In Cold War, U.S. Spy Agencies Used 1,000 Nazis

From:  NYT

By ERIC LICHTBLAU OCT. 26, 2014

WASHINGTON — In the decades after World War II, the C.I.A. and other United States agencies employed at least a thousand Nazis as Cold War spies and informants and, as recently as the 1990s, concealed the government’s ties to some still living in America, newly disclosed records and interviews show.

At the height of the Cold War in the 1950s, law enforcement and intelligence leaders like J. Edgar Hoover at the F.B.I. and Allen Dulles at the C.I.A. aggressively recruited onetime Nazis of all ranks as secret, anti-Soviet “assets,” declassified records show. They believed the ex-Nazis’ intelligence value against the Russians outweighed what one official called “moral lapses” in their service to the Third Reich.

The agency hired one former SS officer as a spy in the 1950s, for instance, even after concluding he was probably guilty of “minor war crimes.”  MORE

 

Plaintiffs accuse Exxon of stifling oil spill case

From:  WRAL

AP

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Plaintiffs in an oil spill lawsuit against Exxon Mobil want documents in the case to be public.

The plaintiffs' attorneys say the oil company has declared every single page of 872,000 pages about the maintenance and repair of the Pegasus pipeline confidential. They filed a motion on Monday in U.S. District Court, asking a federal judge to order Exxon Mobil to "show cause why any document produced to date is entitled to confidentiality."

"ExxonMobil is seeking unprecedented judicial censorship of a dangerous and hazardous situation, which not only affects the property owners in this case, but the public at large," the attorneys wrote.  MORE

Does Wanting the Facts Make you Insane? - Explaining the term, 'Conspiracy Theorist'

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster 

Conspiracy theorists, those who look for the facts, ignoring the pressure of jeers, flawed appeals to authority, and intimidation, are the sanest among us. The steady migration of investigative journalists, who turn their backs on more lucrative employment, is only one indication of this. 
 

In a recent article, Scientific Study Reveals Conspiracy Theorists The Most Sane Of All, the author, J. D. Hayes, cites a recent study, published July 2013, by psychologists Michael J. Wood and Karen M. Douglas of the University of Kent in the UK. It was entitled “‘What about Building 7?’ A Social Psychological Study of Online Discussion of 9/11 Conspiracy Theories.”
 

Their conclusion is that, contrary to those mainstream media stereotypes, “conspiracy theorists” appear to be more sane than people who accept official versions of controversial and contested events. 
 

Attempts to demonize our perception on conspiracy theorists erects barriers to protect those whose profits are endangered by the truth. 
 

These techniques for manufacturing opinion were outlined by Edward Bernays, whose book, "Propaganda," asserts those who rule should use the trust accorded them in exactly this way.  
 

Interestingly, Leo Strauss, whose political philosophy is in alignment with Bernays,asserted the same opinion.  Strauss' work was largely adopted by those who call themselves NeoConservatives who are anything but Conservative. 
 

The opinion shared was that those in power are justified to lie, cheat and steal to keep and increase their power. The Kochs use these techniques in business and politically.

The use of the term, "Conspiracy Theory" increased rapidly in the wake of the JFK assassination due to its pejorative use in the MSM. This worked to stifle questions already being raised. 
 

The issue which underlies the article by William Saletan, Conspiracy Theorists Aren’t Really Skeptics attempts to validate intellectual bullying, a logical extension of the philosophies of Bernays and Strauss. You don't get more MSM than the Washington Post.

In the original formulation of American society those in positions of authority were morally and ethically obligated to explain themselves. The facts were to be available to all. Journalists investigated and reported the truth, as they saw it. This changed.

Saletan raised the issue of human psychology but failed to mention a perplexing issue which has long troubled us. This is the presence of those without conscience. For most of the 20^th Century therapists believed these individuals could change, the problem was psychological. Today we know this is a neurological issue. 
 

