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Ron Paul: How long will the dollar remain the world’s reserve currency?

by Ron Paul

We frequently hear the financial press refer to the U.S. dollar as the “world’s reserve currency,” implying that our dollar will always retain its value in an ever shifting world economy. But this is a dangerous and mistaken assumption.

Since Aug, 15, 1971, when President Nixon closed the gold window and refused to pay out any of our remaining 280 million ounces of gold, the U.S. dollar has operated as a pure fiat currency. This means the dollar became an article of faith in the continued stability and might of the U.S. government.

In essence, we declared our insolvency in 1971. Everyone recognized some other monetary system had to be devised in order to bring stability to the markets.

Amazingly, a new system was devised which allowed the U.S. to operate the printing presses for the world reserve currency with no restraints placed on it– not even a pretense of gold convertibility! Realizing the world was embarking on something new and mind-boggling, elite money managers, with especially strong support from U.S. authorities, struck an agreement with OPEC in the 1970s to price oil in U.S. dollars exclusively for all worldwide transactions. This gave the dollar a special place among world currencies and in essence backed the dollar with oil.

In return, the U.S. promised to protect the various oil-rich kingdoms in the Persian Gulf against threat of invasion or domestic coup. This arrangement helped ignite radical Islamic movements among those who resented our influence in the region. The arrangement also gave the dollar artificial strength, with tremendous financial benefits for the United States. It allowed us to export our monetary inflation by buying oil and other goods at a great discount as the dollar flourished.

In 2003, however, Iran began pricing its oil exports in Euro for Asian and European buyers. The Iranian government also opened an oil bourse in 2008 on the island of Kish in the Persian Gulf for the express purpose of trading oil in Euro and other currencies. In 2009 Iran completely ceased any oil transactions in U.S. dollars. These actions by the second largest OPEC oil producer pose a direct threat to the continued status of our dollar as the world’s reserve currency, a threat which partially explains our ongoing hostility toward Tehran.

While the erosion of our petrodollar agreement with OPEC certainly threatens the dollar’s status in the Middle East, an even larger threat resides in the Far East. Our greatest benefactors for the last twenty years– Asian central banks– have lost their appetite for holding U.S. dollars. China, Japan, and Asia in general have been happy to hold U.S. debt instruments in recent decades, but they will not prop up our spending habits forever. Foreign central banks understand that American leaders do not have the discipline to maintain a stable currency.

­If we act now to replace the fiat system with a stable dollar backed by precious metals or commodities, the dollar can regain its status as the safest store of value among all government currencies. If not, the rest of the world will abandon the dollar as the global reserve currency.

Both Congress and American consumers will then find borrowing a dramatically more expensive proposition. Remember, our entire consumption economy is based on the willingness of foreigners to hold U.S. debt. We face a reordering of the entire world economy if the federal government cannot print, borrow, and spend money at a rate that satisfies its endless appetite for deficit spending.

Government, what is government?

by­ Earl Rudolph

It is disheartening to read the e-mails that I receive from different people. These E-Mails show the frustration of the American People with their governments. They rally against the President, their elected Officials, the school system and every other conceivable convenient entity that they can think of.

The woman School Teacher in Missouri, with her letter to the President is the typical American response to show their frustration with government. But, I ask, what is government? Has anyone really thought about what government is and what it’s all about? How did it come about? Why do we need it? Is it for the benefit of the people who government is supposed to serve? Or is for the people who serve as our supposedly leaders and why do we think of them as our leaders.

Let us look at the basic form of government. It is the Family! They, who are the, they? Generally, we say the typical family consists of the Father, Mother and two children, one male and one female child. This is to include both genders.

Let us now look at the makeup of this “typical American family”, I say typical because that is what we have been taught (conditioned). To put this into government form – the Father is the President, the Mother is the Congress and the children are the citizens of this government.

The father, the President, controls the Family, finances, decision making, living arrangements, etc., and political thinking of the family with impute from the mother as the congress. The children, citizens are told what the family is going to do and how it’s going to be done.

