truedelphi
truedelphi's JournalThe Ukraine Civil War - First time ever the IMF loans out monies
To fund one side of the fight in a nation's civil war.
Of course, most of us here have figured out by now that the Big Banking crowd loves to have some war going on. How better to guarantee that entire nations will need bank loans, than by having continual self-perpetuating fights, here there and everywhere?
And the latest "everywhere" seems to be the Ukraine. Already one million people, in that nation of 44 million, have been displaced.
But now the public comes to find out that the IMF has brought about a drastic change in its policies: it is funding the pro-West Kiev side of the equation in this civil war. One reason that the IMF precludes itself from usually doing this is that the IMF 's own charter tells its directors to only make loans that are a sure thing in terms of being paid out. But war being war - just how can anyone know the outcome of the war, and if it will allow any monetary pay back whatsoever?
From a recent article at Naked Capitalism:
This loan demonstrates the degree to which the IMF is an arm of U.S. Cold War politics. The loan terms imposed the usual budget austerity, as if this would stabilize the war-torn country’s finances. The financings obviously were devoted mainly to rebuilding the army. The war-torn East can expect to receive nothing even though its basic infrastructure has been destroyed for power generation water, and hospitals. Civilian housing areas that bore the brunt of the attack are also unlikely to profit from the IMF’s uncharacteristic generosity.
A quarter of Ukraine’s exports normally are from eastern provinces and sold mainly to Russia. But Kiev has been bombing Donbas industry and left its coal mines without electricity. Nearly a million civilians are reported to have fled to Russia. Yet the IMF release announced: “The IMF praised the government’s commitment to economic reforms despite the ongoing conflict.” No wonder there was almost no comment in the news or even the business press!
The loan is bound to create even more infighting among IMF staff economists than broke out openly at their October 2013 annual meeting in Washington. Dissension over the disastrous IMF $47 billion loan to Greece – at that time the largest loan in IMF history – prompted a 50-page internal IMF document leaked to the Wall Street Journal. Acknowledging that the IMF had “badly underestimated the damage that its prescriptions of austerity would do to Greece’s economy,” IMF staff economists blamed pressure from eurozone countries protecting their own “banks [that] held too much Greek government debt. … The IMF had originally projected Greece would lose 5.5% of its economic output between 2009 and 2012. The country has lost 17% in real gross domestic output instead. The plan predicted a 15% unemployment rate in 2012. It was 25%.
The IMF’s Articles of Agreement forbid it to make loans to countries that clearly cannot pay, prompting its economists to complain at their Washington meeting that their institution was violating its rules by making bad loans “to states unable to repay their debts.” One official called its Debt Sustainability Analysis, “‘a joke,’ a [European] commission official described it ‘a fairy tale to put children to sleep’ and a Greek finance ministry official said it was ‘scientifically ridiculous.’” In practice the IMF simply advanced however much a country needed to pay its bankers and bondholders, pretending that more austerity would enhance the ability to pay, not worsen the debt trap, while Kiev also used the loan for military expenses to attack the Eastern provinces. So this, then, raises the question of whether the IMF’s loan is legally an “odious debt,” being made to a military junta and stolen by government insiders. John Helmer’s Dances with Bears calculates that “of the $3.2 billion disbursed to the Ukrainian treasury by the IMF at the start of May, $3.1 billion had disappeared offshore by the middle of August.”
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The article goes on to state that should the pro-West forces prevail, then the loans that the nation of the Ukraine were set to pay abck to Russia will not be honored in any way shape or form. So there is that to add to the Cold War side of things in terms of further antagonizing Russia.
Full article can be read here:
First time ever - IMF monies to fund one side of Ukranian Civil War
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/09/michael-hudson-losing-credibility-imfs-new-cold-war-loan-ukraine.html
Calif's Prop 45 will help keep insurance premiums lower.
So that is probably exactly why the Big Insurers are uniting with lots and lots of their moulah to defeat the proposition.
Yes, This November, Proposition 45 will be on the ballot in the state of California.
Should it pass, it will reinforce the ability of the state’s insurance regulators to reject any and all health insurance rate increases that they deem excessive.
