Financial fraud has been documented for a long time. We know that interest rates have been manipulated by major banks to the tune of trillions of dollars. The Royal Bank of Scotland pays $600 million for manipulating interest rates. Bloomberg reported on how the Royal Bank of Scotland, Group Plc was order to pay 50 million dollars by a federal judge in Connecticut over claims that it rigged the London interbank offered rate. Even RBS Securities Japan Ltd. in April pleaded guilty to wire fraud as part of a settlement of more than $600 million with U.S. and U.K. regulators over Libor manipulation according to court filings. U.S. District Judge Michael P. Shea in New Haven today sentences the Tokyo based unit of RBS, Britain's biggest publicly owned lender, to pay the agreed upon fine according to a Justice Department report. We know that global investigations into banks' attempts to manipulate the benchmarks for profit have led to fines and settlements for lenders like RBS, Barclays Plc, UBS, AG and Rabobank Groep. We know that RBS was among companies fined a record 1.7 billion euros (or 2.3 billion dollars) by the European Union last month for rigging interest rates linked to Libor. The combined fines for manipulating yen Libor and Euribor (or the benchmark money market rate for the euro) are the largest ever EU cartel penalties. There has been global fines for rate rigging have reached 6 billion dollars since June of 2012. Authorities globally probe whether traders worked together to fix Libor, which was meant to reflect the interest rate at which banks lend to each other (to benefit their own trading positions). The Libor interest rate scandal scandal is the tip of the iceberg. The big banks have conspired for years to rig interest rates upon which 800 trillion dollars in assets are pegged. The Libor interest rate scandal was the largest insider trading scandal ever. It was the largest financial scam in world history. Local governments got ripped off by the Libor manipulation. Even though RBS and a handful of other banks have been fined for interest rate manipulation, Libor is still being manipulated. The fines are pocket change ironically for the cost of doing business for the big banks. Experts say that the big banks will keep manipulating markets unless and until their executives are thrown in jail for fraud. The system is rigged to allow the big banks to commit continuous and massive fraud (then they pay small fines as the cost of doing business). We either have to really prosecute fraud or the economy will never stabilize. When the government goes easy on the big banks, then nothing changes. The big banks manipulated virtually every market in the financial sector and the real economy (while breaking laws too). Currency markets, derivatives, energy markets, commodities, oil prices, and gold plus silver prices have been manipulated (since most of the banks own most of the gold and silver on Earth). The big banks own many aspects of the physical economy from toll roads, ports, aluminum, uranium mining, etc. The criminal acts of the big banks including charging veterans unlawful mortgage fees, cheating homeowners, doing fraud, raiding gold accounts, ruling over local governments in a domineering way, etc.
Corporate taxes deal with a huge debate in America. Raising corporate taxes ought to be a national imperative. Corporations should pay their fair share. Many reactionaries like Laurence Kotlikoff believe that eliminating corporate taxes will create jobs. Main Street should be protected. The cutting taxes of the poor and the middle class, allowing money to invest in Main Street, guaranteeing a living wage, supporting worker friendly legislation, and restoring worker bargaining power with management are great ways to jump start the economy. There is nothing wrong with returning money creation to public hands where it belongs like to select privatized central banks and to initiate government jobs creation programs are legitimate actions to take too. A New Deal like