TISA: Obama’s Latest Betrayal of America and Americans in Favor of the Big Banks (William K. Black)

[Octafish]

William K. Black is a well-respected expert on white collar crime. As a forensic economist in the employ of the federal government, he helped jail hundreds of S&L crooks in the 1990s.



Obama’s Latest Betrayal of America and Americans in Favor of the Big Banks: TISA

By William K. Black
New Economic Perspectives, June 24, 2014

Introduction

EXCERPT...

“Transparency” for Bankers: Maximum Opaqueness for the Public and Congress

The TISA draft (Article X.16) is very clear about the second great paradox: bankers must be told everything that regulators are thinking about adopting and have ample opportunity to influence the regulators’ drafting of the rule. But TISA is an international secret that will remain an international secret for five years after it is adopted. Like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the drafts are kept secret even from Congress. Indeed, TISA is “classified” so that those who might blow the whistle on the travesty may be prosecuted. The draft’s initial information contains this language:

“Declassify on: Five years from entry into force of the TISA agreement….

It must be stored in a locked or secured building, room, or container.”

I note this obvious, indefensible hypocrisy because it is illustrative of the entire draft. When the indefensible appears in a document like this it is because the drafters know that there is no one representing the other side and they can afford to be outrageously one-sided. It was clearly drafted by and for lobbyists for the SDIs. Any government officials involved in the drafting are simply scribes who will be rewarded on the other side of the revolving door. There is no pretense that the draft is a reasoned response to differing views. Only one set of views – literally the wish list of the largest, most criminal banks – is presented and it is presented in exceptionally extreme language. There is literally nothing in the draft designed to increase the regulatory protections afforded the public from private banks. There is literally nothing in the draft that increases restrictions on private banks.

As a lawyer I recognize exactly what happened because the draft reads exactly like how we draft a wish list. Obama is a lawyer. Mr. President, read the draft and it will be obvious to you that no one is representing the public. The President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa (an economist), was outraged when he learned of what the bankers were trying to achieve through TISA. Sadly, the U.S. played a disgraceful role in pushing TISA forward over Ecuador’s objections. If Obama were to admit that Ecuador was right, bring the U.S. back to representing the public rather than the looters, and make public the entire disgraceful draft TISA would collapse.

TISA’s drafting consists of a meeting of banking thieves who are successfully demanding a return to what Gramlich correctly described as “no cops on the beat.” If the street robbers of the world demanded that we remove the cops on the beat we would be enraged. Bankers and their neoclassical economist allies, however, regularly lobby for just such a boon to elite white-collar criminals. We have millennia of experience with what happens when we give the elites the power to loot with impunity.

CONTINUED w/links...

http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/06/obamas-latest-betrayal-america-americans-favor-big-banks-tisa.html

The three “de’s” – deregulation, desupervision, and de facto decriminalization – first looted America's S&Ls and then America's banks. Now, TiSA wants to deregulate the world's banks. Anyone think the money will go to a good cause?

[grasswire]

1. kick for transparency nt

[villager]

4. Another kick for same!

n/t

[Octafish]

12. It's fast track to the end of Democracy.

In the USA once a treaty becomes law it is the law of the land.

If We the People can't even SEE what's in TiSA for five years, I think we would be 4 years and 365 days past screwed.

Per Ivan Denisovich, that extra day of getting screwed is for leap year.

[pa28]

2. K&R

[Octafish]

16. How'd you like for some billionaire to have at your Social Security?

Well, look what this reporter found:

TISA: Another Secret Deal

By nadinabbott on June 28, 2014 • ( 0 )
June 28, 2014 (San Diego)

EXCERPT...

Why should Americans pay attention? Well, for starters whenever we have treaty law that is ratified, it becomes US Law. One thing that this treaty will do is target issues that the industry believes are obstacles to their well being and future growth. Among them are these two jewels that should get all our collective attention:

“limits on the size of financial institutions (too big to fail);”

The Banks want to grow as far and as far as they want to. One of the major critiques during the Global crisis in 2008 was that some institutions were already to big to fail. Instead of curbing this, the treaty will increase the size of banks, and that will lead to natural monopolies now across whole regions of the world.

Given that Citi is one of the institutions behind this, well, nothing new under the sun. They are also already too big to fail.

“State monopolies on pension funds or disaster insurance;”

Read that again. Social Security qualifies.as a pension program and Republicans, under President George Bush did go after it in 2006. According to the Washington Post if this had ben done, when the Financial Criss of 2008 hit, a newly retired worker would

“What would happen, say, if a person retired just as the financial crisis hit? An analysis (pdf) by the Center for American Progress’s Ben Furnas found that a worker who had retired in 2008 would have lost $26,000 in Social Security benefits if he had been enrolled in private accounts his whole life.”

CONTINUED...

http://nadinabbottblog.wordpress.com/2014/06/28/sita-another-secret-deal/

It's like if they can't get their mitts on Social Security one way, they'll figure out another way.



And that's TiSA.

[pa28]

22. TISA and TPP are a broad assault on decades of Democratic legislation and regulation.

I'd actually missed the section on pension funds but I'm not surprised at all. As Black said the whole thing reads like wish list put together by bankers and their lobbyists. In fact that's exactly what it is.

Coporate interests and financial institutions have discovered they can't get everything they want through legislation but they *can* get it through treaties and they can get it soon.

It's an astonishing power grab. All of it thanks to the trojan horse in the white house.

[Octafish]

23. Penny Pritzker won't protect us.

A real shame, too, because as far as she and the Chief go, they believe they really are protecting what they swore to protect. Unfortunately there has been a disconnect of the Democratic kind -- from Democratic fiscal, economic and trade policies -- to positions protecting and serving real property, principally capital.

