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The real Black Friday – happened 80 years ago

Ebullient consumers mask the real peril of stock market madness

by Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com

Black Friday opened with a predictable boom that resounded favorably through the Big Casino on Wall Street. Stocks on the Dow Jones climbed to 22 points to 16,119 soon after opening this morning. Standard & Poor’s index bumped up a modest two points to 1,809 and the Nasdaq jumped 15 points to 4,060.

“Consumers weren’t the only ones shopping on Black Friday. Stocks pushed even higher into record territory, as investors returned from Thanksgiving break for a short, final day of trading in November,” CNN reports.

Despite modest gains on the stock market, the hype that revolves around Black Friday seems to be losing some of its media generated luster. The large retails chains – Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Kohl’s, JCPenney, Kmart and Toys R Us – have downgraded expectations.

“Indeed the latest poll from AC Nielsen’s Holiday Spending Forecast study, which surveys over 22,000 households throughout the US, indicates that 85 percent of consumers plan on skipping the stores on Black Friday this year,” Zerohedge reports. “This is up from 82 percent in 2012, 82 percent in 2011 and 80 percent in 2010 so a negative four-year trend is taking shape. Black Friday shopping seems to be merging with Cyber Monday as well with 51 percent of consumers say they will do their Black Friday shopping online this year. According to the National Retail Federation, the holiday season generally accounts for about 20 percent of the retail industry’s annual sales so all eyes will be on retail sales updates/snippets over the weekend.”

The bullish frame of mind ruling the stock market is little more than voodoo. “We think odds favor some sort of a pullback in the coming weeks and months,”Jonathan Krinsky, chief market technician at MKM Partners, told the Wall Street Journal. For more than a decade, stocks have rallied in late summer only to fall off between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The bump gets harder which each passing year and nobody knows when it will finally bottom out.

The real Black Friday

The real Black Friday happened on a Tuesday, Oct. 29, 1929, when the stock market experienced its largest one day drop in history – a precipitous 22 percent – and heralded in the first Great Depression.

This calamitous event was created by the Federal Reserve. It had inflated the money supply by 61.8 percent between 1921 and 1929 and created a massive inflationary bubble that imploded on that black day in October.

There was also a Black Friday on Sept. 24, 1869, when two gold speculators, Jay Gould and James Fisk, cornered the market on the New York Gold Exchange. The scandal resulted in the Grant administration being called the Era of Good Stealings. It was an early demonstration of how the stock market can be manipulated.

Academics and establishment media talking heads like to say the Great Depression was caused by the excesses of free market capitalism. In fact, it was created by the Federal Reserve and its conniving cartel of banksters.

Debunking the popular myth, Julie Borowski cites the economist Henry Hazlitt who wrote that “worse than the slump itself may be the public delusion that the slump has been caused, not by the previous inflation, but by the inherent defects of ‘capitalism.’” The slump was, in fact, created by the Fed with its notorious whipsaw economic policies of artificial boom and bust.

Another economic catastrophe is now in the works and it looks like it may be set into motion by China. It has called for a “de-Americanized” world where the dollar is no longer the global reserve unit. China is now the largest single holder of U.S. government debt with 26 percent of all foreign-held U.S. Treasury securities, which represents 8 percent of total U.S. government-generated debt.

“Foreign investors in U.S. dollar assets have seen big losses measured in dollars, and still bigger ones measured in their own currency. While unlikely, indeed highly improbable for public sector investors, a sudden rush for the exits cannot be ruled out completely,” warned the bankster elite from their tower in Basel, Switzerland, after the plug was pulled on the economy back in 2008.

When China and other debt holders finally back away from the dollar, “the consequences for the U.S. economy will be absolutely catastrophic and every single American will feel the pain,” writes Michael Snyder. “The standard of living that all of us are enjoying today depends largely upon China. They can bring down the hammer at any moment and they know it.”

For now, crowds of ebullient consumers are reveling at Walmart, a store packed to the rafters with cheap flat screen televisions and other electronics manufactured by China’s labor gulag slaves. The good times continue to limp along on the sputtering tail wind of the greatest economic expansion in history.

That wind will soon stop blowing. When it does we will all experience the greatest single bust in the history of the world.

Jesuit-trained Pope trashes capitalism in call for a worldwide socialism

by Kurt Nimmo

Pope Francis released his first encyclical on Tuesday. In addition to restating opposition by the Catholic Church to abortion, the new Pope criticized free market capitalism and advocated wealth redistribution.

He said “some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.”

So-called “trickle down” is not an economic theory. It is a pejorative term used by socialists and others in favor of wealth distribution to describe laissez-faire capitalism. A product of the Enlightenment, laissez-faire capitalism was “conceived as the way to unleash human potential through the restoration of a natural system, a system unhindered by the restrictions of government,” writes Toufic Gaspard. For political economist Adam Smith and other classical economists, the concept was inextricably connected to natural rights.

