Fascinating Iquitos

Iquitos, Peru: Gateway to the Peruvian Amazon

We ended our cruise in Iquitos, Peru. Where we were met at the dock on a Sunday morning by a local guide called May-Jony. Then we went on a short 45 minute tour of the city... prior to arrival at the El Dorado Plaza Hotel in the Plaza de Armas Square. The hotel location is its greatest asset (5 star is really 2.5 in the Amazon). There really is very limited upscale lodging choice in the city.

The Iron House - Iquitos, Peru

Iquitos is hot and humid (90 percent), year round. The population is very diverse... there were many periods of big wealth in Iquitos (mainly two with rubber and then oil) that brought people from around the world and made it the most important port in the Peruvian Amazon. The city still has a lot of houses built during that age. 'Iquitinos' are mostly very friendly people and like to party. We arrived on a Sunday morning, the last day of the Thursday to Sunday weekly cycle that sees lots of people in the streets at night relaxing, and just having an all around good time.

The city is not accessible by road, motorcycles and motorcars dominate unlike anywhere else. Do not expect to see a city with much of the trappings of the western world. This city is very basic as it has no roads connection it with the rest of the world. Vehicles are old and most vehicles on the meager roads are 'motor taxis' or three wheeler motor-carts which can carry three people in a pinch.
This makes the city a bit more manic and loud. Other results include remarkably fluid (if chaotic) traffic, a preponderance of motorcycle sales and repair shops, and a sub-industry of people who agree to guard motorcycles while you shop... even placing cardboard on the seat to keep it cool from the hot sun.

Plaza de Armas from the El Dorado Hotel

The Plaza de Armas is a mix of modern and rubber boom styles. Cities like Iquitos turned into one long party during that age, where no expense was spared, nor eccentricity nor luxury lacking. As part of the legacy of this rubber boom age of abundance, Iquitos still bears traces of the extravagant taste of the rubber barons: mosaic tiles in Italian-style palaces, the bustling riverside walkway or the Iron House, a famous residence designed by Gustave Eiffel that was built from metal sheets. It was carried by hundreds of men through the jungle. There are a few street performers, a fountain, some statues, and one Catholic church. It is quite busy on Saturday and Sunday evenings.. thousands and thousands of people come out to enjoy the warm evenings.

Today, in the city of Iquitos, the modest local homes (not without a certain kitsch charm) exist alongside French mansions (largely used today as public offices). When rubber seeds were smuggled out of the country, the rubber industry moved to Malaysia, signifying the end of the rubber barons.
The memory of this past filled with abundance, however, lives on in the eccentric buildings which testify to an exuberant and wild era.

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Belen Market Main Building

Belen Market 

One of the most exotic and MUST SEE parts of the city of Iquitos.

Yep.. that's caiman crocodile he's selling... head's sold separately.

The Belen Market is a place where all the farmer’s, fishermen, local vendors, crafts people and anyone with anything to eat, drink, cook with, or wear, are trying to get you to spend your money (soles) on their goods. There you'll find the freshest, most indigenous products from the surrounding areas... with over 150 local communities traveling here to be a part of this bustling and loud market scene.

Most people are living day to day... but although the conditions are meager, there is a lot of joy and contentment. Everyone is working in harmony to create a massive offering that will envelop all of your senses and make you want to try everything you come across along the way!

Roasted monkey meat.

Everything found out in the jungle is for sale here. You'll even find monkey meat for sale... technically illegal, but as it has been part of the culture for all time it is hard to end the practice.

Amazon River dragon fish... have a very hard shell.

And at the end of the day, late in the after noon... you will see hundreds of the local population of vulture birds swooping in to see just what they are able to scavenge what has been tossed onto the streets for the garbage trucks to clean up. And they'll try for what's still left on the selling stands as well... at times hassling with merchants for what's left unguarded for too long a time.

Vultures hanging around late afternoon... waiting to 'clean-up.'

It's an absolutely incredible market scene.. we spend LOTS of time over the two days we had in Iquitos visiting the market. The various sections of the were mesmerizing... absolutely numerous varieties of meats... fish... fruits and vegetables... cooked foods... clothing... all kinds of crafts... a boating parts aisle... barbers cutting hair.

Amazon giant catfish.. can grow up to 3 meters long!

A whole section of the market is dedicated to plant medicines made by Loretanas... jungle people who mix plant medicine as their profession. They make medicinal mixtures using plants, roots, flowers, herbs and alcohol, honey and who knows what else. Maybe even dosing the medicine with a blessing or shake of the chacruna leaves to give it special healing powers. Local people rely on these tinctures and remedies to treat their illnesses. They even use, make, and sell flower water to purify the outer self and make you more beautiful.

Everywhere you look there is something to behold. Music seeps into the background as do the call of the vendors drawing attention to their wares or the local activist telling you what is on his mind. Generations of families working hard together to help present their trade or craft to the market and earn a living. Where many of the people who sell and buy most everything they need at the market live together as a community.

The energy there is wild, even chaotic... and you get a good sense of just how far away from home you are... and how the market is a place where you will really learn about what great diversity the Amazon jungle provides for all its people.

You find yourself locked on and drawn in to this wonderful world... the abundant and full bounty of the Amazon on display... and you just hate to leave it.

For early risers... the market opens at 5am.. for the fresher and more abundant offerings.

  

Explorers Conquer Amazon!

Stafford Conquers the Amazon!

Having just returned from the three week cruising journey on the Amazon, we watched a re-play of this remarkable program the night we got back to Florida. Once you have visited and know just how demanding conditions are... it is just totally incomprehensible how these two men were able to survive this absolutely unbelievable feat... (the film gives an accurate portrait of how harsh conditions can be in the Amazon jungle).
How they were able to accomplish their 2.5 year magnificent journey is truly beyond comprehension.

As for our trip, we began with a flight from Miami to Barbados, where after a few days on the island we met up with the SeaDream II cruise yacht for a trip that first went to Tobago, and the on to French Guiana, where we were to have made a stop on Devils Island.. (it was cancelled, so we were told, due to hazardous sea conditions). Most all passengers were very disappointed we missed out on this early stop... for some it was not the first time passing by they did not get an opportunity to visit.

It was after that we sailed to the very wide entrance of the Amazon and began our two week, 2000 mile voyage up the river all the way up to our last port of call in Iquitos, Peru.
There were stops along the way at several villages and larger town and cities.. Manaus, the capital of Amazonia (2.5 million people), and Iquitos in Peru, the largest city in the world (550,000 population) with no roads connecting it to the outside world... the on;y way to get there is by river or by air.