Advances in neurobiology have brought objective understanding. Now, thousands of criminals have been identified as psychopaths using an fMRI. The scan identified malfunctions in areas of the amygdala, which is now known to be associated with conscience, empathy, and compassion. 
 

According to Dr. Robert Hare, serial murderers and con-men are always psychopaths. But Hare has also noted many who are also psychopathic are not violent and well able to control their impulses to gain far more expansive goals.

These individuals are highly intelligent. At any time there are 20,000 psychopaths with I.Q.s over 180 at large in the United States. 
 

It would be instructive to see test results from fMRI scans done on Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and their cadre. 
 

The cost of psychopathy has been calculated at around 360 billion a year – in the US. This does not include the highly intelligent ones which, clearly cost far more, given the impact of Cheney and company on America. Could the people who so desperately wanted torture as a tool be emotionally normal? 
 

Today, experts believe the explanation for the financial meltdown now ongoing can be explained by the concentration of psychopathic individuals in corporations, finance and government. 
 

The characteristics of the condition include calloused unconcern for others. This accounts for the oil companies which routinely externalize their costs, leaving those harmed by the toxic waste they cause, to struggle and die. 
 

Those without conscience, willing to lie for their own profit, have long been with us. But today they can avoid the troublesome issue of having their actions known and understood. They have learned to spin. 
 

To ensure this continues they must continue manufacturing public opinion about their previous actions. This is why they began using the term, “Conspiracy Theory.” They work vigorously to ensure the facts remain hidden. 
 

Refusing to accept the officially mandated opinion on any subject, be in the JFK assassination or whether or not to give your child pharmaceuticals as treatment for ADHD has been used to  categorize individuals who refuse to accept predigested conclusions as crazy, stupid or paranoid. When this happens, rest assured, some corporation's profits could be impacted. 
 

This is a form of control intended to intimidate and inject fear. It also marginalizes vast numbers of people, keeping them in fear so they can be controlled. 
 

To that end they, I call them Greedvilleins, also use our love of each other, country, loyalty, and trust, to manipulate us into wars which profit them and place us in perpetual debt.

If you limit what is acceptable to hold as opinions and deny people full access to the facts you  destroy the trust basis of our society.  Emotionally normal people are not comfortable when they cannot trust those around them. 
 

These are rational responses to existing conditions. 
 

What is insane is trusting psychopaths. Yet these are now common in finance and government. You can be sure they will routinely act with a sublime lack of conscience, for your freedom, your assets and your very life.  
 

To cope with these conditions many still refuse to think about it, thus avoiding extreme anxiety. Others, for instance those who look for the facts, and are demeaned as “conspiracy theorists.” 
 

The presence of highly intelligent psychopaths among us, who generally avoid being prosecuted, is one of these explanations. 
 

Saladan's article passes today as investigative journalism. It pays well and explains why so many truly honest journalists left to work in the alternative media.

John Fund - Pimping the Vote

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster 

It is ironic that John Fund claims some kind of victory by pointing out a highly marginal way of stealing a few votes via the unusual opportunity of finding unused ballots. In his recent article, James O’Keefe Strikes Again, the back slapping was thick and gleeful.

James O'Keefe, again, scored a media event in these last days before the coming election. This time he was not dressed up in his pimp dudes, but he should have been.  

The election would have to extraordinarily close for this kind of voter fraud to matter. Argument like these are like blaming the national debt on shop lifting by senior citizens. It happens, but it is rare.

The Big Game is being run by the Number Two Man on Fund's own speed dial, Karl Rove. Stealing Elections was essential if the Number One Man on Fund's speed dial in the same period, Dick Cheney, of Halliburton, was to win and so become even richer. The three are linked by common interests as well as a solid and long term friendship. They scratch each other's backs, as the expression goes.

When John beats up a woman, or otherwise misbehaves, they are there for him.