Laissez faire recognizes the individual is the central unit of society endowed with a natural right to liberty, including the right to economic activity between consenting individuals so long as this activity does not impede the rights of others. In his book The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith used the metaphor of an “invisible hand” to describe unintended effects of individuals involved in economic organization and self-interest.

Although laissez-faire capitalism flourished in the United States, it was undermined early on by proponents of the American School and Alexander Hamilton, who proposed direct control of the economy by a central bank and tariffs that favored the industrial North over the agricultural South (eventually resulting in the so-called Civil War).

Carl E. Prince and Seth Taylor write that by the early 19th century “it is quite clear that the laissez faire label is an inappropriate one” to describe the increasingly close relationship between large corporations and the United States government. Instead of unhindered free trade, the Whig tradition of economic nationalism reigned as the government regulated and controlled the expansion of national infrastructure, particularly the railroads. The first federal income tax was imposed at this time to pay for the Lincoln’s war against the South. In the period following the war, government diminished laissez-faire capitalism by accelerating a mixed economy and enacted 1various laws, including the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 and the Sherman Anti-trust Act. Socialist doctrines, under the rubric of Keynesian economics, dominated economic policy following the Federal Reserve engineered Great Depression.

Until recently and despite the unrelenting attack on laissez-faire economics the American economy reigned as an undisputed engine of prosperity. The political attacks of Pope Francis and other socialists are the latest effort to undermine free market capitalism and replace it with a socialist system that has demonstrated repeatedly it is incapable of creating the sort of prosperity society requires to prosper.

Natural law and a natural system of liberty is now under concerted attack. Criticism of “the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system,” as Pope Francis defined free trade and the natural law of laissez-faire capitalism, is highly misleading.

In fact, the United States has never enjoyed pure laissez-faire capitalism, but has suffered under varying degrees of crony capitalism, more accurately described as corporatism — or as Benito Mussolini termed it, fascism. In the recent past, the destructiveness of self-serving business and government relationships and state-run monetary policy directed in the shadows by a globalist financial elite were mitigated by the engine of prosperity. However, we have now entered a dangerous period as the global elite and corporations work in concert to erode the fiscal and moral underpinnings of the economy. The country now teeters on the verge of financial and social ruin.

As a tutored Jesuit and Argentine, Pope Francis is a student of the Jesuit Reductions, the Catholic program of the 17th and 18th centuries to Christianize, tax and govern the people of Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and America. In Paraguay under the Jesuits, according to the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, the “economic basis was a sort of communism” ruled over by the caciques, or tribal leaders, at the behest and guidance of the Padres.

“The Jesuits aimed to set up [in Paraguay] a completely communistic system, in the sense that no individual rights were recognized and there was no private property,” writes John Findlater in The Revolutionary Movement: A Diagnosis of World Disorders.

“Everything belonged to the State, and was supposed to be shared in common. But in reality much the greater part of the proceeds of good sold was always remitted to the Camarilla [advisers to the Spanish kings]; and the Guaranis [Indians of Paraguay, northern Argentina, and southern Brazil] got only the bare necessities of life in return for their toil and sweat.”

In modern times, the well-honed process of confiscation and accumulation by the state is far more sophisticated, but the end result is almost identical — in the wake of looting by multinationals and globalist organizations such as the IMF and World Bank, millions of people are locked in poverty while a distinct minority revel in untold riches. Pope Francis and the Catholic Church blame free trade capitalists for this state of affairs, not the state and its system of crony capitalism in the service of a parasitical corporate and transnational elite.

Pope Francis is playing to so-called progressives in America and Europe who believe wealth must be redistributed, in short confiscated from the producers at gunpoint and distributed to politically useful non-producers by government. In reality, the mega-wealthy, the financial elite on Wall Street and the City of London, never pay their “fair share” and are, in fact, the main driving force behind socialist confiscation schemes. Breadcrumbs are handed out to the poor and destitute under a bloated and bureaucratic system while the lion’s share is spirited away under a cover of darkness to a small minority. Infowars.com.

Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera reunited at photo exhibition in France

by the El Reportero’s news services

Diego Rivera y Frida KahloDiego Rivera y Frida Kahlo

The French city of Strasbourg is hosting a photographic exhibition this week titled Complicities. Diego and Frida, which includes 35 images of iconic Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.

The show, organized by the Mexican Foreign Relations Secretariat and the Permanent Office of the Council of Europe, features images from Mexico’s National Anthropology and History Institute and the National Fine Arts and Literature Institute.

The exhibition provides visitors with a window into “the complicities shared by the two artists,” who “were not only lovers, a couple, militants and painters, but were also behind an entire generation of change in modern Mexico,” former Diego Rivera Research Center director Magdalena Zavala said.