[JDPriestly]

26. $26,000 from your Social SEcurity? That's very roughly about 2 years worth of Social Security

for the average recipient.

[jtuck004]

92. Or maybe they don't live that long. n/t

[grahamhgreen]

3. Kick for keeping Costly Trade Agreements on the front page.

[Octafish]

19. It's not like America's hair is on fire. It's just the Constitution burning.

This thing, if passed, stays secret for five years. So, we still won't know how much of the gold goes to Goldman Sachs and how much the shaft goes to US citizens. From Black:

That brings us back to the reason the bank CEOs have demanded that TISA be “classified” and kept from the public and even Congress. Indeed, the plan is to classify its provisions for five years after TISA is adopted. That delay is meant to make it politically possible for TISA to be adopted and then continue to protect heads of state from being thrown out of office by their enraged constituents.

When's the federal statute of limitation for fraud kick in, date of discovery or the date of the crime?

[nenagh]

5. Bookmarking...

[Octafish]

20. Black's conclusion...

Ask yourself this question: why would the bankers and heads of state have demanded, and received, “classified” treatment of a document that did not have any confidential information (there are no state secrets, no privacy issues, and nothing of proprietary value in the leaked TISA draft) and made no meaningful restriction on regulation and supervision due to the “nowithstanding” clause of Article 17? The demand for classified treatment makes it inescapable that the bankers and government officials involved in drafting TISA are trying to hide something they believe would outrage the public. The paradox is that the bankers’ and politicians’ rabid fear of disclosure to the public and Congress of TISA’s assault on regulation confirms beyond any reasonable doubt that subparagraph 2 of Article 17 and Article 20 combine to make TISA a grave threat to the global economy, workers, and honest bankers by making the financial world even more criminogenic.

[JDPriestly]

25. I know this sounds like a ridiculous conspiracy theory, but it is as if the Mafia or organized crime

or at least criminals are in charge. As if there had been a coup and the bad guys took over: the NSA spying on US; these insane trade agreements; globalization of our industry; exportation of our industrial power (we can't make a enough socks for our feet; we have to import most of them); the pointless wars against small groups of what are virtually bandits. All of these activities lead to one end: destroying self-government. Call it democracy. Call it a republic. Th point of the economic gyrations of the 1% are to destroy any ability that we have to govern ourselves as a people, as a nation. Few of them would admit it, but that is where they are taking us. They want to run everything just as they do in our workplaces.

This is truly treason. Those who would destroy our self-government through these treaties are aiding and abetting our real enemy which is those who would destroy our self-government.

Put these treaties and agreements to the vote of the people of the US. Put the choice to Americans: good jobs and self-sufficient industrial capacity here in the US or lousy, minimum wage "service sector" jobs and cheap imports that fall apart shortly after you buy them. What do you want to bet that the American people would vote for the good jobs and no cheap imports rather than low-wage jobs and lousy imports.

[TheKentuckian]

28. That is a post!

[Octafish]

35. No apologies necessary. You are exactly correct. It is treason. And where is Washington?

The economic elites are the beneficiaries of "money trumps peace" policies. Bartcop called them the BFEE for "Bush Family Evil Empire" and I borrowed the phrase to describe the War Party. Apart from some independence shown by Nixon and Carter, promptly rewarded by Watergate and the Ayatollah, it's been pretty much Baby War gets what Baby War wants.

Banksters who launder money, rig interest rates, and defraud homeowners are forgiven and promoted. Whistleblowers who expose offshore tax cheats and the crimes of the national security state are prosecuted. So, instead of spying on Them who are Enemies, as they are supposed to by law, the secret government turns the NSA on We the People and classifies those who point out the facts as journalists or oppose them as loyal citizens are still branded "enemies of the state." The FBI even spoke with some corporate entity or other, a Blackwater type company, about snipers shooting OCCUPY leaders.

Wikileaks and Snowden demonstrated the criminal warmongering and war profiteering at the highest levels of government. Gov. Siegelman was sent to prison by a judge who makes millions from privatized inside crony capitalist warmaking. Why these traitors and crooks aren't locked up is a question an uncorrupted Supreme Court needs to weigh. They won't, as the corrupted secret powers have controlled, largely in secret and certainly out of the evening news, the levers of government policy since November 22, 1963.

[Enthusiast]

44. The bad guys have certainly taken over.

[Armstead]

59. The two parties are NOT the same -- Except when it comes to issues of Money and Power

Today's news about the SC decision on Hobby Lobby illustrates the difference between the parties. With the GOP, we get hard core wingnuts.

But the wingnut-like behavior of the Obama administration on "free trade" the TPP and this thing shows that when it comes to basic issues of the economy and political chicanery, they are too much like the GOP.

[dixiegrrrrl]

60. It sounds like the criminals are in charge because they ARE.

And Black is pointing out that it IS a conspiracy, of the banks and the Gov't to hide the truth from the public while trillions of dollars are stolen for us.

What part of that is difficult to understand?

[woo me with science]

74. [phone] It is treason. It is the implementation of fascism.

It's way past time for pretending that these are mere party or political differences among Americans who all love the Constitution. This is nothing less than a corporate coup and deliberate murder of our democratic system and our democratic institutions.

[nenagh]

33. Octafish, foolishly I was thinking that TISA could be stopped

Last edited Sun Jun 29, 2014, 10:56 PM - Edit history (1)

by not passing a vote in Congress..

but it was never meant to be revealed to the public or Congress..

[Octafish]

48. Civics isn't what it used to be.

I'm so old, I remember when the three branches of government actually kept an eye out on each other.

