DescentBB

Black explained that an executive order (1) “must stem either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself” and (2) an executive order is on dubious ground if it’s “incompatible with the express or implied will of Congress

I'm not at all sure that Obama has made so much as one exec order that approaches several of Bush's

CUDA wrote:NOT TRUE,
the provision in the law for the Employer mandate said the it "SHALL START" on 1-1-14, the president by executive order changed the date for the laws implementation. it was CLEARLY the intent of congress that that portion should go into affect on that date, he changed a law in which he had no authority to change

Legal Dictionary wrote:To correctly use "shall," confine it to the meaning "has a duty to" and use it to impose a duty on a capable actor

CUDA wrote:because with the wording "shall" in legal terms means Must, as in thou Shall not kill

Legal Dictionary wrote:To correctly use "shall," confine it to the meaning "has a duty to" and use it to impose a duty on a capable actor

so in effect the law states that the President has a duty to enforce the employer mandate on 1-1-14
so with his stroke of the pen he re-wrote the law. which is a violation of the separation of powers and an abuse of the executive privileges.

while I'm not an attorney. I did stay at a holiday inn express last night

callmeslick wrote:

CUDA wrote:because with the wording "shall" in legal terms means Must, as in thou Shall not kill

Legal Dictionary wrote:To correctly use "shall," confine it to the meaning "has a duty to" and use it to impose a duty on a capable actor

so in effect the law states that the President has a duty to enforce the employer mandate on 1-1-14
so with his stroke of the pen he re-wrote the law. which is a violation of the separation of powers and an abuse of the executive privileges.

while I'm not an attorney. I did stay at a holiday inn express last night

you are either missing the point, or dancing around it, my friend. Justice Black, when referring to intent of the law means that to refer to a BROAD SCOPE of what the law addresses, not specific implementation dates. Changing that date did ZERO to change the long-term outcome of the law.

Black explained that an executive order (1) “must stem either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself” and (2) an executive order is on dubious ground if it’s “incompatible with the express or implied will of Congress

CUDA wrote:I would post the video of Russia launching missle attack into the Ukraine from Russian soil, but the would just be western propaganda

sigma wrote:....The question is whether the United States will survive without us. Despite all the attempts of the American press worldwide have clearly formed the view that the U.S. is not a country that can be trusted. Just think about it, while you still have time.

Asymmetric Warfare: MH17 False-Flag Terror and the 'War' on Gaza wrote:
World War Z?

This very week 100 years ago, European 'Great Powers' were frantically cabling each other through diplomatic channels while mobilizing massive armies for war. On people's minds today is fear that another 'Great War' is in the cards, an understandable concern given the parallels between the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the downing of a civilian aircraft, and comparable territorial disputes in the Eurasian Heartland.

Although the assassination is remembered as the catalyst, a European war then was not inevitable. Some European statesmen desperately tried to avoid an escalation of the crisis, while others did everything in their power to ensure that the war came about. What tipped the balance in the end was greater political will to hystericize and then capitalize upon this particular high-profile assassination (of which there had been quite a few in preceding years). The deciding factors were more complex, geopolitical in nature, and were discussed largely outside of public discourse.

While there are similarities between then and now, there are differences too. In the financial pages of yesterday's Guardian I read this passage on 'the markets' take on the likelihood of a "full-scale economic war":

Oil prices above $200 a barrel. Energy shortages in western Europe. The return of recession to the still-fragile global economy. A slump in Russia. That's the fear haunting policymakers as they contemplate how to respond to the shooting down of MH17 over eastern Ukraine last week. [...]

It is the potential for Russia to damage the west and for the west to cause even more damage to Russia that explains the belief that the crisis will not escalate into a full-scale economic war. The European Union will talk tough but fall shy of imposing wide-ranging financial and trade sanctions as punishment for the Kremlin's alleged role in the attack on the Malaysia Airlines jet. Meanwhile, hopes that Putin is putting pressure on the separatists in Ukraine boosted share prices.

It's not raining rockets in Israel, and it's not going to rain rockets in Europe. It's not going to rain nuclear warheads anywhere either. Nor will NATO and Russian forces slug it out in Ukraine or anywhere else. This is not going to descend into 'full-scale ground war' with troops versus troops, or predator drones versus amphibious assault vehicles.

