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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Oct 24, 2015 10:01:46 GMT -6
The proposed ban on "Assault Weapons" is even more illogical. Assault weapons are a subset of Rifles. Just 285 of 8,454 firearm homicides were due to Rifles. That's < 1/day. If we assume ½ of those rifles were Assault Weapons, that's 143/year. That's less than 1 person every other day killed by an Assault Weapon. Assault weapons are already banned for the 35+ million residents of California (about 1/8th of the US population). In addition to California, many other states (such as New York) aleady ban high capacity magazines. The following states already have bans on 10+ round magazines. California New York Connecticut DC Hawaii Maryland Massachusetts ................. The following states already ban 15+ round magazines Colorado New Jersey ............... 2 states already ban "detachable" magazines. California Maryland This means banning magazines that can be removed by hand, without the use of an additional tool. Instead, rifles must have a magazine lock--requiring a screwdriver or special tool to remove it. Rifles in California & Maryland can not be sold without already having this magazine lock installed. Subsequent removal of the lock would make the gun Illegal in those states. "Assault Weapon" bans are fallaciously justified to "prevent mass shootings" --which is illogical based on statistics noted above. But it's a nice hot-button issue to distract from real problems, such as Wealth Inequality & the Economy. (Note all the air-time & news-reporting space devoted to this issue by Hillary Clinton). But there's another, conveniently ignored reason. And it is not about the safety or well-being of "We, the People." Rather, it's about the safety of the rich & powerful--such as Diane Feinstein & Michael Bloomberg-- who rarely get close enough to anyone with a simple handgun to be endangered. Meanwhile, the rich & powerful have their own heavily-armed Private Security (Private Police) forces. (Jim Webb made this point in the Democratic Presidential debate.) No, Assault Weapon Bans are not about protecting "We, the People." To the contrary, They're about protection FROM "We, the People."It's about protection against domestic unrest. It's about protecting the Government & the 1% from the wrath of "We, the People." It may sound over-the-top, conspiratorial, and even a little corny to state this. But it's about protection from overthrow of the Corporate Plutocracy & Government by "We, the People." It's about protection against an armed uprising. And that's exactly what the Founding Fathers intended to protect with the 2nd Amendment: the ability of "We, the People" to overthrow an un-representative government--by force if necessary. And that's really what the Feinsteins, Clintons, Bloombergs are worried about. They're worried about Assault Weapons because of their longer-range that can hit from a distance. Because they're private police forces can protect them from everything else. Bans on Assault Weapons are designed to protect the American ruling class--not it's less-affluent subjects. And not "We, the People." handgunlaw.us/documents/NoHiCapChemSpray.pdf
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Oct 24, 2015 8:24:08 GMT -6
U.S. Federal Judge TS Ellis, III, has thrown out a lawsuit filed against NSA Warrantless Spying.
The suit was filed by the ACLU, along with numerous other plaintiffs.
Other plaintiffs included Wikipedia, the Nation magazine, & Amnesty International-- along with 6 other organizations.
The allegation was that the NSA's collection of their communications violated the 4th Amendment.
But as most of us now know, the 4th Amendment has essentially been repealed by the Courts.
from the Guardian.comwww.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/23/aclu-nsa-surveillance-lawsuit-dismissedACLU lawsuit against NSA mass surveillance dropped by fed courtFri, 23-Oct-2015 by Sam Thielman "A federal district court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union against the National Security Agency. Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that the surveillance program was innately harmful, despite the NSA’s silence on it in court. “The NSA’s mass surveillance violates our clients’ constitutional rights to privacy, freedom of speech, and freedom of association, and it poses a grave threat to a free internet and a free society,” said Ashley Gorski, a staff attorney with the ACLU national security project. “The private communications of innocent people don’t belong in government hands.” The judge in the case, TS Ellis III, said the suit relied on “the subjective fear of surveillance”, because the NSA did not admit to having collected any of the information it was alleged to have collected by the ACLU. Ellis admitted that acquiring enough information to prove illegal spying was difficult whether or not illegal spying had occurred, but said that difficulty was a feature, not a bug. “Establishing standing to challenge section 702 in a civil case is plainly difficult,” he wrote. “But such difficulty comes with the territory.” “The court has wrongly insulated the NSA’s spying from meaningful judicial scrutiny,” said ACLU National Security Project staff attorney Patrick Toomey, who argued the case. Ellis is a former navy aviator who in 2006 dismissed a suit against the CIA brought by a German man who accused the agency of abducting and torturing him as part of the US “extraordinary rendition” program. Notably, Ellis dismissed the case not on merit, but on the grounds that a trial would risk national security. “ rivate interests must give way to the national interest in preserving state secrets,” he wrote at the time.
The plaintiffs included Wikipedia, the Nation magazine, Amnesty International and 6 other organizations, who alleged that the interception and storage of their communications by the NSA violated their constitutional protections against unwarranted search and seizure."
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Oct 22, 2015 21:52:36 GMT -6
It's also worth noting that the CDC figures are considerably higher than FBI crime stats--which are probably more reliable when it comes to crime reporting. According to the FBI, there were 8,454 gun-related murders in 2013--much less than 11,208 reported by the CDC. That's 23/day, much less than the 100+/day killed in car accidents and the 42-44/day killed in prescription Opiate overdose.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Oct 21, 2015 22:36:35 GMT -6
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Oct 19, 2015 22:58:37 GMT -6
www.cnbc.com/2015/10/16/job-openings-decrease-to-54-million-in-august.html?__source=yahoo|finance|inline|story|story&par=yahoo&doc=103089056www.cnbc.com/2015/10/16/job-openings-decrease-to-54-million-in-august.htmlJob openings decrease to 5.4 million in August Fri, Oct 16, 2015 by Anita Balakrishnan "Job openings fell in August, missing analyst estimates, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. Job openings decreased to 5.4 million in August, according to the JOLTS report, a measure of job openings and labor turnover in the U.S. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the index to come in at 5.63 million in August. That is lower than July's 5.75 million job openings, a series high. JOLTS, a closely-followed barometer of labor conditions, measures employee movements in non-farm, private businesses and government, as well as job hires and separations in different industries. The total number of job openings has increased over the past 12 months for non-farm, private businesses, and government positions, the agency said. The largest increases for the year have occurred in professional and business services and health care and social assistance. Declines occurred in arts, entertainment, recreation, mining and logging. There were 5.1 million new hires in August, representing a hiring rate of 3.6 percent, almost flat from July. 4,800.000 employees were laid off, discharged, or quit in August, a rate of 3.4 percent."
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Oct 19, 2015 22:49:02 GMT -6
The "good" jobs reports are likely a thing of the past. finance.yahoo.com/news/those-blockbuster-jobs-reports-theyre-164814258.html" "Don't expect the employment situation report to print nonfarm payrolls above 200,000 going forward," market strategists at New York-based brokerage Convergex said in a report. "The last two readings fell below that threshold and, unless more highly educated individuals enter the workforce, it's likely to stay there." Indeed, the most recent payrolls reports have been lackluster, to say the least. The September number showed just 142,000 new positions created, far less than the more than 200,000 economists had expected. August was even worse, with just 136,000 jobs, and though July's came in at a more respectable 223,000, that number was revised down from 245,000. Read More Why the jobs picture is even worse than you think Those numbers have brought average monthly job creation in 2015 down to 198,000 from 2014's 260,000, with the last three months posting an average of just 167,000 new positions. Last week's JOLTS report showed more reason to believe the employment momentum has slowed. Job openings fell 5.3% in August, while a 2.6% rise in layoffs and discharges offset a 0.3% gain in hires. Finally, the amount of quits — or what Convergex calls its "take this job and shove it" indicator because it shows the percentage of workers who left positions voluntarily — fell to 56.6 percent from 57.1 percent, indicating less confidence in mobility. Read More Job openings decrease to 5.4 million in August"
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Oct 19, 2015 22:24:44 GMT -6
Yes, I see where she came up with her "90/day" number.
What she didn't mention is that almost 2/3 of those were suicides--almost the same number of suicides were by non-firearm methods.
Also, the number of homicides by firearms was 11,208, which is 31/day--far less than the nearly 100/day from Auto-related deaths.
And significantly less than the 42-44/day who die from prescription Opiate overdose.
Maybe we should ban doctor-prescribing of Opiates.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Oct 18, 2015 23:04:40 GMT -6
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Oct 18, 2015 22:56:25 GMT -6
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Oct 17, 2015 11:23:20 GMT -6
This is further confirmation of all the reports that real wages and income have consistently fallen since the start of the 21st Century.