When they cruise ended in Iquitos we stayed on in the Peruvian Amazon city for a couple of days, then flew south 630 miles to Lima for the return trip to Miami. Iquitos is a kinda weird and exotic place, and will get its own blog post describing in greater detail the time we spent there in a few days.

As for the cruise on SeaDream II... that too will be followed up with a post on how life on-board went. It was our first venture with the 'Sea Dream Yacht Club' organization.. and no question, it did have its share of ups and downs.

SeaDream II

Overall though, we would have to agree it was a most interesting and very worthwhile trip.

It has been said, you cannot truly appreciate or comprehend Amazonia until you actually experience it... having now been there, we can honestly say this is probably a more true statement than almost anywhere else on the planet we have visited.

Couple the river systems and jungle forests, and you have one of the most overwhelming ecosystems on earth. The sheer breath and scope of each never leave your thoughts... and you feel as if they now someway will always be a part of you.

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Note:
This pic is posted on SeaDream's Facebook page... with a comment that guests on the next cruise after ours had an opportunity to 'swim with pink dolphins'... really?... think it's legit??

  

Amazon Facts

Amazon Facts

• The Amazon is the largest and densest rainforest on earth.,, covering 2.5 million miles, approximately the size of the US west of the Mississippi. If Amazonas were a country, it would be the 9th largest on earth.

• In one second the Amazon pours 60 million gallons, or 620,000 cubic yards of water, into the Atlantic Ocean... 14 times the discharge of the Mississippi River... the Amazon is so massive it contains more water than the Mississippi, the Nile and the Yangtze rivers combined. (To put this massive amount of water into perspective, keep in mind one days worth of water flowing out of the Amazon is the equivalent of 12 years worth of water usage by the city of New York, that is every faucet, every shower, every toilet and all other combined sources of fresh water consumed by millions of people for 12 years! It flows out of the Amazon every day!!)
  
  
• The Amazon river is fed by 1,100 tributaries (200 are major tributaries), 17 of which are over 1,000 miles long, and 10 of which each discharge more water than the Mississippi. It is also by far the widest river in the world... 1,000 miles inland from the mouth of the river there are portions of this giant river nearly 7 miles wide. This impressive width expands to almost 15 miles during the flood season. And the overall delta region where the river empties into the Atlantic is 150 miles wide. 
   
• Almost 14,000 miles of Amazon waterways are navigable... and several million miles through swamps and forests are penetrable by canoe. 
  The Amazon runs 4,000+ miles from its origin in the Andes to the Atlantic.. the Nile and the Amazon at times trade places for the longest river on earth.. (the Amazon is constantly changing direction making it near impossible to accurately measure it's length).
  
  

  

  
  
  
  
• During its journey it touches and/or travels through 9 countries... Brazil, Columbia, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and the three Guyana's... with 2.5 million square miles of rainforest, the Amazon Rainforest represents over 50% of the total rainforests left on the planet.
  Its vegetation represents about 1/3 of the remaining forest on earth and provides about 15% of the world's new oxygen.
  
  
• The Amazon has over 2,500 species of fish (new species are still being discovering.. estimates are that there are more than 3,000)... this incredible diversity of fish species is found virtually nowhere else on earth.. (more species than the entire Atlantic Ocean)... 1500 species of birds... 2.5 million kinds of insects (1800 species of butterfly... 200 species of mosquitoes)... and 50,000 species of higher plants.
   
• Altogether it contains the largest collection of living plants and animal species in the world. The Andean mountain range and the Amazon jungle are home to more than half of the world's species of flora and fauna and one in five of all the birds in the world live in the rainforests of the Amazon. Some 438,000 species of plants of economic and social interest have been registered in the region... many more have yet been cataloged or even discovered. More than half the world's estimated 10 million species of plants, animals and insects live in the tropical rainforests. 
   
• 80% of the developed world's diet originated in the tropical rainforest. Its bountiful gifts to the world include fruits like avocados, coconuts, figs, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, bananas, guavas, pineapples, mangoes and tomatoes; vegetables including corn, potatoes, rice, winter squash and yams; spices like black pepper, cayenne, chocolate, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, sugar cane, turmeric, coffee and vanilla and nuts including Brazil nuts and cashews.
  Over 3,000 fruits are found in the rainforests... and of these only 200 are now in use in the Western World... the Indians of the rainforest make use of over 2,000. 
   
• Currently, more than 120 prescription drugs worldwide come from plant-derived sources. And while 25% of Western pharmaceuticals are derived from rainforest ingredients, less than 1% of tropical trees and plants have been tested by scientists.
  
  
• The U.S. National Cancer Institute has identified 3,000 plants that are active against cancer cells. 70% of these plants are found in the rainforest... 25% of the active ingredients in today's cancer-fighting drugs come from organisms found only in the rainforest.
  As late as 1983, there were no U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturers involved in research programs to discover new drugs or cures from plants. Today, over 100 pharmaceutical companies and several branches of the US government, including giants like Merck and The National Cancer Institute, are engaged in plant research projects for possible drugs and cures for viruses, infections, cancer and even AIDS.

Once a vast sea of tropical virgin forest, the Amazon rainforest today is marred by roads, farms, ranches and dams (many more are planned). Brazil is gifted with a full third of the world's remaining rainforests and unfortunately, it is also one of the world's great rainforest destroyers, burning or felling almost 3 million acres each year.

Today, more than 20% of rainforest in the Amazon has been razed... gone forever.

..huge areas continue to be cleared for cattle ranching and soya farming...

This ocean of green nearly as large as Australia, is the last great rainforest in the known universe, and it is being decimated like the others before it. 

 <<< Almost 70,000 acres of rainforest are cut and burned every day in the world... that is over 150 acres lost every minute of every day. Experts estimate that at the current rate of destruction, the last remaining rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years. 
Experts also estimate we are losing 130 species of plants, animals and insects every single day as they become extinct from the loss of rainforest land and habitats. >>>

Why... like other rainforests already lost, land is being cleared for timber, cattle ranching, mining operations, government road building and hydroelectric schemes, military operations, and subsistence agriculture of peasants and landless settlers.

Sadder still, in many places the rainforests are being burned simply to provide charcoal for power industrial plants, and for local populations using it as fuel source.

You can read all about it, and view TV and internet programming concerning it... but that cannot in any way compare with seeing and experiencing the Amazon up close. It is by far one of the most marvelous and interesting places on the planet to visit. To think that someday they would be gone is just absolutely devastating.
 

More will be added to the blog concerning the Amazon trip over the next several days and weeks... hope you check back again.

Iraq.. Libya.. Iran.... the REAL reason why...

