A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
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BAR, December 26, 2010 No Recovery Under Rule of Bankers A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford "Wall Street is stripping the country of its ability to pull out of the death spiral." There will be no economic recovery for the masses of people in the United States. A real recovery, with decent jobs at decent wages under secure terms of employment, is now impossible absent a social upheaval such as the United States has never experienced. The reason is structural, and in some ways, simple. Wall Street has effectively captured the apparatus of government, and is methodically stripping the country of both its assets and the nation’s ability to pull out of the death spiral. When the history of the era is written, Barack Obama’s term in office will be remembered as the period when Wall Street achieved its definitive conquest of the American state, thus depriving the society of the means to avoid economic and social disaster. Two men helped give us stark evidence of the theft of the American state as it was occurring. Neil Barofsky was the former prosecutor charged with overseeing the $700 billion TARP bank bailout program. But back in the summer of 2008, just six months into Barack Obama’s presidency, Barofsky reported that the federal government had already funneled about $14 trillion to bail out financial institutions. That’s 20 times as big as the TARP bailout, about the size of the annual real economy of the United States. The Obama administration and the Federal Reserve, acting on their own, were giving the banks 20 times as large a bailout as the Congress had voted for. Then, a year later, in July of 2009, Neil Barofsky dropped another bomb: the total federal bailout of the financial class could be $23.7 trillion, about 34 times the TARP bailout and approaching twice the gross domestic product of the United States. But it gets worse. "The banks will not invest in productive enterprises that provide decent jobs, and they will not allow the government to invest in jobs." This fall, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the other key person in providing evidence of Wall Street’s seizure of the American state, forced the Federal Reserve to submit to a one-time, snapshot audit. It showed that the Fed had provided American and foreign banks with $12.3 trillion in taxpayer money. That’s about six trillion dollars more from the Federal Reserve than Barofsky had discovered, a year before, bringing the total to about $30 trillion. That mind-boggling figure is about half the size of the entire economy of the planet Earth! But the theft is even bigger than that. The Federal Reserve routinely lends banks money at virtually no interest, which the banks then use to buy U.S. Treasury bonds for which the banks are paid interest. This is a daily taxpayer subsidy to Wall Street that also amounts to trillions of dollars. The banksters bet some of this money in their derivatives casinos, which are valued at 600 to 1,000 trillion dollars – many times more than the real economy of the planet – and they spend a portion of their stolen loot to buy politicians to help them steal more money from the government. But they will not invest in productive enterprises that provide decent jobs, and they will not allow the government to invest in jobs, because that would reduce the amount of money the banks can steal. And that is why there will be no economic recovery worthy of the name, under the current structure of power in the United States. So, what do you prefer – poverty, or an uprising? Those are the only choices. For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com. BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com. |
Replies
Food safety bill invokes Codex harmonization and grants FDA authority to police food safety of foreign nations
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com (
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/030863_food_safety_bill_Codex_Alimentari...
Section 305 is entitled "BUILDING CAPACITY OF FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS WITH RESPECT TO FOOD SAFETY" and it gives the FDA authority to set up offices in foreign countries and then dictate the food safety plans of foreign governments. It says, specifically, on page 217 of the bill (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-...):
SEC. 308. FOREIGN OFFICES OF THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION.
(a) IN GENERAL. - The Secretary shall establish offices of the Food and Drug Administration in foreign countries selected by the Secretary.
It then goes on to say:
(a) The Secretary shall, not later than 2 years of the date of enactment of this Act, develop a comprehensive plan to expand the technical, scientific, and regulatory food safety capacity of foreign governments, and their respective food industries, from which foods are exported to the United States.
Huh? The FDA is now going to run the food safety programs of foreign governments? Look out, world: I'm from the FDA and I'm here to help!
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/030863_food_safety_bill_Codex_Alimentari...
Homeland Security and U.S. Treasury also involved
So who is involved in creating this? Believe it or not, the global "food safety" plan is to be developed under consultation to the Department of Homeland Security as well as the U.S. Treasury. As the bill states:(b) Consultation - In developing the plan under subsection (a), the Secretary shall consult with the Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the United States Trade Representative, and the Secretary of Commerce, representatives of the food industry, appropriate foreign government officials, nongovernmental organizations that represent the interests of consumers, and other stakeholders.
You might reasonably wonder "What does the Department of Homeland Security have to do with the FDA's food safety plan?" Or "Why is the U.S. Treasury involved in the food supply?" Learn more about the Federal Reserve and you'll have the answers to these questions. I don't have space for all the details here, but read Ed Griffin's book and visit http://www.realityzone.com if you really want to know what's behind a lot of this.
Codex harmonization, data sharing and more
So what does this global food safety plan actually entail? It's all spelled out right in the language of the law. You can view this yourself on page 195 of the bill text in the PDF file at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-...(c) Plan - The plan developed under subsection (a) shall include, as appropriate, the following:
• "Provisions for secure electronic data sharing."
This is so that the FDA can electronically track and monitor the food production activities of foreign nations. That way, if somebody in Spain tries to sell raw almonds to the USA, the FDA can make sure those almonds get irradiated or fumigated with chemicals first. Because raw almonds are so dangerous they have actually been outlawed in America (http://www.naturalnews.com/021776.html).
• "Training of foreign governments and food producers on United States requirements for safe food."
This is designed to shove the FDA's "dead food" agenda down the throats of other nations. The FDA, you see, believes that the only safe food is dead food -- that's why, along with the USDA, they have declared war on raw milk, raw almonds and many raw vegetables (http://www.naturalnews.com/023015_f...).
Now, with this law, the FDA will begin pushing its dead foods agenda globally, essentially exporting the FDA's agenda of death and disease by making sure other nations destroy the nutritive qualities of their food supply in the same way the U.S. is doing. It's all great for the global Big Pharma profiteers, of course. The more disease they can spread around the world, the more money they'll make from selling medications.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/030863_food_safety_bill_Codex_Alimentari...
Economic Collapse
20 Shocking New Economic Records That Were Set In 2010
Posted: 13 Jan 2011 09:41 PM PST
So will things improve in 2011? That would be nice, but at this point there are not a whole lot of reasons to be optimistic about the economy. The truth is that we are trapped in a period of long-term economic decline and we are now paying the price for decades of horrible decisions.
Amazingly, many of our politicians and many in the mainstream media have declared that "the recession is over" and that the U.S. economy is steadily improving now.
Well, if anyone tries to tell you that the economy got better in 2010, just show them the statistics below. That should shut them up for a while.
The following are 20 new economic records that were set during 2010...
#1 An all-time record of 2.87 million U.S. households received a foreclosure filing in 2010.
#2 The number of homes that were actually repossessed reached the 1 million mark for the first time ever during 2010.
#3 The price of gold moved above $1400 an ounce for the first time ever during 2010.