system (which is fair) can cause millions to get back to work. It can reinvigorate not only the national spirit, but the human spirit. Unemployment was hugely cut back then when such policies was enacted in America. It dropped from 25% in 1933 to 11% in 1937. Doing the right things work. In 1961, corporate tax cuts were linked to job creation. Business had to prove they added jobs to qualify. No longer. Corporate tax cuts and credits are handed out freely. They’re not linked to job creation. They’re standard practice. More are planned this year. Under Bush and Obama, corporations get tax cuts for overseas investments. Domestic job reductions accompany them. We have offshoring being rewarded. The multiple Bush tax cuts have handed corporations around $3.4 trillion. Doing so was hailed as a way to create jobs. Post-recession jobs creation during the early 2000s was the weakest on record. It took 46 months to recover those lost. It’ll take over a decade now. The so-called 2007 – 2009 Great Recession continues to take an enormous toll on ordinary Americans. Main Street Great Depression conditions persist unabated. Low pay or poor or no benefit part time jobs replaced higher paying, good benefit full time ones. This reality has been ongoing for decades. America is in economic decline in many circles. There has been offshoring millions of jobs. We know that U.S. corporations are hoarding cash. The Bush and Obama tax cuts have added 10 trillion dollars more more to their balance sheets. Much of the money has been shifted to offshore subsidiaries. This avoids U.S. taxes altogether. We don't know the total corporate wealth sits in tax havens. There can be trillions from generous business handouts. During the height of 2008 crisis conditions, $168 billion stimulus legislation was enacted. About $90 billion went to business and rich elites. Jobs were lost and not created. From July through December 2008, nearly a million a month disappeared. Doing so matched the 1929 to 1930 rate. Obama’s February 2009 $787 billion stimulus bill handed corporations nearly $400 billion in tax cuts. Over $225 billion went for business/investor cuts. We have the growth of part time jobs without the massive growth of full time jobs. The rich elites and corporations benefit from this reality. There has been unprecedented wealth being shifted from ordinary people to them. We have huge wealth disparity. Tax cuts alone can never create jobs. Half or more of US households are impoverished or bordering it. Good jobs are disappearing in plain sight. Nearly 50 million Americans need food stamps to eat. Business taxes are way too low. The top nominal rate is 35%. Obama, Republicans and many Democrats plan cutting it to 28 or 25%. Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D. MT) is retiring this year. He favors lower corporate rates. He helped spearhead ACA’s enactment. We know that the ACA benefits heavily business and health care private corporations. Some believe that U.S. corporations pay too much taxes. That is not true. Many pay much less. Some pay nothing. Others get rebates in profitable years. Corporate taxes have been in free fall for decades. As a percent of GDP and national income, they’re half what they were two decades ago. They’re going lower. Obama demands it. He’s doing so while waging war on ordinary Americans. We see that both parties in their leadership are anti-labor, anti-populist, anti-fairness, etc. Corporate giants getting trillions of more money will be a great tax giveaway. Many big corporations have gotten stock buybacks, dividends, high executives salaries, and bonuses (including other unrelated non job creation purposes). Why else would unemployment exceed 23%? Inflation-adjusted wages have been declining for decades. Benefits workers took for granted are disappearing. Corporations are Kotlikoff’s concern. Ordinary people don’t matter. Deepening social inequality is OK. The reality is that we need radical solutions to address income inequality and other injustices.