Gold-money Plan Would Devastate Dollar

Hussein's plan... Gadhfi's plan... Iran's plan...  to quit selling the world oil in U.S. dollars — and talking about demanding payment instead in gold-backed currency — is the real cause for U.S. taking action against them. These regimes, sitting on huge amounts of gold (and oil), and beginning to push for other African and Middle Eastern nations to follow suit along with them. They literally had/ have the potential power to bring down the dollar, and the world monetary system as well by extension.

Any move such as that is most certainly not welcomed by the power elite in the U.S., who are responsible for controlling the world's central banks and the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency. Their goals of taking such actions would certainly be something that would cause their immediate dismissal, and the need for other reasons to be brought forward by the U.S. for acting to remove them from power...  as well as to be sure that they were some how 'eliminated' so as not to bring to light the actual events as they would have surely done if captured and brought to trial.

Saddam Hussein, once armed by the U.S. government to make war on Iran, was threatening to start selling oil in currencies other than the dollar just prior to the Bush administration’s “regime change” mission.
Saddam's and Gadhafi's plan would have strengthened the middle-east and whole continent of Africa in the eyes of economists backing sound money — not to mention investors. But it would have been most especially devastating for the U.S. economy, the American dollar, and particularly the elite in charge of the system.

As for Iran, it is one of the few nations left in the world with a completely state-owned central bank. And at present there is huge pressure being exerted in the U.S. for sanctions (in all probability leading up to military actions as in Iraq and Libya) against it.

 There has been much debate lately on the matter of Iran's plans to open their own mercantile exchange, an oil bourse, and perhaps not coincidentally, talk of imminent war. Iran has been talking bout shifting its petrodollars into a euro-based bourse. The effect on the value of the dollar would be significant, if not, in the long term, disastrous.
The idea is when Iran opens their own market and begins to denominate their oil sales in euros, it would cause the different governments of the world to divest some of their dollar holdings so that they can instead save euros for the large transactions, and that this could threaten the hegemony of the US dollar. If the world were to abandon the US dollar as the reserve currency, all those dollars would come floating home, causing massive inflation.

The dollar is not the reserve currency because oil is billed in dollars. Many believe the US is abusing the dollar's role as reserve currency. When a trusted alternative appears, the dollar is likely to lose its reserve currency role. Perhaps the real question is whether American politicians will let a major oil producing country set a bad example in front of the others. The real trouble for our criminal politicians is that, "Today, US war-making capability is dependent on the rest of the world to finance it."

The Bretton Woods agreement established the dollar as the world reserve currency, while at the same time transferring much of America's gold overseas, which resulted in the government under Richard Nixon defaulting in 1971, which ended forever the promise to pay gold to bearers of US dollars on demand, and switching our currency to government-monopoly money.

"Realizing the world was embarking on something new and mind-boggling, elite money managers, with especially strong support from U.S. authorities, struck an agreement with OPEC to price oil in U.S. dollars exclusively for all worldwide transactions. This gave the dollar a special place among world currencies and in essence "backed" the dollar with oil. In return, the U.S. promised to protect the various oil-rich kingdoms in the Persian Gulf against threat of invasion or domestic coup. This arrangement helped ignite the radical Islamic movement among those who resented our influence in the region. The arrangement gave the dollar artificial strength, with tremendous financial benefits for the United States. It allowed us to export our monetary inflation by buying oil and other goods at a great discount as dollar influence flourished.

While remembering the role likely played by Saddam's switch to the Euro in 2000 in the decision for "regime change," ...also consider... "In 2001, Venezuela's ambassador to Russia spoke of Venezuela switching to the Euro for all their oil sales. Within a year there was a coup attempt against Chavez, reportedly with assistance from our CIA. After these attempts to nudge the Euro toward replacing the dollar as the world's reserve currency were met with resistance, the sharp fall of the dollar against the Euro was reversed. These events may well have played a significant role in maintaining dollar dominance.

It's become clear the U.S. administration was sympathetic to those who plotted the overthrow of Chavez, and was embarrassed by its failure. The fact that Chavez was democratically elected had little influence on which side we supported."
And that, "Though we don't occupy foreign countries to directly plunder, we nevertheless have spread our troops across 130 nations of the world. Our intense effort to spread our power in the oil-rich Middle East is not a coincidence. But unlike the old days, we don't declare direct ownership of the natural resources - we just insist that we can buy what we want and pay for it with our paper money. Any country that challenges our authority does so at great risk.

Once again Congress has bought into the war propaganda against Iran, just as it did against Iraq. Arguments are now made for attacking Iran economically, and militarily if necessary. These arguments are all based on the same false reasons given for the ill-fated and costly occupation of Iraq."
Eight out of Ten Americans, according to UPI, believe that Iran is a nuclear threat to the United States. Apparently the only thing standing in the way of the war with Iran is the fact that it would be at least as destructive to the American and world economy as about anything else we could do. Which brings up the question, as the War Party drives this country into the ground, are they trying to save the dollar or destroy it?  Either way, it's clear, Empire is a bad deal for America.

While most of the main stream, establishment press in America was silent on the issue of Gadhafi’s gold dinar scheme, in Russia, China, and the global alternative media, the theory had exploded in popularity.
Whether salvaging central banking and the corrupt global monetary system were truly among the reasons for Saddam and Gadhafi’s overthrow, however, may never be known for certain — at least not publicly...   ...then again, maybe someday it will.

Let's just hope it does not take us down a path to another war in the region.. right now it surely looks it is going that way though.

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... 'our nightmare is here'...

World's oceans in peril - (Features - AJ English)

The message remains mostly the same... and just keeps getting increasingly dire as time moves along...

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"... our nightmare is here, it is the world we live in."

"... evidence of the impact of climate change on the oceans is everywhere now. The collapsing fisheries, the changes in the Arctic and the hardship communities live there are having to face, the frequency and intensity of storms, everything imagined 30 to 40 years ago when the environmental movement was born, we're dealing with those now … the toxins in our bodies, food web, and in the marine mammals, it's all there."

"... carbon emissions have already risen "far above even the bleak scenarios."
In March 1958, high-precision monitoring began, and atmospheric CO2 was 315 parts per million (ppm).  

Today, atmospheric CO2 is approaching 390 ppm. 

... "360 is now known to be the level at which coral reefs cease to be viable in the long run."
Oceans absorb 26% (2.3 billion metric tonnes) of the carbon human activities release into the atmosphere annually.  
The oceans are already more acidic than they have been at any time in the last 800,000 years. At current rates, by 2050 it will be more corrosive than they have been in the past 20 million years.
CO2 levels above 350 ppm "threaten the ecological life-support systems" of the planet and "challenge the viability of contemporary human societies."