Half of the photographs are by unknown authors, while the rest are signed by Agustin V. Casasola, Jose María Lupercio, Hugo Brehme, Tina Modotti, Enrique Díaz, Lucienne Bloch, Ismael Casasola, Louis Riley, Esther Born and Nacho López.

Filming for “Pele” the Movie Starts in Brazil

The Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro provides the set for the filming of “Pele,” a U.S. production in English of the life story of the Brazilian soccer legend, from early childhood to the masterful way he led his team to victory in the 1958 World Cup.

The film, meant not just for Brazil but for the world, will begin with Pele’s infancy and youth, and is being created by a standout team that includes actors Vincent Donofrio, Rodrigo Santoro and Seu Jorge, director Michael Zimbalist told Efe.

“For me Pele is not just a soccer player. He’s a model of behavior,” the film’s producer, Ivan Orlic, said, adding that “his life has inspired so many and now he’ll be back to inspire a new generation.”

The film is being shot, among other settings, in the stadium of the Brazilian soccer club America, where the moviemakers have meticulously reproduced the Swedish stadium where the Brazilian team led by Pele won their country’s first World Cup.

Ancient, magnificent frescoes uncovered in Roman Catacombs

The cubicle that houses frescoes representing the resurrection of Lazarus is one of the latest, most magnificent discoveries to be found in the Roman Catacombs of Priscilla after five years of archaeological exploration.

Lasers have been used to restore these ancient frescoes that increase even more the value of the Catacombs of Priscilla, with their priceless paleochristian works of art that include the first known image of the Holy Mother and Child.

In the frescoes showing the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus, which date back to the 4th century A.D., Jesus is seen dressed in the style of the Roman Empire and touching with a wand the mummy of Lazarus, still lying in his tomb.

The value of the new find lies in the lively colors and almost perfect restoration made possible by the use of lasers, Catacombs of Priscilla superintendent and Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archaeology member Fabrizio Bisconti told Efe.

Archaeological works over the past five years have led to the recovery of more than 700 fragments of sarcophagi, examples of funerary sculpture of the late Roman Empire that bear witness to the interaction between the pagan and Christian worlds and the cultural evolution between the 3rd and 5th centuries, a time when the catacombs began to have a Christian usage.

Starting next month, the launch of a Google Maps program will reveal all these discoveries and allow everyone interested to make a virtual visit to ancient underground Rome.

World of AIDS Day gallery event

Compiled by the El Reportero’s staf

Puro Bandido bandPuro Bandido band

Esperanza will hold a gallery event displaying the masks from the workshops along with other art from local artists. In addition, local merchants will be providing food and drinks for the guests to enjoy. A ceremony to remember the lives lost to the epidemic will conclude the event. Donations are welcome. Masks and other artwork will be available for purchase.

MNHC – Clínica Esperanza – has invited clients, staff and community members who are infected or affected by HIV to participate in crafting masks that express their experiences with HIV and their hopes for health and well-being in the future. Through these workshops, HIV positive and HIV negative participants alike, work hand-in-hand for a common goal: to fight the epidemic and stigma of HIV through art.

On Friday, Dec. 6, 2013, 6 p.m. – 9 p.m., at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission St., San Francisco.

Holiday Party with Puro Bandido, Gunn Slingers, Mingo Lewis’ Room of Voices

The band plays high energy Latin Rock music, and was formed in the Mission District of San Francisco. Puro Bandido was instrumental in the development of Border Rock – crossing all borders; having no boundaries.

Their sound is a combination of old school and new sounds created by a combination of driving percussion, an incomparable rhythm section and vocals to match. The members of this band have written and/or performed with the likes of Carlos Santana, Stevie Wonder, Eddie Money, Randy Jackson, Tommy Castro, Kool & the Gang, Tower of Power and more. Produced by Latin Rock Inc.

Sat, Dec. 7, 2013, at 7 p.m./ Show at 8 p.m. at Club Fox, 2223 Broadway Redwood City. Tickets $13 adv / $15 day of the show, at latinrockinc. net/home/events/2013 or by calling 877-435-9849.

SJJF brings Latin Youth Jazz Ensamble San Jose Jazz, the producer of the San Jose Jazz Summer Fest, presents dozens of concerts in San Jose year-round.

The concerts feature well-known musicians and talented “gems” of San Jose’s music scene playing jazz, Latin jazz, blues, R&B, folk, Americana and related genres. The programs offer a diverse set of genres and venues, but share the quality and sense of discovery for which San Jose Jazz is known.

Mid December, the Latin Youth Jazz Ensemble (Dec 13) and our 2013-14 High School All Stars (Dec 20) are focusing on the Holidays, with Christmas-inspired repertoires.

Enjoy the rest of our December performance schedule below, and visit sanjosejazz.org for the latest information on art ists, venues, and times.