We really are worse off than we were 15 years ago.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Oct 17, 2015 11:03:21 GMT -6
Here's yet another indicator of our confused policy in the Syrian conflict --one the US should have never stuck its nose into. In this instance, former CIA chief David Petraeus is advocating the US ally with Al-Qaeda in Syria. from the Daily Beast www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/31/petraeus-use-al-qaeda-fighters-to-beat-isis.htmlPetraeus: Use Al Qaeda Fighters to Beat ISISAug 31, 2015 by Shane Harris & Nancy A. Youssef "To take down the so-called Islamic State in Syria, the influential former head of the CIA wants to co-opt jihadists from America’s arch foe. Members of al Qaeda’s branch in Syria have a surprising advocate in the corridors of American power: retired Army general and former CIA Director David Petraeus. The former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has been quietly urging U.S. officials to consider using so-called moderate members of al Qaeda’s Nusra Front to fight ISIS in Syria, 4 sources familiar with the conversations, including one person who spoke to Petraeus directly, told The Daily Beast. The heart of the idea stems from Petraeus’s experience in Iraq in 2007, when as part of a broader strategy to defeat an Islamist insurgency the U.S. persuaded Sunni militias to stop fighting with al Qaeda and to work with the American military. The tactic worked, at least temporarily. But al Qaeda in Iraq was later reborn as ISIS, and has become the sworn enemy of its parent organization. Now, Petraeus is returning to his old play, advocating a strategy of co-opting rank-and-file members of al Nusra, particularly those who don’t necessarily share all of core al Qaeda’s Islamist philosophy. However, Petraeus’s play, if executed, could be enormously controversial. The American war on terror began with an al Qaeda attack on 9/11, of course. The idea that the U.S. would, 14 years later, work with elements of al Qaeda’s Syrian branch was an irony too tough to stomach for most U.S. officials interviewed by The Daily Beast. They found Petraeus’s notion politically toxic, near-impossible to execute, and strategically risky. It would also face enormous legal and security obstacles. In 2012, the Obama administration designated al Nusra a foreign terrorist organization. And last year, the president ordered airstrikes on al Nusra positions housing members of the Khorasan Group, an al Qaeda cadre that was trying to recruit jihadists with Western passports to smuggle bombs onto civilian airliners. Yet Petraeus and his plan cannot be written off. He still wields considerable influence with current officials, U.S. lawmakers, and foreign leaders. The fact that he feels comfortable recruiting defectors from an organization that has declared war on the United States underscores the tenuous nature of the Obama administration’s strategy to fight ISIS, which numerous observers have said is floundering in search of a viable ground force. According to those familiar with Petraeus’s thinking, he advocates trying to cleave off less extreme al Nusra fighters, who are battling ISIS in Syria, but who joined with al Nusra because of their shared goal of overthrowing Syrian President Bashar al Assad.... How precisely the U.S. would separate moderate fighters from core members and leaders of al Nusra is unclear, and Petraeus has yet to fully detail any recommendations he might have.... “This is an acknowledgment that the U.S. stated goal to degrade and destroy ISIS is not working. If it were, we would not be talking to these not quite foreign terrorist groups,” Christopher Harmer, a senior naval analyst with the Middle East Security Project at the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for the Study of War, told The Daily Beast. “Strategically, it is desperate.” Privately, U.S. officials told The Daily Beast that any direct links with al Nusra are off the table. But working with other factions, while difficult, might not be impossible.... The U.S. has insisted that any negotiated settlement must not include Assad, even as Russia has hinted Assad must be a part of a deal. Assad himself said in a television interview last week that he will not work with U.S. allies in Turkey and Saudi Arabia. On the ground, the 2 most powerful anti-Assad forces are ISIS and al Nusra, and the U.S. won’t negotiate with either. Petraeus’s strategy depends on a number of key assumptions, chiefly that U.S. intelligence and military officials would be able to distinguish who among al Nusra’s ranks is truly moderate and doesn’t share the terrorist group’s goal of replacing Assad with an Islamist government. The former general isn’t the only ex-official who wants to talk to jihadist-linked fighters who share some, if not all, of the United States’ goals. Robert Ford, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria, has called for dialogue with Ahrar al Sham, a jihadist force he has called “probably the most important group fighting the Syrian regime now.” In a recent article for the Middle East Institute, Ford said that the capture of the Syrian provincial capital of Idlib last March, which was attributed by some to al Nusra, really should be credited to Ahrar, which had more fighters in the battle. “Ahrar is a key force on the battlefield, but Western media allots little space to describe it beyond saying it is hard-line or jihadi,’” Ford wrote. That label, he acknowledged, stems from Ahrar calling for an Islamic state in Syria, as well as its collaboration with al Nusra against Assad and ISIS. The group was also founded by a former deputy to the current al Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri...."
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Oct 5, 2015 22:44:17 GMT -6
I received the following email and request from Bernie Sanders to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership-- the latest Free Traitor agreement designed specifically to replace local/national American business laws with International laws. In addition, it is another thinly-veiled guise to ship even more American jobs overseas, to enhance the already exorbitant profits of US multinationals, at the expense of American workers. ....................
"from Bernie Sanders for President
Sign my petition to join our fight against the disastrous Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal. We cannot afford to let this trade deal hurt consumers and cost America jobs....
Wall Street and big corporations just won a big victory to advance a disastrous trade deal. Now it's on us to stop it from becoming law.
This morning, negotiators announced an "agreement in principle" for something called the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), meaning it will soon move to Congress for approval.
The TPP would expand the same failed "free trade" policies to 12 other nations that have already cost millions of jobs and shuttered tens of thousands of factories across the United States.
Make no mistake: if TPP passes, it will further hurt consumers and cost American jobs. So we must stop it, together.
In the Senate, I will do all that I can to defeat this agreement. But I need you at my side in this fight, because we will be going against some of the biggest, strongest corporations in the world.
Add your name to mine to stand against the disastrous Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal. Let's show them that people can prevail over corporations.
The TPP follows in the footsteps of other unfettered free trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA that have been supported by corporate America and that cost America millions of decent-paying jobs.
Since 2001, nearly 60,000 manufacturing plants in this country have been shut down, and we have lost almost 5 million decent-paying manufacturing jobs. NAFTA alone led to the loss of almost three-quarters of a million jobs — the Permanent Normalized Trade Agreement with China cost America four times that number: almost 3 million jobs. These agreements are not the only reason why manufacturing in the United States has declined, but they are important factors.
The TPP would also give multinational corporations the ability to challenge laws passed in the United States that could negatively impact their “expected future profits.” Take, for example, a French waste management firm suing Egypt for over $100 million for increasing the minimum wage and improving labor laws. Egypt’s “crime” in this case is trying to improve life for their low-wage workers. Or Vattenfall, a Swedish energy company, has used this process to sue Germany for $5 billion over its decision to phase out nuclear power. Should the people of Germany have the right to make energy choices on their own or should these decisions be left in the hands of an unelected international tribunal?
We face the same threats here at home if the TPP passes.
Virtually every major union and environmental organization in the United States is against the deal. Major religious groups are as well because they know what it could mean for some of the poorest people on the planet.
Wall Street, corporate America and their representatives in Congress will try to pass this bad trade deal. This is our chance to make our voices heard.
Not a lot of presidential candidates would use their campaigns to influence legislation being considered in Congress. Some candidates haven’t even expressed an opinion on this critical issue, which, frankly, I don’t really understand.
But as I’ve said before, this campaign is not about Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, or Jeb Bush — it’s about the needs of the American people.
And we need a new approach to trade in this country — one that benefits working families and not just the CEOs of multinational corporations.