20 million years ago was the last time we had carbon levels this high. At that time, sea levels rose over 30 metres and temperatures were as much as 18 degrees C higher than they are today.

... global carbon emissions, rather than slowing down in order to stem climate change, are continuing to increase... fumes that belch from chimneys, exhausts and jet engines, that should have bent in a rapid curve towards the ground, were heading for the ceiling instead".

... it is "improbable" that we would be able to stop short of 650 ppm, even if rich countries adopted "draconian emissions reductions within a decade".
That number, should it come to pass, would mean that global average temperatures would increase five times as much as previous models predicted.

Even if CO2 emissions were completely stopped immediately, ongoing impacts from climate change would take centuries to stop... ..."changes in surface temperature, rainfall, and sea level are largely irreversible for more than a thousand years after carbon dioxide emissions are completely stopped".

"... we're in it right now...so it's not about, here's how much time we have. The clock in many ways has already run out. We're still growing our use of fossil fuels, we're not even in a mode of trimming them down, same with our use of plastic and the plastic pollution generated from it. There's more conversation about this than ever, but it's not translating into societal change or evolution."

"If we stay our present course, using fossil fuels to feed a growing appetite for energy-intensive lifestyles, we will soon be leaving the climate of The Holocene, the world of prior human history... (many say we have already entered  The Anthropocene - 'the recent age of man').
The eventual response to doubling pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 would be a nearly ice-free planet... preceded by a period of chaotic change with continually changing shorelines."

Our future is coming at us full force very quickly .. it does not appear as if we are going to have the collective will to somewhat adapt in such short time.

And once the reality of the situation begins to increasingly enter into the consciousness of the general population.. our world as it exists at the present moment will become forever changed.

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Coal Addiction ... a never ending part of our future...

The Triumph of King Coal: Hardening Our Coal Addiction by Fred Pearce: Yale Environment 360

The world is in the middle of a coal rush. 
Between 2009 and 2010, global coal consumption grew by almost 8 percent !!
Thanks to coal, the world’s economy is becoming more carbon intensive.

Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT) is the single largest export coal terminal in the world.
Opened in 1976 with an original capacity of 12 million tons per year
it has grown into an advanced 24-hour operation with a design capacity of 91 million tons per year.
  

Difficult to read this Pearce article and come away with the idea we have any long term hope for change... and what does that mean for all of us.
We're developing and burning our way (oil & coal) to oblivion... it is just a matter of how soon it builds at this ever increasing pace of change.

The world is using more coal and less natural gas when it should be doing just the opposite. New figures for 2010 mean levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago. The world pumped about 564 million more tons of carbon into the air in 2010 than it did in 2009. That's an increase of 6 percent.
It is a "monster" increase that is unheard of... extra pollution in China and the U.S. account for more than half the increase in emissions last year.
We are building up a horrible legacy for the generations to come..

"We have crossed, or are very near to crossing, nine "planetary boundaries" (defined in terms of sustaining the environmental conditions of the Holocene epoch in which civilization developed over the last 12,000 years): climate change, species extinction, the disruption of the nitrogen-phosphorus cycles, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, freshwater usage, land cover change, (less certainly) aerosol loading, and chemical use.  Each of these rifts in planetary boundaries constitutes an actual or potential global ecological catastrophe."

Capitalism is built on inherent principles of exponential growth... it cannot stand still.  The minimum adequate growth rate is usually thought to be around 3 percent, this means the economy doubles in size approximately every 24 years.  How many doublings of world output can the planet absorb before life on our only home begins to increasingly and dramatically degrade.

It's not a catastrophe all of a sudden is going to happen tomorrow... like what took place about 75,000 years ago, when the human population got reduced down to several thousand individuals in an incredibly short time frame by one natural disaster.
This will be of our doing over many years time (although not as little as one might want to think) ... and it'll just keep building up... normal will be less and less a part of the equation and our daily lives.

More and more people will come to understand what is happening and what will be happening in the near future. As this occurs, it's not going to be at all pleasant to live through... you'll not wish it on your worst enemy. 
The best and the worst of very large numbers of people will be readily evidenced. Just how bad it gets and how soon is anyone's guess.. but it is occurring at a pace of change that is far exceeding what even the most diehard skeptics thought possible just a relatively short time ago.

As it get to the point when most are asking what can be done... it will be way past the time of doing anything to turn it around... for all we know, we might be there now, as a growing number of knowledgeable folks are inclined to believe.

Should you choose NOT to want to believe the obvious... well, just watch the numbers..  follow progress towards that TRILLIONTH-TON  (make note those clocks keep ticking towards us). They won't lie or distort the truth as most of our leadership. If and when they start dropping, or even stabilizing, there will then be real cause for celebration.

Till then..  life goes on... and hope for change, pushed off to a farther distant dream.

 

... Waste Beyond Measure...

UN: World Will Miss Economic Benefit of 1.8 billion Young People | Common Dreams

The largest cohort of young people ever known is about to find their most economically productive years wasted.
The world population is now passing 7 billion people... of this 7 billion, 1.8 billion are aged between 10 and 24, and 90% of those live in the developing world.

Some 620 million economically active young people ages 15 to 24, about 81 million were unemployed at the end of 2009, the highest level in two decades of record-keeping.

With the world now home to the largest number of young people in history, a new World Bank report on investing in youth will describes the real cost to families and country economic growth when young people are left to grapple on their own with HIV/AIDS and other diseases; violence; unemployment; inequality; and a loss of faith in their ability to join the workforce, acquire new skills to increase their wages and standards of living, raise families, and become proud citizens in their communities.

The opportunity for a demographic dividend is but a fleeting moment... it must be claimed quickly or it will be lost.
Either we do nothing risking alienating youth from the mainstream and instilling in them a legacy of distrust and hopelessness... or we invest in the biggest source of human potential the world has ever had, and reap benefits of that investment through greater growth and social well-being for generations to come.

The potential economic benefits of having such a large global population of young people to potentially go unfulfilled, as a generation suffers from a lack of education, and investment in infrastructure and job creation... what an immeasurable, devastating loss it would be.

 

.. on the horizon.

late last night doing some reading came across this Matt Tabbi  Isn't Winning --- It's Cheating piece...
...(those of us old enough remember his dad Mike doin a similar thing on ny tv news years ago)..

..it's a good window on what's wrong.. the system has been so badly bastardized by decontrol and special interest money,** and the cheats & charlatans let totally loose, no one can any more hope to determine how it's going to all shake out... the complete and growing instability reflects this...

as a tally of just how bad the problems have grown... all must read & weep, for derivative investments alone we're now up to almost $700 TRILLION !!!!!  ... that's FOUR times what it was at the last financial meltdown just several short years ago...  and three times total world wealth of around $250 trillion!!