Deadlines approaching for entries to 2014 San Francisco International Film Festival

The San Francisco Film Society is now accepting submissions for the 57th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 24 – May 8, 2014), recognized throughout the world as an extraordinary showcase of cinematic discovery and innovation in one of the country’s most beautiful cities.

Works in all genres, forms and lengths are considered. Tens of thousands in cash prizes. The final deadline for short films is Monday Dec. 2, and the final deadline for features is Monday Dec. 9.

HOW TO ENTER Entry form and information: sffs.org or withoutabox.com.

Boxing

The Sport of Gentlemen

DECEMBER 6 ESPN3.com Chicago, IL

Krzysztof Wlodarczyk vs. Giacobbe Fragomeni (third fight) 12 rounds, for Wlodarczyk’s WBC cruiserweight title

DECEMBER 7 SHOWTIME

Zab Judah vs. Paul Malignaggi 12 rounds, welterweights

Undercard

Erislandy Lara vs. Austin Trout 12 rounds, for Lara’s interim jr middleweight title.

Exile is punishment – a right to counsel for immigrant detainees

Should undocumented immigrants be offered free legal counsel?

by Juan Rocha
Analysis

Exile is the state or a period of forced absence from one’s country or home. One synonym for exile is deportation. Last year the United States government deported more than 400,000 people; though all of them were born outside the United States, many of them arrived as children and knew only life in the United States, while others assimilated and adopted the United States as their own country. One of those 400,000 deportees was a man named Paul.
In 2011, Paul (not his real name) was attending a rock concert with his younger brother in Phoenix, Arizona. During the show, Paul’s brother became embroiled in a shouting match with another man, which escalated to a brawl. Rushing to restrain his brother, security guards obstructed Paul before he could reach him. Though his involvement was on the periphery of the melee, event security nevertheless turned him over to police, who took him into custody, despite never charging him with committing a crime. A few days later, they handed over Paul to immigration officials, who placed him in deportation proceedings. Paul was indigent, but he had no right to court-appointed counsel to help him investigate his immigration case, and prevent his removal from the United States; as a result, he represented himself. Less than six months after the concert fracas, Paul found himself in a foreign country, Mexico, a country he had left when he was a baby.

In the landmark case of Gideon v. Wainright, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that indigent defendants had a right to court-appointed counsel in criminal proceedings. But the Court has declined to hold the same for indigent defendants in deportation proceedings because deportation, according to the Supreme Court, is not punishment, but rather as Justice O’Connor put it: “a purely civil action to determine eligibility to remain in this country, not to punish an unlawful entry . . .” Her reasoning, however, lacks intellectual muscle, because there is no functional difference between a civil and a criminal proceeding, each carries a penalty for violating the law. But whereas the penalty for violating a criminal law can vary (i.e., fine, home confinement, probation), there is no such variation for violating immigration laws; there is only one punishment: banishment.

Undocumented immigrants are detained by ICE.Undocumented immigrants are detained by ICE.

Throughout history people have been banished or exiled to distant lands as a form of punishment. For his political activities, Dante Alighieri was forced into exile by Florentine authorities. Crushed with grief and indignation at his lifetime sentence, Dante’s poetic book, “The Divine Comedy,” reflects his experiences in exile as wandering through hell. Immigrants, who live in the United States almost their entire lives, endure a similar suffering and hardship when they find themselves in a foreign country with no resources, no money, homeless, and unable to speak the native language. Banishment severs all connections to the harmony of home; indeed, many immigrants who are deported and later return to the United States remark that they would rather be incarcerated in the United States than return to foreign soil. Their antiexile sentiments express not only a feeling that deportation is a worse punishment than incarceration, but also their desperation to cling to some semblance of home.

By small degrees, the Supreme Court is beginning to acknowledge that deportation is a penalty. In Padilla v. Kentucky, Justice John Paul Stevens carried out a drive-by verbal assault on Supreme Court precedent when he wrote that “deportation is an integral part—  indeed, sometimes the most important part—of the penalty that may be imposed on noncitizen defendants,” adding that deportation is “intimately related to the criminal process.” Deportation does indeed have a promiscuous relationship with many criminal offenses, and only an attorney can prescribe which criminal offenses make suitable partners and the immigration remedy available to prevent banishment.

In exile, Paul made efforts to incorporate his surroundings and conform to the local customs and mores, but the only thing he had in common with the foreign country was his Spanish surname. The locals referred to him by the derogatory word pocho, an Americanized Mexican who had lost his Mexican identity, mother tongue, and culture. Unable to assimilate and adapt to his new ecosystem, and moved by despair, Paul returned to the United States and, within minutes of planting his foot in America, was caught by U.S. Border Patrol agents and charged with illegally entering the United States. At his sentencing hearing, where he was represented by defense counsel, Paul told the judge that America was “my country.” As tears marched down his cheeks, he pleaded, “I don’t speak the language. I tried to live there but life is different there. I don’t know anyone there.” Before deporting him again, the federal judge sentenced him to seven days’ jail.

