Monday, December 02, 2013

information on the Economy, Foreign Issues, etc.


We have to understand about debt, consumption, and economics to see things in the world too. When human beings are bounded economically to creditors and to the banking elite in a harsh fashion, then we have an issue in the world. Many workers work and they are not given proper remuneration or appreciation at all. Many folks work for a company or for a corporation that their efforts are not appreciated for real. We know that in human history, that debt can be an instrument used to control an individual or a nation. The individual is dependent upon credit to buy product. The credit later becomes a debt that has to be repaid. The creditor controls the worker or the debtor in such a debt filled economy. We have much unlimited credit to day. Consumers are readily the modern day ruled under the creditors. In America, consumers suffer psychological abuse by its creditors.  As long as an individual remains in debt bondage, that person will have to repay that debt until the day that person literally dies in most cases. That is a shame. Wall Street speculators and big name retailers love Black Friday and Christmas. This is when investors, economists, and corporations seek profits basically. They also measure consumer confidence and profits that they reap from consumer spending. Corporations and major retailers like Wal-Mart are expected to make profits. Wall Street wants consumers to spend on Black Friday via Christmas and other holidays after the FED's continued policies of QE or quantitative easing. Economists from across the spectrum predict that the new Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen will continue to buy U.S. bonds indefinitely continuing Ben Bernanke's current policies. Still, consumers continue to accumulate debt. So far, Black Friday has many incidents of violence made by mobs of consumers. There have been raided shopping centers and malls for discounts and sales. Many products on sale are flat screen televisions, toys, clothing, and other goods. Consumers continue to buy despite the economic situation. The holiday season should be about being close with family and friends not extreme materialism. The American population is mired in debt from credit cards, mortgages, student loans, and auto loans. Bloomberg reported that U.S. households increased their debt levels by continuing to borrow at unprecedented levels. Bloomberg reported the consumer indebtedness in the following words: "...Consumer indebtedness rose $127 billion to $11.28 trillion, the biggest increase since the first quarter of 2008, according to a quarterly report on household debt and credit released today by the Fed district bank. Mortgage balances climbed $56 billion, student loans increased $33 billion, auto loans were up $31 billion and credit-card debt rose by $4 billion.“We observed an increase of household balances across essentially all types of debt,” Donghoon Lee, senior research economist at the New York Fed, said in a statement. “With non-housing debt consistently increasing and the factors pushing down mortgage balances waning, it appears that households have crossed a turning point in the deleveraging cycle.” Consumerism is growing in America. There are still stampedes at malls. Back in 2008, a Wal-Mart worker was trampled to death in Long Island, New York by a stampede of consumers looking for bargains. We have the debt that we have to deal with. Folks want to sharpen their wallets too. As debt grows, it is harder for human beings to repay. We have to reject the mass consumption of products that we don't need. The large debt has been influenced by the Federal Reserve's printing of unlimited cheap money with incredibly zero to low interest rates. Buying things that you do need is fine. Yet, too much debt can exist when some have trouble to pay their credit card companies with interest until the debt is paid. That can take a long period of time since interest rates are tied to credit cards and other revolving loan payments. According to the Federal Reserve Bank (who continues endless money printing) and other government institutions, the average US household owes between $7,000 and $15,112 on credit cards.  The average mortgage debt is at $146,215 and student loans’ reaching the $1 trillion mark is at $31,240.  The total amount of debt the United States owes to its creditors namely China is at $17 Trillion and steadily increasing as the Federal Reserve Bank continues to buy its own US bonds. This debt allows millions to be economically ruled by mega corporations and international banks. When some buy with credit cards or loans, the interest rates bind folks to the corporate interests and bankers for a long period of time. Interest rates can go up and increase the difficulty to repay. Debt is big business for banks and corporations. That is why a war with Iran will harm the U.S. economy. 100 million human beings are out of work in the USA. There is a reduction of food stamps, inflation hitting food prices, etc. The War on terror stripped our civil liberties and the War on Drugs increased the prison population. The elite want 7000 drones in 2015, endless wars, a looming dollar collapse, and Big Pharma mass drugging folks. Mass consumerism increases debt and decays a society. So, we have to deal with this issue and believe in economic populist solutions in the world.

 

 