While actual, physical weapons rain down in Gaza and the Donbass, in Syria and Iraq, across North Africa, and in Pakistan and Afghanistan, there are no real wars - in the sense of two or more armies vying for top spot - happening in these places. Top spot belongs to one global superpower only, and has done since the 1920s. There are regional champions like Israel of course, but their pre-eminence relies on the superpower's pre-eminence.

These 'war theaters' are all examples of 'asymmetric warfare', defined as "war between belligerents whose relative military power differs significantly." We see the ultimate expression of this in the fact that the generally defenceless civilian population is confronted with the overwhelming military might of NATO and Israel.

Taking out random airplanes high up in the sky is part of asymmetric warfare. It hits people where they are most vulnerable. The terror, outrage and opportunities for emotional manipulation it offers - so the perpetrators believe - are much more cost-effective than conventional military and economic strategies. It certainly is in the short-term - more people hate Putin today than they did before MH17 was blown up. But in the long-term, it's a risky strategy because the more frequently it's deployed to maintain strategic advantage, the more likely it is that people will figure out the game being played.

The backdrop against which all this takes place is the global battlefield for people's minds. Billions of people are perilously teetering on the edge of an abyss, lambs to cosmic slaughter [-my link] if they do not fundamentally shift their perception of reality away from the comfortable and crass lies of the Empire and its cronies, and towards the real common sense objective, if uncomfortable, truth.

We are in an information war, not a 'world war'. This is what the Pentagon was talking about early in the last decade when it introduced those strange new terms: full-spectrum dominance, total information awareness, info-crafting, cyberwarfare, and cyberterrorism. The US, UK and Israeli regimes are firing all they've got in this massive and sustained propaganda offensive that will not stop until people's ability to connect with their inner humanity - to think, feel, resist, and See - has been slaughtered.

Celestial Intentions: Comets and the Horns of Moses wrote:
Then again, given that human history appears to be defined by a succession of more or less corrupt ruling elites, and if we are to assume that such corruption (and its spread throughout society) is the mechanism by which a civilization attracts cosmic catastrophe, blaming and deposing the elite is a good solution. The problem, however, is that the underlying mechanism is not understood by the people, which means that they lack the knowledge that, if they are to prevent further destruction, they must, at all costs, prevent the establishment of any future corrupt elite.

In the end, the people and the elite both seek a paradigm that downplays cyclical catastrophes, but they do it for different reasons. The people want to relieve the enormous stress of a certain but unpredictable major catastrophe, while the elite want to remain in power. The compromise that serves both objectives is the illusion of an elite that is able to protect the people from any disaster. This illusion can take various forms: rituals to appease the gods, revision of history displaying a uniformitarian, uneventful evolution of humanity, and lots and lots of propaganda.

This lie works well during the periods of calm between two major catastrophes. However, history shows that when famines, earthquakes and plagues have struck and taken a heavy toll, when volcanoes erupt or comets blaze across the sky or meteor storms and weather anomalies increase, the illusion collapses, the raison d'être of the elites (i.e. protecting the people) collapses and the target has always and will ever be, ultimately, the ruling classes. And they know it. Thus, when such as Anaxagoras or Socrates or Critias mention these uncomfortable facts, they are silenced by ridicule and defamation, and even death.

The symptoms of an increased cometary activity are systematically covered up by the elites as man-made phenomena. The jet contrails due to higher concentrations of atmospheric cometary dust are depicted as 'chemtrails', sprayed by government agencies, the ever more frequent overhead cometary explosions are presented as missile tests, the weather changes due to a decreased solar activity triggered by the approaching Sun's companion and its accompanying cometary swarm is labeled 'anthropogenic global warming'.

By attributing the cause of those cosmically induced events to men, the elites maintain the illusion that they are in control. 'Chemtrails' can be stopped if the 'sprayings' end, missile tests can be stopped if the military can be coerced to do so, global warming can be reduced by controlling man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

However, contrails triggered by increased cometary activity, overhead cometary explosions, and cosmically induced solar and weather disruptions can't be changed by the elite. Not only that, if the public realizes this, they may also begin to think that the 'gods are angry' and try to find the real reason, settling ultimately on the corruption and violence of the elite in their efforts to get and maintain greater power.

If the masses of humanity were to recognize the real causes of such phenomena, that would entail recognizing the powerlessness of the elite and therefore the end of their 'mandate from heaven'.