Fund, having made himself a kind of a 'reputation' for pimping the idea of Voter Fraud lays it on thick and cheesy in his article.

The other side, located in Colorado, make themselves look pathetic because a NeoCon had to give them this exciting idea – and these twits golly gosh, gee'd all over James O'Keefe instead of showing him the door.

Franklin’s state director, Meredith Hicks, told O’Keefe that committing voter fraud using unused ballots was perfectly okay. “That’s not even lying or stealing, if someone throws out the ballot. If you want to fill it out you should do it,” she told O’Keefe on tape.

Note: Cheating is always wrong. It destroys trust in the integrity of the entire electoral process and is repulsive in anyone.

That said, can't you see this woman rooting round in people's trash cans looking for those ballots? How would you know when they would appear? Many of these ballots will end up in the trash, but only after election day. “Oh. Never mind, that was yesterday.” Others will be used as grocery lists, book marks, made into paper airplanes and other purposes for which they were not intended. Some will also be used for voting.

Really, it makes you cringe.

There is a magnitude of difference between this level of electoral dishonesty and the Big Game. That is where the real money is and this article is evidence John Fund is still Pimping for the same folks who profited by murdering a million and a half Iraqis, killing off babies doomed by the effects of DU to short and horrible lives, and other war crimes galore. Remember Bush and his administration's excitement over 'rendering' people?

You can't say Fund is not consistent. So are No. One SpeedDial and No. Two SpeedDial.

To get the money you have to win the election and if you are Dick Cheney or George Bush you can't win unless you cheat.

Rove is not into retail, he is all about Whole Selling out America with Ballot Fraud via cool electronics. He has made millions this way. Cheney, No. Two SpeedDial, made billions.

Fund and Friends are all Pimps. They should dress the role.

Scientific Study Reveals Conspiracy Theorists The Most Sane Of All

From:  The Mind Unleashed 

by  J. D. Hayes

If you’re a conspiracy theorist, then you’re crazy, right? That’s been the common belief for years, but recent studies prove that just the opposite is true.

Researchers — psychologists and social scientists, mostly — in the U.S. and United Kingdom say data indicate that, contrary to those mainstream media stereotypes, “conspiracy theorists” appear to be more sane than people who accept official versions of controversial and contested events.

The most recent study was published in July 2013 by psychologists Michael J. Wood and Karen M. Douglas of the University of Kent in the UK. Entitled “‘What about Building 7?’ A Social Psychological Study of Online Discussion of 9/11 Conspiracy Theories,” the study compared “conspiracist,” or pro-conspiracy theory, and “conventionalist,” or anti-conspiracy, comments on news websites.

The researchers noted that they were surprised to find that it is now more conventional to leave so-called conspiracist comments than conventional ones.

“Of the 2174 comments collected, 1459 were coded as conspiracist and 715 as conventionalist,” the researchers wrote.

‘The research showed that people who favored the official account of 9/11 were generally more hostile’

So, among people who comment on news articles, those who discount official government accounts of events like the 9/11 attacks and the assassination of John F. Kennedy outnumber believers by more than two-to-one. That means the pro-conspiracy commenters are those who are now expressing what is considered conventional wisdom, while the anti-conspiracy commenters represent a small, beleaguered minority that is often scoffed at and shunned.

Perhaps becoming frustrated that their alleged mainstream viewpoints are no longer considered as such by the majority, those who are anti-conspiracy commenters often showed anger and disgust in their posts.

“The research… showed that people who favored the official account of 9/11 were generally more hostile when trying to persuade their rivals,” said the study.

Also, it seems that those who do not believe in the conspiracies were not just hostile but fanatically attached to their own conspiracy theories as well. The researchers said that, according to the anti-conspiracy holders, their own theory of 9/11 — one which says 19 Muslims, none of whom could fly commercial airliners with any proficiency, pulled off an amazing surprise attack under the direction of a man on dialysis (Osama bin Laden) who was living in a cave somewhere in Afghanistan — is unwaveringly true.

