Obama 71

Obama en zijn regering zijn gekozen om de blanke middenklasse te redden die onder acht jaar Bush zwaar geleden heeft. Een feit dat de Nederlandse commerciele massamedia nooit serieus geanalyseerd heeft. Omdat de VS economisch niet kan concurreren met de rest van de wereld hoopt de Amerikaanse elite dat nieuwe zogeheten groene technologie de Amerikaanse economie uit het slop zal trekken. Vandaar dat woordvoerders van de elite als Thomas Friedman nu ineens een ecologische evangelie verspreiden. Of het zal lukken is niet duidelijk, maar de koers die men gaat varen is helder.

'Biden To Chair White House Middle Class Task Force

KEVIN FREKING December 21, 2008 12:51 PM EST

WASHINGTON — As vice president, Joe Biden will oversee an Obama administration effort to find ways of building up the ranks of the middle class, that ambiguously defined segment of society most Americans identify with.
The task force will include four Cabinet members as well as other presidential advisers, the Obama transition team announced Sunday.
The goal is to recommend proposals to ensure the middle class is "no longer being left behind," Biden said. The proposals could include executive orders and legislative plans.
"Our charge is to look at existing and future policies across the board and use a yard stick to measure how they are impacting the working and middle-class families," Biden said in a statement released Sunday. "Is the number of these families growing? Are they prospering? President-elect Obama and I know the economic health of working families has eroded, and we intend to turn that around."
Overseeing a task force has become tradition for vice presidents.
Dick Cheney led a task force on energy. Al Gore had the task of reinventing government. George H.W. Bush, while serving as Ronald Reagan's vice president, oversaw a task force charged with reducing government regulation. While all of those efforts resulted in some accomplishments, it's also clear that the issues they confronted were so large and systemic that many could and did question the progress they made.
Biden said the measure of economic success in an Obama administration would be whether the middle class was growing.
The transition team promised the task force's work would be transparent, with annual reports on its findings and recommendations. Also, any submissions from outside groups are to be posted on the Internet. By comparison, Cheney, a former oil man, fought to keep the White House energy task force's deliberations secret.
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Task force members will include the secretaries of labor, health and human services, education, and commerce, as well as the directors of the National Economic Council, the Office of Management and Budget, the Domestic Policy Council and the head of the Council of Economic Advisers.
In an interview broadcast Sunday on ABC's "This Week," Biden took care to define his role as vice president as going beyond a particular task. He said that when he discussed the job with Barack Obama during the campaign, he told Obama he didn't "want to be the guy that goes out and has a specific assignment." Rather, he wanted to have a voice in every matter of importance.'

Lees verder: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/21/biden-to-chair-white-hous_n_152651.html

Het Neoliberale Geloof 301

Obey: U.S. falling into 'massive hole'
By DAVID ROGERS 12/19/08 5:14 AM EST

There is growing alarm and anger among Democrats over the economy Barack Obama will inherit.
As Democrats move closer to taking command in Washington, there is growing alarm and anger in the party over the economy Barack Obama will inherit and the huge cost incurred after months of stalemate between Congress and President Bush over how to respond.
Thursday night, the White House was hoping to announce — possibly as early as Friday — plans to stave off bankruptcies in the auto industry by using available Treasury funds, a decision favored by Democrats. But Congress and President Bush remain at loggerheads over any larger fiscal stimulus package — even after leading economists in both parties have urged action.
Democrats are reduced to speaking of a "jobs salvaging" bill that can only hope to slow the rise in unemployment next year. Discussions have moved past just increasing food stamp and unemployment benefits and also include the possibility of Washington helping workers who lose their jobs to finance COBRA payments needed to keep their family healthcare coverage.
Given the long impasse, speed is a huge priority. The first choice seems to be a single large fiscal-stimulus bill, but it can’t be ruled out that the money could move in tranches if other legislative vehicles become available.
Caught in the middle is House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, who must spearhead the recovery package for Obama next month. He told Politico that the transition has proven to be "a disaster for the country because Bush is sitting around like Hoover did."
"The target keeps changing, it keeps getting worse," the Wisconsin Democrat said of new estimates for what will be needed to jolt the economy.
"These are calamitous events. While I think people know the economy is in trouble, I still don’t think they have a full appreciation of just how close we are to falling in the pit.
"The tragedy is [that] immense damage is going to be done to the country over the next 30 to 40 days before Obama takes office, and government is sitting here in neutral trying to decide if it is going to go forward or backward.
"We should have been able to get together with Bush and pass a major package right now. Every day we don’t makes this problem deeper and deeper," Obey said. "And the deeper it goes, the longer it is likely to last."
"It is a massive, massive hole that we are about to fall into unless we do something dramatic. And the question is whether it will be met by a massive and effective package."'