The TPP has been called NAFTA on steroids. TPP stands for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. According to researcher Kevin Zeese, the TPP has been drafted in an unprecedented degree of secrecy. The supporters of the TPP believe that is will expand trade between North American and the rest of the world. The claim of increased trade and investment has been used as smokescreen that conceals the TPP's corporate assalult on food safety, the environment, worker rights, access to health care, and basically every facet of our lives as free citizens. There has been a recent release of the Intellectual Property Rights Chapter from Wikileaks that confirmed the fears of trade liberalization critics that the reach of patents, copyrights, and trade secrets will be extended at the expense of consumer rights and safeguards. There have been those who accuse TPP IP regime of trying to trample individual rights and free expression. The TPP secured third place among Project Censored’s most censored stories of 2012-2013. The Sonoma State University media research program describes the TPP as “an enforceable transfer of sovereignty from nations and their people to foreign corporations.” FLUSHTHETPP.ORG is a real website that is famous to oppose the TPP. The TPP is a secret trade agreement that is being negotiated behind the scenes of the American people including Congress. There are at least 600 corporate advisers doing the negotiation. The TPP will strengthen corporate power in dealing with health care, the environment, worker rights, food safety, etc. Much of the secret negotiations have been done by Big Ag like Monsanto, Dupont, Cargill, and Syngenta. The TPP alows corporations to sue governments (including local and state government) who pass food and safety regulations or laws protecting family farmers (they claim that they are "barriers to trade" that hurt expected future profits). Therefore, the TPP places the profits of multinational corporations over the food security needs of individual nations. Fast track is wrong, because under Fast Track, the President will negotiate and sign TPP without congressional approval. Afterwards, Congress will have an up or down vote with no public airing of the content via hearings, no testimony from experts and no amendments. According to leaked documents, the TPP would establish international trade tribunals with more power than governments. This is done by allowing corporations to sue governments whose laws or policies adversely impact expected future profits. Similar provisions in NAFTA have resulted in the overturning of many environmental and consumer protection laws. Judges in this system would consist mostly of corporate lawyers on leave from their regular jobs with multinational corporations. In this rigged system, appeals would not be allowed. There have been many protests against the Trans Pacific Partnership. Margaret Flowers, MD, who dressed as a workman to attach a sign to the front of the US Trade Representative said that “the TPP will undermine health care systems, make pharmaceutical drugs and medical devices more expensive and therefore increase pain and suffering and even cost people their lives.” Flowers an advocate for a national health care plan that treats health care as a human right rather than a commodity warned that “The TPP will undermine the excellent single payer health care systems in Japan, Australia and New Zealand and make it more difficult for the United States to put in place a single payer system — which is what most Americans and doctors want to see.” The Fast Track is a blatant attack on democratic rights and democratic government. Congressmen and Congresswomen opposing Fast Track are Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-MN), Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), and many others. Sen. Warren noted in her letter to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, “if transparency would lead to widespread public opposition to a trade agreement then that trade agreement should not be the policy of the United States.” Folks have the right to openly debate an agreement that will empower corporations to dominate our lives from food, water, health care, wages, jobs, the Internet, etc. The full content of the TPP is not fully known. A new report from the Center for Economic Policy and Research finds that the TPP will produce small economic growth of only 1/10th of 1 percent per year, but it will hurt working Americans as 90 percent of workers will see their income reduced as a result of the TPP. Unions including the Communication Workers of America, AFL-CIO and Teamsters have raised serious concerns about the TPP’s impact on working families, and doctors have also highlighted consequences for access to health care and life-saving medicines. There has been opposition to the treaty in Japan and Malaysia. Readily, transnational corporations control and design free trade agreements like the TPP.
For a while, folks have debated and commented on Beyonce's recent album. Yonce loves music. Usually on such thing, I take my time here. I took my time to think about Beyonce's new album and the issues that come with it. I am a fair man and I will be fair here. Her album is called BEYONCE. It was released on December 13, 2013. Beyonce released the album and videos for the songs in a historic, unprecedented fashion. The album was released by Parkwwood Entertainment and Columbia Records. Beyonce called her album as a visual album. It deals with electro-R&B and pop elements. The songs deal with the issues of self empowerment, womanhood, postnatal depression, love and relationships, and of course sex in a often frank, explicit fashion. Sex is always a part of human existence. Without sex, most of us wouldn't of existed literally. The album has 17 diverse, unique music videos. Many of the musical contributions came from Boots, Timbaland, and Pharrell Williams. The album was released to iTunes without prior promotion or announcement. The album is very popular in the world. It debuted on Billboard 200 as number one with the three day sales of 617,213 digital copies, giving Knowles her fifth consecutive number-one. It became the highest first-week sales of her solo career, and the best-selling debut week for a female artist in 2013; six days after release it had sold one million copies worldwide. The album has 14 tracks. The music has a futuristic sound. A lot of legitimate critiques do exist about the album and the videos. I think that we should be rational and evaluate the messages, the images, and the lyrics in a fair way. Now, it is legitimate to mention that Beyonce should be treated with dignity and respect. I love Beyonce as a mother, as a Sister, and as a human being. Additionally, we want the best for any human being. Yet, any human being is not immune from legitimate critique and legitimate advice. No one is immune from that. We all need advice as a means to be better and do better as human beings. We know that the decision makers behind the scenes in Hollywood work with the military industrial complex as a means to try to rule society. That is why many Hollywood celebrities visit the military overseas and many of them don't realize that imperialism is a grave injustice (especially since it harms heavily human beings of color among multiple continents. The war crimes, the death, and the nefarious brutality of the war on terror are truly evil). It is the same system that refuses to give humanity universal health care, true workers' rights, and ending inequalities among humanity. So, we should fight for justice continually. Now, Beyonce has been used as a scapegoat for the overall evils found in the industry. So, we should allow Beyonce to be accountable for her own actions while not making her the target on why the industry is what it is at all.