Thank you for standing with working families.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders"
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Oct 4, 2015 22:09:39 GMT -6
from WallStreetOnParade.com wallstreetonparade.com/judicial-apartheid-wall-streets-kangaroo-courts/Judicial Apartheid: Wall Street’s Kangaroo CourtsJuly 20, 2009 By Pam Martens "For the past 18 years, a motley mix of corporate law firms, Wall Street powerhouses and private justice providers have been serving up false testimony to the highest court of our land that mandatory arbitration is “inexpensive, fast and fair” and a proper substitute for the public court system. And for 18 years a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court has been cozying up to these brazenly preposterous statements while gutting our Constitution’s Seventh Amendment guarantee to a jury trial. In doing so, wittingly or unwittingly, the Supreme Court has aided and abetted the key linchpin of a wealth transfer system that has brought the nation to its knees. Today, everything from Wall Street brokerage accounts, employment contracts, credit cards, mortgages, even cell phone contracts have routinely removed the individual’s constitutional right to file a claim in court to seek redress of a grievance or fraudulent action. Instead, the individual’s claim is forced into one of the privately run arbitration organizations where conflicts are rampant, discovery is limited, and the right to appeal is typically impossible because the arbitrators are not required to explain the rationale for their decisions in writing. In a saner era, these mandatory arbitration contracts would be thrown out by courts as contracts of adhesion because they were offered on a take it or leave it basis. Under any rational interpretation of contract law, contracts must be a meeting of the minds, freely entered into, between parties of equal bargaining power. But just as profits have been privatized on Wall Street and losses socialized, the right to a jury trial in a court system paid for by individual taxpayers is now increasingly reserved for corporations, not people. It’s a form of judicial apartheid not dissimilar to the way the Supreme Court rationalized the segregation of blacks in its Plessy v. Ferguson decision in 1896, promising “equal” facilities, just separate. Last week, a lone female state attorney general put the lie to mandatory arbitration. And when she pulled back its dark curtain, what we saw was a grand theft of both justice and wealth perpetuated against the American people. Lori Swanson, Attorney General of Minnesota, charged the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) with consumer fraud, deceptive trade practices and false advertising. The National Arbitration Forum is a private justice provider that adjudicates upwards of 200,000 consumer claims a year and acknowledges that it has been appointed as the arbitrator in “hundreds of millions of contracts.” Swanson’s lawsuit charges that the National Arbitration Forum, which masquerades as functioning like an independent judge and jury, is in fact financially shackled to debt collection law firms representing major credit card companies. The lawsuit states that: “Beginning in 2006 and through 2007, Accretive LLC…engineered two transactions. In the 1st transaction, Accretive formed several private equity funds under the name ‘Agora’ (meaning ‘Forum’ in Greek), which in turn invested $42 million in the National Arbitration Forum and obtained governance rights in it. In the 2nd transaction, 3 of the country’s largest debt collection law firms (Mann Bracken of Georgia, Wolpoff & Abramson of the District of Columbia, and Eskanos & Adler of California) merged into one large national law firm called Mann Bracken, LLP. Accretive then formed and funded (partly using federal money from the U.S. Small Business Administration) a debt collection agency called Axiant, LLC, which acquired the assets and collections operations of Mann Bracken. Through these transactions, the Accretive hedge fund group simultaneously took control of one of the country’s largest debt collectors and became affiliated with the Forum, the country’s largest debt collection arbitration company.” In announcing the suit, Swanson was joined at the press conference by Richard Neely, retired Chief Justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. One suspects that Mr. Neely, who worked for a brief stint as an arbitrator for the National Arbitration Forum, may have assisted in providing research for the lawsuit. Here are the choice words Mr. Neely had to say about the organization in the September/October 2006 issue of The West Virginia Lawyer: “A few years ago I answered a request from the National Arbitration Forum to join their panel of arbitrators. I thought I was invited because I was a former state supreme court judge. Stupid me! I was just another piece of raw meat… Thus I learned how Godless bloodsucking banks have converted apparently neutral arbitration forums into collection agencies to exact the last drop of blood from desperate debtors…Banks and other bloodsuckers make campaign contributions and single moms don’t. That accounts for the current Federal system…” Another insider glimpse at the National Arbitration Forum came on April 2, 2009 when Deanna Richert, a former employee, filed a lawsuit for employment discrimination, deceptive trade practices and consumer fraud in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota. Ms. Richert’s lawsuit alleges: “During the course of plaintiff’s employment at defendants, she witnessed fraudulent and corrupt practices in the administration of arbitration cases by defendants which draw into question the neutrality of any arbitrator associated in any way with defendants and which practices make any alleged requirement of arbitration fraudulent and unconscionable, and thereby null, void and unenforceable. The NAF and Forthright had regular business users of their arbitration system who were referred to in-house as the ‘Famous Parties.’ These ‘Famous Parties’ were repeat filers for arbitration who did not pay for defendants’ services as they filed like sporadic filers, but used the arbitration service so commonly that they paid on account to defendants. Among the fraudulent and corrupt practices witnessed by plaintiff with respect to these ‘Famous Parties,’ were the following: “Management meetings in which personnel were instructed to call arbitrators and tell them, prior to the release of the decision to the parties to the arbitration, to change decisions they had issued that found against the Famous Parties; “Management meetings in which personnel were instructed to make sure that certain arbitrators who had decided cases against a Famous Party did not get any more cases; “Defendants drafting the claim forms and fictitious affidavits of service for the Famous Parties, including the placement of stored electronic signatures for the Famous Parties on these documents… “Arbitrators calling defendants to ask its attorneys how they should rule on a particular matter… “The disallowance by defendants of responses by consumers to claims filed against them simply because the consumer did not carbon copy the filer of the claim on their correspondence, thereby putting the consumer into default on an arbitration claim they had attempted to answer.” According to Ms. Richert’s attorney, Daniel E. Warner, a motion to compel the lawsuit “into arbitration is pending in the federal district court, which we are actively resisting.” Who are these so-called “Famous Parties”? According to Attorney General Swanson’s lawsuit, the National Arbitration Forum has among its clients, MBNA/Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup; those same “infamous” parties deemed too big to fail by the Federal government, thus entitling them to the public purse as a lifeline. Nine years ago, on March 1, 2000, Caroline E. Mayer, writing in the Washington Post, put the deception of this so-called neutral forum right under the nose of the Supreme Court justices, Congress and the Department of Justice. Ms. Mayer had obtained documents filed in a class action lawsuit against First USA. The documents showed that the bank prevailed in “99.6 percent of the cases that went all the way to an arbitrator” at the National Arbitration Forum. “Since First USA implemented its arbitration clause in early 1998, it has filed 51,622 claims against consumers with the forum. The forum has made 19,705 awards: First USA prevailed in 19,618, card members in 87.” That did not stop the U.S. Supreme Court from continuing to embrace the virtues of mandatory arbitration. Justice Ruth Ginsburg even gave the National Arbitration Forum a plug in a partial dissenting opinion when she said: “Other national arbitration organizations have developed similar models for fair cost and fee allocation.” Adding in a footnote: “They include National Arbitration Forum provisions that limit small-claim consumer costs to between $49 and $175 and a National Consumer Disputes Advisory Committee protocol recommending that consumer costs be limited to a reasonable amount. National Arbitration Forum, Code of Procedure, App. C, Fee Schedule (July 1, 2000).” Ginsburg made her remarks in a case called Green Tree Financial Corp. v. Larketta Randolph where the mandatory arbitration clause left open ended the amount of fees the consumer might have to pay for the arbitration. Former Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote the opinion for the court, stating: “…we have recognized that federal statutory claims can be appropriately resolved through arbitration, and we have enforced agreements to arbitrate that involve such claims…We have likewise rejected generalized attacks on arbitration that rest on ‘suspicion of arbitration as a method of weakening the protections afforded in the substantive law to would-be complainants…’ These cases demonstrate that even claims arising under a statute designed to further important social policies may be arbitrated because `so long as the prospective litigant effectively may vindicate [his or her] statutory cause of action in the arbitral forum,’ the statute serves its functions.” The above twisted logic together with the phrase “liberal federal policy favoring arbitration agreements” has become the mindless mantra of a high court that has evinced willful blindness toward their role of enablers to a creeping corporate fascism.Particularly egregious in Green Tree was the mountain of evidence the Supreme Court majority ignored. Amici for the respondent, Larketta Randolph, submitted the following: “…many individuals asserting statutory claims against corporations have confronted arbitration fees that amounted to thousands of dollars in settings where these fees would discourage the individuals from pursuing those claims: In Brower v. Gateway 2000…an arbitration clause required individuals to pay an advance fee of $4000 (which the court noted exceeded the cost of most of the defendant’s products)…In Patterson v. ITT Consumer Financial Corp….the court found that a borrower would have to pay at least $850 to get a participatory hearing over debts as small as $2,000 and that these fees (along with other procedures) ‘become oppressive when applied to unsophisticated borrowers of limited means…In Cole v. Burns Int’l Sec. Servs…the court noted that arbitrators’ fees range from $500 to $1,000 per day. In Jones v. Fujitsu Network Communications…the Arbitration Policy require[d] Plaintiff to pay one-half of the arbitrator’s fee, the court reporter’s fee, the fee for the arbitrator’s copy of the transcript, and facility costs….In the Matter of Arbitration Between Teleserve Sys., Inc. and MCI Telecomm. Corp…the court noted that the