Meanwhile, “conspiracists,” on the hand, did not have to pretend to have a theory that completely explained the events of 9/11. “For people who think 9/11 was a government conspiracy, the focus is not on promoting a specific rival theory, but in trying to debunk the official account,” the researchers said.

As reported by Veterans Today:

In short, the new study by Wood and Douglas suggests that the negative stereotype of the conspiracy theorist — a hostile fanatic wedded to the truth of his own fringe theory — accurately describes the people who defend the official account of 9/11, not those who dispute it.

A conspiracy theory about a conspiracy theory

The study also found that conspiracy believers discuss historical context, like viewing the JFK assassination as a precedent for 9/11, more than the antis. It also found that conspiracy believers do not like to be labeled as such.

These and other findings are contained in a new book, Conspiracy Theory in America, by political scientist Lance deHaven-Smith, which was published last year by the University of Texas Press. He explained why people don’t like to be labeled as “conspiracy theorists.”

“The CIA’s campaign to popularize the term ‘conspiracy theory’ and make conspiracy belief a target of ridicule and hostility must be credited, unfortunately, with being one of the most successful propaganda initiatives of all time,” he said.

He further noted that, essentially, those who use the term as an insult are doing so as the result of a well-documented, undisputed and historically accurate conspiracy by the CIA to cover up the JFK assassination.

Or not.

You be the judge.

Sources:

http://www.veteranstoday.com

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

http://conspiracypsychology.com

Written by J. D. Heyes of www.naturalnews.com

As Casualties Mount, Scientists Say Global Warming Has Been "Hugely Underestimated"

From:  Truth Out 

Monday, 20 October 2014 11:07  

By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Report 

(Image: High altitude, air pollution via Shutterstock) 

As we look across the globe this month, the signs of a continued escalation of the impacts of runaway anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) continue to increase, alongside a drumbeat of fresh scientific studies confirming their connection to the ongoing human geo-engineering project of emitting carbon dioxide at ever-increasing rates into the atmosphere.

A major study recently published in New Scientist found that "scientists may have hugely underestimated the extent of global warming because temperature readings from southern hemisphere seas were inaccurate," and said that ACD is "worse than we thought" because it is happening "faster than we realized."

As has become predictable now, as evidence of increasing ACD continues to mount, denial and corporate exploitation are accelerating right along with it.  MOVE

Former House JFK Murder Prober Alleges CIA ‘Lied,’ Seeks Hidden Records

From:  Justice Integrity Project 

by Andrew Kreig

Did the CIA try to thwart the nation’s last investigation of President Kennedy’s assassination?

G. Robert Blakey

“The CIA not only lied, it actively subverted the investigation,” says G. Robert Blakey, the former general counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), which issued its report in 1979.

“It is time that either Congress or the Justice Department conducts a real investigation of the CIA,” Blakey continued. “Indeed, in my opinion, it is long past time.”

Blakey, shown at left, urged the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to comply promptly with a federal law unanimously passed by congress in 1992 requiring release of JFK records.

But the Archives refuses to release the documents until 2017 without CIA or presidential approval. The CIA has said it lacks resources to process the documents earlier to protect national security. But at what point does refusal to cooperate with a murder investigation signify a broken system?

George Joannides

As part of our ongoing Justice Integrity Project Readers Guide to the JFK murder, today’s column examines Blakey’s complaint, the most recent example of the intelligence community's ongoing resistance to congressional oversight. Future columns will deal with related issues that include potential motives for CIA secrecy. More generally, the Kennedy murder has prompted more than two thousand books in whole or part about it, as summarized in our Readers Guide book catalog, published earlier this week.

For today, the relevant controversy involves the late CIA officer George Joannides, at right, whom Blakey relied upon for advice on location of CIA records and personnel relevant to the HSCA’s reexamination of the Warren Commission report.