However, naturally, this means that the various Big Insurance Companies that are operating inside Calif. have put together a huge war chest. Their monies are going to TV, and radio ads that will play non-stop in an effort to get Calif. voters to vote the measure down and out.
From the article at Public Integrity:
Of $37.9 million donated to CAHHCC as of August 22, $37.3 million came from those insurers and their PR and lobbying group, the California Association of Health Plans. The rest came from a small group of insurance brokers and their PR and lobbying groups, the California Association of Health Underwriters and the National Association of Health Underwriters.
The main argument cited by these groups’ opposition to Proposition 45 is that it might interfere with the efforts of Covered California, the state’s health insurance exchange, to provide individuals and small businesses with affordable coverage options in a timely fashion.
SNIP
California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, who is up for re-election this year, rejects that argument. In a letter to state lawmakers this summer, Jones wrote that if voters pass Proposition 45, his department — which has long had the ability to reject proposed rate increases from auto and property and casualty insurers — will work cooperatively with other state agencies “to ensure that rates are reviewed and approved to meet Covered California…deadlines.” Jones also pointed out that insurance regulators in 35 other states already have the ability to disapprove unreasonable rate increases, and he offered a point-by-point rebuttal of a report commissioned by the insurance industry that suggested Proposition 45 could undermine provisions of the Affordable Care Act.
SNIP
The industry’s key message to scare liberals, communicated by its “coalition,” is showing up in media seldom seen by most conservatives. Some of that $38 million was spent last week on an ad in Salon.com featuring a large picture of President Barack Obama and this message: “Protect Obamacare from Legal Attacks. Prop 45’s Dirty Little Secret: More Attacks Against Obamacare. Vote No on 45!”
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If you live in California please take the time to read the full article. It can be found here: (And when you vote, vote Yes! on Prop 45... )
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/02/15440/defeat-california-initiative-would-protect-insurers-profits
Best Overview of Fracking Updates I Have Seen Recently:
KateCa has posted an amazing diary over at firedoglake.com that really is a complete tell-all on what is going on inside the world of fracking.
It mentions the Big Players in California, and Iowa,and Illinois and PA.
As well as giving details relating to the settlement that Halliburton was forced into down Louisiana way, due to that llttle eensy-teensie bit of destruction that BP and Halliburton are blamed for. (That is, the destruction of the eco- system formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico and now affectionately known as "The Big Sludgy," or "Dead Fishey."
http://my.firedoglake.com/kateca/2014/09/04/a-quick-whirl-around-the-fracking-world-4-sep-2014/#at_pco=cfd-1.0&at_ab=-&at_pos=6&at_tot=8&at_si=540a6ce147e5e697
Quick Whirl Around The Fracking World
*US. Our Environmental Protection Agency is now “accepting public comments on whether or not to require fracking companies to disclose the toxic chemicals they use.” Hard to believe, isn’t it, that they are not required to list each and every one, to say nothing of in what amounts, in what combinations and where they are being used? You can add your support to such a requirement here. https://secure3.convio.net/fww/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=1535&s_src=sl&s_subsrc=0814#_ga=1.183394150.1770911334.1409532241
*CA. So, the feds plan to “resume oil and gas leasing in California” since a report has “found little scientific evidence that fracking and similar extraction techniques are dangerous.” What the scientist in charge of the research said is quite a bit different: “researchers . . . had no data on the quality of water near fracking sites [so] We can’t tell you what we don’t know.” Doesn’t seem the US Bureau of Land Management is too interested in what we don’t know, does it? That could change. (URL for LA TImes article on the Feds leasing the land and water ways for fracking: http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-fracking-report-20140829-story.html
*CA. It’s cleared the Legislature and is on its way to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk for signature. That would be a bill “requiring more disclosure about crude oil shipments” rolling through California cities, hills and dales on the way to refineries. The order requires railroads to “provide state and local emergency officials with information about oil and hazardous materials” on trains, and concentrates specifically on “the volume of oil and timing of the shipment beforehand” when it’s Bakken crude.
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Very much worth the read. And all of it can be found by clicking the link at the top.