arbitration filing fee alone for the claimant in an antitrust dispute would amount to more than $200,000.” In September 2007, Public Citizen published a comprehensive 74-page study of mandatory arbitration with a sharp focus on the National Arbitration Forum. The report is titled “The Arbitration Trap.” Among its many startling findings related to the National Arbitration Forum, Public Citizen found that in California between January 1, 2003 and March 31, 2007 “…a small cadre of arbitrators handled most of the cases that went to a decision. In total, 28 arbitrators handled 17,265 cases – accounting for a whopping 89.5 percent of cases in which an arbitrator was appointed – and ruled for the company nearly 95 percent of the time…Topping the list of the busiest arbitrators was Joseph Nardulli, who handled 1,332 arbitrations and ruled for the corporate claimant an overwhelming 97 percent of the time.” This is known as the “repeat player” defect in arbitration and is one of the darkest secrets among private arbitral forums. Corporate antagonism to a trial by a jury of our peers is because of the randomness of jury selection. Juries are typically culled from massive voter or motor vehicle registrations. They are not highly paid, repeat players hearing claims involving the same corporation. And the National Arbitration Forum is not an aberration. On July 20, 2000 the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association (PIABA) issued a press release accusing the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) of rigging its computerized system of selecting arbitrators. The opening text reads as follows: “In direct and flagrant violation of federal law, the NASD systematically evaded the Securities and Exchange Commission approved ‘Neutral List Selection System’ arbitration rule requiring arbitrators to be selected on a rotating basis. Instead, the NASD secretly programmed its computers to select some arbitrators on a seniority basis – just what the rule was designed to prevent.” The Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association discovered the manipulation when a team of its attorneys demanded a test of the selection system at an NASD/PIABA meeting in Chicago on June 27, 2000. PIABA predicted that “this rule violation tainted hundreds or even thousands of compulsory securities arbitrations – many still ongoing. In every such instance, the substantive rights of public investors to a neutral panel have been cynically violated. Many public investors were thus twice cheated: first, by an NASD member firm that fraudulently conned them out of their life’s savings, and second by the NASD Arbitration Department’s rigged panels.” The industry bias of arbitrators hearing claims against Wall Street firms is legendary. On June 9, 1994, Margaret Jacobs exposed the systemic bias in a feature article in the Wall Street Journal on the case of Helen L. Walters: “Helen L. Walters says her boss called her a ‘hooker,’ a ‘bitch’ and a ‘streetwalker.’ Sometimes he brandished a riding crop in front of her and once he left condoms on her desk. “Ms. Walters, then a trading-room secretary at a California brokerage firm, filed a complaint against him alleging sexual harassment. In a formal hearing, he readily admitted to the whip and the condoms, and to using all of those epithets. Her case, legal scholars agree, seems a textbook example of illegal harassment as defined by the Supreme Court: a situation in which a ‘reasonable person’ would find the work environment ‘hostile or abusive.’ “So why did Ms. Walters lose? “Ms. Walters slammed into a little-known, but extraordinarily daunting, roadblock facing many women in the securities industry: Bias complaints, like any other employee dispute, must go through the industry’s mandatory-arbitration system. That means victims’ complaints can’t be heard in court by judge or jury, no matter how strong their merit.” Ms. Walters’ case is indicative of the final dark secret that seems to have escaped the U.S. Supreme Court, whose occupants make their deliberations in a taxpayer funded building inscribed with the words “Equal Justice Under Law.” Arbitration cannot be a fair substitute to court because arbitrators are not bound to follow the law or legal precedent. In the case of Delfina Montes v. Shearson Lehman Brothers, involving a claim for overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the lawyer for this Wall Street brokerage firm argued as follows during the arbitration: “I know, as I have served many times as an arbitrator, that you as an arbitrator are not guided strictly to follow case law precedent… I know it’s hard to have to say this and it’s probably even harder to hear it but in this case this law is not right. Know that there is a difference between law and equity and I think, in my opinion, that difference is crystallized in this case. The law says one thing. What equity demands and requires and is saying is another….You know as arbitrators you have the ability, you’re not strictly bound by case law and precedent. …as I said in my Answer, as I said before in my Opening, and I now ask you in my Closing, not to follow the FLSA if you determine she’s not an exempt employee.” From defective consumer products, to denial of overtime pay, to gutting the civil rights laws, to unconscionable mortgages, derivatives, obscene interest rates and bogus fees on credit cards, the corporations have had quite a run over the past decade with their judicial apartheid and anointed blessing of a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court. And just what did it do for big business? Those with the most egregious mandatory arbitration contracts are either bankrupt or zombie firms struggling for survival on the taxpayer’s dime.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Oct 4, 2015 13:23:50 GMT -6
from Michael-Hudson michael-hudson.com/2015/09/putin-the-empty-veil-of-democracy/The empty veil of ‘democracy’Sept 30, 2015 By Michael Hudson "In his Orwellian September 28, 2015 speech to the United Nations, President Obama said that if democracy had existed in Syria, there never would have been a revolt against Assad. By that, he meant ISIL. Where there is democracy, he said, there is no violence or revolution. This was his threat to promote revolution, coups and violence against any country not deemed a “democracy.” In making this hardly-veiled threat, he redefined the word in the vocabulary of international politics. Democracy is the CIA’s overthrow of Mossedegh in Iran to install the Shah. Democracy is the overthrow of Afghanistan’s secular government by the Taliban against Russia. Democracy is the Ukrainian coup behind Yats and Poroshenko. Democracy is Pinochet. It is “our bastards,” as Lyndon Johnson said, with regard to the Latin American dictators installed by U.S. foreign policy. A century ago the word “democracy” referred to a nation whose policies were formed by elected representatives. Ever since ancient Athens, democracy was contrasted to oligarchy and aristocracy. But since the Cold War and its aftermath, that is not how U.S. politicians have used the term. When an American president uses the word “democracy,” he means a pro-American country following U.S. neoliberal policies, no matter if the country is a military dictatorship or its government was brought in by a coup(euphemized as a Color Revolution) as in Georgia or Ukraine. A “democratic” government has been re-defined simply as one supporting the Washington Consensus, NATO and the IMF. It is a government that shifts policy-making out of the hands of elected representatives to an “independent” central bank, whose policies are dictated by the oligarchy centered in Wall Street, the City of London and Frankfurt. Given this American re-definition of the political vocabulary, when President Obama says that such countries will not suffer coups, violent revolution or terrorism, he means that countries safely within the U.S. diplomatic orbit will be free of destabilization sponsored by the U.S. State Department, Defense Department and Treasury. Countries whose voters democratically elect a government or regime that acts independently (or even simply seeks the power to act independently of U.S. directives) will be destabilized, Syria- style, Ukraine-style or Chile-style under General Pinochet. As Henry Kissinger said, just because a country votes in communists doesn’t mean that we have to accept it. This is the style of the “color revolutions” sponsored by the National Endowment for Democracy. In his United Nations reply, Russian President Putin warned against the “export of democratic revolution,” meaning by the United States in support of its local factotums. ISIL is armed with U.S. weapons and its soldiers were trained by U.S. armed forces. In case there was any doubt, President Obama reiterated before the United Nations that until Syrian President Assad was removed in favor of one more submissive to U.S. oil and military policy, Assad was the major enemy, not ISIL. “It is impossible to tolerate the present situation any longer,” President Putin responded. Likewise in Ukraine: “What I believe is absolutely unacceptable,” he said in his CBS interview on 60 Minutes, “is the resolution of internal political issues in the former USSR Republics, through “color revolutions,” through coup d’etats, through unconstitutional removal of power. That is totally unacceptable. Our partners in the United States have supported those who ousted Yanukovych. … We know who and where, when, who exactly met with someone and worked with those who ousted Yanukovych, how they were supported, how much they were paid, how they were trained, where, in which countries, and who those instructors were. We know everything.” Where does this leave U.S.-Russian relations? I hoped for a moment that perhaps Obama’s harsh anti-Russian talk was to provide protective coloration for an agreement with Putin in their 5 o’clock meeting. Speaking one way so as to enable oneself to act in another has always been his modus operandi, as it is for many politicians. But Obama remains in the hands of the neocons. Where will this lead? There are many ways to think outside the box. What if Putin proposes to air-lift or ship Syrian refugees – up to a third of the population – to Europe, landing them in Holland and England, who are obliged under the Shengen rules to accept them? Or what if he brings to Russia the best computer specialists and other skilled labor for which Syria is renowned, supplementing the flood of immigration from “democratic” Ukraine? What if the joint plans announced on Sunday between Iraq, Iran, Syria and Russia to jointly fight ISIS – a coalition that US/NATO has refrained from joining – comes up against U.S. troops or even the main funder of ISIL, Saudi Arabia? The game is out of America’s hands now. All it is able to do is wield the threat of “democracy” as a weapon of coups to turn recalcitrant countries into Libyas, Iraqs and Syrias."
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Oct 3, 2015 13:53:28 GMT -6
According the lastest Household Survey report, There are now 102.5 million Non-Working Americans in the working age range. That's +700K more than 1 year ago. And it's +14 million more than in 2008. Little wonder that wages are not increasing. The increased supply of workers not employed suppresses the price of labor. www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea01.pdf
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Oct 3, 2015 13:32:28 GMT -6
Below is an excellent article by the Finance Examiner from the the examiner.com
Though he does an excellent job of describing the manipulation of the Unemployment numbers vs. the "Not-in-Labor-Force" numbers, his best point is regarding Federal Reserve action.