In 1947, Justice William O. Douglas wrote, “Deportation can be the equivalent of banishment or exile.” Nonsense! Deportation is banishment or exile – it is a punishment that endures in perpetuity.

To suggest otherwise, is intellectual dishonesty. If Paul had had the assistance of court-appointed counsel at his deportation proceedings, his defense attorney could have investigated his immigration case to determine what forms of relief, if any, were available to him, to avoid deportation; but he wasn’t because the Supreme Court considered his deportation hearing a civil matter. Indeed, not providing court-appointed counsel to indigent defendants in deportation proceedings reveals to the world, as one friend put it, “America without her makeup.”

Juan Rocha is an attorney in Chandler, Arizona. He has written about immigration reform, Arizona politics, and Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski. He can be reached at jrocha.law@gmail.com.

Chinese troops would have boots on the ground in Hawaii

Judi McLeod
Canada Free Press

Aloha Hawaiians! If you see what you think are soldiers from the Communist Peoples Republic of China Army wandering about in your neck of the woods Tuesday through Thursday next week, your imagination is not playing tricks on you.

But don’t worry while Chinese soldiers will have boots on the ground in Hawaii, they are only really “simulating”. For the first time in history the U.S. Army will host the Communist Peoples Republic of China’s Army on American soil Nov. 12-14, 2013.

“Simulating humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to a fictional third country”.

You can’t make this stuff up when GridEx 2 is doing it for you.

GridEx 2 (there was already a GridEx 1in November of 2011) is a massive ‘emergency drill’ planned to take place across the whole of North America with thousands of utility workers, business executives, National Guard officers, FBI antiterrorism experts and officials from government agencies, in the United States, Canada and Mexico (who) are preparing for an emergency drill in November that will simulate physical attacks and cyberattacks that could take down large sections of the power grid. (New York Times, Aug. 16, 2013).

“Fears about the possible detonation of a nuclear warhead in the skies about the United

States, for the purposes of creating an electromagnetic pulse aimed at sizzling electronics on the ground, have led a number of public figures to call for significant steps to strengthen the power grid. Ex-CIA head R. James Woolsey is planning a campaign to convince state governments to pass laws requiring utilities to harden their electronics against potential EMP attacks. The exercise is touted as a unified move “to test the resiliency of the U.S. power grid to withstand major damage causes by a natural disaster or deliberate attack”.

“A key objective of GridEx 2 is to learn how governments would handle a loss of electrical power that is large enough to drastically affect the delivery of common and essential goods and services.” (NYT)

Hoping that the U.S., Canada or Mexico aren’t GridEx 2’s “fictional third country” and that the soldiers out on reconnaissance in Blue Hawaii don’t stamp ‘Made in China’ on it.

The New York Times reported on GridEx 2’s massive, Nov. 13-14 drill on August 16, but never mentioned the participation of the Peoples Republic of China’s Army.

China’s Xinhua Agencies kicked in on November 6 reporting that American and Chinese soldiers will train together in the November exercise.

“The US military Pacific Commander, Samuel Locklear, said here Tuesday that a joint humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercise to be held this month helps improve the relationship between the United States and China.” (Xinhua Agencies, Nov. 6, 2013)

”Locklear told a news briefing that the Pacific Command’s Army component commander in Hawaii has been looking forward to the Nov. 12-14 exercises “for some time”, as the Army will host the People’s Liberation Army soldiers of China to train together in a field environment, simulating humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to a fictional third country.

“Summing up his expectations for the joint exercise, Locklear said both militaries can learn something in disaster management and “better prepare tomorrow than yesterday”.

“In relation to our ability to do this with our Chinese counterparts”, he said, “this kind ofexercise gives us a place to start, and get into the rhythm of understanding and trusting each other.”

“The joint exercise was announced during an August visit to Washington by Chinese Minister of National Defense Chang Wanquan, as China and the United States expand their military-to-military relationship and explore cooperation opportunities in non-traditional security areas.”

On August 19, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel escorted China Minister of National Defense Gen. Wanquan during an honor cordon at the Pentagon.
In a same day press conference, Gen. Wanquan said China’s military has never supported any hacker actions, expressing at the joint press conference that the cyber space is a new field and cyberspace security threats have become a world wide problem. “China is one of the major victims of hacker attacks, suffering serious threats from network attacks,” he said.

Meanwhile, let’s hope the last one out of the GridEx 2 simulation exercise turns North America’s lights back on.

China deploys new bomber with long-range land attack missile (Bill Gertz FreeBeacon)

China’s military recently deployed an upgraded strategic bomber that will carry the military’s new long-range land attack cruise missile, capable of attacking Hawaii and Guam, according to a draft congressional report.