Add a Link? wrote:

Skyalmian wrote:I quoted the last section of the article for a forum post. But "lambs to cosmic slaughter" stood out to me, and I had decided to add [Link] as a link to that with a "[-my link]" note. Was that appropriate or not?

Niall wrote:Pretty much. I didn't expand on it but you can see where things are going if you put it together with everything else we report on SOTT.

tinfoil hat

sigma wrote:U.S. are to blame for their policies. Not to do something for others that you do not want to feel for yourself.

25 recent events that rulers hope we forget when they blame the collapse of the 'old world order' on Russia wrote:
Here are 25 recent events, or data points, that our rulers hope we forget when they blame the collapse of the old world order on Russia:

1. US spent $5 billion to destabilize Ukraine, not to mention the millions NGOs spent on "opposition groups". The State Department was even caught playing kingmaker in Ukraine in secret recordings during the takeover.
2. November 21st, 2013 - Ukraine's President abandons an agreement on closer trade ties with EU, instead seeking closer cooperation with Russia. Violent pro-EU protests begin to organize.
3. December 17th, 2013 - Putin offers to buy $15bn of Ukrainian debt and discount the price of Russian gas by about a third.
4. February 2014 - Violence of coup peaks on the 20th. On 22nd protesters took control of Kiev and Parliament votes to remove president from power.
5. February 23rd - New interim government named, replaces head of Ukraine central bank.
6. March 6th - Obama signs national emergency executive order to punish Ukrainians that "undermine democratic processes and institutions" of the coup government in Ukraine. You can't make this stuff up.
7. March 16th - Crimea holds voter referendum to split from coup government in Kiev and ally with Russia, passes by over 95%.
8. March 20th - Obama announces more unilateral sanctions on Russia.
9. March 24th - Leaked tape where former prime minister of Ukraine and darling of the West, Yulia Tymoshenko, calls for wiping out all Russians with nuclear weapons.
10. April 29th - Obama unilaterally expands sanctions on Russia.
11. April 30th - Newly installed regime in Kiev receives $17 billion from the IMF for "economic reforms". (December deal from Russia with better terms for Ukrainian people discarded.)
12. May 3rd - Obama calls Kiev's coup government "duly elected".
13. May 11th - Eastern Ukraine votes for independence from Kiev and for self-rule. Kiev mobilizes military to punish citizens for disloyalty.
14. May 15th - US Vice President's son Hunter Biden named to the board of Ukraine gas company.
15. May 21st - Russia and China sign historic $400 billion "Holy Grail" gas deal not using petrodollars.
16. May 27th - Second day in office, new Ukraine president launches military "anti-terrorist operation" against eastern Ukrainians.
17. June 3rd - NATO pledges military support for Ukraine to battle dissidents.
18. June 16th - Ukraine refuses to pay its gas bill to Moscow's Gazprom, Russia cuts off gas.
19. June 26th - Gazprom agrees to drop the dollar to settle contracts with China.
20. June 27th - The EU signs an association agreement with Ukraine, along with Georgia and Moldova
21. July 15th - BRICS nations fund international development bank to compete with the IMF, World Bank, and the dollar itself.
22. July 17th - Commercial airliner MH17 shot out of the sky over eastern Ukraine. Appears to be classic false flag event after the West immediately blamed Russia citing sketchy YouTube videos.
23. July 2014 - US announces yet more sanctions on Russia. EU and Canada both join in calls for more sanctions for Russia.
24. July 2014 - Joe Biden's son's company prepares to drill shale gas in east Ukraine.
25. July 2014 - Pentagon creates military plan to clear path for gas drilling in rebel-held areas of Ukraine.

I'm sure I missed a few. Feel free to fill in the blanks in the comment section below.

Bye bye petrodollar! Currency wars set to intensify as geopolitical tension supports gold wrote:
Central banks continue to be buyers of gold at these attractive price levels. As sanctions, economic war and currency wars intensify we expect Russian and Russian ally buying of gold reserves and selling of dollars to intensify. Aggressive buying of gold and particularly silver by Russia will likely lead to defaults on the COMEX gold and silver futures exchanges and potentially an international monetary crisis.