This is the 1st time I've seen anyone else point out that the Federal Reserve's zero-interest rate policies caused money to flow into the stock market and other paper assets, instead of into the production end of the economy. The easy money available to the super-rich promoted stock market investment, with ongoing hypervaluation of non-productive stock prices--which don't require any increase in real goods production to increase in value. Had it not been so easy to make ongoing paper gains with cheap investment capital, money might otherwise have flowed into real production--where increased valuation would not have occurred without increased productivity & production of goods.www.examiner.com/article/fed-blames-94-million-americans-out-of-work-for-simply-not-wanting-a-job?CID=examiner_alerts_articleFed blames 94 million Americans out of work for simply not wanting a jobOct 2, 2015 Kenneth Schortgen JrFinance Examiner "It has been a long time since the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) published the real unemployment numbers for all Americans who fit the criteria of being able to work in the economy, but have not been able to find a job for one reason or another. Instead, the BLS has simply changed their data models numerous times since 1980, and now we have reached the point where there are actually more people between the ages of 16-54 who don't have a job versus those in that same age range who do. And with the Federal Reserve using these BLS numbers as the catalyst for whether to raise interest rates after nine years of them being pushed down to near zero, one regional central bank on Oct. 2 laid the blame for there being over 94 million Americans out of work and not counted in the unemployment models as simply 'not wanting to get a job'. The employment rate data that is compiled and published monthly is a vitally important parameter for many political and economic policies. When Barack Obama took over the Presidency in 2009, the country was in a severe recession and the unemployment rate was well over 10%. However, because the BLS only records Americans who have a full or part time job, or receive government benefits for being out of work, anyone who does not fit under these two categories are no longer even counted, despite the fact that most would like to find jobs where there are very few to fit their skill sets. The real data shows that millions of skilled jobs have been cut and removed from the economy since 2008, with nearly all of these former positions having been replaced with minimum wage to lower income jobs. Thus because the higher paid jobs have been eliminated over the past seven years, many workers between the ages of 22-55 who have much greater living costs or debt loads to pay towards cannot survive on the jobs currently available in the 'new economy' created out of the 2008 credit crisis. The Federal Reserve has to take much of the blame for 94 million Americans being unable to find decent jobs due to their quantitative easing programs, and near zero interest rate policies that made it easier for banks and corporations to put their money on Wall Street than to actually increase productivity and hire new workers. And as the dichotomy of a falling unemployment rate contradicts the fact that more people actually no not have jobs continues, a breaking point will eventually occur, and is a major reason why the central bank chose not to raise rates at their FOMC meeting last month."
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Sept 25, 2015 0:17:41 GMT -6
The number & names of drugs with newly-listed exorbitant prices is staggering.
In addition to the never-ending extension of patent exclusions authorized by our Corporate-owned government, other means of monopolization have also been employed.
Another means of jacking up prices is to convert a decades-old drug to controlled-distribution status. This means making the drug unavailable at pharmacies without special request, making it difficult for competitors to produce a generic version of the drug--even if the drug has been produced for many decades.
Below is an example of the greed-blinded price-gouging, typical of the younger, generation-X "me-firsters":
from the New York Timeswww.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/business/a-huge-overnight-increase-in-a-drugs-price-raises-protests.html?_r=1Drug Goes From $13.50 a Tablet to $750, OvernightSept 20, 2015, By ANDREW POLLACK "Specialists in infectious disease are protesting a gigantic overnight increase in the price of a 62-year-old drug that is the standard of care for treating a life-threatening parasitic infection. The drug, called Daraprim, was acquired in August by Turing Pharmaceuticals, a start-up run by a former hedge fund manager. Turing immediately raised the price to $750 a tablet from $13.50, bringing the annual cost of treatment for some patients to hundreds of thousands of dollars. “What is it that they are doing differently that has led to this dramatic increase?” said Dr. Judith Aberg, the chief of the division of infectious diseases at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She said the price increase could force hospitals to use “alternative therapies that may not have the same efficacy.” Turing’s price increase is not an isolated example. While most of the attention on pharmaceutical prices has been on new drugs for diseases like cancer, hepatitis C and high cholesterol, there is also growing concern about huge price increases on older drugs, some of them generic, that have long been mainstays of treatment. Although some price increases have been caused by shortages, others have resulted from a business strategy of buying old neglected drugs and turning them into high-priced “specialty drugs.” Cycloserine, a drug used to treat dangerous multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, was just increased in price to $10,800 for 30 pills from $500 after its acquisition by Rodelis Therapeutics. Scott Spencer, general manager of Rodelis, said the company needed to invest to make sure the supply of the drug remained reliable.... In August, 2 members of Congress investigating generic drug price increases wrote to Valeant Pharmaceuticals after that company acquired two heart drugs, Isuprel and Nitropress, from Marathon Pharmaceuticals and promptly raised their prices by 525 percent and 212 percent respectively. Marathon had acquired the drugs from another company in 2013 and had quintupled their prices, according to the lawmakers, Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, and Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland. Doxycycline, an antibiotic, went from $20 a bottle in October 2013 to $1,849 by April 2014, according to the 2 lawmakers.The Infectious Diseases Society of America and the HIV Medicine Association sent a joint letter to Turing earlier this month calling the price increase for Daraprim “unjustifiable for the medically vulnerable patient population” and “unsustainable for the health care system.” An organization representing the directors of state AIDS programs has also been looking into the price increase, according to doctors and patient advocates. Daraprim, known generically as pyrimethamine, is used mainly to treat toxoplasmosis, a parasite infection that can cause serious or even life-threatening problems for babies born to women who become infected during pregnancy, and also for people with compromised immune systems, like AIDS patients and certain cancer patients. Martin Shkreli, the founder and chief executive of Turing, said that the drug is so rarely used that the impact on the health system would be minuscule and that Turing would use the money it earns to develop better treatments for toxoplasmosis, with fewer side effects.... This is not the first time the 32-year-old Mr. Shkreli...has been the center of controversy. He started MSMB Capital, a hedge fund company, in his 20s and drew attention for urging the Food and Drug Administration not to approve certain drugs made by companies whose stock he was shorting. In 2011, Mr. Shkreli started Retrophin, which also acquired old neglected drugs and sharply raised their prices. Retrophin’s board fired Mr. Shkreli a year ago. Last month, it filed a complaint in Federal District Court in Manhattan, accusing him of using Retrophin as a personal piggy bank to pay back angry investors in his hedge fund. Mr. Shkreli has denied the accusations. He has filed for arbitration against his old company, which he says owes him at least $25 million in severance. “They are sort of concocting this wild and crazy and unlikely story to swindle me out of the money,” he said. Daraprim, which is also used to treat malaria, was approved by the F.D.A. in 1953 and has long been made by GlaxoSmithKline. Glaxo sold United States marketing rights to CorePharma in 2010. Last year, Impax Laboratories agreed to buy Core and affiliated companies for $700 million. In August, Impax sold Daraprim to Turing for $55 million, a deal announced the same day Turing said it had raised $90 million from Mr. Shkreli and other investors in its first round of financing. Daraprim cost only about $1 a tablet several years ago, but the drug’s price rose sharply after CorePharma acquired it. According to IMS Health, which tracks prescriptions, sales of the drug jumped to $6.3 million in 2011 from $667,000 in 2010, even as prescriptions held steady at about 12,700. In 2014, after further price increases, sales were $9.9 million, as the number of prescriptions shrank to 8,821. The figures do not include inpatient use in hospitals. Turing’s price increase could bring sales to tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars a year if use remains constant. Medicaid and certain hospitals will be able to get the drug inexpensively under federal rules for discounts and rebates. But private insurers, Medicare and hospitalized patients would have to pay an amount closer to the list price. Some doctors questioned Turing’s claim that there was a need for better drugs, saying the side effects, while potentially serious, could be managed. “I certainly don’t think this is one of those diseases where we have been clamoring for better therapies,” said Dr. Wendy Armstrong, professor of infectious diseases at Emory University in Atlanta. With the price now high, other companies could conceivably make generic copies, since patents have long expired. One factor that could discourage that option is that Daraprim’s distribution is now tightly controlled, making it harder for generic companies to get the samples they need for the required testing. The switch from drugstores to controlled distribution was made in June by Impax, not by Turing. Still, controlled distribution was a strategy Mr. Shkreli talked about at his previous company as a way to thwart generics. Some hospitals say they now have trouble getting the drug. “We’ve not had access to the drug for a few months,” said Dr. Armstrong, who also works at Grady Memorial Hospital, a huge public treatment center in Atlanta that serves many low-income patients.... Daraprim is the standard first treatment for toxoplasmosis, in combination with an antibiotic called sulfadiazine. There are alternative treatments, but there is less data supporting their efficacy. Dr. Aberg of Mount Sinai said some hospitals will now find Daraprim too expensive to keep in stock, possibly resulting in treatment delays. She said that Mount Sinai was continuing to use the drug, but each use now required a special review. “This seems to be all profit-driven for somebody,” Dr. Aberg said, “and I just think it’s a very dangerous process.”"