What other organizations have the same general principals? Well, Churches, Corporations, Charities, Schools and of course other government units called Towns, Cities, Counties, States, Police. Etc.

Now, let us ask, what do all these government entities have in common – a leader! A controller! One who dictates to others! Isn’t that where the word Dictator comes from? Aren’t all leaders of government Dictators of the government they lead?

You may say, well, we elect the leaders, it’s out choice. I say what choice? When you have a choice, between a Dictator who will continually keep you in poverty with high and excessive taxes and a Dictator who will continually keep you in poverty with high and excessive taxes, is there any difference when both continue to advocate war. Haven’t we been continually at war since 1950. That war has been going on for almost 62 years. There are people drawing Social Security who have never known what Peace is! Isn’t war really against the people of a country to maintain supremacy over the rest of those people? Isn’t that what is known as a “Criminal Enterprise”, but is called Government?

We now explore the definition of a Criminal Enterprise to what I believe should be used instead Government!

A very good definition of a Criminal can we viewed at Wikipedia, an internet dictionary site. If you View their definition and them replace the word Criminal with the Word government, you will see that they are one and the same, with a few variations.

Now, that we know and understand that Government is the Acceptable “moniker” for what really amounts to is a gang of CRIMINALS! What can we do about it? Most people will say, “You can’t fight City Hall”! You do not have to fight them, use the information they have provided to neutralize their control over you.

But, you have to educate yourself. Never fight the system, use the system for your benefit. The reason Title 18, the criminal statutes of the United States Code has never been enacted (passed) into positive law is because if you were a criminal (Elected Government officials or one of their minions, Lawyers, wouldn’t you want to have a loop hole to squeeze through to evade the label of Traitor for your Treasonous actions.

Quit concentrating on all of Gladiators (sports) in the Coliseums throughout the land! Isn’t that what happened to Rome?

(Earl-Rudolph is constitutional researcher and lecturer).

Smithonian American Art Museum receives two important Rafael Soriano paintings

by the El Reportero’s

Rafael SorianoRafael Soriano

This summer two major paintings by Cuban master Rafael Soriano were given to the Smithsonian American Art Museum for its permanent collection. These two works, Un Lugar Distante (A Distant Place) (1972) and Candor de la Alborada (Candor of Dawn) (1994), represent significant moments in Soriano’s artistic production.

“These important paintings by Rafael Soriano are excellent additions to the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collection,” said Dr. E. Carmen Ramos, curator of Latino art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. “While the museum’s collection includes important works by Cuban American artists—especially those that were educated in the United States like Ana Mendieta and Maria Brito—these Soriano acquisitions allow us to capture the perspective of the first generation of Cuban exiles who arrived as adults with significant careers in Cuba already under their belt.”

A founder and early director of the School of Fine Arts in his native Matanzas, Soriano was a committed member of the communal life of his city. A member of the third Cuban avant-garde, Soriano’s early work in Cuba was a manifestation of geometric abstraction. Throughout the 1950s, he exhibited and was associated with the Pintores Concretos group of artists that introduced geometric and concrete abstraction in Cuba.

Soriano’s art experienced an extraordinary transformation along with his personal life as a Cuban exile. Soriano developed rectilinear, angular compositions endowed with strong, flat colors and forms that gave way to organic ones, and color became simultaneously deep and diaphanous. Soriano transforms abstraction into a visual space where forms express metaphysical and spiritual concerns, not unlike those found in the works of his fellow Americans Mark Rothko and William Baziotes. Un Lugar Distante and Candor de la Alborada are excellent examples of these shifts and resolutions.

Un Lugar Disheretante will be featured in the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s forthcoming exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, opening Oct. 25, 2013.

Contemporary Spanish artist, Maria González, invited to Venice Biennale Architecture 2012

Spanish artist Marisa González is one of the few artists invited to participate in the Venice Biennale Architecture.

The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The famed Venice Film Festival is part of the Biennale as well and the architecture exhibition is held every seven years.

The director and curator of the Biennale is David Chipperfield and the subject is “Common Ground.”