Blakey announced his views Sept. 26, 2014 at a three-day conference in Bethesda, MD organized by the non-profit Assassination Archive and Research Center (AARC).

The AARC conference title was “The Warren Report and the JFK Assassination: Five Decades of Significant Disclosures,” recognizing the 50th anniversary of the assassination report of the commission led by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren.

The seven-member commission included former CIA Director Allen Dulles among its membership of high-ranking federal officials and former officials. The commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald, 24, acted alone in killing Kennedy with three shots from behind.

Critics have long attacked the report as a whitewash. Some critics cite medical and other scientific evidence to show that it was impossible for Oswald to have accomplished the crime alone, especially if Kennedy's fatal shot was from the front. Others argue the commission intentionally covered up the truth.

12 Charts That Show The Permanent Damage That Has Been Done To The U.S. Economy

From:  The Economic Collapse

By Michael Snyder, on October 13th, 2014  

Most people that discuss the "economic collapse" focus on what is coming in the future.  And without a doubt, we are on the verge of some incredibly hard times.  But what often gets neglected is the immense permanent damage that has been done to the U.S. economy by the long-term economic collapse that we are already experiencing.  In this article I am going to share with you 12 economic charts that show that we are in much, much worse shape than we were five or ten years ago.  The long-term problems that are eating away at the foundations of our economy like cancer have not been fixed.  In fact, many of them continue to get even worse year after year.  But because unprecedented levels of government debt and reckless money printing by the Federal Reserve have bought us a very short window of relative stability, most Americans don't seem too concerned about our long-term problems.  They seem to have faith that our "leaders" will be able to find a way to muddle through whatever challenges are ahead.  Hopefully this article will be a wake up call.  The last major wave of the economic collapse did a colossal amount of damage to our economic foundations, and now the next major wave of the economic collapse is rapidly approaching.

#1 Employment

The mainstream media is constantly telling us about the "employment recovery" that is happening in the United States, but the truth is that it is just an illusion.  As the chart below demonstrates, just prior to the last recession about 63 percent of all working age Americans had a job.  During the last wave of the economic collapse, that number dropped to below 59 percent and stayed there for a very long time.  In the past few months we have finally seen the employment-population ratio tick back up to 59 percent, but we are still far, far below where we used to be.  To call the tiny little bump at the end of this chart a "recovery" is really an insult to our intelligence...

#2 The Labor Force Participation Rate

The percentage of Americans that are either employed or currently looking for a job started to fall during the last recession and it has not stopped falling since then.  The labor force participation rate has now fallen to a 36 year low, and this is a sign of a very, very sick economy...

MORE

Building an Ark: How to Protect Public Revenues from the Next Meltdown

From:  Global Research 

By Ellen Brown

Global Research, October 13, 2014

 

Concerns are growing that we are heading for another banking crisis, one that could be far worse than in 2008.  But this time, there will be no government bailouts. Instead, per the Dodd-Frank Act, bankrupt banks will be confiscating (or “bailing in”) their customers’ deposits.

That includes local government deposits. The fact that public funds are secured with collateral may not protect them, as explained earlier here. Derivative claims now get paid first in a bank bankruptcy; and derivative losses could be huge, wiping out the collateral for other claims.

In a September 24^th article titled “5 U.S. Banks Each Have More Than 40 Trillion Dollars In Exposure To Derivatives, Michael Snyder warns:

Trading in derivatives is basically just a form of legalized gambling, and the “too big to fail” banks have transformed Wall Street into the largest casino in the history of the planet. When this derivatives bubble bursts (and as surely as I am writing this it will), the pain that it will cause the global economy will be greater than words can describe.

The too-big-to-fail banks have collectively grown 37% larger since 2008. Five banks now account for 42% of all US loans, and six banks control 67% of all banking assets.