Now, they all work for Ronald Reagan's owners -- or just happen to be singing from the same page all the time.

[burrowowl]

6. K&R!

[Octafish]

53. ''Wikileaks has done the world a great service again by publishing...''

WikiLeaks has demonstrated the utter corruption of the "money trumps peace" crowd, the people who use their government positions to line their own pockets and those of their cronies. A reprint that may add to understanding of the money and power involved:

Know your BFEE: WikiLeaks Stratfor Dump Exposes Continued Secret Government Warmongering

War is big business. It's an insider's game. It's why we have so much secret government.

The last remaining enormous wads of cash in the Treasury are to be had for purchasing today's modern military industrial intel complex.



There's more than a trillion to be grabbed -- just for the Lockheed-Martin F-35.

Now keeping tabs on us -- people interested in using some of the nation's treasure for more peaceful purposes -- are for-hire spies. How do I know this? Julian Assange and Anonymous:

WikiLeaks' Stratfor Dump Lifts Lid on Intelligence-Industrial Complex

WikiLeaks' latest release, of hacked emails from Stratfor, shines light on the murky world of private intelligence-gathering

by Pratap Chatterjee
Published on Tuesday, February 28, 2012 by The Guardian/UK

What price bad intelligence? Some 5m internal emails from Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based company that brands itself as a "global intelligence" provider, were recently obtained by Anonymous, the hacker collective, and are being released in batches by WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing website, starting Monday.

The most striking revelation from the latest disclosure is not simply the military-industrial complex that conspires to spy on citizens, activists and trouble-causers, but the extremely low quality of the information available to the highest bidder. Clients of the company include Dow Chemical, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, as well as US government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Marines.

SNIP...

Assange notes that Stratfor is also seeking to profit directly from this information by partnering in an apparent hedge-fund venture with Shea Morenz, a former Goldman Sachs managing director. He points to an August 2011 document, marked "DO NOT SHARE OR DISCUSS", from Stratfor CEO George Friedman, which says:

"What StratCap will do is use our Stratfor's intelligence and analysis to trade in a range of geopolitical instruments, particularly government bonds, currencies and the like."

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/28-10?print

If it weren't for Anonymous and WikiLeaks, we probably wouldn't know about any of that.

It's no joke. It's no unimportant story. It's no boring history. Run by insiders, the secret government is key to making the system run on behalf of the few -- the 1-percent of 1-percent. Central to that is intelligence -- economically, politically and military useful information.

Which brings up the nation's purported free press, the only business mentioned by name in the entire United States Constitution, and how the organizations therein have miserably failed to feature prominently the sundry and myriad ways the insiders on Wall Street and their toadies in Washington do the work for Them.

The problem is systemic. The corruption is systemic.

Because it involves oversight of secret organizations -- the Pentagon, Homeland Security, CIA, etc -- Congress and the Administration often have no clue, let alone oversight, to what is happening because the corruption is marked "Top Secret."

Secret government also means We the People can't do our job as citizens, which is to hold them accountable and find the ones responsible in order to vote the crooks out and, it is hoped, the honest ones in.

With no citizen oversight, anything goes. And it doesn't stop.

Remember this fine fellow, US Navy fighter ace Randy "Duke" Cunningham?

Later a member of the United States Congress, he used his position to feather his nest, Big Time.



In his political career, Cunningham was a member of the Appropriations and Intelligence committees, and chaired the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Human Intelligence Analysis and Counterintelligence during the 109th Congress. He was considered a leading Republican expert on national security issues.

Currently, he's in USP Tuscon or another fine facility where he gets three squares, medical and dental.
He's due for release in a year or so. He'll be able to pick up his pension.

"The Duke Cunningham Act, also known as the Federal Pension Forfeiture Act, was introduced by U.S. Senator John F. Kerry in 2006. The bill would have denied pension benefits to any members of Congress convicted of bribery, conspiracy or perjury. The bill died in committee. (Source: The Press Enterprise)

Duke wasn't alone. He really was just one snake in a long line of snakes. Remember Dusty Foggo, Number 3 at CIA and close associate of CIA Director and former Congressman Porter Goss? Swells sitting atop the peak of political and military secrecy and power.

Unfortunately, when it comes to modern governance, no oversight means means the insiders are getting away with murder, and warmongering and treason and all the power that they bring. Appointed pretzeldent George W Bush on Valentine's Day 2007 put it in words: "Money trumps peace."

Secret government warmongering and war profiteering are systemic. Secret government is rotten to the core. What's more, in a democracy that once really was land of the free and home of the brave, secret government poses the greatest threat to true national security.

[questionseverything]

67. dusty foggo link does not work for me

us attorney carol lam was fired the day after she arrested foggo ( high placed cia dude)

//////////////////

Washington D.C. defense contractor Mitchell Wade pled guilty last February to paying then-California Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham more than $1 million in bribes.

– Wade’s company MZM Inc. received its first federal contract from the White House. The contract, which ran from July 15 to August 15, 2002, stipulated that Wade be paid $140,000 to “provide office furniture and computers for Vice President Dick Cheney.”

– Two weeks later, on August 30, 2002, Wade purchased a yacht for $140,000 for Duke Cunningham. The boat’s name was later changed to the “Duke-Stir.” Said one party to the sale: “I knew then that somebody was going to go to jail for that…Duke looked at the boat, and Wade bought it — all in one day. Then they got on the boat and floated away.”

– According to Cunningham’s sentencing memorandum, the purchase price of the boat had been negotiated through a third-party earlier that summer, around the same time the White House contract was signed.
/////////////////////////////

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2007/03/19/11209/carol-lam-white-house/

[Octafish]

68. Sorry about that. Here's from the Waybac...

https://web.archive.org/web/20080703110516/http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/carol_lam/

Worth downloading a copy, seeing how today's Winston Smith can update the files at the click of a mouse.