In the Giardini Central Pavilion, one room will be dedicated to Norman Foster’s HSBC Bank building, which was built in Hong Kong in the early eighties and since then has become a center for various social activities taking place in the city. The room comprises a model and original drawings by Norman Foster, Andreas Gursky’s photograph “Hong Kong Bank” and videos by González.

That building is part of the work of González’s photograph and video project “Female Open Space Invaders” and “Ellas Flipinas”.

World artists to turn Rio de Janeiro into one large work of art

Next month, six of the world’s most famous artists will begin turning Rio de Janeiro, Brazil into a giant work of art.

In a project named OiR­(Other Ideas for Rio), artists Robert Morris, Brian Eno, Juame Plensa, Andy Goldsworthy, Ryoji Ikeda, and Henrique Oliveira will create various works in their own individual styles.

The art installations will turn Rio into one big art gallery.

OiR curator Marcello Dantas recently told The Rio Times, ‘The challenge of contemporary art is to increase your audience. And how to do this? Bringing great works to public spaces.’ (Hispanically Speaking News contributed to this report).

Boxing

Sept. 8 At SC Olimpiyski Arena, Moscow

Vitali Klitschko vs. Manuel Carr, 12, for Klitschko’s WBC heavyweight title.

At Oakland, Cal­if. (HBO)

Andre Ward vs. Chad Dawson, 12, for Ward’s WBC-WBA Super World super middleweight titles;

Antonio DeMarco vs. John Molina, 12, for DeMarco’s WBC lightweight title.

At TBA (SHO)

Randall Bailey vs. Devon Alexander, 12, for Bailey’s IBF welterweight title.

Sept. 15 At Thomas & Mack Center, Las Vegas (PPV)

Sergio Martínez vs. Julio César Chévez Jr., 12, for Chavez’s WBC middleweight title.

At MGM Grand, Las Vegas (SHO)

Canelo Álvarez, vs. Josesito López, 12, for Alvarez’s WBC super welterweight title;

Jhonny González vs. Daniel Ponce De León, 12, for González’s WBC featherweight title;

Marcos Maidana vs. Jesús Soto Karass, 12, junior middleweights.

Sept. 29 At Mashantucket, Conn. (HBO)

Edwin Rodriguez vs. Jason Escalera, 10, super middleweights.

The story of Javier Mondar-Flores – a Mixtec farmworker

­

por David Bacon

New America Media

Indigenous Oaxacan strawberry workers take the boxes they’ve picked to the checker, who checks the quality of the berries,: weighs them, and punches the ticket that keeps a record of their work and how much they’ll be paid. (PHOTO BY DAVID BACON)Indigenous Oaxacan strawberry workers take the boxes they’ve picked to the checker, who checks the quality of the berries, weighs them, and punches the ticket that keeps a record of their work and how much they’ll be paid.­ (PHOTO BY DAVID BACON)

Three bills now making their way through Sacramento promise to dramatically improve conditions for California farmworkers, including one that requires overtime pay for shifts above eight hours. The overtime benefits bill is currently awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature.

SANTA MARIA, CA — Growing up in a farmworking family — well, it’s everything I ever knew. Whenever I got out of school, it was straight to the fields to get a little bit of money and help the family out. That’s pretty much the only job I ever knew. In general we would work on the weekends and in the summers. When I was younger it would be right after school, and then during vacations.

My sister Teresa slept in the living room and one night when I was doing my homework at the table, I could hear her crying because she had so much pain in her hands. My mother and my other sister complained about how much their backs hurt. My brother talked about his back pain as well. It’s pretty sad. I always hear my family talk about how much they’re in pain and how’s it’s impossible for me to help them. I always moved. In my high school years, I moved six times. In junior high I moved three times and in elementary school I’m not sure. I went to six different elementary schools.

For a while we went to Washington to work, but aside from that it’s always been in Santa Maria. We’d move because the lease ended and we couldn’t afford the rent, so we tried to look for a cheaper place. We always lived with other families. The first time I can remember we lived with four other families. The second house we lived with five families.