Video Goes Viral - How To Stop Police From Entering your Home
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/police-door-warrant-shut-guy/Notice how quick the police are to counter his resistance with the statement that "we will make you step out."
One reason you want to have officers identify themselves is that in the event of injury or property damge caused by the police, there is this statute, offering you the relief of suing them:
Title 42, §1983 US Code:
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any state or territory, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer’s judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. For the purposes of this section,any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia.
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Also if you live in California, in any of many areas that are now being supposedly "governed" by Planning Commissions who are decreeing that growing cannabis is a nuisance, and that therefore the local ordinance allows police on your property to pull up the cannibis, that whole line of thought is Unconstitutional, under the provisions of the California law that states that whenever legal status has been given to an activity, that activity is immune from ever being considered a nuisance!
As far as the superweeds that you want to discuss, here are
Some considerations to take into account and can catch up on the subject:
In principle the new transgenic plants should pose the same environmental risks as new plants generated by traditional breeding.
In practice, it may prove that the risks from some transgenic novelties will considerably exceed the risks of the conventionally bred plants. Transgenes may be able to produce larger nd quicker jumps in adaptation
For instance, there is the possibility, whenever farmers employ the new GM seeds, there is a certain amount of risk of hybridization with trans gene infiltration into related weed and/or wild species of plants, that are occupying agricultural and /or disturbed sites and/or alteration of natural gene frequencies in these species.
Weeds that are presently inconsequential could become invigorated to the point that they become a more serious problem.
In the UK for example, Raybould and Gray 1993 examined the probability of introgression from crops into wild species, (both introduced wild weeds and indigenous species) and noted a range of probability from minimal to very high, depending on the particular crop and its wild relatives.
Weeds that are already very successful may become even more of a problem, once these changes occur.
So when you examine the Canadian farmers problem with the new superweeds, most of which I know of that came from the use of Gm rapeseed, then you realize that the fears of those early activists against Gm crops have been right all along.
Never forget for a minute that much of what constitutes the various methods and blueprints for creating Gm seeds came from e majoprity of researchers who were steeped in the mythology of the fact that a good deal of the DNA of a plant species is "empty DNA." That theory, of the junk-i-ness of the "empty" section of DNA, raged along all through the nineteen eighties and nineties. When it was finally discovered that the DNA portion considered to "be empty" actually contained no specific instructions for a specific part of a plant (or human being for that matter0 but instead, the vast "blank" DNA areas were all about the overall programming of the entity, then you realize why Gm seeds, crop and foodstuffs are such a terrible problem.
Big Shocker - Half of Future trades in Chicago are actually "Wash" trades
Half of all trades in the Chicago Commodites market are "wash" trades
The most stunning allegation in the lawsuit is that an estimated 50 percent of all trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is derived from illegal wash trades.
Wash trades were a practice by the Wall Street pool operators that rigged the late 1920s stock market, leading to the great stock market crash from 1929 through 1932 and the Great Depression. Wash trades occur when the same beneficial owner is both the buyer and the seller. Wash trades are banned under United States law because they can falsely suggest volume and price movement.
A lawsuit filed in Illnois is related to a belief that some fifty percent of all commodities trades undertaken in the Chicago commodities markets are "wash trades."
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2014/07/lawsuit-stunner-half-of-futures-trades-in-chicago-are-illegal-wash-trades/
The lawsuit says Duffy and his management team are tolerating wash trades “because they comprise by some estimates fifty percent of the Exchange Defendants’ total trading volume and also because HFT transactions account
for up to thirty percent of the CME Group’s revenue.” And then, the complaint
indicates that the plaintiffs have a “Confidential Witness A,” a high frequency trader, who has given them a statement that wash trades are used by high frequency traders as part of a regular strategy to detect market direction and “to exit adverse trades when the market goes against their positions.”
The strategy works like this, according to the complaint:
“HFTs [high frequency traders] continuously place small bids and offers (called bait) at the back of order queues to gain directional clues. If the bait orders are hit, the algorithm will place follow-up orders to either accumulate favorable positions or exit ‘toxic’ risks, a process which leverages bait orders to gain valuable directional clues as to which way the market will likely move. The initial bait orders are very small while subsequent orders, once market direction has been identified, are very large. A portion of the large orders that follow the smaller bait orders are wash trades.”