The Oct. 8 draft of the forthcoming report of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission also reveals that China has developed a new armed drone nearly identical to U.S. military’s Reaper. The Chinese missile-firing drone likely was developed through Chinese cyber espionage against U.S. defense contractors.

In other news:

The United States has more people in jail than high school teachers and engineers

by Michael Krieger
Liberty Blitzkrieg blog

America has become a gigantic gulag over the past few decades and most of its citizens don’t know, or just don’t care. One of the primary causes of the over incarceration in the U.S. is the absurd, tragic failure that is the “war on drugs”, and indeed nearly half of the folks in prison are there for drug related offenses.

Making matters worse is a rapidly growing private prison system, which adds a profit motive to the equation. Recently, I wrote an extensive rant against the private prison system and provided details on how it works in: A Deep Look into the Shady World of the Private Prison Industry.

Now here are some of the sad facts. There are 1.57 million people in federal and state prison (does not even include county and local jail) according to the Department of Justice. That’s above the nation’s 1.53 million engineers and 1.05 million high school teachers.

More from the Huffington Post:

If sitting in a prison cell was a job, it would be one of the most common jobs in the United States. In 2012, there were some1,570,000 inmates in state and federal prisons in the U.S., according to data from the Justice Department.

By contrast, there were about 1,530,000 engineers in America last year, 815,000 construction workers, and 1 million high school teachers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

There were also 750,000 car technicians.

Yep, you know it. USA! USA!

Obama urging Republicans to pass immigration reform law

by the El Reportero’s wire services

Barack ObamaBarack Obama

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives needs to approve immigration reform by the end of 2013, President Barack Obama said Tuesday before a meeting with business leaders at the White House.

“So this is something that has strong bipartisan support. Keep in mind that my predecessor, George W. Bush, was a strong supporter of this. We have a fascinating cross-section of people – some unlikely bedfellows, some very liberal folks, some very conservative folks – who all believe that now is the time to get this done,” he said.

“There’s no reason why we can’t get this done before the end of the year,” Obama said.

Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, met with top executives of such companies as Lockheed Martin, Marriott, Motorola and McDonalds.

The president noted the economic advantages of going ahead with immigration reform, since it would mean that “businesses are going to have more customers, we’re going to see people who are currently working here, out of the shadows, paying taxes and getting right with the law.”

A bipartisan reform bill was passed last June by the Senate, which has a Democratic majority, and the House of Representatives must now present its plan.

Obama acknowledged that there is currently “some resistance” on the part of Republicans in the lower house, but said it was encouraging that “there are a number of House Republicans who have said, we think this is the right thing to do, as well.”

The president was referring to announcements made last week by two Republican lawmakers, Florida’s Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Jeff Denham of California, who expressed their support for the reform bill presented by House Democrats.

The Senate plan calls for millions of dollars in investments to improve security along the Mexican border and the opening of a path to citizenship for the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants estimated to live in the United States.

Cleaning crew stumbles across secret files of Argentina’s bloody 1976-1983 military junta

A cleaning crew stumbled on dossiers containing all of the secret orders of the 1976-1983 military regime that is blamed for as many as 30,000 deaths, Argentina’s defense minister said Monday. The documents turned up last Thursday at the Condor building in Buenos Aires, which houses air force offices, Agustin Rossi told a press conference.

“We find six original binders of the orders of the military junta, from March 24, 1976, to Dec. 10, 1983,” he said.

Those binders were among a total of 1,500 binders discovered inside strong-boxes and closets.

The trove, which covers the period from the original military coup to the restoration of democracy, is “ordered and classified and even has a subject index,” the defense minister said.

Found along with the binders were three bound volumes of communications from the public to the military, mostly from families trying to track down loved  ones “disappeared” by the junta.The document hoard also includes blacklists containing the names of 331 intellectuals, journalists, artists and others persecuted by the regime for political reasons, Rossi said.

Argentina’s military regime killed as many as 30,000 people and brutalized thousands more.

Thanks to amnesty laws passed in the 1980s, the junta’s crimes went unpunished for decades, but the Argentine Congress voted in 2003 to overturn the amnesties, which paved the way for a raft of prosecutions.

Gen. Rafael Videla, the most prominent figure in the military government, died on May 17 inside the prison where he was serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity.

The 87-year-old former strongman died of a heart attack.

Another Obamacare surprise: Mejor hospitals all across the country not included under new insurance plans

by Jonathan Benson

As if the millions of Americans set to lose their existing health insurance coverage as a result of Obamacare was not bad enough, a recent survey by Watchdog.org has found that many top hospitals across the nation will no longer be accessible to the average person with a new “eligible” plan. In fact, many major hospitals are being excluded from Obamacare coverage altogether, which means that millions of previously covered individuals will have to settle for subpar care at other “in-network” facilities.