[Scuba]

7. Kick for exposure.

[Octafish]

54. It's like they want to bring back feudalism.

Which isn't a bad thing if you're king or a duke, but not necessarily so for us peasants and debt-slaves.

SERVILITY of the Satellites: The Snowden Affair and the Destruction of Effective Democracy in Europe



A couple of kids exploited as mules, I believe, in Morocco. More info here. We better get used to it, as that's what's coming to the United States and Europe if the warmongers and traitors on Wall Street continue to have their way.

The Snowden Affair and the Destruction of Effective Democracy in Europe

The Servility of the Satellites

by DIANA JOHNSTONE
Paris, France. CounterPunch WEEKEND EDITION JULY 5-7, 2013

The Snowden affair has revealed even more about Europe than about the United States.

SNIP...

The outrage against the Bolivian President confirmed that this trans-Atlantic entity has absolutely no respect for international law, even though its leaders will make use of it when it suits them. But respect it, allow it to impede their actions in any way? Certainly not.

And this disrespect for the law is linked to a more basic institutional change: the destruction of effective democracy at the national level. This has been done by the power of money in the United States, where candidates are comparable to race horses owned by billionaires. In Europe, it has been done by the European Union, whose bureaucracy has gradually taken over the critical economic functions of independent states, leaving national governments to concoct huge controversies around private matters, such as marriage, while public policy is dictated from the EU Commission in Brussels.

But behind that Commission, and behind the US electoral game, lies the identical anonymous power that dictates its desires to this trans-Atlantic entity: financial capital.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/07/05/the-servility-of-the-satellites/

THIS is what the problem is -- justice vs just-us. Who spies on whom. Who orders whom. Who owns What.

Like the great DUer rhett o rick said: It's a life-or-death battle between the 99-percent and the 1-percent.

No, it's not fair. We're not in the Club. And while we may have the numbers, they have the cash on hand in Switzerland and the Caymans. So, we don't have anywhere near the means to buy back the government.

We better get used to it. Or else wake the hell up.

[appal_jack]

8. Will Obama's legacy be multiple NAFTAs on steroids?

Back in the early 1990's, I knew that NAFTA and the WTO were bad deals for people. We now have 20 years+ of additional data bearing this out. Obama cannot claim that he genuinely believes that these trade agreements would benefit anyone but the wealthiest elite. The TPP, TPIP, and TISA are all horrid corporate boondoggles that would impoverish our people, and regular people across the globe.

Will Obama's legacy be multiple NAFTAs on steroids? We deserve better from a Democrat.

-app

[Octafish]

57. NAFTA’s Impact on U.S. Workers

JEFF FAUX
Economic Policy Institute, December 9, 2013

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NATFA) was the door through which American workers were shoved into the neoliberal global labor market.

By establishing the principle that U.S. corporations could relocate production elsewhere and sell back into the United States, NAFTA undercut the bargaining power of American workers, which had driven the expansion of the middle class since the end of World War II. The result has been 20 years of stagnant wages and the upward redistribution of income, wealth and political power.

NAFTA affected U.S. workers in four principal ways. First, it caused the loss of some 700,000 jobs as production moved to Mexico. Most of these losses came in California, Texas, Michigan, and other states where manufacturing is concentrated. To be sure, there were some job gains along the border in service and retail sectors resulting from increased trucking activity, but these gains are small in relation to the loses, and are in lower paying occupations. The vast majority of workers who lost jobs from NAFTA suffered a permanent loss of income.

Second, NAFTA strengthened the ability of U.S. employers to force workers to accept lower wages and benefits. As soon as NAFTA became law, corporate managers began telling their workers that their companies intended to move to Mexico unless the workers lowered the cost of their labor. In the midst of collective bargaining negotiations with unions, some companies would even start loading machinery into trucks that they said were bound for Mexico. The same threats were used to fight union organizing efforts. The message was: “If you vote in a union, we will move south of the border.” With NAFTA, corporations also could more easily blackmail local governments into giving them tax reductions and other subsidies.

Third, the destructive effect of NAFTA on the Mexican agricultural and small business sectors dislocated several million Mexican workers and their families, and was a major cause in the dramatic increase in undocumented workers flowing into the U.S. labor market. This put further downward pressure on U.S. wages, especially in the already lower paying market for less skilled labor.

Fourth, and ultimately most important, NAFTA was the template for rules of the emerging global economy, in which the benefits would flow to capital and the costs to labor. The U.S. governing class—in alliance with the financial elites of its trading partners—applied NAFTA’s principles to the World Trade Organization, to the policies of the World Bank and IMF, and to the deal under which employers of China’s huge supply of low-wage workers were allowed access to U.S. markets in exchange for allowing American multinational corporations the right to invest there.

CONTINUED...

http://www.epi.org/blog/naftas-impact-workers/

Thank you for seeing the big picture, appal_jack. Despite giving his word as a candidate to amend NAFTA, President Obama has not and has advanced trade policies benefitting Wall Street's shareholders. We do deserve better from a Democrat.

[WillyT]

9. HUGE K & R !!!

[Octafish]

75. If the government keeps the People in the dark about this, what else do they hide?

One important example has to do with matters of wars for profit. On Feb. 14, 2007 George W Bush said: ''Money trumps peace.'' And then he laughed. Of course, most of America -- including liberals of all stripes -- never heard him say it. The reason: Not a single of the callow, cowed White House press corpse saw fit to ask a follow-up at the press conference.