Besides their reckless derivatives gambling, these monster-sized banks have earned our distrust by being caught in a litany of frauds. In an article in Forbes titled “Big Banks and Derivatives: Why Another Financial Crisis Is Inevitable,” Steve Denning lists rigging municipal bond interest rates, LIBOR price-fixing, foreclosure abuses, money laundering, tax evasion, and misleading clients with worthless securities.

Particularly harmful to local governments have been interest rate swaps misrepresented as protecting government agencies from higher rates.

Yet as Michael Snyder observes:

At this point our economic system is so completely dependent on these banks that there is no way that it can function without them. . . . We are steamrolling toward the greatest financial disaster in world history, and nobody is doing much of anything to stop it.

Sidestepping the Steamroller

California Governor Jerry Brown sees it coming. Rather than rebuilding the state’s crumbling infrastructure, rehiring teachers and other public employees, and taking other steps to restore the Golden State to its former prosperity, he has proposed a constitutional amendment requiring all excess state revenues to go into a rainy day fund to prepare for the next crisis.

But there is a better way forward.

In North Dakota – the only state to post a budget surplus every year since 2001 – the state owns its own bank. When the state last went over-budget in 2001 due to the Dot.com crisis, it merely issued itself an extra dividend through the Bank of North Dakota – the only state-owned depository bank in the country – and the next year it was back on track.

Other local governments would do well to follow suit, not just for the promising profit potential, but as protection against a “bail in” of public deposits.

Forming their own banks can also protect local governments from a looming and  unaffordable rise in municipal bond interest rates. State treasurers fear that the Fed’s September 2014 exclusion of municipal bonds from the category of “high quality liquid assets” that big banks must hold will drive up bond rates, as it shrinks the market for those bonds and drives up the interest required to attract buyers.

There is also the big money local governments lose to Wall Street just in fees. A 2013 study found that the city of Los Angeles spends over $200 million annually on big bank fees and management – more than its budget to maintain its extensive streets and highways.

In a recent press conference, Mayor Javier Gonzalez of Santa Fe raised provocative questions facing all elected officials today. He said:

Right now our bank is Wells Fargo.  They serve the City according to our contract.  But they also take city revenues, taxpayer dollars, and they use those taxpayer dollars as part of their loan portfolio that goes to places outside of Santa Fe and certainly outside of New Mexico.  And when you think of that most basic concept of taxpayer money being used to earn revenues for national banks that have reduced their small business lending by 53%, you have to pause and wonder – is this the best structure for our community?

Addressing these concerns, Mayor Gonzalez has launched a formal process to study the feasibility of a city-owned bank of Santa Fe. Public banking efforts are also underway in other cities and states.

How to Start a Bank Overnight

Forming a state or municipal public bank need not be slow or expensive. An online bank could be run out of the Treasurer’s office and operational in a few months. And the bank could be turning a profit immediately – without spending the local government’s own revenues.

How? The way Wall Street does it with our public deposits and investments: by leveraging. We could reclaim those funds and put them to work for our local economies.

The bank could be capitalized with a bond issue (borrowing from the public), and this capital could be leveraged into a loan portfolio that is about eight times the capital base. The bond issue could be financed with 1/8^th of the interest accruing from this portfolio. The remaining 7/8^th could be pocketed as profit.

This profit could be earned immediately and without risk, by buying municipal bonds rather than issuing loans. That move could also help municipalities, by guaranteeing that their bond rates remain low in the face of threatened interest rate rises on the private market.

How to Start a Bank at Virtually No Cost or Risk

To demonstrate the safety and viability of the model, the bank can start small and build from there. For startup capital, a new bank needs anywhere from a few million to $20 million nationwide. (The amount varies from state to state.) To be cautious and conservative, however, let’s say $40 million.

Many cities have this money available in “rainy day” or reserve funds. Many others have substantial investments, often under performing, that could be more responsibly invested as an equity position in a bank. In California, for example, a whopping $55 billion is languishing in the Treasurer’s Pooled Money Investment Account, earning a mere 0.23% interest.