The truth is that we talk about economics, politics, our culture, our history, and other facets of our humanity all of the time. We love our people and we want the best for our community. We believe in constructive dialogue, but we will stand up via STRENGTH against injustice. Fighting injustice has nothing to do with inflaming racial hatred. It has to do with the commonsense action of loving TRUTH and loving HUMAN DIGNITY. When we stand up for our DIGNITY as black human beings, then we honor the best in our ancestors and we honor our potent legacy. That is the point. It is good to acknowledge our heroes and to inspire the current generation to do better. So, I will move forward and the truth will never perish. RBG 4 Life. I heard a lot about Harlem. Harlem is known as one big section of black American culture. The Harlem Renaissance (where artists, writers, scholars, and other leaders created huge contributions back in the early 20th century) did not exist out of a vacuum. Harlem has always been a great location where black African literature and cultural strength is present. Malcolm X loved Harlem and spoke there on many occasions. Now, we see how gentrification and corporate exploitation has changed Harlem in a great measure. The bad news is that we have economic inequality, bad laws, and other nefarious policies in Harlem and nationwide. We can never accept the status quo. The good news is that we do have an opportunity to make a difference in the world. We can go out and be active. We can be creative and reach out to the youth and militantly act for change. Yes, all humans should be treated with dignity and with respect. Our thinking must be independent and conscious of our culture too. In other words, we can be independent ideologically, but we shouldn't eliminate our BLACKNESS from the equation either. At the end of the day, we are of black African descent. We have to embrace and love our black heritage. I heard a lot about Harlem. Harlem is known as one big section of black American culture. The Harlem Renaissance did not exist out of a vacuum. Harlem has always a great location where black African literature and cultural strength is present. Malcolm X loved Harlem and spoke there on many occasions. Now, we see how gentrification and corporate exploitation has changed Harlem in a great measure. The bad news is that we have economic inequality, bad laws, and other nefarious policies in Harlem and nationwide. The good news is that we do have an opportunity to make a difference in the world. We can go out and be active. We can be creative and reach out to the youth and militantly act for change. Our thinking must be independent and conscious of our culture too. In other words, we can be independent, but we shouldn't eliminate our BLACKNESS from the equation either. Real fathers should receive all of the respect in the world. Black men who are honorable and handling business ought to be given their respect. Yet, we live in a society that omits and obfuscates the authentic contributions of Black Fathers. That is why it is just for us to continue to live our lives to respect black fathers. Black fathers have great, potent value in the black community and their actions of care, strength, and true grit should be acknowledged and respected. So, false stereotypes will never get me down. All of us are living proof of defying those perverted stereotypes. Black males and Black females fighting for truth and being proactive to help their own communities should be truly appreciated. At the end of the day, we have to be cautious in life. Who knows what he was trying to do. We have to live our lives with STRENGTH, COMPASSION, AND IN THE CONSTRUCTIVE PATH. There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with unjust policies (or speaking truth to power), but unjust violence should always be opposed at any circumstance.
By Timothy
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