... it's where lots and lots of $$$$ are going, and it's all hyper-speculative crap.. bringing hardly anything to the economic tables of the world...
...a gargantuan ponzi scheme, rapidly bleeding & sucking the world dry... and the a-holes making millions/ billions don't at all G-A-S !! ...
...this master plan is working spot-on for them... (and each lobbying $ comes back in immediate returns that are bizarrely astronomical !! ... $220 in tax benefits for every $1 spent on lobbying — a 22,000% return !!!  ... a 'tax-holiday'... an absolute travesty!!)

...and just look at this extremely DANGEROUS DEAL they've gotten into doing now ... they do the mother of all Vegas gambling.. collect winnings when it pans out... and should it come up snake-eyes, we're stuck with their outrageous 'bring-down-the-system' bets...
... they're smart guys, they know it's gonna end, and they're just grabbin as much as they can and setting up to protect themselves before it does..
...makes ya wanna exterminate the freakin bastards... (and all our so called 'leaders' on both sides that are helpin em get away with it!!)..

...one thing is for absolute certainty..  we're not gonna be able to avoid the mother of all meltdowns too much longer...
...burying heads in the sand... what we really don't know or want to hear about is approaching ever more rapidly...

... stay safe friends...

** Big money had a lot of influence before... with the advent of super PAC with the wrongheaded Citizens United Supreme Court decision; they now have a great deal more. Super PACs will “have more influence in being able to select who members are. It’s actually much worse than lobbying, much more dangerous."

  

International Debt - African Crisis

International Debt Crisis - African Debt Crisis

The African debt crisis is one among a wide range of problems that this HUGE continent is facing.
After Asia, Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent. At about 12 million sq mi, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area, and 20% of the total land area. With 1.0 billion people (2009) in 61 territories, it accounts for about 15% of the world's human population.

Regrettably, most countries in Africa can be considered Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC countries).

Over 60% of Africa’s debt is owed to official creditors such as the World Bank, the IMF and world leaders. The high interest rates along side the cost to reschedule debt have forced Africa and other developing regions into a relapse of instability, extreme poverty, and human suffering... tens of millions are at great risk... and the situation is growing rapidly worse.

In 1970, Africa owed just under $11 billion in debt... by 2002, that debt had swelled to the unbelievable figure of almost $300 billion. Its foreign debt today (partially reduced by debt forbearance) of roughly $175 billion amounts to more than $200 per person, a large burden in a region where the average annual incomes are under $1,000.

Less well known is the fact sub-Saharan Africa experienced an exodus of more than $700 billion in capital flight since 1970. Some of this money wound up in accounts at the same banks that made loans to African governments. Africa is a net creditor to the rest of the world in the sense that its foreign assets exceed its foreign liabilities. But there is a key difference between the two: the assets are in the hands of private Africans, while the liabilities are public, owed by the African people at large through their governments.

Africa’s debt inflows and capital flight outflows are closely connected... there is a powerful statistical correlation between the two. For every dollar of foreign borrowing, on average more than 50 cents leaves the borrower country in the same year. This tight relationship suggests that a substantial portion of Africa’s capital flight has been debt-fuelled.

As foreign loans come to Africa and a part of the proceeds is siphoned abroad, Africa still receives an inflow of money, albeit less than the face value of the debt. The net drain on African economies comes in subsequent years when the creditors are repaid with interest.

Every day people in Africa die from curable disease, poverty and hunger. The government cannot put money into helping these people because it must pay $15,000,000,000 a year in debt repayment to places like the World Bank and IMF. African economic advances cannot possibly be made when it must pay a shocking $1,000,000,000 a day interest fee. These loans from organizations such as the World Bank are meant to aid the country during this economic crisis... but these loans actually sabotage African countries.

Nigeria is a prime example... it borrowed $5,000,000,000 from the World Bank... to date they have repaid $16,000,000,000... and shockingly, due to high rates of interest built up... they still owe the bank $32,000,000,000 in interest.

To help solve the problems... more can and should be done to identify looters and their accomplices and to repatriate stolen funds back from those safe-haven countries where the funds have been deposited.
Better enforcement of existing laws to curtail money laundering and new laws to strengthen safeguards are needed to staunch the outflow of illicit money from Africa into the havens abroad.
African governments should be encouraged to selectively repudiate debts incurred by past dictatorial regimes that cannot be demonstrated to have been used for legitimate purposes... this will stop dead in its tracks new funds from being unscrupulously lent out.

The vital economic function of transferring money from savers to investors – creates scope for self-dealing, fraud, and outright theft that can be curtailed only by public vigilance. Repair of international financial architecture is desperately required, strengthening incentives for the exercise of due diligence by creditors and responsible borrowing by governments.Without these reforms, ‘debt relief’ can offer only a temporary solution to a crisis set of problems, and the impoverished African people will continue to bear the brunt of the suffering.

.. the non-sense CONTINUES...

Even with Dodd-Frank financial reform, from a market perspective, there are still within the structure of current banking operations unresolved issues that are not being adequately addressed.

One is that banks should NOT be allowed to have prop trading in-house... at all. Proprietary trading (aka 'prop trading' or PPT) occurs when a firm trades stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, their derivatives, or other financial instruments, with the firm's own money as opposed to its customers' money, so as to make a profit for itself.

At the very least, the clearing house and the trading arm now reside withing the same banks need to be completely separated into different companies, so as to have a physical secure and unbreachable wall in between.

The reason is that when the the banks, who are active players in trading the markets, can see where all the future market transactions are heading with their clearing house operations, they can position and front-run everybody... (great for them... BAD for everyone else!). It's an unfair advantage not only disrupting the normal functioning of the markets, but it also creates great deal of market volatility and instability.

It is absolute insanity that with new government regulations coming out of almost everywhere everyday, there is no regulatory oversight in that aspect of banking industry activities.

'The Abandoned Class'

The Abandoned Class | Common Dreams

“Everyone is important...  My God, what if it were true?"

"Everyone possesses self-interest in a narrow sense: I want what’s good for me right now! Self-interest ‘properly understood’ is different. It means appreciating that paying attention to everyone else’s self-interest — in other words, the common welfare — is in fact a precondition for one’s own ultimate well-being.

The common good and common sense have been sacrificed on the altar of corporate profit over the past three decades.

At last this process has hit a counterforce, as more and more people reoccupy the public domain and demand a shift in national direction.  For now, we all belong to the abandoned class."

"We can’t live like this. None of us can."

   

Got Class Warfare?

Got Class Warfare? Occupy Wall Street Now!