Moving a portion of those funds into the state’s own bank would just be good portfolio management. State pension funds are another investment option.

If surplus funds are not available, capital can be raised with a bond issue. (That is how the Bank of North Dakota got its start in 1919.) Assume the interest due on these bonds is 3%. The local government’s cost of funds will be $1.2 million annually.

At a 10% capital requirement, $40 million is sufficient to capitalize $400 million in loans. But again assume the bank is started conservatively at a 20% capitalization, for a loan portfolio of $200 million.

To make those loans, the bank will need deposits. These can be acquired without advertising or other costs, by moving $200 million out of the local government’s existing deposit account at JPMorgan Chase or another Wall Street bank. (In North Dakota, all of the state’s revenues are deposited by law in its state-owned bank.) Assume the new bank pays 0.3% interest on these deposits, or $0.6 million annually as its cost of funds.

To satisfy the 10% reserve requirement for deposits (something different from the capital requirement), $20 million of this deposit pool would be held in reserve. The remaining $180 million are counted as “excess reserves,” which can be used to make an equivalent sum in loans or bond purchases.

Assume the excess reserves are used to buy local municipal bonds paying 3% annually. The return to the bank will be $5.4 million less $0.6 million in interest on the deposits, for a total of  $4.8 million annually.

To recoup the cost of the bond issue, $1.2 million can be paid from these profits as a dividend to the local government. The bank will then have a net profit of $3.6 million annually; and this profit will have accrued to the local government as the bank’s owner, without needing to advance any money from its own budget.

What if the state needs its deposits for its budget?

That is the beauty of being a bank rather than a revolving fund: banks do not actually lend their deposits, as the Bank of England recently acknowledged. Rather, they createdeposits when they make loans. If the state or local government needs more cash for its operating expenses than the bank has kept in reserve, the bank can do what all banks do: it can borrow. And if it has grown to be a large bank, it can borrow quickly and cheaply – from other banks through the Fed funds market at 0.25%, or from the money market at 0.15%.

A smaller public bank might want to keep a larger cushion of deposits in reserve for liquidity purposes. If it keeps 30% in reserve, in the above example $140 million would be left to invest in bonds, generating $4.2 million annually in interest. Deducting $1.8 million as the cost of servicing deposits and capital, the bank would still generate $2.4 million in profit, while providing a safe place to park public revenues.

What of the bank’s operating costs? These can be kept quite low. The Bank of North Dakota operates without branches, tellers, ATMs, retail services, mega-salaries or mega-bonuses. All those saved costs fall to the bank’s bottom line.

Ballpark operating expenses for a small but growing public bank with a President, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Lending Officer, Chief Credit Risk Management Officer, Compliance Officer, and the systems required to support a banking function are estimated at under $1 million per year. A start-up focused on municipal bonds could be operated for even less. This expense could come out of the initial $40 million in capitalization, again without impairing the local government’s own operating budget.

Manifesting the Bank’s Full Potential

Once a charter has been obtained and sound banking practices have been demonstrated, the capital ratio can be dropped toward 10%. When the bank has built up a sufficient capital cushion, it can begin to work with community banks and other financial institutions for the broad range of commercial lending that creates jobs and prosperity and generates profits as non-tax revenue for the municipality, following the Bank of North Dakota model.

The public bank can also invest in infrastructure loans to the state or local government itself. Interest now composes about half of capital outlays for public projects. Since the local government will own the bank, it will get this interest back, cutting infrastructure costs in half.

These are just a few of the possibilities for a publicly-owned bank, which can provide security from risk while generating a far greater return on the local government’s money than it is getting now on its Wall Street deposit accounts. As we peer into the jaws of another economic meltdown, moving our public funds into our own banks is an investment we can hardly afford not to make.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books, including the best-selling Web of Debt. In The Public Bank Solution, her latest book, she explores successful public banking models historically and globally. Her 200+ blog articles are at EllenBrown.com.