Each family gets their own room and does their own cooking. They get their own space in the kitchen cabinets and the refrigerator. When they cook in the morning before work it gets pretty chaotic in there.

The first time I worked in the fields was when I was seven, in Washington, where I picked cucumbers. It was summer. We didn’t go to school in Washington [but] the foremen never said anything because my brother knew them. He worked in the crew, so the foremen were OK with it. There were other kids there as well. It wasn’t a huge company, just a small rancher.

When they paid by the hour we couldn’t work. If [workers] were paid by the hour and they were slow, the foreman would send them home and not let them work anymore. They would only let kids work if they were doing piece rate. We were actually really slow because we were only in third or fourth grade.

The first [paycheck I received] was for $40. I was crying because I counted my boxes that day and I knew how much I had earned that week. When the foreman gave me my pay he said I hadn’t worked  [more than that]. I was in fourth grade. I was crying because I had worked and really wanted my money. I wanted to buy something with it. Finally he paid me my money in a white envelope. I was pretty happy.

When we got older, we did get more money. We got to earn our own money because before then my mother would take everything we earned. As we got older we had more interest in money, so we would keep half of it. We were getting our own pay, and my older siblings would ask us to give half.

The biggest problem was working in the vineyards. I worked for three months in the summer and it was the hardest work I’ve ever done. They gave us clippers to clip the vines, and that’s what you did all day. Clip them and pull the grapes off. When I got home my hands hurt so much I couldn’t make a fist or hold a cup or anything. I would just lie down since the pain just stayed. In the morning there was nothing else I could do, just go out there and work again.

In the weekends in elementary school it was pretty easy working on the weekends and going to school during the week. They didn’t give us much work and school came pretty easy. II would like to think that I am a good student. I took predominately AP and Honors ­classes, and got good grades — mostly A’s and B’s. I never got any C’s.

When I worked in the tomatoes recently, [some workers] stole four boxes from me. I told my family to report it to the Labor Department, [but] to them it’s inevitable. They think we should just put up with it and be grateful that we have a job. [They] also fear losing their job if they make a complaint. That’s pretty much how it is. They would make fun of my dad because he would complain a lot. They’d say, “That’s why your dad is like that and never gets jobs.”

I’m proud of what my mom and older siblings did in order to get the family here and survive. That was my motivation for choosing only AP classes. My sister didn’t get an education. None of my older sisters could go to school. I really want fairness and equality in schools. I want the discrimination against indigenous kids to stop in elementary schools. That’s where it starts. They affiliate themselves with gangs, to get it to stop. That’s the only reason.

I didn’t want to learn Spanish, because I didn’t want to lose my Mixteco language. I try to keep in touch with my indigenous roots. Whenever I cut my hair I always bury it. I asked my mother why we did that, and she says it’s because you fertilize the earth.

When it rains, I get a bowl and fill it with rainwater and drink it. I would talk with her as our bowls filled up. When I visit my dad I ask him to tell me folktales. When I have a dream I ask him to tell me what it means. I want to write down my language before it gets lost. So many students are choosing to not speak it and many parents don’t want to teach their kids. I want to teach my kids.

 

Creative ways to get kids to eat heathier

by PF Louis
Natural News

Getting kids to eat healthier is a challenge with all those TV ads promoting junk food for kids. As they grow old enough to mingle with their peers, they’re exposed to other kids who eat junk food in daycare, kindergarten, or first and second grades.

Setting a strong example is the basis for starting your children on a healthy diet path. If you’re eating chips and donuts or cookies while drinking sodas, that’s what your children will demand.

If you let them watch too many TV kiddie shows, they’re getting programmed for demanding you buy those silly drink mixes and bad cereals.

Average supermarkets are invitations to disaster. All those boxes of cereals and cookies advertised on TV children’s shows are displayed prominently to get your child’s programmed attention. They may demand you buy some and feel rejected if you don’t. It’s a good idea to take them with you while buying bulk items and produce at a good health food store. This sets a foundation for working things out at home with a few simple tricks.