An outstanding Henry Giroux Truthout Op-Ed article...

"... what ruling classes have long tried to bury beneath the discourse of meritocracy and the myth of the classless society - that is, the harsh consequences of class power, hierarchical rule and savage inequality.

The richest 1% in the 1970s only took in about "8-9% of American total annual income," whereas today they take in 24%. Furthermore 10% of Americans as of 2007 have taken in 50% of all wages, higher than any other year since 1917.
The economic top 1% of the population now owns over 70% of all financial assets, an all-time record. As Joseph E. Stiglitz makes clear, "In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1% control 40%. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12% and 33% According to Robert Reich, one stark measure of the inequality that marks American society today is evident in the fact.. the 5% of Americans with the highest incomes now account for 37% of all consumer purchases.

There is no longer any distinction between political and corporate sovereignty. We now have a corporate-controlled state, not a democratic mode of governance. The rich and corporate elite control the system of government and leave a poisonous imprint upon national political culture, perhaps most notably a vociferous disdain for the common good. "A criminogenic environment" spreading fraud through lack of regulation and promotion of a compensation system creating perverse incentives in which cheaters prosper, "markets become perverse" and honesty is treated as a liability.

Any society in which morality disintegrates into self-interest and financial cruelty celebrated as a central element of a market-driven social order has no longer anything to do with either freedom or democracy.

Occupy Wall Street may be the beginning of a movement in which the future becomes alive with a new understanding of justice, equality and freedom and a willingness to fight for the promises of a radical democracy."


Carefully read the entire article, it is a remarkable piece of writing from one of the leading educational thinkers of our modern age.

It is important to note there is an AJ interview with Henry Giroux that should also not be missed.


“In an alleged democracy, the image of the public sphere with its appeal to dialogue and shared responsibility has given way to the spectacle of unbridled intolerance, ignorance, seething private fears, unchecked anger, along with the decoupling of reason from freedom.  What this decline in civility, the emergence of mob behavior suggests is that we have become one of the most illiterate nations on the planet. An illiteracy not in the sense of ability to read, the new illiteracy is about more than learning how to read books or words; it is learning how not to 'read the world.'  As a result of this widespread illiteracy has come to dominate American culture. We have moved from a culture of questioning to a culture of shouting, and in doing so have re-staged politics and power in both unproductive and anti-democratic ways.”
― Henry A. Giroux

    

"Capitalism and Poverty"

Richard D. Wolff, "Capitalism and Poverty"

For those 'better-off,' they must search out and understand the true picture...

"America's poverty line works out to $15 per day per person for everything: food, clothing, housing, medical care, transportation, education, and so on. If you have more than $15 per day per person in your household to pay for everything each person needs, the Census Bureau does not count you as part of this country's poverty problem.

So the real number of US citizens living in poverty -- more reasonably defined -- is much larger today than the 46 million reported by the Census Bureau. It is thus much higher than the 15% of our people the Bureau sees as poor... conservatively estimated, about one in four Americans already lives in real poverty.

A report from the Children’s Defense Fund finds child poverty jumped 10% between 2008 & 2009.
... the single largest annual jump in the data’s history.

Another one in four is or should be worried about joining them soon... and no wonder such a system has provoked Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and so many of its signature slogans and demands.

A serious commitment to end poverty and its costly social effects requires us to face that capitalism has always reproduced widespread poverty as the other side of profits for a relative few."

How Bad Will Things Get?

Thom Hartmann Interview - How Bad Will Things Get in AA America? | Professor Richard D. Wolff

It's assuredly not been good so far... but we've yet to see the real bad, bad time in America. The greater majority of Americans still do not understand what it truly means to have a government so poorly run for decades now.. Where political parties are so corrupted by the power of money, they are not any longer functioning properly or even rationally.

Not enough money is being taken in because the very wealthy and the corporations have lobbied and been successful in getting their taxes reduced to the point the government is now broke, and looking to further cut services a majority can ill afford to loose, while the well off enjoy lifestyles beyond belief.

Tens of millions of Americans have been laid off, as a result profits are now some of the highest they have ever been. And all the while the MICC 'war machine' now controls such might and power and spends so much on itself and all the numerous wars it has established to continue on its worldwide quest for empire and profit. It too is crippling the economy, yet too few realize and understand how serious the problem actually is. And in addition, our world environment continues to be uncomprehendingly laid to waste by 'for profit' motives and policies.

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men, they create for themselves in the course of time 

a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it."

America has the distinct potential to collapse into anarchy and violent civil unrest.
We are at the very edge of full-scale meltdown.. and there soon will come time when all must implode. As all ponzi schemes reach their inevitable conclusions, this ENORMOUS 'house of cards'  will be no different. Unbridled avarice can lead and take us only so far... history has proven this time and again.
The very poor will suffer first, and the most.. they already are. Tens of millions up to the hundreds of millions are at serious risk from every part of the equation. The environment, economy, wars, overpopulation... as bad as it might be now, all will increasingly continue to impact them in ways inconceivable to most.

Some are starting to ask... What Can Now Be Done?...

Learn and Understand  What Is Happening...
Not having enough time leads us all down a path which we do not want to go.
It all starts with spending more time learning from independent researchers and thinkers... agenda driven main stream media is part of the problem, not any kind of solution.
There are hundreds of exceptional INS sources, find your own 'best ones'.. and subscribe to their feeds. Seek out those voices you learn over time to respect and trust, and pay real attention to what they have to say. There are huge numbers of absolutely brilliant and dedicated individuals out there, doing some great and most necessary work. Support them financially if and when you can.. for as their voices dim, so do our hopes.
And make use of applications such as 'Read It Later' when you can't find the immediate time. They work very well, and are exceptionally useful keeping track of crucial information you do not want to miss out on viewing.

Know The Critical Issues... The Ones That MUST Get Changed NOW!!...

Get Involved In Dialogue With Others...
We cannot act alone in this.. talk up the issues with friends, family, and neighbors.. this discussion is critical. Solutions only come about from dialogue. And if you know and have any contact with young people... they especially must become involved, for they are the ones that will truly have to make change happen long term.
These are difficult long term problems, only to be solved with even more difficult longer-term solutions.

Force The Issues With Representatives In Government...
Don't let them so easily 'off-the-hook.'
This is not as difficult as many would make it out to be... and it is REALLY important!!
Learn and keep handy the contact numbers for offices locally and in Washington... and call and leave your 'message' about what you believe they should be hearing.


Doing 'all of the above' there's still absolutely no guarantees... but not doing anything..
...well.. like said... WE REALLY DO NOT WANT TO GO THERE !! 

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

How much longer do we have... our present path is not sustainable... 