 

"Crush the Seed of Ishmael": A "Final Solution" to the "Muslim Problem"

From:  lewrockwell.com 

by Will Grigg

We have reached a point in our nation’s descent into psychotic tribalist fear where people of stature and apparent sobriety unabashedly use the expression “final solution” when discussing the existence of Muslims.

For ISIS “and those similarly motivated,” insists retired Marine Lt. Col. James G. Zumwalt in an essay published by Family Security Matters, “a rational world should recognize but one `final solution’ exists – their extinction.”

 

For Zumwalt. “those similarly motivated” is an expansive category, which includes not only “al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban, the mullahs of Iran, Somalia’s Shababb, [and the] Khorasan group,” but also their Muslim victims. On the basis of murkily sourced atrocity accounts and propaganda videos of dubious provenance, Zumwalt concludes that the victims of ISIS exhibit a “Muslim death wish” by supposedly allowing themselves to be killed without seeking “to overpower their captors.”

“The message to take from Muslim victims unwilling to save themselves to pursue their promised afterlife should be clear: their murderers will never be convinced to stop killing,” asserts Zumwalt. An unspoken but undeniable corollary of his view is that wholesale annihilation of Muslim populations is strategically necessary and morally justifiable, because Muslim victims of terrorism are infected with the same “ideology” as their captors.

Zumwalt is a prominent a mouthpiece for the Military-Industrial Complex, and it’s not surprising that his views are echoed by other members of the Pentagon-aligned Commentariat. For example, Retired Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer claims that Syrians under siege by ISIS have pleaded, “Please bomb us! We’d rather be bombed and dead, than raped by ISIS.”  MORE

FBI Director Suggests New Apple iPhone Places People beyond the Law

From:  Freedom Outpost 

by Suzanne Hamner

FBI Director James Comey can't seem to figure out on which side of the fence he resides; or, can he? A few days ago, in an interview on CBS's "60 Minutes," Comey stated that American citizens who went to fight jihad alongside ISIS members were "entitled" to return to the United States. He indicated the FBI would be "tracking" these individuals upon their return but there would be no effort to enforce the law in revoking their passport and citizenship for the choice to join a faction that has declared war against the US. 

In a new "60 Minutes" interview slated to be aired on Sunday, Comey told CBS News' Scott Pelley that Americans should be "deeply skeptical" of government power.
 
Comey stated, "I believe that Americans should be deeply skeptical of government power. You cannot trust people in power. The Founders knew that. That's why they divided power among three branches, to set interest against interest."  MORE

Journalists LIE - Dr Udo Ulfkotte, journalist and author, on RT

From:  YouTube

Journalists are taught to lie.  No surprise,  but nice to have what we know confirmed. 

Canadian town evacuated after train carrying dangerous goods catches fire

From:  The Guardian 

Hazardous materials crews are en route to derailment site in Saskatchewan after petroleum distillate spills from two train cars

A Canadian National Railway Company train that derailed near Clair, Saskatchewan, and was carrying dangerous goods catches fire. Photograph: Wadena News/Reuters

A Canadian National Railway Company freight train carrying dangerous goods has derailed in central Saskatchewan in Canada and has caught fire.

The Saskatchewan government said Tuesday the derailment happened near the small community of Clair, which is being evacuated.

A highway has been closed in the area.

Provincial officials said hazardous materials crews were en route. CN spokesman Jim Feeny said the fire is coming from petroleum distillate, which spilled from two of the derailed cars.
“The cars of concern contain petroleum distillate. They spilled and that is the source of the fire,” Feeny said.

Feeny said the crew is not injured, but said they have reports from the local authorities that some nearby residents in the rural area have been evacuated. He said the train was made up of three locomotives pulling 100 cars and that 26 of them derailed Tuesday morning. He said 60 of the cars were empty and 40 were carrying goods.  MORE