At the time, I was struck that Cindy Sheehan tried to bring it to our nation's attention. Other than her, not much.

It's important because I don't trust secret government. From the waybac machine:

Stratfor: executive boasted of 'trusted former CIA cronies'

By Alex Spillius, Diplomatic Correspondent
9:08PM GMT 28 Feb 2012
The Telegraph

A senior executive with the private intelligence firm Stratfor boasted to colleagues about his "trusted former CIA cronies" and promised to "see what I can uncover" about a classified FBI investigation, according to emails released by the WikiLeaks.

Fred Burton, vice president of intelligence at the Texas firm, also informed members of staff that he had a copy of the confidential indictment on Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.

The second batch of five million internal Stratfor emails obtained by the Anonymous computer hacking group revealed that the company has high level sources within the United States and other governments, runs a network of paid informants that includes embassy staff and journalists and planned a hedge fund, Stratcap, based on its secret intelligence.

SNIP...

Mr Assange labelled the company as a "private intelligence Enron", in reference to the energy giant that collapsed after a false accounting scandal.

CONTINUED...

https://web.archive.org/web/20120421064244/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9111784/Stratfor-executive-boasted-of-trusted-former-CIA-cronies.html

No wonder so many big shots in government hate WikiLeaks. If I was them, I'd worry to about what the public learned I was doing in their name and with their credit card.

[DeSwiss]

10. First, people will have to put these on:

[center][/center]
And then second, we have to realize that pointing to the problem is only the first step. People see injustice all the time and ignore it. They see sexual abuse and turn away. They see racial prejudice and remain silent. The know their leaders are misusing them and their power, and they remain acquiescent, docile and compliant waiting for someone else to tell them what to do.

But there is no one to tell you what to do. It's just you.

Give yourself a chance. Listen to yourself.

And then third, we have to think of something better to do than this shit, because it is ridiculous to think that you can make a better society using the dessicated, moldy, slimy and corrupt tools and processes that has brought us to the brink of disaster in the first place.

- We are smarter than this. The question is are we brave enough?

[center]

[/center]

K&R

[Octafish]

76. Jacques Fresco is the Bomb.

I heard him speak in Ann Arbor in 2009. Truly amazing fellow, talked 90 minutes standing up. And the guy was 90 years old at the time. And he said he knew the fascists were running the show and we got to stand up and be counted.

The only thing, he's only got so much time left, so he asked everybody with ideas for him to consider to leave him alone after his talk.[font color="blue"] If they have good ideas, put them into action. [/font color]From something I posted on DU (can't find the OP, for some reason):


On March 5, futurist Jacques Fresco addressed a group of people at U-M in Ann Arbor. The former NASA engineer described how his current company had been commissioned by the then-flush Saudis to design the city of the future.

Fresco showed us an animated film of their work. The projected communities were organized in a circular shape, with city services in the center, the next ring being housing, then parks and recreation, then the outermost rings were for farming. Robots could be built to do all the dangerous, dirty jobs and heavy lifting. Robots even could do the assembly of buildings and the city itself. People were freed to do the work they wanted, each contributing.

The guy's 91-plus and he stood and talked for an hour. He indicated that our current model is one where corporations hold sway. And that, at their core, corporations are fascistic. "Who votes? Nobody. The CEO decides." He said, governments, whether commie or fascistic, similarly, are all the same. At heart, these organizations are faulty and corrupt with land stolen from the original people and a society geared toward war -- a process that makes some rich and the rest conscripted in their service.

True democracy, he said, results when We the People can decide. The people hear one leader speak. Another gives her or his side of the issue. A neutral nation debates and opines and decides. That's what democracy is all about -- people deciding. And people never decide for war. And we must stand up to those who would move us to war -- except when, as in World War II -- evil forces wanted to dominate and enslave the world and destroy all who opposed them.

Fresco said he sees no hope for the nation and planet unless people decide to stop today's fascists. He said, to end war and survive, we must share resources. We must sustain and treat each life with dignity: food, water, education, political rights, etc. We have the resources to do it. And the resources we have can create an abundance -- not the shortages that we see all around under the current system.



SOURCE: An old DU post of mine. I can't find the OP OP.

Roxanne Meadows is out of this world, too. Their Venus Project can save the planet and humanity.

My 2-cents: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7025785

[JDPriestly]

11. President Obama, where are you on this?

TISA is another irresponsible agreement like NAFTA and the TPP and some of the other much too big, much too sloppy, much to generous to the 1% trade and trade-related agreements we have entered into since Nixon first met with the leaders of China.

This is not good for America and not good for the world, and William Black explains why very well. As usual, William Black is defending Americans when our politicians fail.

[truedelphi]

38. From everything I have read on other forums, he seems to be eager to have this

Go through. This includes discussions on dailykos, on new economic perspectives dot org, nakedcapitalism, and FDL. (Hardly surprising - this is a President who loves Eric Holder, the man who was formerly economic criminal Marc Rich's toady, and also it was Obama who put Geithner not into an orange jump suit but into the top spot at Treasury. And of course, there is that lil kerfluffle wherein Bernanke played the games he played at the Fed, which helped the price of oil shoot up 200%, and for that, he was re-appointed by Obama.)

And of course, our media hasn't been mentioning either the TPP or TISA.

[JDPriestly]

39. Thanks.

[Enthusiast]

46. Too eager.

Especially considering the harm it will do to the American working class.

[woo me with science]

105. He is negotiating it.

[MissDeeds]

13. This needs exposure

K&R

again

[Octafish]

113. ''Control Fraud.''