Based on the results of the survey, most of the nation’s top hospitals, including renowned facilities like Case Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, will only be accepting insurance from one or two companies included as part of Obamacare. This means that all the other insurance plans offered on the Obamacare exchanges will be ineligible, and many patients will be required to go to other facilities, even if their previous insurance plans were accepted by these same hospitals.

“Americans who sign up for Obamacare will be getting a big surprise if they expect to access premium health care that may have been previously covered under their personal policies,” explains U.S. News & World Report about the report’s findings. “Most of the top hospitals will accept insurance from just one or two companies operating under Obamacare.”

Included in the survey were 18 revered medical centers across the country, as ranked by U.S. News for 2013-2014. Investigators contacted each of these hospitals to inquire about their contracts with insurance companies, how plans would be handled under Obamacare and who would be covered. They found that almost every hospital would not be accepting the vast majority of insurance plans offered under Obamacare, because the carriers are considered “out of network.”

“This doesn’t surprise me,” Gail Wilensky, a Medicare advisor for the second Bush administration and senior fellow for Project HOPE, is quoted as saying to U.S. News. “There has been an incredible amount of focus on the premium cost and subsidy, and precious little focus on what you get for your money.”

Obamacare exchanges fail to explain which hospitals are included as ‘in-network’ Much of the reason for this oversight is due to the fact that public information about which Obamacare insurance carriers will be considered eligible at various hospitals has been scarce.

Some hospitals, it turns out, still do not even know themselves which plans will be accepted, let alone members of the general public having access to this information. In other words, there is major turmoil on the horizon for patients who try to use their ineligible insurance coverage at these hospitals.

“In many cases, consumers are shopping blind when it comes to what doctors and hospitals are included in their Obamacare exchange plans,” says Josh Archambault, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability, a think-tank group. “These patients will be in for a rude awakening once they need care, and get stuck with a big bill for going out-of-network without realizing it.”

However, politicians, government workers, union members and other “insiders” excluded from Obamacare will presumably still have access to these hospitals, which means that they will receive the highest quality care while everyone else suffers on the lower tier. This, of course, was most likely the plan all along with Obamacare — the elite will continue to have access to high-quality healthcare, while everyone else is forced to accept poorquality, rationed “care.”

“It is the insurance companies [that] are excluding [people] from Obamacare plans just to avoid big cost increases and sticker shock on the exchanges,” writes one U.S. News commenter, highlighting how Obamacare is actually eliminating, not improving, public access to highquality health insurance.

“Providers are not opting out; insurance companies are cutting hospitals out, to cut costs.” Natural News.

The “government “shutdown” and the “debt default” Part 2

by Marvin Ramirez

Marvin J. RamirezMarvin Ramirez

(We made a mistake in last week edition. Instead of publishing this second part of the “government “shutdown and the debt default” part 2, we printed another story. We apologize for the inconvenience. Here goes the correct article. Thank you for reading El Reportero).

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: Much of what we read, watch ad hear in the mainstream media about the issues like the shutdown and the debt default, is what the so-called experts, and friends of Wall Street. Their comments are geared to make us believe that everything is OK. The following article, authored by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, brings us the perspective we don’t get from the mainstream media. Due to its length, it will be published in two parts. This is Part 2.

The speculative endgame: the government “shutdown” and “debt default”, a multibillion bonanza for Wall Street

by Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Collapse of the Dollar?

Upward and downward movements of the US dollar in recent years have little do with normal market forces as claimed by the tenets of neoclassical economics.

Both JP Morgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon and Deutsche Bank’s CEO Anshu Jain’s assertions provide a distorted understanding of the functioning of the US dollar market. The speculators want to convince us that the dollar will collapse as part of a normal market mechanism, without acknowledging that the “too big to fail” banks have the ability to trigger a decline in the US dollar which in a sense obviates the functioning of the normal market.

Wall Street has indeed the ability to “short” the greenback with a view to depressing its value. It has also has the ability through derivative trade of pushing the US dollar up. These up and down movements of the greenback are, so to speak, the “cannon feed” of financial warfare. Push the US dollar up and speculate on the upturn, push it down and speculate on the downturn.

It is impossible to assess the future movement of the US dollar by solely focusing on the interplay of “normal market” forces in response to the US public debt crisis.

While an assessment based on “normal market” forces indelibly points to structural weaknesses in the US dollar as a reserve currency, it does not follow that a weakened US dollar will necessarily decline in a Forex market which is routinely subject to speculative manipulation.

Moreover, it is worth noting that the national currencies of several heavily indebted developing countries have increased in value in relation to the US dollar, largely as a result of the manipulation of the foreign exchange markets. Why would the national currencies of countries literally crippled by foreign debt go up against the US dollar?