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Aug 29, 2015 11:35:13 GMT -6
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Aug 24, 2015 23:42:31 GMT -6
Looks like the overnight futures were right.
The Dow lost 588 points.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Aug 22, 2015 9:59:12 GMT -6
Below is an article chronicling the sell-off of Greek assets to satisfy Eurozone creditors. sputniknews.com/europe/20150821/1026011941.htmlsptnkne.ws/CmgAfter the Bailout: The Spoils of Greece Are Bound for GermanyAugust 21, 2015 "The 'Asset Development Plan' for Greece is out and it's all go for the privatization of the country. Hellenic sea ports, air ports, motorways, petroleum companies, water and gas supply, real estate, holiday resorts - it's all for sale. Debt laden Greece has been forced to sell the family silver in an all too familiar tale with ancient history repeating itself. The Hellenic Public Asset Development Fund has been published by German Green MEP Sven Giegold who said the Greek people "hardly know" what will be sold off and that they have "the right" to know. The selling of Greek assets to raise $56 billion (€50bn) was demanded by Greece's creditors, the Troika. The document reveals that 66% of a gas distribution and processing firm will be sold to Azerbaijan; 35% of Greece's first oil refinery firm will be sold off along with 17% of its electricity distributor and 65% of gas distributor Depa. All rail and bus services will go under the hammer — along with the Greek telephone and postal service. Even before the bailout deal was completed and the money arrived safely in the Greek banks, the Germans had won their bid to take over 14 Greek airports for the next 40 years, paying $1.36 billion (€1.23bn) for the privilege. FRAPORT will own and operate Greece's most popular tourist island airports. Of the $56 billion (€50bn) needed in asset stripping and bank shares, only $8.69 billion (€7.7bn) has been agreed so far. Nick Dearden, economic expert and campaigner, says it makes "no sense to sell off valuable assets in the middle of Europe's worst depression in 70 years." Writing in Global Justice Now, Dearden says: " The vast majority of the funds raised will go back to the creditors in debt repayments, and to the recapitalization of Greek banks. "From German airport operators and phone companies to French railways — who are getting their hands on Greece's economy. Not to mention the European investment banks and legal firms who are making a fast buck along the way. "The self-interest of European governments in forcing these policies on Greece leaves a particularly unpleasant flavor… workers will be sacked and their conditions made worse, while the elite of Europe profits." Dearden continues to offer a scathing attack on the asset stripping of Greece. "Privatization in the context of the bailout accord is tantamount to expropriation, like forcing a bankrupt to sell the family silver in order to pay off debts…the victorious Northern European governments are now inviting their companies to partake in the spoils."
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Aug 17, 2015 23:20:03 GMT -6
I just became aware of one of the latest victims of Obamacare & Corporatized Medicine--my own wife. She recently saw her primary care physician for low back pain. I have to confess that I didn't fully appreciate how much trouble she was having, though she had been walking with a stooped posture for several years. She had an X-ray of her Lumbar Spine done. The Corporate medicine-owned Radiologist read the X-ray as "...Moderate rightward curvature involving the mid/lower lumbar spine noted. Mild to moderate multilevel degenerative disc disease present...The vertebral body heights and spinal alignment are other wise maintained. IMPRESSION: Lumbar spondylosis wth no acute osseous abnormality identified." I read the report several days before I actually saw the imaging. And then I saw the imaging (i.e., lumbar X-rays) WTF?!!! There was nothing "mild-to-moderate" about her disc degeneration! It is somewhere between SEVERE to VERY SEVERE. There is almost no disk space whatsoever between her Lumbar Vertebra. There are Large anterior osteophytes (bone spurs) on her lower lumbar vertebra--consistent with severe lumbar degenerative disk disease. Again, there is almost NO disk space between her Lumbar vertebra. That defines SEVERE Degenerative Disk Disease--there is almost no way for the disks to degenerate any further--as they have almost completely collapsed. The under-reading of this X-ray is extremely problematic. If the ordering M.D. doesn't get a chance to actually see the X-ray himself--which is often the case in modern-day Corporatized medicine--he'll never realize how piss-pore the bought-off Radiologist's reading is. This kind of reading is designed to reduce any kind of referral by the primary M.D. for more aggressive (and more expensive) treatment. As such, it is designed to reduce costs and increase profits for the shareholders and management of the medical insurance companies. This situation is a product of the combined efforts of Health Insurance Companies and their lobbiests, Obamacare, and the reduced enforcement of anti-trust legislation to prevent said insurance companies from controlling entire, or nearly entire health insurance markets. You can bet that I will be taking my wife for a 2nd opinion in a neighboring locale (under control of a different Medical Insurance Oligopoly.) At least then there'll be someone with a financial incentive to review & revise the under-interpretation of her recent Lumbar Spine X-ray. Attachments:
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Aug 11, 2015 23:00:34 GMT -6
from PaulCraigRoberts.org www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/08/10/us-economy-continues-collapse-paul-craig-roberts/The US Economy Continues Its CollapseAug 10, 2015 by Paul Craig Roberts "Do you remember when real reporters existed? Those were the days before the Clinton regime concentrated the media into a few hands and turned the media into a Ministry of Propaganda, a tool of Big Brother. The false reality in which Americans live extends into economic life. Last Friday’s employment report was a continuation of a long string of bad news spun into good news. The media repeats two numbers as if they mean something—the monthly payroll jobs gains and the unemployment rate—and ignores the numbers that show the continuing multi-year decline in employment opportunities while the economy is allegedly recovering. The so-called recovery is based on the U.3 measure of the unemployment rate. This measure does not include any unemployed person who has become discouraged from the inability to find a job and has not looked for a job in four weeks. The U.3 measure of unemployment only includes the still hopeful who think they will find a job. The government has a second official measure of unemployment, U.6. This measure, seldom reported, includes among the unemployed those who have been discouraged for less than one year. This official measure is double the 5.3% U.3 measure. What does it mean that the unemployment rate is over 10% after six years of alleged economic recovery? In 1994 the Clinton regime stopped counting long-term discouraged workers as unemployed. Clinton wanted his economy to look better than Reagan’s, so he ceased counting the long-term discouraged workers that were part of Reagan’s unemployment rate. John Williams (shadowstats.com) continues to measure the long-term discouraged with the official methodology of that time, and when these unemployed are included, the US rate of unemployment as of July 2015 is 23%, several times higher than during the recession with which Fed chairman Paul Volcker greeted the Reagan presidency. An unemployment rate of 23% gives economic recovery a new meaning. It has been eighty-five years since the Great Depression, and the US economy is in economic recovery with an unemployment rate close to that of the Great Depression. The labor force participation rate has declined over the “recovery” that allegedly began in June 2009 and continues today. This is highly unusual. Normally, as an economy recovers jobs rebound, and people flock into the labor force. Based on what he was told by his economic advisors, President Obama attributed the decline in the participation rate to baby boomers taking retirement. In actual fact, over the so-called recovery, job growth has been primarily among those 55 years of age and older. For example, all of the July payroll jobs gains were accounted for by those 55 and older. Those Americans of prime working age (25 to 54 years old) lost 131,000 jobs in July. Over the previous year (July 2014 — July 2015), those in the age group 55 and older gained 1,554,000 jobs. Youth, 16-18 and 20-24, lost 887,000 and 489,000 jobs. Today there are 4,000,000 fewer jobs for Americans aged 25 to 54 than in December 2007. From 2009 to 2013, Americans in this age group were down 6,000,000 jobs. Those years of alleged economic recovery apparently bypassed Americans of prime working age. As of July 2015, the US has 27,265,000 people with part-time jobs, of whom 6,300,000 or 23% are working part-time because they cannot find full time jobs. There are 7,124,000 Americans who hold multiple part-time jobs in order to make ends meet, an increase of 337,000 from a year ago. The young cannot form households on the basis of part-time jobs, but retirees take these jobs in order to provide the missing income on their savings from the Federal Reserve’s zero interest rate policy, which is keyed toward supporting the balance sheets of a handful of giant banks, whose executives control the US Treasury and Federal Reserve. With so many manufacturing and tradable professional skill jobs, such as software engineering, offshored to China and India, professional careers are disappearing in the US. The most lucrative jobs in America involve running Wall Street scams, lobbying for private interest groups, for which former members of the House, Senate, and executive branch are preferred, and producing schemes for the enrichment of think-tank donors, which, masquerading as public policy, can become law. The claimed payroll jobs for July are in the usual categories familiar to us month after month year after year. They are domestic service jobs—waitresses and bartenders, retail clerks, transportation, warehousing, finance and insurance, health care and social assistance. Nothing to export in order to pay for massive imports. With scant growth in real median family incomes, as savings are drawn down and credit used up, even the sales part of the economy will falter. Clearly, this is not an economy that has a future. But you would never know that from listening to the financial media or reading the New York Times business section or the Wall Street Journal. When I was a Wall Street Journal editor, the deplorable condition of the US economy would have been front page news. UPDATE: See Pam & Russ Martens: wallstreetonparade.com/2015/08/how-u-s-achieves-a-5-3-unemployment-rate-if-you-earn-no-money-you-can-still-be-counted-as-employed/ [1]
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Aug 9, 2015 22:29:59 GMT -6
The American labor force continues to grow faster than new jobs. For the 2nd month in a row, the number of working age Americans not employed (nor imprisoned), has been over 102 million. That's a lot of potential surplus labor, whose existence is absolutely suppressing wages. www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea01.pdf
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Aug 9, 2015 21:31:10 GMT -6
The trend of decreasing median wealth for those under 61 is a bad trend for the economy.