The banksters's "weapon of choice" is accounting. William K. Black explains:

The Two Documents Everyone Should Read to Better Understand the Crisis

by William K. Black
Assoc. Professor, Univ. of Missouri, Kansas City;
Sr. regulator during S&L debacle
February 25, 2009 10:31 AM

As a white-collar criminologist and former financial regulator much of my research studies what causes financial markets to become profoundly dysfunctional. The FBI has been warning of an "epidemic" of mortgage fraud since September 2004. It also reports that lenders initiated 80% of these frauds.1 When the person that controls a seemingly legitimate business or government agency uses it as a "weapon" to defraud we categorize it as a "control fraud" ("The Organization as 'Weapon' in White Collar Crime." Wheeler & Rothman 1982; The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One. Black 2005). Financial control frauds' "weapon of choice" is accounting. Control frauds cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime -- combined. Control fraud epidemics can arise when financial deregulation and desupervision and perverse compensation systems create a "criminogenic environment" (Big Money Crime. Calavita, Pontell & Tillman 1997.)

The FBI correctly identified the epidemic of mortgage control fraud at such an early point that the financial crisis could have been averted had the Bush administration acted with even minimal competence. To understand the crisis we have to focus on how the mortgage fraud epidemic produced widespread accounting fraud.

CONTINUED...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/the-two-documents-everyon_b_169813.html

Accounting leaves a paper trail. So. When are the crooks going to jail? Holder? Holder?

It's not a rhetorical question.

[bbgrunt]

14. k and r. thank you Octafish.

[ballyhoo]

15. People like Black keep speaking up, people are going to understand

more about Obama.

[Octafish]

112. Tim Geithner sacrificed homeowners to ''foam the runway'' for the banks.

Is great phrase:

Neil Barofsky, the former special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, has published a new book, “Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street.” It presents a damning indictment of the Obama administration’s execution of the TARP program generally, and of HAMP in particular.
…
By delaying millions of foreclosures, HAMP gave bailed-out banks more time to absorb housing-related losses while other parts of Obama’s bailout plan repaired holes in the banks’ balance sheets. According to Barofsky, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner even had a term for it. HAMP borrowers would “foam the runway” for the distressed banks looking for a safe landing. It is nice to know what Geithner really thinks of those Americans who were busy losing their homes in hard times.

CONTINUED w VIDEO and links and more letters...

http://washingtonexaminer.com/video-geithner-sacrificed-homeowners-to-foam-the-runway-for-the-banks/article/2502982

[JDPriestly]

17. K&R.

We need President Elizabeth Warren if we are to end these sneaky, secret trade agreements.

We need Congress to pass a bill that renders unenforceable within the US any international agreements that concern commerce that are negotiated in secret or that contain provisions that are secret.

These trade agreements grant to the very rich and to a minority of Americans rights that can potentially deprive the rest of us Americans of our rights.

We have the right to private property as do the bankers. But it sounds like this trade agreement could make it difficult for us to pass criminal laws in order to protect our private property, say our bank deposits, however small.

(Maybe we need to rethink property rights. I'm not suggesting doing away with them. To the contrary, I am suggesting that maybe we need to broaden them to include the rights to things like clean water, clean air, honest business transactions and more.)

When fraud in business transactions is protected from regulation, from supervision and from prosecution, the trust that is the glue holding our commerce together, disappears. The French were rumored to keep their money under their mattresses. That is what people do when they fear fraud, when they do not trust banks or the financial system. After the Great Depression, my grandfather, a farmer, wanted to sell something to one of his friends, also a farmer. My grandfather's friend said he wanted to buy, but he had to go to the bank to get his money. My grandfather laughed, the story goes, because he knew his friend, and he knew that his friend did not keep money in the bank. His friend kept his money hidden somewhere on his farm or in his house. That's what happens when people lose their trust in the system, in banks for example.

We have seen how William Koch was furious when he was the victim of fraud regarding vintage wines.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-11/william-koch-wins-fraud-claim-over-alleged-fake-wine.html

It isn't just the rich who have the right to honesty in business transactions. Fraud is against the law, whether it hurts the rich or the poor. The last thing we need is an international agreement that makes it more difficult to prosecute bank fraud or that downright makes fraud legal.

[99Forever]

18. Sounds precisely like everything Third Way Democrats stand for to me.

And some still have the audacity to pretend they can't figure out why we are so fucking pissed off.

[grasswire]

21. you'll notice that none of the swarm....

.....have the guts to come on this thread and defend the administration.

[pa28]

24. Oh, they'll be around once this hits 50 recs or so.

I'm guessing they'll argue TISA doesn't really say what it clearly says or that it's all a giant conspiracy theory. You know, the usual flat earth society BS.

[malokvale77]

27. I was the 50th rec

I hope they choke on it.

[Marr]

97. +1

[TheKentuckian]

32. It is what they stand for, they are just as a deadly enemy as the rabble on the right.

They are just a Koch/Peterson project to assimilate the Democratic party.

[99Forever]

42. Which is precisely why the will never receive my support or vote...

... ever again. Republicans suck, especially those with a "D" behind their name.

[al bupp]

29. Link to WikiLeaks page

Hey Octofish,

Thanks for the heads-up. You might want to put the following link into your OP:

Secret Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) - Financial Services Annex

[Octafish]

51. Thank you, al bupp! Remember visitors to WikiLeaks are ''tagged'' by Homeland Security.

The Goal of Wholesale Surveillance



The goal of wholesale surveillance, [font color="green"]as (Hannah) Arendt wrote in “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” is not, in the end, to discover crimes, “but to be on hand when the government decides to arrest a certain category of the population.” [/font color]And because Americans’ emails, phone conversations, Web searches and geographical movements are recorded and stored in perpetuity in government databases, there will be more than enough “evidence” to seize us should the state deem it necessary. This information waits like a deadly virus inside government vaults to be turned against us. It does not matter how trivial or innocent that information is. In totalitarian states, justice, like truth, is irrelevant.