... the bubble must burst... but when?

 

Military Assault on Global Climate

The Military Assault on Global Climate | Truthout

The Pentagon is the largest institutional user of petroleum products and energy. In 1940, the US military consumed one percent of the country's total energy usage; by the end of World War II, the military's share rose to 29 percent... oil is indispensable for war.
At the outset of the Iraq war in March 2003, the Army estimated it would need more than 40 million gallons of gasoline for three weeks of combat, exceeding the total quantity used by all Allied forces in the four years of World War 1. Among the Army's armamentarium were 2,000 staunch M-1 Abrams tanks fired up for the war and burning 250 gallons of fuel per hour.

The US Air Force is the single largest consumer of jet fuel in the world. Fathom, if you can, the astronomical fuel usage of USAF fighter planes: the F-4 Phantom Fighter burns more than 1,600 gallons of jet fuel per hour and peaks at 14,400 gallons per hour at supersonic speeds.
The B-52 Stratocruiser, with eight jet engines, guzzles 500 gallons per minute; ten minutes of flight uses as much fuel as the average driver does in one year of driving!
A quarter of the world's jet fuel feeds the USAF fleet of flying killing machines; in 2006, they consumed as much fuel as US planes did during the Second World War (1941-1945) - an astounding 2.6 billion gallons!

Yet, the Pentagon has a blanket exemption in all international climate agreements. While many of us assiduously reduce our carbon footprint through simpler living, eating locally, recycling and reusing, energy conservation, taking public transportation, installing solar panels, and so on, the single largest institutional polluter and contributor to global warming - the US military - is immune to climate change concerns. The military reports no climate change emissions to any national or international body.

And oil security comprises both military protection against sabotage to pipelines and tankers and also US-led wars in oil-rich regions to assure long-term access. Nearly 1,000+ U.S. military bases trace an arc from the Andes to North Africa across the Middle East to Indonesia, the Philippines and North Korea, sweeping over all major oil resources - all related, in part, to projecting force for the sake of energy security. Is is estimated that about 20% of the conventional DoD budget is attributable to the objective of oil security.

Just how much petroleum the Pentagon consumes is one of the best-kept secrets in government. More likely, no one in DoD knows precisely. By best expert estimates, the US military consumes as much as one million barrels of oil per day and contributes 5 percent of current global warming emissions... (that's 1.4 million active duty military personnel, or .0002 percent of the world's population, generating 5 percent of climate pollution... and military fuel is more polluting because of the fuel type used for aviation). The United States contributes more than 30 percent of global warming gases to the atmosphere, generated by five percent of the world's population and U.S. militarism.

But the United States has the wealth (currently larding the defense budget) and the technical capacity to revolutionize our energy economy and turn it within a few decades into an economy based on efficiency and renewable energy sources, thus removing a critical demand factor of our Goliath military.
Projected full costs of the Iraq war (estimated $3 trillion) would cover "all of the global investments in renewable power generation" needed between now and 2030 to reverse global warming trends.
Between 2003-2007, the war generated at least 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, more each year of the war than 139 of the world's countries release annually. Rebuilding Iraqi schools, homes, businesses, bridges, roads and hospitals pulverized by the war, and new security walls and barriers will require millions of tons of cement, one of the largest industrial sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2006, the US spent more on the war in Iraq than the entire world spent on renewable energy investment. By 2008, the Bush administration had spent 97 times more on military than on climate change. As a presidential candidate, President Obama pledged to spend $150 billion over ten years on green energy technology and infrastructure - less than the United States was spending in one year of the Iraq war.

Martin Luther King once said.. "Any nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

Our cultural competence for high-tech war may be our society's nemesis unless we do critical soul searching about our cultural and personal values and actively engage in transforming them.

Foreign Policy and Torture - SOA's Role

The Military's Role in US Foreign Policy and Torture: Why Is School of the Americas Absent From the National Dialogue? | Truthout

Known as the "School of Dictators," it has instructed and trained hundreds of less than honorable graduates linked to military death squads throughout the world. Since its creation, it has trained over 64,000 Latin American soldiers, including 10,000 from Colombia. Results in that country are absolutely devastating and shocking. Thirty of the 33 brigade commanders of the Colombian Army were trained at the school and in those regions where they operated, extrajudicial executions almost doubled.

There is a direct relationship between the school's graduates and human rights atrocities through all of Latin America. They include over two-thirds of human rights violators named in a UN Commission report, the head of the central death squads and secret police in Guatemala, the military leader responsible for the disappearance of 20,000-30,000 Argentinians and many of the officers connected to former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Costa Rica does not have an Army, but according to a 'watch groups', some 2,600 Costa Rican police officers have been trained at the school.

In Honduras, Gen. Romeo Velásquez had toppled Pres. Manuel Zelaya in a coup. The general who overthrew the democratically elected president of Honduras is a two-time graduate of the U.S. Army School of the Americas.
Honduras remains one of the deadliest places on earth for journalists...(be sure and watch all of this chilling video). Continually attempting to shed light on what is happening in the country, Honduran journalists have watched 15 colleagues assassinated in 19 months under the new, but as equally dictatorial, Lobo regime, a government Barack Obama praises for its "strong commitment to democracy."  (Behind the scenes supporting one of the wealthiest, most powerful, businessmen in the country).

In total hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been murdered, tortured, raped, disappeared and forced into exile by graduates of the SOA.
Under intense public pressure, it was coerced to release training manuals advocating torture, extortion, blackmail and the targeting of civilian populations. Used in courses, the manual says that to recruit and control informants, counterintelligence agents could use fear, payment of bounties for enemy dead, beatings, false imprisonment, executions and the use of truth serum, according to secret summaries of the manuals compiled during a 1992 investigation of the instructional material.

Over the past 15 years, popular movements in Latin America have successfully stood up to imperialism and neoliberal economic policies, including free trade agreements. The governments of Bolivia, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina and Costa Rica have all severed ties with this 'School.'

If you are not familiar with this 'school'... it is the infamous United State Army's School of the Americas (SOA) based in Fort Benning, Georgia. Originally established by the U.S. Army in the Panama Canal in 1946, the military training school moved to Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1984.
The SOA has remained a microcosm of US foreign policy. And that's why so many people have dedicated their lives to changing the culture of militarization, exposing the SOA's practices and, ultimately, shutting it down. Taxpayers' money has been used for physical abuse and torture.. and the school of the Americas, a Cold War relic, must be closed forever.

Why continue the public efforts to close it... when you don't have accountability, you have impunity and we've seen a dramatic spread of many of the tactics perfected and used at the School of the Americas. They have been revealed to be central to U.S. foreign policy elsewhere and now must be ended for all time.