It is those under-61 workers who provide most of the spending-created demand for goods and services.
Add this declining source of spending & demand to the outsourcing-induced domestic demand reduction, and you have a recipe for continual decline in our economy.
There is now nothing to stem the continued loss of good American jobs. Low wage overseas labor markets have sucked off most American production jobs--and the wages & buying power that went with those jobs. The loss of median wealth in the under-61 age range is further evidence of that.
Decreased wealth--> Decr buying power--> Decr production demand--> Decr Labor demand--> Decr employment & wages
We don't need more education or "job training."
We need Tariffs (or Embargoes) and a complete freeze on immigration of any type--illegal, legal, H1Bs, guest workers, & everything else.
We don't need more workers. We need more job openings, and less newly-arriving workers to fill them.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Aug 9, 2015 21:11:11 GMT -6
The younger workers should really be the ones opposing it the most.
It's their employment & wages that are going to be suppressed, not those of retirees.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Aug 9, 2015 21:10:43 GMT -6
The younger workers should really be the ones opposing it the most.
It's their employment & wages that are going to be suppressed, not those of retirees.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Aug 9, 2015 13:48:43 GMT -6
from the Observer observer.com/2015/08/elizabeth-warren-slams-confidentiality-of-sputtering-trans-pacific-partnership-deal/Elizabeth Warren Slams Confidentiality of Sputtering Trans Pacific Partnership DealAs trade talks stumble, details remain shouded in secrecy. Aug 9, 2015 By Michael Sainato "The negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement between the Obama administration and leaders of 11 other Pacific Rim nations—Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and Japan, are still in a gridlock. In a recent speech to the press at the Singapore Management University, Secretary of State John Kerry admitted that “there remain details to be hashed out,” while remaining vague on what those details may be. This lack of transparency over the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement has led to staunch opposition calling for its derailment over the past few years since the agreement was first drafted in 2005. Opponents to the Trans Pacific Partnership argue the agreement has too many parallels to NAFTA.“It is becoming clear the TPP will not create jobs, protect the environment and ensure safe imports. Rather, it appears modeled after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a free trade agreement where the largest global corporations benefit and working families are left behind,” says the AFL-CIO, the largest federations of unions in America. The consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen also cited NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada enacted in 1994, saying that the agreement resulted in a loss of nearly a million jobs in America due to the surge in U.S. trade deficit the agreement caused. The agreement also opened up imports from U.S. that small scale workers in Mexico couldn’t keep up with in price or production. Immigration from Mexico to the U.S. also soared. The number of annual immigrants from Mexico more than doubled from 370,000 in 1993 (the year before NAFTA went into effect) to 770,000 in 2000 – a +108% increase. NAFTA also gave US employers a cudgel to negotiate wages and benefits in their favor, as the threat of moving production to Mexico was made tangible through the agreement. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has starkly and consistently opposed the TPP. In May, she introduced the Trade Transparency Act, which would require the President to release the text of any trade agreement at least 60 days before Congress is asked to grant fast track authority for to expedite approval of the agreement. “The Trade Transparency Act would ensure that the public, experts, and the press can engage in meaningful debate over the terms of trade deals before Congress reduces its ability to shape, amend, or block those deals,” said Senator Warren in a press release. “Before Congress ties its hands on trade deals, the American people should be allowed to see for themselves whether these agreements are good for them.” Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch blocked the bill from passage, keeping the trade agreement’s provisions hidden from the public and fast track authority was granted by Congress in June, despite their having being left in the dark about the specifics of the agreement. “International Trade agreements are one of the most significant methods of raising labor standards, improving human rights and environmental standards,” said Andrew Morgan, the director of a 2015 documentary on the global impact of the fashion industry’s unregulated supply chain, the True Cost. “It’s unfortunate that very little of that seems to be taken into account of this seemingly pro-business agreement.” The pro-business aspect of the agreement and the Investor State Dispute Settlement that would be part of the TPP, was explained in a letter to congress written by Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe and Columbia’s Joseph E. Stiglitz, among other highly distinguished legal experts: “ISDS provides a separate legal system available only to certain investors who are authorized to exit the American legal system. Only foreign investors may bring claims under ISDS provisions. This option is not offered to nations, domestic investors, or civil society groups alleging violations of treaty obligations. Under ISDS regimes, foreign investors alone are granted legal rights unavailable to others — freed from the rulings and procedures of domestic courts.…. ISDS weakens the rule of law by removing the procedural protections of the legal system and using a system of adjudication with limited accountability and review. It is antithetical to the fair, public, and effective legal system that all Americans expect and deserve. ” The TPP would serve as an additional outlet for corporations to undercut labor, safety, and environmental standards. Senator Warren reaffirmed this notion in a May interview with the Washington Post, in which she stated its defects plainly: “ISDS gives a special break to giant corporations, a break that nobody else gets.”
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Aug 8, 2015 23:16:56 GMT -6
Sanders' position on illegal immigration & guest workers reminds me of one of Robert Redford's comments to Paul Neumann in 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'-- Redford quipped: "Don't you ever get tired of being right?"
In this case, however, Sanders actually IS right.
Sanders maintains that open borders suppress wages by increasing the low-wage labor supply, while H1B visas suppress the wages of American college grads by H1B visa holders willing to work for lower wages than American workers.
Sanders also rightly criticises "guest worker" programs which further suppress wages by increasing the supply of workers for the American work force.
from the Huffington Post: www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-immigration_55ba6090e4b0b8499b18a18a?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592&kvcommref=mostpopularBernie Sanders Is Walking A Tightrope On ImmigrationJuly 30, 2015 by Daniel Marans & Elise Foley "Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders bristled on Thursday at the idea that his opposition to open borders and frequent criticism of employers’ exploitation of immigrant labor amounted to a dismissal of the good that immigration does the country. The independent Vermont senator didn't clarify, however, whether he agrees with economists who say immigration helps the economy or has a neutral effect, setting him up for continued criticism from advocates of increased immigration who say his thinking on the issue is too simplistic. Indeed, Sanders' remarks at an event hosted by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce on Thursday failed to win over Javier Palomarez, the group’s leader. After talking about the importance of providing a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, Sanders shifted to say that foreign-born workers who come to the U.S. sometimes hurt wages. "There is a reason why Wall Street and all of corporate America likes immigration reform, and it is not, in my view, that they're staying up nights worrying about undocumented workers in this country," Sanders said Thursday. "What I think they are interested in is seeing a process by which we can bring low-wage labor of all levels into this country to depress wages in America, and I strongly disagree with that." Sanders had already caused some controversy earlier in the week with remarks that some advocates interpreted as critical of immigration. "What right-wing people in this country would love is an open-border policy," Sanders said in a Vox interview posted Tuesday. "Bring in all kinds of people, work for $2 or $3 an hour, that would be great for them. I don't believe in that. I think we have to raise wages in this country, I think we have to do everything we can to create millions of jobs." The senator said Thursday that he stood by his remarks opposing open borders, adding that "there is no question in my mind that that would substantially lower wages in this country." The comments reinforce a perception voiced by immigration leaders in Congress that Sanders has not sufficiently emphasized immigration reform in his campaign.... Still, if Sanders is ambivalent about the effects of immigration on American workers, he would not be alone among progressives. Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and a supporter of legislation giving undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship, argues that the Economic Policy Institute study and others like it fail to account for the indirect ways in which immigration reduces the real income of middle- and lower-income workers. Specifically, Baker said there is evidence that high immigration increases the cost of housing, which makes up a large share of low-income families’ budgets. Immigration reform activists demonstrate against deportations outside a federal court in Pasadena, California, on July 16, 2015. Baker pointed to the difference between housing costs in Los Angeles, a city with high immigration, and those in Cleveland, a city with lower immigration. The Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates that the "fair market rent" of a one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles is $1,103 per month, while a comparable apartment in Cleveland costs $603 per month. "Let's say the wages of people without a college degree remain the same under immigration," Baker said. "The person in Cleveland is doing a lot better." Regardless of Sanders’ views on the larger economics of immigration, the candidate's public criticism of immigration policies has focused on employers who hire foreign workers when U.S. workers are available for the same jobs. He said Thursday that he does "not believe that we should be bringing in significant numbers of unskilled workers to compete with" unemployed high school graduates.It is a criticism shared by lawmakers in both parties. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), one of the most outspoken advocates of immigration reform in the Senate, joined with Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), one of its staunchest opponents, in calling for an investigation of Southern California Edison and other companies that use H1-B visas to hire foreign workers while laying off American ones. Sen. Jeff Sessions has shared Sanders' criticism of programs that allow employers to hire foreign workers for jobs that Americans are able to do. Sanders has not just spoken out against these practices. In the past, he has bucked Democratic leaders over immigration policies that he believed would undermine U.S. workers. In 2007, Sanders voted against bipartisan immigration reform because of concerns that a guest worker program in the bill could end up depressing wages and depriving Americans of jobs. Some immigration advocates criticized Sanders at the time, but organized labor officials, who supported immigration reform but opposed the guest worker program, commended Sanders for his stance. “Sanders was basically one of our only allies” in the 2007 fight, Ana Avendaño, a former top immigration official at the AFL-CIO, told Politico. “He adamantly put his foot down and said these kinds of programs [allow] employers to bring in more and more vulnerable workers.”.... He has promised to push for immigration reform if elected president, and he insisted Thursday that it's not incongruous with his concerns that open borders could hurt U.S. workers. "There is a great difference in saying that we welcome immigrants, that we're going to provide a path toward citizenship for those people and those families that are in this country today, and saying, oh, we're not going to have any borders at all," Sanders said."