Creative suggestions from foodie experts One thing all the experts seem to agree on is the family eating the same food together.

Common sense, flavorful cooking and mixing in veggies with rice or potatoes is encouraged. Be calm and patient but unrelenting.

One discipline to avoid is forcing the child to clear his or her plate. That creates a negative attitude about whatever you’re forcing to be completely consumed.

It also discourages the enough to eat signals a child takes into adulthood. This demands discrimination. You have to determine whether your child has really had enough to eat or is holding out for a dessert, which is another reason why desserts should be off the menu at home.

Eating simple carbohydrate and sugar deserts that digest quickly with slower digesting main meals leads to fermentation, poor digestion, and long-term gastrointestinal tract disorders. It’s a bad mix for young and old.

Don’t use sweets or sodas as a reward. That’s self-defeating. Research was done with young children using brightly colored labels or cards as rewards for eating vegetables. Remember how you thought it was a big deal to a have gold star placed on your early primary school homework?

Acquaint your kids with raw veggies using a salad bar system. Chop up dark greens, tomatoes, broccoli, carrots, and cucumbers.

Offer them as a platter to create their own salad. Avoid those transfatty acid hydrogenated salad oils created to extend shelf life if you want your children to stay healthy. They actually create disease over time. (http://www.naturalnews.com)

Another approach is to add some interesting toppings, tomato or marinara sauce, a light cream sauce, or mushrooms to veggies lightly steamed or stir fried.

It’s okay to have a few sweets around for snacking away from meals occasionally. Try to use the best pastries/cookies from health food store bakeries. Use fresh, organic fruits, apples, bananas, strawberries, plums, grapes, raisins, and whatever else may be available and yummy for healthy snacks. Add a few organic, raw nuts and coconut oil or hot air popped organic popcorn.

Avoid giving your kids pasteurized milk from confined grain-fed cows that have been shot up with antibiotics and growth hormones.

It’s beyond dead food. It’s poison. You may want to try healthy, raw milk if you can get it. You can also buy almond milk or make your own coconut milk. (http://www.elanaspantry.com/diy-coconut-milk/).

The whole family should be using reverse osmosis water if your water system’s fluoridated (­http://www.naturalnews.com/032129_fluoridation_intelligence.html). It’s a good idea to remineralize that purified water with some real sea salt or a liquid trace mineral supplement.

Mexico’s Peña Nieto confirmed president elect, rival defiant

­by the El Reportero’s wire services

Enrique Peña NietoEnrique Peña Nieto

MEXICO CITY: Mexico’s electoral tribunal officially named Enrique Peña Nieto as president-elect on Friday, clearing the way for him to focus on planned economic reforms, but his rival refused to accept defeat and held out the possibility of further protests.

The tribunal threw out an attempt to overturn his win by leftist leader Andres Manuel López Obrador, who had accused Pena Nieto of laundering money and buying votes in the July election. Centrist Pena Nieto, 46, will be sworn in on December 1.

But López Obrador, whose supporters blocked many of Mexico City’s main thoroughfares for weeks after he narrowly lost the 2006 election, rejected the judges’ decision.

“Civil disobedience is an honorable duty when directed against the thieves of the hope and happiness of the people,” López Obrador said.

Central America and South Korea improve bilateral links

The countries of the Central American Integration System (SICA) and the Republic of Korea today review their relations in the 11 th meeting of deputy foreign ministers, to expand and strengthen ties.

Seen as a cooperative dialogue, the meeting will include bilateral meetings with each of the nations and will address matters concerning foreign policy, investment and other economic ties.

Climate change and the environment are also included in the agenda, considering the vulnerability of the region to the natural disasters which places it among the 10 areas with the most problems in the world.

Nicaragua’s ambassador in Japan, Saul Arana, highlighted Central America as an area of opportunity due to its water supply and food production.