The Institutional Speculator

JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank America, Citi-Group, Deutsche Bank et al: the strategy of the institutional speculators is to sit on their “inside information” and create uncertainty through heavily biased news reports, which are in turn used by individual stock brokers to advise their individual clients on “secure investments”. And that is how people across America have lost their savings.

It should be emphasized that these major financial actors not only control the media, they also control the debt rating agencies such as Moody’s and Standard and Poor.

According to the mainstay of neoclassical economics, speculative trade reflects the “normal” movement of markets.

An absurd proposition. Since the de facto repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and the adoption of the Financial Services Modernization Act in 1999, market manipulation tends to completely overshadow the “laws of the market”, leading to a highly unstable multi-trillion dollar derivative debt, which inevitably has a bearing on the current impasse on Capitol Hill. This understanding is now acknowledged by sectors of mainstream financial analysis. There is no such thing as “normal market movements”.

The outcome of the government shutdown on financial markets cannot be narrowly predicted by applying conventional macro-economic analysis, which excludes outright the role of market manipulation and derivative trade.

The outcome of the government shutdown on major markets does not hinge upon “normal market forces” and their impacts on prices, interest rates and exchange rates. What has to be addressed is the complex interplay of “normal market forces” with a gamut of sophisticated instruments of market manipulation. The latter consist of an interplay of large scale speculative operations undertaken by the most powerful and corrupt financial institutions, with the intent to distorting “normal” market forces.

It is worth mentioning that immediately following the adoption of the Financial Services Modernization Act in 1999, the US Congress adopted the Commodity Futures Modernization Act CALENDAR from page 4 2000 (CFMA) which essentially “exempted commodity futures trading from regulatory oversight.”

Four major Wall Street financial institutions account for more than 90 percent of the so-called derivative exposure: J.P. Morgan Chase, Citi-Group, Bank America, and Goldman Sachs. These major banks exert a pervasive influence on the conduct of monetary policy, including the debate within the US Congress on the debt ceiling. They are also among the World’s largest speculators.

What is the speculative endgame behind the shutdown and debt default saga?

An aura of uncertainty prevails. People across America are impoverished as a result of the curtailment of “entitlements”, mass protest and civil unrest could erupt. Homeland Security (DHS) is the process of militarizing domestic law enforcement. In a bitter irony, each and all of these economic and social events including political statements and decisions in the US Congress concerning the debt ceiling, the evaluations of the rating agencies, etc. create opportunities for the speculator. Major speculative operations –feeding on inside information and deception– are likely take place routinely over the next few months as the fiscal and debt default crisis unfolds.

What is diabolical in this process is that major banking conglomerates will not hesitate to destabilize stock, commodity and foreign exchange markets if it serves their interests, namely as a means to appropriate speculative gains resulting from a situation of turmoil and economic crisis, with no concern for the social plight of millions of Americans.

One solution –which is unlikely to be adopted unless there is a major power shift in American politics– would be to cancel the derivative debt altogether and freeze all derivative transactions on major markets. This would certainly help to tame the speculative onslaught.

The manipulation through derivative trade of the markets for basic food staples is particularly pernicious because it potentially creates hunger. It has a direct bearing on the livelihood of millions of people.

As we recall, “the price of food and other commodities began rising precipitately [in 2006], … Millions were cast below the poverty line and food riots erupted across the developing world, from Haiti to Mozambique.”

According to Indian economist Dr. Jayati Ghosh: “It is now quite widely acknowledged that financial speculation was the major factor behind the sharp price rise of many primary commodities, including agricultural items over the past year [2011]… Even recent research from the World Bank (Bafis and Haniotis 2010) recognizes the role played by the “financialisation of commodities” in the price surges and declines, and notes that price variability has overwhelmed price trends for important commodities.”

(Quoted in Speculation in Agricultural Commodities: Driving up the Price of Food Worldwide and plunging Millions into Hunger By Edward Miller, October 05, 2011)

The artificial hikes in the price of crude oil, which are also the result of market manipulation, have a pervasive impact on costs of production and transportation Worldwide, which in turn contribute to spearheading thousands of small and medium sized enterprises into bankruptcy.

Big Oil including BP as well Goldman Sachs exert a pervasive impact on the oil and energy markets.

The global economic crisis is a carefully engineered.

The end result of financial warfare is the appropriation of money wealth through speculative trade including the confiscation of savings, the outright appropriation of real economy assets as well as the destabilization of the institutions of the Federal State through the adoption of sweeping austerity measures.

The speculative onslaught led by Wall Street is not only impoverishing the American people, the entire World population is affected.

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal and Editor of the globalresearch.ca website.

He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003) and America’s “War on Terrorism”(2005).

His most recent book is entitled Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War (2011).

He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages.

He can be reached at crgeditor@yahoo.com.

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