Russia Announces Decoupling Trade From Dollar wrote:
Seen today on Facebook:

Russia Announces Decoupling Trade From Dollar wrote:
Russia Announces Decoupling Trade From Dollar
China will re-open the old Silk Road as a new trading route linking Germany, Russia and China

By Peter Koenig

April 08, 2014 "ICH" - Russia has just dropped another bombshell, announcing not only the de-coupling of its trade from the dollar, but also that its hydrocarbon trade will in the future be carried out in rubles and local currencies of its trading partners – no longer in dollars – see Voice of Russia

Russia's trade in hydrocarbons amounts to about a trillion dollars per year. Other countries, especially the BRICS and BRCIS-associates (BRICSA) may soon follow suit and join forces with Russia, abandoning the 'petro-dollar' as trading unit for oil and gas. This could amount to tens of trillions in loss for demand of petro-dollars per year (US GDP about 17 trillion dollars – December 2013) – leaving an important dent in the US economy would be an understatement.

Added to this is the declaration today by Russia's Press TV – China will re-open the old Silk Road as a new trading route linking Germany, Russia and China, allowing to connect and develop new markets along the road, especially in Central Asia, where this new project will bring economic and political stability, and in Western China provinces,where "New Areas" of development will be created. The first one will be the Lanzhou New Area in China's Northwestern Gansu Province, one of China's poorest regions.

"During his visit to Duisburg, Chinese President Xi Jinping made a master stroke of economic diplomacy that runs directly counter to the Washington neo-conservative faction's effort to bring a new confrontation between NATO and Russia." (press TV, April 6, 2014)

"Using the role of Duisburg as the world's largest inland harbor, an historic transportation hub of Europe and of Germany's Ruhr steel industry center, he proposed that Germany and China cooperate on building a new "economic Silk Road" linking China and Europe. The implications for economic growth across Eurasia are staggering."

Curiously, western media have so far been oblivious to both events. It seems like a desire to extending the falsehood of our western illusion and arrogance – as long as the silence will bear.

Germany, the economic driver of Europe – the world's fourth largest economy (US$ 3.6 trillion GDP) – on the western end of the new trading axis, will be like a giant magnet, attracting other European trading partners of Germany's to the New Silk Road. What looks like a future gain for Russia and China, also bringing about security and stability, would be a lethal loss for Washington.

In addition, the BRICS are preparing to launch a new currency – composed by a basket of their local currencies – to be used for international trading, as well as for a new reserve currency, replacing the rather worthless debt ridden dollar – a welcome feat for the world.

Along with the new BRICS(A) currency will come a new international payment settlement system, replacing the SWIFT and IBAN exchanges, thereby breaking the hegemony of the infamous privately owned currency and gold manipulator, the Bank for International Settlement (BIS) in Basle, Switzerland – also called the central bank of all central banks.

To be sure – the BIS is a privately owned for profit institution, was created in the early 1930's, in the midst of the big economic melt-down of the 20th Century. The BIS was formed precisely for that purpose – to control the world's monetary system, along with the also privately owned FED and the Wall Street Banksters – the epitome of private unregulated ownership.

The BIS is known to hold at least half a dozen secret meetings per year, attended by the world's elite, deciding the fate of countries and entire populations. Their demise would be another welcome new development.

As the new trading road and monetary system will take hold, other countries and nations, so far in the claws of US dependence, will flock to the 'new system', gradually isolating Washington's military industrial economy (sic) and its NATO killing machine.

This Economic Sea Change may bring the empire to its knees, without spilling a drop of blood. An area of new hope for justice and more equality, a rebirth of sovereign states, may dawn and turn the spiral of darkness into a spiral of light.

callmeslick wrote:Sky, if you're old enough, you've heard a variation of that scenario(gold to skyrocket any day>dollar dropped a key currency)at least 15 times per decade, due to some 'trigger' or another. It never happens, and sure isn't over as small-potatoes a player as Russia.

small-potatoes a player

BRICS Member Countries wrote:

Code: Select all

Country        Population      GDP (nominal)
 Brazil        201,046,886     $2,695.9 bn
 Russia        143,451,702     $2,021.9 bn
 India         1,210,193,422   $1,824.8 bn
 China         1,354,040,000   $8,227.0 bn
 South Africa  51,770,560      $384.3   bn

Potential members
Indonesia and Turkey have been mentioned as candidates for full membership of the BRICS, while Argentina, Egypt, Iran, Nigeria and Syria have expressed interest in joining BRICS.

