,000 million francs in securities. Hence the extraordinary growth of a class, or rather, of a stratum of rentiers, i.e., people who live by “clipping coupons”, who take no part in any enterprise whatever, whose profession is idleness. The export of capital, one of the most essential economic bases of imperialism, still more completely isolates the rentiers from production and sets the seal of parasitism on the whole country that lives by exploiting the labour of several overseas countries and colonies….

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How the US Economy Was Lost

How long will Americans permit “their” government to rip them off for the sake of the financial interests that caused the problem? Obama’s cabinet and National Economic Council are filled with representatives of the interest groups that caused the problem. The Obama administration is not a government capable of preventing a catastrophe. Paul Graig Roberts.

The American economy has gone away. It is not coming back until free trade myths are buried six feet under.

America’s 20th century economic success was based on two things. Free trade was not one of them. America’s economic success was based on protectionism, which was ensured by the union victory in the Civil War, and on British indebtedness, which destroyed the British pound as world reserve currency. Following World War II, the US dollar took the role as reserve currency, a privilege that allows the US to pay its international bills in its own currency.

World War II and socialism together ensured that the US economy dominated the world at the mid 20th century. The economies of the rest of the world had been destroyed by war or were stifled by socialism.

The ascendant position of the US economy caused the US government to be relaxed about giving away American industries, such as textiles, as bribes to other countries for
cooperating with America’s cold war and foreign policies. For example, Turkey’s US textile quotas were increased in exchange for over-flight rights in the Gulf War, making lost US textile jobs an off-budget war expense.

In contrast, countries such as Japan and Germany used industrial policy to plot their comebacks. By the late 1970s, Japanese auto makers had the once dominant American auto industry on the ropes. The first economic act of the “free market” Reagan administration in 1981 was to put quotas on the import of Japanese cars in order to protect Detroit and the United Auto Workers.

Eamonn Fingleton, Pat Choate, and others have described how negligence in Washington DC aided and abetted the erosion of America’s economic position. What we didn’t give away, we let be taken from us while preaching a “free trade” doctrine at which the rest of the world scoffed.

Fortunately, our adversaries at the time, the Soviet Union and China, had unworkable economic systems that posed no threat to America’s diminishing economic prowess.

The proverbial hit the fan when Soviet, Chinese, and Indian socialism collapsed around 1990, to be followed shortly thereafter by the rise of the high speed Internet. Suddenly, American and other first world corporations discovered that a massive supply of foreign labor was available at practically free wages.

To get Wall Street analysts and shareholder advocacy groups off their backs, and to boost shareholder returns and management bonuses, American corporations began moving their production for American markets offshore. Products that were made in Peoria are now made in China.

As offshoring spread, American cities and states lost tax base, and families and communities lost jobs. The replacement jobs, such as selling the offshored products at Wal-Mart, brought home less pay.

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Air crash due to low altitude speed tests?

Let me  remind you of another crash some year ago but let me first assure you that I in no way mean to diminsh the tragedy for the New Zealand families who lost loved ones in the crash of the Air NZ plane in France.

The plane crash I would like to bring to your attention is the crash of the boing 747 which alledgedly crashed into the Pentagon on Septenber 9 2001.

Remember? We were told that a boing 747 crashed into the Pentagon after it had flown in a circle around the Pentagon instead of crashing head first into the Pentagon killing all the head honchos in one faul swoop. Not only did it circle the PEntagon but it also went from 3000 ft to 30 ft in that same circle without slowing down and it flew over hills and destroyed light poles int the process without altering course and without crashing.

And all of these manoeuvres which according to a pilot who actually flew two of those planes and who was an experienced pilot and teacher where impossible with a Boeing 747 where done by a man who couldn’t fly a Cessna if his live depended on it.

But two experienced New Zealand  who deviated only slightly from protocol by trying to do a speed thest with their plane (No 3D manouvring, no steep descents while flying a narrow circle) lost control and teh plane crashed. You see tha is the problem with Boeing 747′s: They don’t handle changes in flying protocol very well, in fact they are designed to be flown very conservatively because they are designed to tansport loads of people and not to do crazy things like flying in buildings with only 10m of space between them and the ground. If you try to deviate just the slightest they crash. Boom, they fall out of the sky.

Speaking to the Herald at the release of the report, Paul-Louis Arslanian, Director of the Bureau d’Enquetes et d’Analyses said his office was recommending that such flights have a pre-agreed programme of tasks, and not include any improvised manoeuvres particularly at lower altitudes.

Referring specifically to the Air New Zealand crash, Arslanian told the Herald. “They had some checks to do, they were unable to do these as the flight was shortened so they made a low speed check during approach. Then they lost control of the plane.

“A test check at low speed was supposed to be done during the flight and well, they decided, or to be more specific, they performed it during the approach which is not only low altitude but also as part of a flight which is linked with specific procedures and heavy work load.”

The plane then reared up a steep 46 degree incline before dramatically plunging into the sea.

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Groups upset at missing out on Jobs Summit

Of the 194 invites a whopping 118 represent big business. Big business is international business. Of the 194 only 20 are Maori, 30 are women and none is Labour which if I’m correct was voted for by more than 30% of the population. Now that would be a source of discontent I would imagine to the nice middle class and the working class.

Community groups and some small business sectors are upset that they have been left off the invitation list for Prime Minister John Key’s Jobs Summit in Manukau on Friday.