Santos takes the plunge and plumps for peace process

Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos has confirmed the rumours that have  been circulating in Bogotá for weeks now. His government will seek a peace accord with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc), and indeed the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) if it wants to join talks. It is a bold move which will either make or break Santos politically. If he pulls it off, Santos will be able to stand for re-election in 2014 with the prospect of coasting to victory. If it turns into anything resembling the Caguán fiasco it will strengthen the opposition coalesced around his predecessor Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010), who has already gone on the attack.

US Marines operating in Guatemalan coasts

Some 200 US soldiers are currently in Guatemalan coasts, supposedly to fight drug trafficking, despite the fact that their country is the world´s main illegal drug consumer, according to the UN.

This is the first deployment of US Marines in the region, said US Marine Staff Sgt. Earnest Barnes, as the Guatemalan government stages today a crusade against drug trafficking in this nation.

A month ago, Guatemala and Washington signed a pact to authorize this operation.

The Guatemalan Executive is on alert against the effects of drug trafficking here, where the seizure of tones of cocaine paste and thousands of units of precursor chemicals indicate that this country is on the path of becoming a main illegal drug producer.

­Nearly 90 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States enters the country through Mexico and Central America, according to a report of 2011 drafted by the International Narcotics Control Board, the 13 members of which are elected by the UN Economic and Social Council.

Rebellion erupts over school’s student chipping plan

Parents protest radio monitoring of their children

by Bob Unruh

A rebellion is developing in Texas against a plan by a school district in San Antonio that would monitor the exact location and activities of all students at all times through RFID chips they are being ordered to wear.

Katie Deolloz, a member of Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering, told WND today that parents and students from San Antonio’s Northside Independent School District confronted the school board last night, stating their concerns about privacy and other issues “clearly and passionately.”

School district officials did not respond to a WND request for comment, but the developing furor comes only days after a coalition of civil rights and privacy organizations publicly stated their opposition to “spychipping” the students.

A “position paper” from groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Big Brother Watch, Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom, Constitutional Alliance, Freedom Force International, Friends of Privacy USA, the Identity Project and Privacy Activism said no students should be subjected to the “chipping” program “unless there is sufficient evidence of its safety and effectiveness.”

“Children should never be used as test subjects for technology, no matter what their socio-economic status. If schools choose to move forward without complete information and are willing to accept the associated liability, they should have provisions in place to adhere to the principles of fair information practices and respect individuals’ rights to opt out based on their conscientious and religious objections,” the statement said.

The paper said RFID tracking is dehumanizing, since it can “monitor how long a student or teacher spends in a bathroom stall.”

The plans also violate free speech and association, since the presence of a tracking device “could dissuade individuals from exercising their rights to freedom of thought, speech and association.

For example, students might avoid seeking counsel when they know their RFID tags will document their presence at locations like counselor and School Resource Officer offices.”

It argued that the technology also violates religious freedom and could be subject to unauthorized use.

“While RFID systems may be developed for use in a school, the RFID tags may be read covertly anywhere by anyone with the right reading device. Since RFID reading devices work by silent, invisible radio waves and the reading devices can be hidden, unauthorized or covert uses can be nearly impossible to detect,” the report said.

“A student’s location could be monitored from a distance by a jealous girlfriend or boyfriend, stalker, or pedophile.”

The San Antonio plan was reported by Spychips, a website run by RFID expert Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre.

“San Antonio’s Northside Independent School District plans to incorporate RFID tags into mandatory student ID cards. One school district in Brazil has incorporated the tracking tags into uniforms. In both cases, the goal is to keep students, teachers and staff under constant surveillance,” the report said.

“RFID is used to track factory inventory and monitor farm animals,” said Albrecht, director of CASPIAN and co-author of “Spychips.” “Schools, of all places, should be teaching children how to participate in a free democratic society, not conditioning them to be tracked like cattle. Districts planning to use RFID should brace themselves for a parent backlash, protests, and lawsuits.”

­According to the San Antonio newspaper, all students in the district’s John Jay High School and Anson Jones Middle School would be subject to chipping.

At that point, Supt. Brian Woods said, “We want to harness the power of (the) technology to make schools safer, know where our students are all the time in a school, and increase revenues. … Parents expect that we always know where their children are, and this technology will help us do that.”