BRICS Development wrote:
The BRICS Forum, an independent international organisation encouraging commercial, political and cultural cooperation between the BRICS nations, was formed in 2011. In June 2012, the BRICS nations pledged $75 billion to boost the lending power of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, this loan was conditional on IMF voting reforms. In late March 2013, during the fifth BRICS summit in Durban, South Africa, the member countries agreed to create a global financial institution which they intended to rival the western-dominated IMF and World Bank. After the summit, the BRICS stated that they planned to finalise the arrangements for this new development bank by 2014. However, disputes relating to burden sharing and location have slowed down the agreements.

At the BRICS leaders meeting in St. Petersburg in September 2013, China committed $41 billion towards the pool; Brazil, India and Russia $18 billion each; and South Africa $5 billion. China, holder of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves and who is to contribute the bulk of the currency pool, wants a greater managing role, said one BRICS official. China also wants to be the location of the reserve. "Brazil and India want the initial capital to be shared equally. We know that China wants more," said a Brazilian official. "However, we are still negotiating, there are no tensions arising yet." On 11th October 2013, Russia's Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that a decision on creating a $100 billion fund designated to steady currency markets would be taken in early 2014. The Brazilian finance minister, Guido Mantega stated that the fund would be created by March 2014. However, by April 2014, the currency reserve pool and development bank had yet to be set up, and the date was rescheduled to 2015. One driver for the BRICS development bank is that the existing institutions primarily benefit extra-BRICS corporations, and the political significance is notable because it allows BRICS member states "to promote their interests abroad... and can highlight the strengthening positions of countries whose opinion is frequently ignored by their developed American and European colleagues."

In March 2014, at a meeting on the margins of the Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague, the BRICS Foreign Ministers issued a communique that "noted with concern, the recent media statement on the forthcoming G20 Summit to be held in Brisbane in November 2014. The custodianship of the G20 belongs to all Member States equally and no one Member State can unilaterally determine its nature and character." In light of the tensions surrounding the 2014 Crimean crisis, the Ministers remarked that "The escalation of hostile language, sanctions and counter-sanctions, and force does not contribute to a sustainable and peaceful solution, according to international law, including the principles and purposes of the United Nations Charter." This was in response to the statement of Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who had said earlier that Putin might be barred from attending the G20 Summit in Brisbane.

In April 2014, Russian Ambassador at Large Vadim Lukov remarked that the dollar may be replaced by the ruble and other national currencies of the BRICS counties, and that "A large part of the fund goes toward saving the Euro and the national currencies of developed countries. Given that governance of the IMF is in the hands of western powers, there is little hope for assistance from the IMF in case of an emergency. That is why the currency reserve pool would come in very handy."

In July 2014, the Governor of the Russian Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, said that the "BRICS partners the establishment of a system of multilateral swaps that will allow to transfer resources to one or another country, if needed" in an article which concluded that "If the current trend continues, soon the dollar will be abandoned by most of the significant global economies and it will be kicked out of the global trade finance. Washington's bullying will make even former American allies choose the anti-dollar alliance instead of the existing dollar-based monetary system."

Over the weekend of 13 July 2014 when the final game of the World Cup was held, and in advance of the BRICS Fortaleza summit, Putin met his homologue Dilma Rouseff to discuss the BRICS development bank, and sign some other bilateral accords on air defense, gas and education. Rouseff said that the BRICS countries "are among the largest in the world and cannot content themselves in the middle of the 21st century with any kind of dependency." The Fortaleza summit was followed by a BRICS meeting with the UNASUR presidents in Brasilia, where the development bank and the monetary fund were introduced. The development bank will have capital of $50 billion with each country contributing $10 billion, while the monetary fund will have $100 billion at its disposal.

On 15 July 2014, the first day of the BRICS 6th summit in Fortaleza, Brazil, the group of emerging economies signed the long-anticipated document to create the $100 billion BRICS Development Bank and a reserve currency pool worth over another $100 billion. Documents on cooperation between BRICS export credit agencies and an agreement of cooperation on innovation were also inked.