The guest list, released on Monday night, includes only three people from the community sector: Auckland City Missioner Diane Robertson, Salvation Army social services director Campbell Roberts and a policy adviser for the disability group DPA, Wendi Wicks.

Instead, 118 of the 194 invited are from the business sector – mostly from big businesses (62) and finance (22), but including 30 from smaller businesses and sector groups and four from state-owned enterprises.

The rest are from central and local government, education and training organisations, unions, iwi groups and a handful of academics and researchers.

The list includes 165 men and just 30 women. At least 20 are Maori, but only two are known to be of part-Pacific Island heritage: Rick Fala of the tap maker Methven and NZ Super Fund chief executive Adrian Orr.

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Waterprice to rise 140% over the next ten years

Now that could become an issue for those nice middle class citizens working their asses of to keep their heads above water in Auckland.

Water bills are set to soar from $717 to $1711 over 10 years for the average Auckland City household to offset rate rises and boost the region’s water supply.

Councillors and officers have known about the 140 per cent rise for more than a year but done nothing to alert ratepayers of pending financial hardship.

What’s more, councillors voted last week for even bigger water bills by supporting a proposal for the region’s monopoly water supplier, Watercare, to pay councils a dividend.

Watercare sells water at “least cost” to six councils, who own it.

About one-third of the $1000 increase is to pay for new capital works by Watercare. The rest will go into Auckland City’s coffers for spending on stormwater.

Money earmarked for stormwater will be spent on other areas, prompting some councillors and critics to label the increases a “rates rise in drag”.

The effect of higher charges by Watercare on other councils is less clear because most part-fund water and wastewater services out of rates.

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Britain faces summer of rage – police

Ladies and gentlemen that is you and me. Nice middle-class citizens no known for their aggressive ways all of a sudden coming out of their nice middle class houses to riot in the street. You think this will only happen in the UK?

Middle-class anger at economic crisis could erupt into violence on streets

• Paul Lewis
• The Guardian, Monday 23 February 2009
• Article history

Protesters clash with police in London in January over Israel’s action in Gaza. Such scenes could become more common sights in the UK. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Police are preparing for a “summer of rage” as victims of the economic downturn take to the streets to demonstrate against financial institutions, the Guardian has learned.

Britain’s most senior police officer with responsibility for public order raised the spectre of a return of the riots of the 1980s, with people who have lost their jobs, homes or savings becoming “footsoldiers” in a wave of potentially violent mass protests.

Superintendent David Hartshorn, who heads the Metropolitan police’s public order branch, told the Guardian that middle-class individuals who would never have considered joining demonstrations may now seek to vent their anger through protests this year.

He said that banks, particularly those that still pay large bonuses despite receiving billions in taxpayer money, had become “viable targets”. So too had the headquarters of multinational companies and other financial institutions in the City which are being blamed for the financial crisis.

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U.S. Army To Buy $6 Million Of Riot Equipment

Stokes fears that troops will be used to quell civil insurrection in wake of economic crisis

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Tuesday, Feb 24th, 2009

The U.S. Army is to invest $6 million in riot equipment, a fact that has furthered fears that troops will be used inside the U.S. in order to quell any civil unrest resulting from the ongoing economic crisis.

The U.S. Army Contracting Agency, based at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, has a post on the Federal Business Opportunities website, requesting the equipment and has received several notices of interest from potential vendors.

The request titled “84–RIOT EQUIPMENT” outlines the need for hard polyethylene Shin and Chest Guards, shock absorbing Forearm Protectors, Interior leg brace supports as well as knee and ankle protectors.

The ACA asks that the equipment be able to “safely withstand a substantial blow… from non-ballistic weapons or flying debris”.

The Solicitation also states:

The associated North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code for this procurement is 453998 with a small business size standard of $6M. This requirement is a [ Small Business ] set-aside and only qualified offerors may submit bids.

Interested vendors include Irish Brigade inc., manufacturers of hunting and safety gear with facilities located in the heart of Kansas City , Missouri. Federal and Military resource company MCLEARVISION, LLC is another interested party, as is Kentucky based U. S. CAVALRY STORE, INC.

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Analysts: New Era Of Chaos Has Taken Hold

Banking collapse has already happened; Crisis is worst ever; Financial system has effectively disintegrated; Mass social insurrection likely

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Monday, Feb 23rd, 2009

A wave of economists, investors and other financial experts issued a series of dire warnings concerning the global financial crisis over the weekend, stating that a new era of chaos has taken hold all over the globe.

Some asserted that a total banking collapse has already occurred, while others said that the downturn is now the worst on record, far outstripping the great depression.

Hedge fund manager and billionaire philanthropist George Soros said the financial system has effectively disintegrated, with the turbulence more severe than during the Great Depression and with the decline comparable to the fall of the Soviet Union.

Former chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul Volcker said he could not remember any time, even in the Great Depression, when things went down so fast and quite so uniformly around the world.

Financial market analyst Martin D. Weiss has stated that the banking collapse has already occurred and a major Wall Street meltdown is now imminent.

Leading forecasters, The National Association for Business Economics, have warned that the recession is projected to worsen and unemployment could hit 9% this year, 10% percent next year and continue to rise into 2011. In 2008, the jobless rate averaged 5.8 percent, the highest since 2003.

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