Chris Hedges, The Last Gasp of American Democracy

Your local Fusion Center needs to know who knows what to make settling scores easier when it comes time to separate the wheat from the chafe.

[KoKo]

30. Recommend for the Read..Keep after it!

[Octafish]

108. Chalmers Johnson thought it may be too late...

... if it were just one thing, trade policy, for instance, that was corrupt -- our system might be able to handle what's required to fix it. The thing is, the corruption is systemic, whether it's the "money trumps peace" military industrial complex or the too big to fight future employers on Wall Street.

IMA, the end of our Republic came on November 22, 1963. It's taken half a century for it to become obvious to the uneducated.

[TheKentuckian]

31. Time for folks to stop pretending they don't see what is happening.

This is orchestrated, maybe the entire scene on the surface that we play at voting in.

I begin to believe the circus barkers on the right are a feint. An emotional, visceral, and gut punching distraction that provides a contrast vibrant enough to keep the real coup under the radar and/or a favorable alternative.

[Octafish]

111. If it is done in secret, it is for a reason

Fondest Dreams Come True?

The Secret Trade Deals They Don’t Want You to Know About

by PETE DOLACK
CounterPunch, Weekend Edition July 4-6, 2014

The financial industry has grown ever more powerful in recent decades, so perhaps the world’s governments believe it is only fitting that it has its own secret treaty. Similar to “free trade” agreements that curtail regulation of manufacturers, the Trade In Services Agreement’s Financial Services Annex, if passed, would eliminate the ability of governments to regulate the financial industry.

Incredible as it sounds, the annex, being negotiated in secret among 50 countries with continuing advice from lobbyists, would require signatory governments to allow any corporation that offers a “financial service” — that includes insurance as well as all forms of trading and speculation — to expand operations at will and would prohibit new financial regulations.

SNIP...

If it is done in secret, it is for a reason

That we know anything at all about the Financial Services Annex is because the text has been published by WikiLeaks. Just as agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership are being conducted in secret because, as former U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk admitted, if people knew what was in the TPP, it would never pass, the annex is kept hidden from view, except for industry lobbyists.

The leaked text of the Financial Services Annex states it should be declassified “five years from entry into force of the TISA agreement or, if no agreement enters into force, five years from the close of the negotiations.” A deal designed to give financiers even more power over the economy is a state secret!

As with the ongoing “free trade” agreement negotiations, one should not hold one’s breath waiting for substantive information on TISA or the annex. The latest round of negotiations were held June 23 to 27 in Geneva, and here is what the U.S. Office of the Trade Representative reported, in full:

“The fourth round of TISA talks was positive and productive, with participants expecting to table offers by the end of this month. Additionally, the draft text of the agreement was further stabilized with the removal of all brackets concerning the ‘negative list’ approach. U.S. negotiators look forward to further work on this important agreement.”

Yep, that’s it. Despite that meaningless ode to bureaucratic blandness, the United States and the European Union are vying to introduce the most draconian language. WikiLeaks, in a press release accompanying its publication of the secret text, said:

“The US and the EU are the main proponents of the agreement, and the authors of most joint changes, which also covers cross-border data flow. … The draft Financial Services Annex sets rules which would assist the expansion of financial multi-nationals — mainly headquartered in New York, London, Paris and Frankfurt — into other nations by preventing regulatory barriers. The leaked draft also shows that the US is particularly keen on boosting cross-border data flow, which would allow uninhibited exchange of personal and financial data. … (T)he Agreement is being crafted to be compatible with (the General Agreement on Trade in Services) so that a critical mass of participants will be able to pressure remaining (World Trade Organization) members to sign on in the future.”

The intention is to make the agreement universal, solidifying the financial industry’s grip on the global economy.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/04/the-secret-trade-deals-they-dont-want-you-to-know-about/

Distraction is a sign of the professional power.

[Doctor_J]

34. cut the crap

I can't believe "the most liberal president in history" is doing to this us.

rec #61

[nationalize the fed]

36. ^

The three “de’s” – deregulation, desupervision, and de facto decriminalization – first looted America's S&Ls and then America's banks. Now, TiSA wants to deregulate the world's banks. Anyone think the money will go to a good cause?

Obama wants $500 million to train Syrian rebels. Now what?

The Obama administration asked Congress on Thursday to authorize $500 million to provide U.S. military training and equipment to “moderate” Syrian rebels, a move that will undoubtedly edge the U.S. closer to direct involvement in the Syrian civil war.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/06/27/obama-wants-500-million-to-train-syrian-rebels-now-what/

Apparently this stuff will continue until the people have finally had enough. Since so few pay attention that may take awhile. Maybe time to go overseas for awhile.

[emsimon33]

37. K&R

[woo me with science]

40. This should be pinned to the top of the board. This is the most terrifying article

I have seen in a very long time.

We are under assault from within. There is no other way to put it.

[SammyWinstonJack]

41. +1.

[Enthusiast]

47. +1!

[truebrit71]

49. +2

I have just recently found out about this and this is even worse than TPP...which is a feat in and of itself...

[rhett o rick]

72. We need a Progressive Group where we can pin articles like this

and have discussions free from the self-righteousness of a few.

[woo me with science]

87. Remember when DU was a site for liberals,

and constantly pushing right-wing talking points led to a pizza?

I have often thought that would make an interesting thread: reposting the actual rhetoric that immediately led to tombstones then, right next to spewing of nearly identical rhetoric by some of DU's most prolific personas nowadays.