The BRICS Alliance Reveals Its Timeline To End American Dominance wrote:
The BRICS Alliance Reveals Its Timeline To End American Dominance
Posted on July 29, 2014 by horse237

Dr. Michael Hudson once said that America and Europe both need to go beyond the politics of Left and Right to found an anti-Banker party to arrest the Bankers. That was his answer to Too Big To Jail Banks. Dr. Hudson also wrote an article in 2009 predicting De-dollarization by the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) nations. This is what he wrote five years ago in June of 2009:

Challenging America will be the prime focus of extended meetings in Yekaterinburg, Russia (formerly Sverdlovsk) today and tomorrow (June 15-16) for Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and other top officials of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The alliance is comprised of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrghyzstan and Uzbekistan, with observer status for Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia. It will be joined on Tuesday by Brazil for trade discussions among the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China)... They simply want to discuss mutual aid – but in a way that has no role for the United States, NATO or the US dollar as a vehicle for trade.

CNN had a story last week about the end of this year deadline the BRICS nations gave the US to reform the Bretton Woods system including the World Bank and the International Monetary Refund. The Bretton Woods Conference was held from the 1st to 22nd of July, 1944. It made the dollar the world's reserve currency replacing gold and the British pound. The American representative was Harry Dexter White (Weiss). John Maynard Keynes represented Great Britain. Keynes wanted to solve the problem of nations with trade deficits by creating an international currency called the Bancor. He also wanted to levy fines on nations with perpetual trade surpluses. The American dollar was chosen to be the international reserve currency so if two nations wanted to buy and sell they would use the dollar which earned money for US Banks. The US was supposed to redeem all foreign dollar holdings for gold at $35 per ounce.

The Conference set up a Development Bank that became the World Bank and a Stabilization Fund that became the International Monetary Fund. The World Bank was to always have an American President. That was true until July 1, 2012 when Dr Jim Yong Kim became President. Karen Hudes has documented corruption and abuses by American managers at the World Bank. We also have the 2004 John Perkins book Confessions of an Economic Hitman that reveal how Third World politicians were bribed into accepting huge loans from US AID and the World Bank that made their nations Debt Slaves to Wall Street. In an epilogue to the 2006 edition Perkins criticized debt forgiveness because it required they privatize public utilities like water, electricity, education and even health. We have also seen the US force aid recipients to allow Genetically Modified Organisms from Monsanto.

In 2007 Perkins' publisher published a book written by 12 journalists and investigators called A Game as Old as Empire: the Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption. Bolivia is a case in point for water privatization. The American dominated World Bank required Bolivia to privatize water in order to receive a badly needed loan. The rise in water rates increased poverty in Bolivia and led to riots in Cochabamba. In South Africa hundreds of Africans died because they were cut off from clean water after privatization. More recently, Nestle had said that water is not some sort of right. Nestle's owns Arrowhead which sells bottled water. Arrowhead is taking water out of the ground in a severe drought on an American Indian reservation and selling it to people who are not in danger of losing their crops and farm animals.

The last three previous presidents of the World Bank were Jewish as were the last four Chairmen of the Federal Reserve. The man selected to replace the Americans as President of the World Bank was a Korean immigrant and a former President of Dartmouth. As a medical doctor, he ran a WHO project on AIDS. He is an American citizen. He is there to make the World Bank seem less corrupt.

The IMF was to always have a European Managing Director. The IMF has an integrity hotline. But how credible is that hotline when the IMF has a front page article on the UK economy saying it is rebounding strongly? David Cameron has tried to ignite a second Housing Bubble by his absurd Help to Buy Scheme and by offering sanctuary to Hot Money from overseas criminals. Prosecute a few of those Financial Criminals from overseas and the price of homes in London would drop like a rock. London rents are making the city unlivable. Cameron is just trying to get past the 2015 elections. Will someone please tell David Cameron that the voters will be chasing him with the British version of tar and feathers because the BRICS alliance is just to pull the plug on the dollar and the pound?

Richard Nixon reneged on the Bretton Woods Agreement on August 16, 1971 when he refused to redeem dollars held by foreign governments for gold at $35 an ounce. Since then American wages have been stagnant and declining. Gold has risen to over $1,300 an ounce.

The reason for the continual trade deficit was twofold. America was a country blessed with natural resources. Wages were high compared to Europe so Americans had to use technology and skilled labor to produce an output capable of justifying high wages. That all came to an end after WW II when Wall Street began over populating America. When America's population went past 150 million, she had to import raw materials for the first time. That meant American workers for the first time in history had to bid for lowering wages against foreign workers who routinely bought iron ore and coal from overseas and shipped back competitively priced cars.