Lees verder: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16735.html

Jim Sinclair 5

'Re: Chairman's Corner - Sunday, December 21, 2008
Signs Of The Evil Pretenders -- How To Recognize Manipulation
Author: Jim Sinclair
=======================================================================
Dear Friends,
What you have not done, you may well not be able to do after Manipulation of price, a criminal, regulatory (if the regulator cares to regulate) and commercial crime of fraud subject to civil litigation and criminal law is today the major means of what funds consider trading. It is not trading but rather criminal activity with both criminal and civil law remedies. It takes the form today primarily of pool short selling or naked short selling as a civil and criminal conspiracy to defraud.
Manipulation is both on the short as well as long side. It does not matter if the direction is welcome to you, both up and down is the practice of market sociopaths. Now it is most prominent as a pounding pool short selling conspiracy, making offerings not to trade but to scare buyers and late hour or after hour computer trades where you trade with two different names - a camouflaged trading scheme with yourself.
Let's look at a few common sense rules:
1. No one throws money away on purpose. No one sells large blocks of shares at deep discounts off the price of closing on one exchange or another. Usually a computerized trading platform is the single manipulator, trading with himself via the conspiracy of another called "Pool Short Selling" or "Parking."
This can occur when a situation is running hard towards the old high with a big illegal short interest attempting to save itself.
It can also occur when a major interest is a buyer who sells in a most disorderly manner to shake out some weak longs that have followed in the footpath of the buyer buying now in front of the major interest.
This is called "Shaking the Tree."
2. Generally in the commodity world, certainly in gold and silver, the 'Bombastic Bastards" enter the market. These traders enter the market generally with the same intentions as number one, committing the same crimes as number one that are subject to civil, regulatory (if there are any or any willing to enforce them) and criminal remedies.
Equity traders they are somewhat more sophisticated in the sense that these dastardly cowards hide behind the bushes operating from the shadows for what they think is security in their misbehaviour.
First the Bombastic Bastards take their position, such as selling into a rising market that is stretched out. Now enters the BBs hitting all the small bids. As the buyers begin to fade, they offer huge amounts knowing there are no buyers.
As a result the price wilt or vaults to their advantage. The civil, regulatory and criminal event here is to move a price without taking real risk, as there is never any intention of selling the large amount offered. It is proved by same similar patterns over time.
3. The final is dirty tricks. You remember the hatchet job that was done on Royal Gold. You also remember how low it got and how high it went after that. I have always believed that RGLD has an $80 target on it. I believed that then and now.
Let me tell you about another dirty trick.
Say we exaggerated beyond belief the cost of mining for a company trying to color an entire area the same.
Cash costs of mining today is plus or minus the profit or expense of the short of gold derivative taken for that exact project.
International GAAP now demands that the short of product derivative taken must be identified when taken to the project for which it is taken. Then the profit or loss of the short of product derivative must be credited or debited to the appropriate project DIRECTLY.
To falsely define a social or political event as it applies to a company is another manipulative supporting strategy. When a company has a problem with the locals in a country known for its friendly and welcoming behaviours, you can be sure that company did something really bad and deserves it. The key here is EXAGGERATE.
This is common to anti global, anti corporate, pro-socialism organizations and follows the same exact script from one exaggeration to the next exaggeration.
I know, as I was Chairman of Sutton Resources and Kahama Mining when such an alleged event occurred. You can review that by reading the publication, "The Men Who Moil for Gold" found on the net at the site of the University of Toronto publications.
What the paid NGA (Non Governmental Agency) anti globalism organizations do is multiply the number of people and damages, all with a splash of violence for color. Next the manipulator using the NGA gets a paid friend to get the nonexistent or grossly exaggerated story on a wire service or into some publication to benefit the manipulator's position.
This is known as "Dirty Tricks."
Know that the long side manipulator is as much a criminal as is the short side manipulator. To say otherwise is to prostitute my principles.'

Bert Nienhuis

In het Joods Historisch Museum in Amsterdam een mooie tentoonstelling van de fotograaf Bert Nienhuis.