Some reasons why Obama's Calif. Popularity is only 45%
This is cross posted over at GD. It is here through an invite from KamaAina.
Some reasons why Obama's Calif. Popularity is only 45%
At the top of the list would be the foreclosures that occurred inside the state of California between 2009 and 2011.
Here is some valuable research on what went on during the early years of the Obama Presidency:
http://www.responsiblelending.org/california/ca-mortgage/research-analysis/California-Foreclosure-Stats-April-2012.pdf
Bear in mind that even if your household did not go into foreclosure, much of the value of your home was lost. Since for over ten years, Californians had been told again and again that the best and safest place to invest their hard earned monies was the housing market, this was a serious blow to not only the activity of home ownership, but also reperesented wiping out many older people's hopes for a decent retirement income.
Another would be the secret deportation policy that was engineered between Governor Schwartzennegger and President Obama. This policy affected at least 100,000 individuals here in California. Even if you yourself were not deported, if a person you knew was, it altered your perception of the President. Here is one link that discusses the deportations, although it speaks of the situation in terms of the nation as a whole, and not jsut California. http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/12/us_deports_more_than_200k_parents.html
Also, the years of struggle to have medical marijuana dispensaries up and running was undone by Obama unleashing his DOJ appointee, Eric Holder, on the public. By early 2012, over 6,000 well paying jobs at dispensaries were lost, as dispensary after dispensary closed down. The Administration was so blatantly unconcerned about the effects of this policy that many raids occurred even into the 2012 election cycle!
A look at what goes on during one such raid:
http://my.firedoglake.com/elisemattu/2012/09/26/santa-rosa-calif-gets-hit-by-gestapo-today-092612/
Although it is true that Obama has more recently backed off from this policy, at least in terms of verbiage, the fact remains that the years 2009 through 2012 were years that the anti-cannabis forces were able to set up and infiltrate community after community. All this is in keeping with the Big Third Way Democrats' alliance with Big Pharma, Big Prison, and the militarization of the police.
Many cities now ban the growing of the substance, or have created planning commission provisons that totallyundermine the average person's ability to grow it. This suppression of a person's innate right to grow whatever they want on land they have legal access to is one reason why my community, Lake County, intends to be the first community to have a legal ordinance that establishes the right of any person that has land and seeds to grow those seeds.
Some reasons why Obama's Calif. Popularity is only 45%
At the top of the list would be the foreclosures that occurred inside the state of California between 2009 and 2011.
Here is some valuable research on what went on during the early years of the Obama Presidency:
http://www.responsiblelending.org/california/ca-mortgage/research-analysis/California-Foreclosure-Stats-April-2012.pdf
Bear in mind that even if your household did not go into foreclosure, much of the value of your home was lost. Since for over ten years, Californians had been told again and again that the best and safest place to invest their hard earned monies was the housing market, this was a serious blow to not only the activity of home ownership, but also reperesented wiping out many older people's hopes for a decent retirement income.
Another would be the secret deportation policy that was engineered between Governor Schwartzennegger and President Obama. This policy affected at least 100,000 individuals here in California. Even if you yourself were not deported, if a person you knew was, it altered your perception of the President. Here is one link that discusses the deportations, although it speaks of the situation in terms of the nation as a whole, and not jsut California. http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/12/us_deports_more_than_200k_parents.html
Also, the years of struggle to have medical marijuana dispensaries up and running was undone by Obama unleashing his DOJ appointee, Eric Holder, on the public. By early 2012, over 6,000 well paying jobs at dispensaries were lost, as dispensary after dispensary closed down. The Administration was so blatantly unconcerned about the effects of this policy that many raids occurred even into the 2012 election cycle!