No MoreTax Holidays!!

No Tax Holiday for Corporate Job Destroyers | Common Dreams

The income tax system in this country is another broken function of government. It is so far off from what makes sense.. and it is continually getting worse as money wants more money. Talk to most average folks that you know, and they say they just want the government to leave them alone and and stop taking their tax money and wasting it... (lots of wars... lots of waste).

They really don't make mention of just how unfair the current system has become. When the huge majority of the wealth being generated today is going almost entirely to the very rich and to corporations.. how can it be justified to increase taxes on any other group. And how is it at all sensible most of the very wealthy and a sizable portion of corporations now can avoid paying taxes entirely... and if they do, they pay at rates far lower than the average individual.

For the approximately 1.4 million people who make up the top 1% of taxpayers, the effective federal income tax rate dropped from 29% to 23% in 2008...(it may seem too unreal to be true, but the top 400 ended up paying a lower rate than the next 1.4 million people). Speculators in the financial markets now can individually earn billions of dollars, and at most pay taxes at the capital gains rate of 15%... if they pay anything at all.

Between 1948 and 1979, the richest 10% of families in the U.S. claimed 33% of average income growth.... between 2000 and 2007, the richest 10% claimed the full 100% of average income growth in the U.S.
The very rich have reaped the vast majority of every economic expansion over the last 30 years, including the top 1% gaining two thirds of it in recent years. The top 0.1% have seen a 94% income growth since 2002. The richest of them all (the top 400) have seen an astounding 476% increase since 1992. The richest 74 people made as much as the 19 million lowest-paid people in America.

As for corporations picking up their share.. nearly two-thirds of U.S. corporations currently do not pay any income taxes... (many are America’s most profitable companies -Exxon-Mobil, General Electric, Bank of America & Citigroup, all paid $0 in federal income taxes... some adding insult to injury have income credits in addition!!).
Business taxes in the U.S. were cut from 46 to 34% 25 years ago... but today almost 25% of the big 500 companies listed on Standard and Poor’s paid federal and other taxes of less than 20% over the last 5 years. Tax loopholes and lobbying have lowered the top tax rate to its lowest point since the Truman era, and now corporate tax dollars only account for 5-7% of all federal tax receipts.

The change in corporate taxes — not merely rates, but what they actually paid — over the past half century is astounding...

•     Corporate Taxes as a Percentage of Federal Revenue

    1955 . . . 27.3%

    2010 . . . 8.9%

•     Corporate Taxes as a Percentage of GDP

    1955 . . . 4.3%

    2010 . . . 1.3%

•     Individual Income/Payrolls as a Percentage of Federal Revenue

    1955 . . . 58.0%

    2010 . . . 81.5%

The power of money has never been as great and selfish and shameless as it is now. Corporations now  paying for campaigns of elected officials, and who own the mainstream media, are allowed to avoid paying their fair tax share. Also through their Citizens United decision, the Supreme Court has opened the door allowing corporations, now designated 'as people' to spend millions lobbying political leaders to continue avoiding their tax obligations (this was/is a HUGE deal... 'a game changer').  As well intensified lobbying for more and more tax breaks like the 'tax holidays as the Chuck Collins article details... read it and get pissed.. ...you've every right to be!!

Corporations are now lobbying HARD  for another tax holiday (spending tens of millions, employing dozens of lobbyists)..
to bring an additional 1.5 trillion dollars back into the country... at ridiculous low rates similar (or less) than what  
GW permitted them to do back in 2004...

..subsequently corporations laid off hundreds of thousands of workers the next couple years in 2005-2006... 

... most all that 'holiday' money went towards executive compensation and share buyback.

At the end of the Second World War, every $1.00 Washington raised in taxes on individuals, it raised $1.50 in taxes on business profits. Today, that ratio is dramatically different:.. every $1.00 Washington gets in taxes on individuals, it takes only $0.25 cents in taxes on business.
In short, the last half-century has seen a massive shift of the burden of federal taxation off business and onto individuals.

The system must be brought back to one that is fair... we had a progressive tax system that although not perfect did work fairly well for decades. Top marginal tax rates have traditionally been very high in the US, averaging 61% since 1917. The average top tax rate was at one time over 81%. Today it stands at 35%, which is 27% below the historical average, and 59% below it’s highest rate.

There are numerous progressive tax proposals for taxing the wealthy... this is but one of many that have been put forth..
A progressive tax code to create new brackets for the wealthy and ultra wealthy. Restore tax rates to 35% for those with an income between $250,000-$1 million per year.
Add new brackets that increases the level to 45% for anyone with an annual income between $1 million to $10 million, 50% for $10-50 million, 60% for $50-100 million, 70% for $100 million to $1 billion, and 80% for anyone over $1,000,000,000 per year...(that's 20 million a WEEK!!!)

Tax Rate - Income Bracket

35% $250,000-$1 million

45% $1 million-$10 million

50% $10 million-50 million

60% $50 million-100 million

70% $100 million-1 billion

80% $1 billion and above

The U.S. has seen diminishing progressivity of its tax structure for decades... and the present system only fosters discontent, class separation and alienation... we are in for some serious long term trouble if it does not get fixed soon.
Studies comparing nations found that flattening the tax risks flattening social well-being as well. The more progressive the tax policy is, the happier citizens are. Researchers analyzed the relationship between tax progressivity and personal well-being in nations surveyed by the Gallup Organization in 2007.

On average, residents of the nations with the most progressive taxation evaluated their own lives as closer to “the best possible.” They also reported having more satisfying experiences and fewer discomfiting ones than respondents living in nations with less progressive taxes.

If the goal of societies is to make citizens happier and better off, it must be realized equitable and consistently enforced tax policy truly does matter. Certain policies, like tax progressivity, seem to be more conducive to the well being of the people.  It is time we went backwards on this issue.

 

Bush Ordered 9/11 Investigation Suppressed

Ordered Investigation to Suppress Saudi 9/11 Connection

This is part 2 of an exceptional interview... well worth time spent watching... Swan and Summers are terrific (notably Swan's commentary)...

...and be sure and read carefully the well-detailed investigative report from David Kaplan ...
'The Saudi Connection'... published in U.S. World & News Report a couple years after 9/11 in December of 2003. It details the connection of our 'friends' the Saudis, and their funding of world terrorism.

Simple answer as to why... bribe money for the utterly lavish lifestyle of most of the 7,000 member 'royal' family. Extremist Muslims don't like theirs any more than ours, but the cash they need to fund their deadly activities has to come from somewhere... Saudi 'protection money' is the result.

The world's thirst for oil has caused, and continues to produce, much trouble and pain.