WOAI television reported district spokesman Pasqual Gonzalez said the two schools have a high rate of truancy, and the district could gain $2 million in state funding by improving attendance.

However, student Andea Hernandez, with support from her father, has decided to challenge the district’s plan. The station reported she has decided to wear an older photo ID.

“With a smart phone you can use the option to use your locator, but this, I can’t turn it off,” she said.

Protests have been launched in front of the schools, and local stations are reporting the controversy:

Albrecht said in a statement to supporters the issue now is before the school district, and protesters are awaiting the superintendent’s response.

“We don’t give up or give in,” she said.

DOJ/Wells Fargo settlement bodes well for Latinos

­por Luis Carlos López
Hispanic Link News Service

Now that Wells Fargo has taken steps to protect Hispanic and African-American homebuyers and ceased financing mortgages through independent brokers, things may be looking up for both groups.

The behemoth banking institution agreed July 12 to a $175 million discrimination suit settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice. DOJ investigators found that during the housing boom of the last decade, Wells Fargo’s independent brokers discriminated against Hispanics and blacks.

The settlement offers compensation both to borrowers who were steered into subprime mortgages and who paid higher fees and rates than white borrowers because of their race or national origin. Details as to criteria such as when and how much have yet to be established.

“Wells Fargo will also provide $50 million in direct down payment assistance to borrowers in communities around the country where the department identified large numbers of discrimination victims and who were hard-hit by the housing crisis,” the Justice Department stated.

Responding to inquiries by Hispanic Link News Service following the agreement, DOJ spokesperson confirmed that from 2004 to 2009, nearly half of the 30,000 borrowers who had been charged higher fees were Hispanic.

Approximately 4,000 African-American and Hispanic borrowers who were qualified borrowers were steered to subprime loans. With the settlement, they will receive an average of approximately $15,000, a DOJ official said.

Some 30,000 of those borrowers were also charged higher fees and rates than non-Hispanic white borrowers. They are expected to receive an average of approximately $2,000.

National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals acting director Gary Acosta said these practices happened far too often in Latino communities. He said Wells Fargo’s decision to discontinue contracting with independent mortgage brokers, whom he described as middlemen, on loans and exiting the wholesale business altogether was “a significant development.”

“Most Hispanics are relatively inexperienced in the home buying process,” Acosta, co-founder of NAHREP, a non-profit trade association based in San Diego, He mentioned that for four out of five Hispanic homebuyers, such a purchase is a new experience and many aren’t educated in financial literacy, leaving the door open to predatory lending.

Court documents show that Wells Fargo’s discriminatory practices occurred in 82 geographic markets across at least 36 states and the District of Columbia.

Some 3,500 were in the Washington, D.C.-Arlington-Alexandria metropolitan area with another 1,000 reported in the nearby Baltimore area. In addition, 4,500 victims were from the Los Angeles, 4,100 from Miami, 4,000 from New York, 3,200 from Chicago and 2,100 from San Francisco.

Other United States cities mentioned in the DOJ lawsuit against Wells Fargo include: Atlanta (1,400), Riverside, Calif. (1,300), Houston (1,170) and Philadelphia (1,030).

Now that Wells Fargo has agreed to stop financing such loans, noting that it quit making subprime loans in 2008, Acosta says Hispanics will likely lift the housing market from its current dismal economic performance.

A March 2012 NAHREP report, “State of Hispanic Homeownership,” predicted that Hispanics are expected to account for 40 percent of the estimated 12 million net new households, with people of color comprising 70 percent of total growth in the next decade. “Without this population surge, the economic development of key regions in the U.S. would have been stunted,” the report said.

“We want to let the public know of the Hispanic home buying power,” Alejandro Becerra, NAHREP research director, said when the report was released

In response to the settlement, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage president Mike Heid said the bank would be “settling this matter because we believe it is in the best interest of our team members, customers, communities and investors to avoid a long and costly legal fight and to instead devote our resources to continuing to contribute to the country’s housing recovery.”