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Aug 6, 2015 23:48:03 GMT -6
www.yahoo.com/politics/white-house-criticized-for-not-filling-watchdog-125876527661.htmlWhite House criticized for not filling watchdog post at CIAAug 5, 2015 by Michael Isikoff "More than 6 months after the CIA inspector general resigned, President Obama has yet to nominate a replacement, prompting mounting concerns on Capitol Hill that the delay may be affecting sensitive internal investigations — including a probe into an errant drone strike in Pakistan that killed American hostage Warren Weinstein, sources told Yahoo News. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, in June urged Obama in a letter to nominate a new inspector general “as soon as possible,” so a Senate-confirmed official can oversee what she described as “highly sensitive investigations of interest to the committee.” But the White House has yet to even respond to the letter, or float any names of a possible nominee, another indicator of what watchdog groups say is a troubling resistance on the administration’s part to aggressive oversight and accountability throughout the government, but especially within the intelligence community. “This is extremely significant … and it’s discouraging,” said Steve Aftergood, an analyst who tracks U.S. intelligence agencies for the Federation of American Scientists. “The inspectors general at the intelligence agencies are even more important than [at] other agencies because the majority of their work is classified — and so they don’t get the same kind of oversight as elsewhere in the government. The [intelligence agency] inspectors general have also been the eyes and ears for Congress, so without a strong IG in place, the oversight committees are at least partially blinded.” Inspectors general serve as internal watchdogs at government agencies, charged with investigating reports of malfeasance and mismanagement, including complaints filed by whistleblowers. A senior administration official told Yahoo News that, “as with other inspector general vacancies,” the White House is “working with” a government-wide organization, the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, “to identify and nominate a candidate for the CIA with a demonstrated commitment to independence.” (Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department inspector general who chairs the council, testified at a Senate hearing in early June that his group had already recommended a nominee for the CIA post and that “far too often” the process for appointing inspectors general “takes too long.”) Finding a candidate for the CIA post in particular is apparently proving difficult, especially in light of the tumultuous tenure of the previous inspector general, David Buckley. Last December, he released a blistering report taking CIA officials to task for covertly hacking into computers used by Feinstein staffers to investigate the agency’s interrogation practices, which the Intelligence Committee concluded constituted torture that had been largely concealed from Congress. CIA Director John Brennan had previously denied that any such computer snooping had taken place. And, in what was widely seen as an embarrassing rebuke to Buckley, an agency accountability board appointed by Brennan in January overturned Buckley’s findings. The board found that while the tapping into the Senate computer system was “clearly inappropriate,” it was not the product of intentional wrongdoing by any agency officials and therefore no one should be punished. Buckley left shortly thereafter to join the accounting firm KPMG, although agency officials say his departure was long planned and unrelated to the hacking probe. The inspector general’s office has been headed since then by Christopher R. Sharpley, a career government lawyer who had served under Buckley and before that as a deputy inspector general for the Federal Housing Finance Agency, according to his LinkedIn profile. His name, however, does not appear on the CIA inspector general’s website. Feinstein did not identify the subjects of the “sensitive investigations” she referred to in her letter to Obama. But sources familiar with the issue say they include an ongoing inquiry into a CIA drone strike on a suspected al-Qaida compound in Pakistan in January that inadvertently killed Weinstein and an Italian aid worker, Giovanni Lo Porto — prompting a public apology from Obama. The Weinstein probe is especially sensitive within the CIA because it potentially touches on the agency’s targeting decisions in drone strikes — an issue that has been immersed in controversy amid conflicting claims about the numbers of innocent civilians who have been killed during such operations. Feinstein and her aides have argued that only a strong, independent inspector general who has been confirmed by the Senate can take on entrenched interests within the agency and force them to disclose key details. Asked for comment, CIA spokesman Ryan Trapani said the work of the inspector general’s office at the agency continues despite the vacancy at the top. “The Office of the Inspector General continues to be a trusted and respected resource for the Director, the CIA and Congress to promote effectiveness and accountability in the management of CIA activities and we look forward to the President’s appointment of a new Inspector General,” he said in an email. Other watchdog groups say the situation at the CIA is hardly unique. Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group that monitors inspectors general, notes that the scandal-plagued Department of Veterans Affairs has been without a Senate-confirmed inspector general for a year and a half, and the Interior Department hasn’t had a confirmed watchdog for six and a half years (although the White House did recently nominate a candidate, who has yet to be confirmed). “It’s clear to me it’s not a priority of this administration to have strong inspectors general,” said Brian."
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Aug 6, 2015 23:41:21 GMT -6
from the Examiner.com www.examiner.com/article/gold-market-so-tight-that-banks-are-manipulating-data-to-show-more-inventory?CID=examiner_alerts_articleGold Markets So Tight That Banks are Manipulating Inventory Numbers to Keep Prices from RisingAug 6, 2015 by Kenneth Schortgen Earlier this week, a Comex gold inventory report showed that availability of the precious metal was down to its lowest levels ever for eligible gold to be used to back futures contracts in the paper metals market. And as every indicator points towards a vast shortage of both physical gold and silver worldwide, on Aug. 5 bullion bank J.P. Morgan attempted to quell the run on metals not by delivering actual gold to the Comex, but by performing an accounting trick and manipulating data to change registered gold into eligible gold on inventory ledgers. In fact, the accounting change used to boost inventory in the Comex was so egregious, it nearly doubled the available number of ounces from from 362,000, to 643,000 without delivering a single ounce of physical gold to the institution to help cover the soaring number of buy contracts that have accumulated over the past several months. Earlier this week, when observing the most recent drop in Comex registered gold as a result of a reclassification by the gold vaults of JPM and Brink's of 25,386 ounces of registered gold into eligible (alongside the withrawal of 200,752 ounces of eligible gold from JPM), we wondered if Comex "may be on the edge" since after the adjustment, Comex registered gold had dropped to a never before seen low of just over 10 tons, resulting in record high gold coverage ratio of 124 ounces in outstanding gold open interest for every ounce of physical. And after our report, the Comex once again succeeded in sweeping default fears under the rug by boosting its eligible gold by a whopping 78% overnight, from 362K ounces to 643K, thereby pushing deliverable gold from its all time lows. However, this was not achieved with an infusion of actual new gold into the Comex, but thanks to JPM reclassifying 276,000 ounces of gold from the Eligible into the Registered category, even as actual eligible gold continues quietly hemorrhaging out of the Comex. - Zerohedge In reality, the Comex is no longer used as a true futures market for delivery of physical precious metals as it has not made an actual delivery in over two and a half years. And instead the Comex presides over a paper and derivatives market, even allowing the use of naked short selling of futures contracts to protect the dollar and the derivatives tied to the reserve currency. For years there has been much speculation on just how much the Comex is used to manipulate the price of gold and silver by allowing the Fed through bullion banks like J.P. Morgan to manipulate prices through the futures market. And as long as the Comex is recognized as the standard for determining price discovery through control over the spot price of metals, it remains likely that both gold and silver will continue to be extremely undervalued, and that their manipulation will eventually open the door for markets like China to wrest control over determining prices, which is something that they are right now hinting at doing before the end of the year."
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