[rhett o rick]

93. What is happening to DU is what is happening to the Democratic Party.

It's actually a very smart move by the oligarchs. Help drive the Repubs off the cliff and convert the Democratic Party into the Conservative Party totally disenfranchising the Left. So you have to support the Conservative Democrat because of the threat of the wacko Repub. A third party is out of the question. In fact that's exactly what the Oligarchs want. That would further disenfranchise the Left. One of the things that upsets me about DU is that there are posters here that support disastrous trade agreements, the XL-Pipeline, fracking, the Patriot Act, indefinite detention, etc. and yet dare to call themselves "liberal".

What do you think about a Progressive Group?

[YoungDemCA]

98. What upsets me about DU is that there are posters who post racist, misogynist, and homophobic things

And yet dare to call themselves "liberal."

[rhett o rick]

99. I would agree. nm

[Electric Monk]

78. +1

[pa28]

79. It won't be pinned but you can add this OP to your excellent list.

Thank you!

[woo me with science]

88. Thanks for the reminder.

[Enthusiast]

43. K&R! This post should have hundreds of recommendations!

[G_j]

45. ugh..

a sad K&R

[truebrit71]

50. So, at this stage this is just a draft proposal right?

I'm trying to gauge how far along this is, and what pressure, if any, we can bring to insure that it just stays as a Too Big to Fail wet dream, rather than a frightening reality...

[Octafish]

109. TiSA Under Development

The official story, so far:

https://servicescoalition.org/negotiations/trade-in-services-agreement

The reality, based on history, "If it's done in secret, it is for a reason":

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/04/the-secret-trade-deals-they-dont-want-you-to-know-about/

[snot]

52. And meanwhile, we pursue the leakers/ whistleblowers like hounds from hell.

[truebrit71]

55. It's all about the transparency don't ya know....

...

[SammyWinstonJack]

56. ...

[JEB]

58. K&R

[raouldukelives]

61. K&R One step closer to a globe spanning corporate rulership.

Free from any petty laws supposed democracies can muster. I feel like we are one good shock to the system away from it.

[Octafish]

63. ''Every Capitalist must grasp the truth...''

''...political power grows out of the vaults of a bank." -- Chairman Maobush



One shock, raouldukelives... one shock after another until we are inured to them and then realize the world has changed into something inhospitable to humanity, let alone democracy.

[cui bono]

65. "Chairman Maobush"

omg... don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Thanks for the OP Octafish!

[Jefferson23]

85. lol, that is priceless...and encapsulates it all for me. n/t

[Ichingcarpenter]

62. False populism to appease the masses

President Obama is a good guy and says the right things at times but his power is limited by


The Banksters, the national security state and the Military industrial complex who really run this game as we saw with the meltdown caused by the Iraq war, home foreclosures, wall street and the banksters.

There has been no real accountability on these hidden branches of the government. Even if the prez says populist things. Our military budget is up, banksters are running free, fracking is destroying the planet and the NSA/CIA has run amok by ignoring congress and then speaks for the president on issues that the president should say something.

But know them from their deeds and wikileaks and Snowden has exposed this illusion of a government that's suppose to be of the people, by the people and for the people....which.it is not but a government of the very hidden elite
and that illusion has been broken at least for me or those that pay attention by each revelation

This isn't a bash obama post at all but a wake up call to those that seek the truth of their reality.

[MisterP]

73. whaddya expect when his fans literally admit on DU that they believe that words speak

louder than actions? it's called the "Tinkerbell theory" as well
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve

[Aerows]

64. K & R

I'm speechless. I'm sure I'll have more to say after the shock wears off and I process it.

[awoke_in_2003]

66. The two parties...

only differ on a few social issues. Financially, they are both out to get us.

[Ichingcarpenter]

69. social issues don't really affect the status quo

as far as the control and agenda of the hidden ruling elite.
Sure gay rights and marriage are correct and righteous..... but the gains have been made by local politics not national.

Pot laws suck but those gains were made locally then state wide not federally.

In the meantime they can rape the planet
and not address economic inequality and environmental holocausts they are creating for
children's future.

[awoke_in_2003]

80. well said. nt

[fleabiscuit]

70. K & R

[avaistheone1]

71. K&R

[SamKnause]

77. K&R

[mother earth]

81. K & R

[leftstreet]

82. DURec

[woo me with science]

83. kick

[Jefferson23]

84. Highly recommend. Thank you. n/t

[shanti]

86. Excellent post!

[TheKentuckian]

89. Ahh...The silence of the sheep (and their huckster friends) continues.

[Armstead]

90. But we need banks to have unlimited global power

They know what's best for us. They are the "adults" when it comes to finance. Our outdated regulations need to be modernized to reflect global realities of today. Trust them. If they do well, we all do well.

jeeze. You sound like some libertarian.

[TheKentuckian]

91. You forgot to tell me to trust a favored politician to make sure we get a good deal,

threaten me with Ted Cruz, and (ridiculously) call me a racist.

Otherwise, I think you rounded the bases.

[woo me with science]

94. kick

[DerekG]

95. Thanks a lot, Ralph Nader!

Oh wait, we can't blame third-party liberals for this one, can we?

[woo me with science]

96. This belongs at the TOP.

[woo me with science]

100. kick

[JEB]

101. Free Trade Agreements should be read as World Wide Fascism.

[woo me with science]

102. kick

[woo me with science]

103. kick

[woo me with science]

104. kick

[rhett o rick]

106. k&r thanks for posting. nm

[Aerows]

107. I'm still shocked over this

I don't know why - I've been aware for some time that when it comes to matters of money, the majority on both sides agree. It's sad

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

110. Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice;

Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity. Lord Acton