Thailand have militants trying to harm the rights of the people in Thailand. The regime of Thaksin Shinawatra is an ally of his sister Yingluck Shinawatra. Many militants have been used violence against unarmed students in Bangkok causing several deaths. More injuries and clashes have been about. Regime thugs have surrounded hundreds of students attending Ramkambaegn University. That is next to Bangkok's Rajamangala Stadium. This event included a pro-regime rally that has been ongoing for the last week. Students have been demonstrating against the rally. The noise and the vitriol from the stadium nonstop day and night disrupted the densely populated district. Students are trapped on Ramkamhaeng University's campus. There are a constant of hail of objects thrown at the students. Flashes and gunfire can be seen and heard. Students can be heard saying, “Watch out! They’re shooting. We’re being shot at.” Bangkok’s English newspaper, the Nation confirms one student has been confirmed killed by gunfire. The Western media has talked about the violence and coordinated the regime that it backs with many Washington lobbyists. Some in the media want to blame the protesters for the violence. While articles like AP’s “One person killed, five wounded in deadly demonstrations in Bangkok,” portray a bloodbath of the protesters’ doing, the first deaths being report are students, shot to death. The Nation talked about the first death in its article called, "One Ramkamhaeng student shot dead." The Nation wrote the following words: "...Police and the Ramkhamhaeng Hospital confirmed that one Ramkhamhaeng University student was fatally shot in a clash between red-shirt people and Ramkhamhaeng students. Police of Hua Mark police station identified the slain student as Thaweesak Phokaew, 21. He was shot at the back and the bullet pierced through his lung. He died at the Ramkhamhaeng Hospital, the hospital confirmed...." There have been photographs of the gunman and they are responsible for the death of at least one student and many more injuries have been trickling out. Some feel that the dictator Thaksin Shinawatra used a plan to unleash armed militants as a means to undermine and breakup the protests. The government has rejected plans for House dissolution. They want to harm the protest movement. From Thursday night and into Friday morning, the regime’s Interior Minister had taken the stage of the pro-regime rally, stirring up their mobs even as gunshots were fired and protesters were being killed, just beyond the walls of the stadium. Speakers took turns taking to the stage, with their colleagues smirking in the background, all while the foreign media began reporting on violence and deaths. So, people have died as a product of the response against the protests. As of 2:30am local time, sporadic gunfire can still be heard, as well as louder individual explosions. Helicopters have intermittently flown overhead, and more deaths are in the process of being confirmed. So, Thailand should not be blatantly authoritarian at all.

 

British PM Cameron is having his attacks on immigrants. British Prime Minister David Cameron made an attack on Bulgarian and Romanians migrants. The political atmosphere in Britain and Europe has been poisoned by xenophobia for a while now. Cameron wants measures against migrants. He claimed that they were aimed against benefit tourism. Under his new rules, migrants will not be entitled as a right to out of work benefits. They will be subject to deportation if they are found begging or sleeping rough. That is fascism plain and simple. The Prime Minister's intervention came when the European Union or the EU rules placed restrictions on Bulgarians and Romanians working in the UK were about to expire. The same restrictions are set to lapse in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Malta, Spain, and the Netherlands too. The lapsing of the EU restrictions has caused a hysterical press campaign in the UK. The press is warning that Britain is about to be dominated by Eastern Europeans, which relates to bigotry. Britain's small welfare benefits are twice the average wage in Bulgaria. On the same day that he announced the new anti-immigrant measures, Cameron published a column in the Financial Times entitled “Free movement within Europe needs to be less free”. He wrote: “It is time for a new settlement which recognizes that free movement is a central principle of the EU, but it cannot be a completely unqualified one… We need to do the same with welfare. For example, free movement should not be about exporting child benefit.” Cameron’s statements evoked a mild rebuke from European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, who said he told Cameron that “free movement is a fundamental treaty principle that must be upheld.” Cameron is having hypocrisy on this issue. Cameron proposes that migrants are barred from receiving benefits until they have been residents in the UK for three months. This is already happening in the Netherlands. The new Christian Democratic/Social Democratic grand coalition government in Germany is committed to a crackdown on migrants for “unjust claims of social security benefits.” The French Socialist Party government is proposing repressive controls on temporary cross-border migrant workers. Restrictions exist in Europe now on migrant labor. Major corporations in the EU want to exploit labor as a means to gain profits.  That is why Cameron’s focus has been on restricting access to welfare benefit entitlement, rather than the right of residency. Citing this, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, the leader of the Conservative Party’s coalition partner, the Liberal Democrats, insisted that the government’s proposals were compatible with EU law. The reactionary Independence Party in the UK has talked about immigrants too. Leading Labour politicians have moved to outflank the government in making an appeal to anti-immigrant sentiment. Former Labour Home Secretary Jack Straw said that Labour’s decision in 2004 not to impose restrictions on Eastern European migrants was a “spectacular mistake.” Many in Britain have slandered the culture of the Roma community. According to David Goodhart, about 1.5 million migrants have entered the UK labor market. Many immigrants are coming into the UK from Southern and Eastern Europe, because of the decline of social conditions in those areas. The EU has used austerity measures too. Maria Damanaki, a Greek European commissioner, said earlier this year: “The strategy of the European Commission over the past year-and-a-half or two has been to reduce the labour costs in all European countries in order to improve the competitiveness of European companies over the rivals from Eastern Europe and Asia.” Damanaki is a leading figure and parliamentary deputy for PASOK, the Greek social democratic party, which has played a critical role in imposing the dictates of Greece’s banking creditors over the past four years. Eastern Europe has suffered as a product of austerity measures. That is why Bulgaria is the poorest nation in the EU. Its officially monthly average wage is just €350. Since the 2008 global financial crash, living standards have gone down in many nations globally including the UK. Workers should have rights and they should have freedom. Anti-immigration agitation done by the elites has always been done to exploit the working class among national, racial, ethnic, and religious lines. The EU has advanced big profits at the expense of wages, jobs, and the livelihoods of working human beings. It is a shame when some of us Americans are more progressive than many Europeans on the issue of immigration. So, we all know that democratic and social rights are important to maintain.