The other pressure on the trade deficit and hence on wages came from adventurism and militarism. Someone had to pay for all those troops overseas. America just kept printing money which foreigners needed as a reserve currency to buy things from other countries even if the US had nothing they wanted to buy. Dr Hudson wrote Super Imperialism in 1972. He was asked to lecture at the State Department and at the Pentagon. When the Pentagon learned that America was financing its war and its occupations by printing IOU Nothing Federal Reserve Notes, an Army General said, 'Wow. We're ripping people off.' He thought printing dollars to defraud foreigners was a good idea.

In 1973 Henry Kissinger introduced the Petrodollar after the Arab-Israeli War. The Saudis and the Gulf States agreed to sell their oil only for US dollars. This meant Japan and Europe which had no need for dollars could use them to buy oil. That took care of America's trade deficit. The Arab members of OPEC used their oil dollars to buy US Treasury bonds which took care of America's budget deficit. The Fly in the Ointment was that Washington could never allow the price of oil drop below a price the Arabs needed to prop us the ailing dollar and fund US budget deficits.

It is now five years after that first June 2009 BRICS meeting which demanded a limit to America's military presence in Central Asia and fairer treatment of nations required to do business in the dollar. The BRICS nations apparently told CNN that if America does not reform their Bretton Woods system which includes the World Bank and the IMF that there will be consequences to be felt in 2015. China has always taken a very cautious approach which means we ought to heed their ultimatum. It is not a bluff.

America is broke and cannot afford to pay the consequences. America has lived for years on the charity of others.

[...]

Wall Street's Dollar Imperialism system is incapable of reform. It is heading towards a crash sometime just before or after New Years Day 2015 when we encounter the BRICS Brick Wall Ultimatum of No More. The Chinese and the Russians are making deals right and left including NATO countries like Germany and Great Britain which avoid the US dollar. The BRICS alliance has set up alternatives for the IMF and the World Bank. China holds monthly ministerial meetings with the Saudis The BRICS nations have set up alternative work arounds for all those financial sanctions Washington imposed.

Early 2015 is as good a time as any for the Dollar to Die. The US infrastructure is continuing to collapse. The US has 1.2 million homeless school children that it does not care enough to do anything for. Plenty of money for supplemental appropriations for Israel. Not a penny for the thousands of Detroit residents who are losing their water. But as Nestles explained, you do not have a fundamental right to drink water. Obama is placing a tremendous financial burden on local and state governments. The Sheriff of Butler county Ohio said one third of the children born in his county near Cincinnati are born to illegal aliens. In 2000 less than 2% of the people in Butler county were Latinos. That is a tremendous population shift. That is also a tremendous burden to place on local healthcare, welfare and educational systems. It is designed to bankrupt them. I believe Obama is using Amnesty to kill America as a nation.

BRICS could attack the Petrodollar by joining with OPEC to price oil in currencies other than the dollar. They could accelerate the dumping of the US dollar and the sale of US Treasury bonds. They could use the dumped dollars to buy gold and silver bullion, farm land and undervalued stocks. The point is that America is so weak that any push will send America and Britain off a cliff. As Professor Steve Keen said, we have more Unpayable Debt to cancel than anytime in 500 years so we are headed to the worst Financial Crisis in five centuries.

It seems we are destined to be blown out of the water sometime in the first half of 2015. We will have 2 million members of street gangs when the Dollar Dies. The gangbangers will lead the way in the Nationwide Food Riots. That as I said will be when the sign is writ large in the sky: 'America is a Conquered Third World Nation.'

Is Putin incorruptible? U.S. insider's view of the Russian president's character and his country's transformation wrote:
Sharon Tennison
Russia: Other Points of View
Mon, 21 Apr 2014 12:15 CDT

[...]

From 2001 up to today, I've watched the negative U.S. media mounting against Putin...even accusations of assassinations, poisonings, and comparing him to Hitler. No one yet has come up with any concrete evidence for these allegations. During this time, I've traveled throughout Russia several times every year, and have watched the country slowly change under Putin's watch. Taxes were lowered, inflation lessened, and laws slowly put in place. Schools and hospitals began improving. Small businesses were growing, agriculture was showing improvement, and stores were becoming stocked with food. Alcohol challenges were less obvious, smoking was banned from buildings, and life expectancy began increasing. Highways were being laid across the country, new rails and modern trains appeared even in far out places, and the banking industry was becoming dependable. Russia was beginning to look like a decent country - - certainly not where Russians hoped it to be long term, but improving incrementally for the first time in their memories.