­Alfredo Padilla, another Wells Fargo spokesman, told Hispanic Link that the bank would no longer fund mortgages that are originated, priced and sold by independent mortgage brokers through its mortgage wholesale channel.

“Mortgages sold by independent brokers in this manner currently represent five percent of the company’s home mortgage funded volume. Mortgage brokers operate as independent businesses and are not employed by Wells Fargo,” he stressed.

(Luis Carlos López is a contributing columnist with Hispanic Link News Service. Email him at lclopez@gmail.com)

Nicaragua hosts the International Dance Festival

­by the El Reportero’s wire services

Festival Internacional de Danza ContemporáneaFestival Internacional de Danza Contemporánea

MANAGUA, (Prensa Latina) The 18th International Dance Festival starts here today and will run until Aug. 26, with guest dancers from Costa Rica, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

The National Ruben Darío Theater will host the opening, with shows to reach other theatres from the capital and the city of Granada.

The meeting will be dedicated to the Finnish artist Tarja Rinne, for her work to improve dance in Nicaragua, reported the newspaper La Prensa.

The National Salvadoran Company, the Paola Lorenzana (Costa Rica) and Hijos del Otro, will be among other foreign companies to perform.

Workshops on contemporary dance will be taught by Rinne at the National School and at the Nicaraguan Academy.

Nickelodeon Actress Maria Gabriela de Faria To Make Big Screen Debut

This is the time of Venezuelan actress Maria Gabriela de Faria’s life – not only is she nominated for the Kids’ Choice Awards Mexico but she’s out to conquer the world of movies and music.

The 19-year-old De Faria, who plays the evil witch Mia in the popular Nickelodeon teen series Grachi, will play the part of the rebellious daughter of John Leguizamo and Karen Martínez in the Spanish-language film El Paseo 2 that has just finished filming in Colombia.

“I never did movies, and this has been a wonderful chance with two great actors. I’m so excited!” said the Caracas native who began her career at the age of 5 in television commercials and telenovelas like Ser Bonita No Basta (Being Pretty Isn’t Enough) and the children’s series Tukiti, Creci de Una (Tukiti, I Grew From One).

Later Maria Gabriela soared to international fame with the Nickelodeon series Isa TKM and Isa TK+.

“I always loved acting. It’s really interesting work because you have to understand everything about human nature, both in its bright side and its dark side,” she said.

“Right now I’m working on my album, but I can’t say much about it yet in the way of details. I can only say that my disc will be very youthful and very much like me,” said the fan of Pink and Beyonce, to whom she looks for inspiration when it’s time to create.

Mexico establishes new award for literary translation

A new award bearing the name of Spanish-born Mexican author, translator and poet Tomas Segovia (1927-2011) has been created to honor outstanding work in literary translation, Mexican cultural officials said.

The prize recognizes translations that “bring the Hispanic literary tradition to other languages,” National Culture and Arts Council, or Conaculta, president Consuelo Saizar said in a press conference Wednesday in this western Mexican city.

The honor carries a cash prize of $100,000 and is financed by Conaculta in partnership with Fondo de Cultura Economica – Mexico’s leading publishing house – and the Guadalajara International Book Fair, where this year’s award ceremony will take place in November.

In alternating years, the award will honor the work of professionals who translate from Spanish into another language and those who translate from other languages into Spanish, Saizar said.

According to Mexican financial daily El Economista, the first edition of the prize will honor professionals whose target language is Spanish.

This “new and necessary” literary translation prize honors the work of Segovia, who brought universal works such as Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Victor Hugo’s religious epic Dieu (God) to readers of Spanish, Padilla said.

Born in Valencia in 1927, Segovia’s childhood was interrupted by the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War, which forced his family to flee Spain and resettle in Mexico in 1940.

­In addition to translation and text correction, he also dedicated part of his professional life to cinema, radio and cultural promotion in Mexico, where he spent most of his life.

Candidates in the first edition of the Tomas Segovia prize may be nominated by cultural or educational institutions, associations or publishing groups by Oct. 29.

 

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