A look at what goes on during one such raid:
http://my.firedoglake.com/elisemattu/2012/09/26/santa-rosa-calif-gets-hit-by-gestapo-today-092612/
Although it is true that Obama has more recently backed off from this policy, at least in terms of verbiage, the fact remains that the years 2009 through 2012 were years that the anti-cannabis forces were able to set up and infiltrate community after community. All this is in keeping with the Big Third Way Democrats' alliance with Big Pharma, Big Prison, and the militarization of the police.
Many cities now ban the growing of the substance, or have created planning commission provisons that totallyundermine the average person's ability to grow it. This suppression of a person's innate right to grow whatever they want on land they have legal access to is one reason why my community, Lake County, intends to be the first community to have a legal ordinance that establishes the right of any person that has land and seeds to grow those seeds.
Hey Boomers, let's rejoice! The reason our Soc. Security is delayed for two years is
A cause for celebration. (if you are a defense contractor.)
Since those of us who have been paying into Social Security, some of us since the age of 16, now must wait until at least 66 if not 67, we should ask our government officials exactly why the need for austerity?
is it for a worthy cause, such as the government itself underwriting the full cost of a college education for all college bound HS graduates? (As happens today down in Australia...)
Is it so we can revise the ACA to be more about Single Payer Universal HC for all, with no more need for co-pays and deductibles and lengthy fights with insurers about whether we rally need antibiotics after a major heart operation?
Is it to put music and art and dance and drama back in our grammar schools and HS's?
I could certainly accept the austerity if the delay in my receiving my full Social Security benefits were for any of those items.
But what is really going on?
Look at these headlines:
[h2][font color=red]
Cost of F 35 jet fighter to soar to nearly 1.5 trillion dollars:[/h2][/font color=red]
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/29/us-lockheed-fighter-idUSBRE82S03L20120329
(Reuters) - The U.S. government now projects that the total cost to develop, buy and operate the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will be $1.45 trillion over the next 50-plus years, according to a Pentagon document obtained by Reuters.
[h2][font color=red]
Most expensive unneeded defense project in history has a jet engine that catches fire! [/h2][/font color=red]
http://news.usni.org/2014/07/07/sources-engine-definitely-blame-june-f-35-fire
A June 23 fire that severely damaged a Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., is “definitely” related to the aircraft’s Pratt & Whitney F135 after-burning turbofan, multiple sources told USNI News.
The Pentagon grounded the entire F-35 fleet on July 3 after it became apparent the June fire on an Air Force variant of the fighter was much more serious than originally thought. The fire, which started at the rear of the aircraft while the jet was taking-off, was initially believed to be a one off incident possibly related to the jet’s integrated power pack.
Sewage to Algae to Fuel --
So John Perry Barlow will be able to include an "alt fuel" start up company on his curriculum vitae, as well as his having been the lyricist for the Grateful Dead:
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/sewage-to-algae-unites-whiskey-fortune-dead-lyricist-greenfuel-and-nasa
Conspiracy nuts are going to love this company.
Algae Systems hopes to produce fuel from algae with the OMEGA method pioneered by NASA. OMEGA, which stands for Offshore Membrane Enclosure for Growing Algae, involves growing algae in large bags measuring up to a quarter-acre in size that are tethered in the ocean. Instead of being fed carbon dioxide from smokestacks or sugars, the algae would grow by feeding off of wastewater.
Besides producing algae that could be used for fuel, the process would convert the wastewater into fresh water. It's an intriguing idea, although it may be tougher to get permits for this kind of project in the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill. Algae Systems has talked about launching a prototype off the coast of Florida. The picture shows an artist's conception of how OMEGA might work.
But what really makes the company interesting is the diverse cast of characters behind it. Along with licensing OMEGA from NASA, Algae Systems has purchased the patent portfolio of now-defunct GreenFuel Technologies, according to sources at Algae Systems. GreenFuel, a once high-profile startup that was spun out of Harvard and MIT, proposed growing algae in clear plastic bags in the desert. Growing algae proved more difficult than anticipated and, after raising over $70 million in venture capital, GreenFuel laid off all of its employees and called it quits about a year ago.
FUll article at link above.
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So far, there is no word on whether the algae is more likely to flourish if grown while the algae is hearing Mozart, or The Dead!
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