 

President John F. Kennedy had a complex and unique relationship with Israel. He believed in the U.S commitment to Israeli security, but he allied with pan-Arabic movements. He also did not want Israel to have nuclear weapons at all since he wanted to end the Cold War as peacefully as possible. In 1960 and 1961, Kennedy said that he wanted Israel to endure and flourish. He started to give Israel military aid beyond just economic aid. He gave Israel advanced U.S. weaponry like the MIM-23 Hawk. He ended the arms embargo on Israel that the Eisenhower and Truman administration enforced on Israel. The controversy between JFK and Israel dealt with nuclear power. In the summer of 1960, the U.S. embassy in Tel-Aviv learned that Israel was assisted by France in the construction of what U.S. intelligence called a significant atomic installation in Dimona. David Ben-Gurion publicly assured the USA that Israel did not plan to develop nuclear weapon. Kennedy wanted Israel to have some qualified expert (either American or from some friendly nation) to visit Dimona. President John F. Kennedy strongly said that he did not want Israel to create a nuclear weapon. He also believed in nationalism among the Arabic world. JFK threaten to cut aid to Israel if Israel was found to have a nuclear bomb. That is documented. President John F. Kennedy wanted a settlement between Israel and Palestine.  After JFK was assassinated, Lyndon Johnson supported Israel and its Dimona development plans completely. He or Johnson was a Cold Warrior and supported the Vietnam War. LBJ took a more reactionary tone than JFK on the Middle East and on other foreign policy matters in general. So, President John F. Kennedy did not want Israel to have a nuclear weapon. In Seymour Hersh’s insightful book, The Samson Option, which addresses Israel’s nuclear weapons arsenal, Hersh covers John Kennedy’s fight to stop Israel’s nuclear proliferation. In 1965 the Gilpatric report, which has since been declassified, called for the U.S. to pressure other nations, including Israel, to not build nuclear weapons. Johnson ignored and suppressed the report. There was a meeting between Shimon Peres, then Israel's Deputy Minister of Defense and President John Kennedy, held at the White House on April 2, 1963. There was the drafting of National Security Action Memorandum NSAM 231, entitled "Middle Eastern Nuclear Capabilities," in which President Kennedy guided his administration to monitor the subject as top priority and to devise plan to halt nuclear arms race in the Middle East. He or JFK wrote a note about it to Israeli Prime Minister Eshkol on July 5, 1963. So, President John F. Kennedy wanted Israel and Arabic nations in the Middle East to have peace and justice. He wanted Arabic nationalism to flourish against the tide of reactionary monarchism. He wanted no nuclear weapons in Israel. He also wanted a peaceful conclusion to the Cold War. He believed in the Third World to have self-determination and freedom from colonialism. So, more and more of the truth is known about these things.

 

 

Building is a normal function of any civilization and relationship. So, the growth of communities, families, and children is necessary. Fundamentally, any adult should be treated as an adult and not as a child. If an adult is not there yet, then that person should learn tools in building their life up (without patronize or with a lax mentality). That is why I find that those adults who act as children sometimes will have to hit rock bottom before they open their eyes and wake up. Also, it is important as to witness how humans talk about each other. What humans say in private denote their true intentions and their true thoughts about situations. That is a great reality. That is why I talk the same in private and in public indeed. If someone treats strangers and non-relatives in a disrespectful way, then they have no respect for themselves or others. Abuse in all of its dimensions is abhorrent. It is unjustified. We all have strong families, so we know what true love is all about. I am glad that there are groups and programs in existences that constantly fight against any form of abuse. The real description of fake men is readily known (those who can't handle debate or exploit the lives of human beings as a means to inflict hard ache including pain against human beings). These fake males should not be angry at the world. They should be motivated to change the world in a positive direction. Insecurities and inadequate psychological mentalities are common among abusive males. Fake people will try to dominate women like a dictator, but a real man will work with women in creating cooperation in society. Both men and women should be real and act in accordance to justice and fair treatment. Men having character is better than men having greed. When I get older, folks just want common sense. If a man can just be real, defend human life, and build in their own lives, females will respect that man. You do not have to have a huge ego. A man just needs to handle business. Some men grow at different stages. Some men will mature later than others. Also, no one is required to patronize a man. A man should learn ways to build his character and his strength by his own power. Yet, any man that is cruel or tries to stereotype folks in an evil way deserves no respect. A woman hater is not a real man period. If a person hates all black woman (or places all black women into a sick, stereotypical box), that person by definition is an agent period. If a man loves his children, cares for his wife, and defends women, than that man is very wise and strong. Men and women have every God given right to be strong, real, compassionate, and wise. We are all fighting for justice. We do not need hatred and evil in the globe. We just want humility, humor, and strength to flourish in our community. In terms of family, there are no excuses for abandoning family or treating family bad. Folks who do it are a disgrace. That is why I highly respect any man or any woman who greatly loves their families. Any person that disrespects women will have karma come to that person. Yes, women are a part of life since women create human life. That is a blessing that women have.

 

By Timothy



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