22 december 2008 t/m 5 april 2009

overzichtstentoonstelling

Zie: http://www.jhm.nl/tentoonstellingen.aspx?ID=154

Compliments of the Season

http://www.sea-urchin.net/

Charles Groenhuijsen van de Volkskrant 3

Beste Charles,

Stel dat ik in woord en geschrift mensen een vrijbrief geef om jou en je gezin te terroriseren vanwege beweringen als deze: 'Veel Bush-critici praten maar wat graag over dat verleden. De lobby voor een parlementaire enquête naar Nederlandse steun voor de Irak-oorlog steekt regelmatig de kop op. Zelfs Wouter Bos – de Politicus van het Jaar – begint er weer over. Zo’n onderzoek is vast leerzaam en wellicht zelfs onthullend. Maar zijn er echt geen dringender kwesties ‘hot’ in Den Haag?'

Dat zou je afschuwelijk vinden, nietwaar? Je zou me zelfs bij justitie aangeven vanwege bedreiging of het imnpliciet oproepen tot terreur. En gelijk zou je hebben. Maar nu, Charles, waarom geef jij dan wel in woord en geschrift een vrijbrief aan degenen die de terreur tegen miljoenen mensen mogelijk maakten? Je stelt immers dat de illegale inval in Irak, die heeft geleid tot de dood van vele honderdduizenden Irakese burgers, geen dringende kwestie is, geen 'hot' item! Daarmee geef je impliciet een vrijbrief aan politici die het internationaal recht schonden en terreur lieten bedrijven, zoals onder andere blijkt uit de aantallen doden en Abu Ghraib.

Waarom zou ik geen vrijbrief mogen geven om jou en je gezin te laten bedreigen en jij wel een vrijbrief mogen geven om miljoenen mensen in hun bestaan te bedreigen? Weet je Charles, er is alleen maar het recht dat ons scheidt van de barbarij. Waarom mag van jou dat recht geschonden worden? De consequentie van dat schenden is de barbarij van Auschwitz en Hiroshima. Waarom besef je dat niet? Waarom denk je dat woorden conseqentieloos zijn. Eerst komen de woorden, dan het moorden. Waarom gedraag je je als een soort Schreibtischmorder? Kortom, wat bezielt je? Laat het me weten?

Charles Groenhuijsen van de Volkskrant 2

Beste Charles Groenhuijsen,

Je schrijft dit in de Volkskrant: 'Veel Bush-critici praten maar wat graag over dat verleden. De lobby voor een parlementaire enquête naar Nederlandse steun voor de Irak-oorlog steekt regelmatig de kop op. Zelfs Wouter Bos – de Politicus van het Jaar – begint er weer over. Zo’n onderzoek is vast leerzaam en wellicht zelfs onthullend. Maar zijn er echt geen dringender kwesties ‘hot’ in Den Haag?' Zie: http://extra.volkskrant.nl/opinie/artikel/show/id/2217/

Begrijp ik nu goed dat jij als opiniemaker beweert dat oorlog geen dringende 'hot' kwestie is? Begrijp ik nu goed dat het steunen van de - volgens het internationaal recht - illegale inval in Irak geen dringende kwestie is in een parlementaire democratie? Collega, begrijp ik je nu goed dat de leugens waarmee de naieve premier Balkenende werd bewerkt om zo het democratische Nederland te bewegen mee te doen aan een agressieoorlog geen 'hot' kwestie is? Maar beste Charles, als oorlog en de dood van burgers geen dringende kwestie is, wat is dat dan wel?

Charles, volgens mij ben je ernstig in de war. Je bent kennelijk nooit getuige geweest van een oorlog en de consequenties ervan voor een burgerbevolking. Je bent in een synthetische wereld opgegroeid, afgeschermd van de werkelijkheid, zoals miljarden mensen die elke dag weer beleven. Je leeft in alle rust samen met je gezin in veiligheid en comfort. Dat verwijt ik je niet collega. Maar hou in godsnaaam op met gruwelijke nonsens te verkopen. Je verdient je geld met het verspreiden van misinformatie en onverschilligheid. Hou daar mee op, en wordt volwassen Charles! Het speelkwartiertje is voorbij, de geschiedenis bonst aan de voordeur.

Ik ben net terug uit Leuven waar een select gezelschap academici vergaderde over mensenrechten en tribunalen. We keken onder andere naar een film over de Processen van Neurenberg. In zijn slotwoord verklaarde de Amerikaanse openbare aanklager, Robert H. Jackson, respresentative and Chief of Counsel for the United States of American, dit: 'This trial is part of the great effort to make the peace more secure. It constitutes juridical action of a kind to ensure that those who start a war will pay for it personally.'

De Processen van Neurenberg bepaalden dat een agressie-oorlog niet meer door de mensheid getolereerd zou worden. En dat noem jij nu geen 'hot' item meer. Charles, stop met het spelen van de rol van malloot.