My 2013/14 Trips to Russia

In addition to St. Petersburg and Moscow, in September I traveled out to the Ural Mountains, spent time in Ekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk and Perm. We traveled between cities via autos and rail - - the fields and forests look healthy, small towns sport new paint and construction. Today's Russians look like Americans (we get the same clothing from China). Old concrete Khrushchev block houses are giving way to new multi-story private residential complexes which are lovely. High-rise business centers, fine hotels and great restaurants are now common place - - and ordinary Russians frequent these places. Two and three story private homes rim these Russian cities far from Moscow. We visited new museums, municipal buildings and huge super markets. Streets are in good repair, highways are new and well marked now, service stations looks like those dotting American highways. In January I went to Novosibirsk out in Siberia where similar new architecture was noted. Streets were kept navigable with constant snowplowing, modern lighting kept the city bright all night, lots of new traffic lights (with seconds counting down to light change) have appeared. It is astounding to me how much progress Russia has made in the past 14 years since an unknown man with no experience walked into Russia's presidency and took over a country that was flat on its belly.

So why do our leaders and media demean and demonize Putin and Russia???

Like Lady MacBeth, do they protest too much?

Psychologists tell us that people (and countries?) project off on others what they don't want to face in themselves. Others carry our "shadow" when we refuse to own it. We confer on others the very traits that we are horrified to acknowledge in ourselves.

• Could this be why we constantly find fault with Putin and Russia?
• Could it be that we project on to Putin the sins of ourselves and our leaders?
• Could it be that we condemn Russia's corruption, acting like the corruption within our corporate world doesn't exist?
• Could it be that we condemn their human rights and LGBT issues, not facing the fact that we haven't solved our own?
• Could it be that we accuse Russia of "reconstituting the USSR" - - because of what we do to remain the world's "hegemon"?
• Could it be that we project nationalist behaviors on Russia, because that is what we have become and we don't want to face it?
• Could it be that we project warmongering off on Russia, because of what we have done over the past several administrations?

Some of you were around Putin in the earlier years. Please share your opinions, pro and con...confidentiality will be assured. It's important to develop a composite picture of this demonized leader and get the record straight. I'm quite sure that 99% of those who excoriate him in mainstream media have had no personal contact with him at all. They write articles on hearsay, rumors and fabrication, or they read scripts others have written on their tele-prompters. This is how our nation gets its 'news', such as it is.

There is a well known code of ethics among us: Is it the Truth, Is it Fair, Does it build Friendship and Goodwill, and Will it be Beneficial for All Concerned?

It seems to me that if our nation's leaders would commit to using these four principles in international relations, the world would operate in a completely different manner, and human beings across this planet would live in better conditions than they do today.

sigma wrote:Moreover, I believe that if Russians will dominate the global economy, they will not be better as Americans today. Perhaps it would be even worse. No one should dominate the world, neither the Americans, nor the Russian, nor the Chinese, nor the Arabs, nor the natives of the Amazon jungle.

sigma wrote:
It is true that it is written in these quotations, Skyalmian.

Moreover, I believe that if Russians will dominate the global economy, they will not be better as Americans today. Perhaps it would be even worse. No one should dominate the world, neither the Americans, nor the Russian, nor the Chinese, nor the Arabs, nor the natives of the Amazon jungle.

Putin blamed for #MH17 to launch attack on BRICS creation of real world bank to replace US fake world bank wrote:
Comment: Great presentation. One criticism though: The suggestion that the BRICS alternative was part of some plan all along to crash the dollar and end US hegemony, implying that the Russia-China alliance will be a case of 'meet the new boss, same as the old', may be one conspiracy too many.

It probably would be in the long-term, especially given historical patterns and the socio-biological fact that psychopaths rise to the top. Brutal oligarchy is the norm on this planet. We've been in a US-UK-dominated system for some 300 years now, so it's all we know.

But that also means that we can't project that experience onto a potential world system led by a Russian-Chinese financial-political-cultural alliance, which would at least begin on a fairer platform than rapacious Western 'free trade'.

Judging by their actions thus far - towards their own people and others - the Russians and Chinese appear to mean it when they say they want to introduce new, fair, genuinely humanitarian international norms.