Soviet Jewry as a Diaspora Nationality: the 'Black Years'
Reconsidered
Jeffrey Veidlinger
East European Jewish Affairs, Vol.
33. No. 1, 2003/1350-1674/4-29
Published By Frank Cass, London
Newsletter published on 26 October 2014
This material is at
http://mailstar.net/Soviet-Jews-turn-Zionist.rtf
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
693 How to create a Public Bank - Ellen Brown; 5 years jail for respected tax agent
How to create a Public Bank - Ellen Brown; 5 years jail for respected
tax agent
Newsletter published on 24 October 2014
(1) Without Monetary Reform, Jews will continue to rule the world -
Brother Nathanael
(2) How to create a Public Bank - Ellen Brown
(3) How Economists With Bad Ideas Wreck Your Life, the Economy, and the
World
(4) A serious depression is pending as a result of austerity - Michael
Hudson
(5) Close the tax loophole on inversions - Jacob J. Lew (Treasury Secretary)
(6) ATO targeting Tax Crime; 5 years jail for respected tax agent; Mark
Leibler co-operative
(1) Without Monetary Reform, Jews will continue to rule the world -
Brother Nathanael
Brother Nathanael<bn@realjewnews.com> 17 October 2014 14:35
http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=973
A Platform For Monetary Reform
By Brother Nathanael Kapner
October 16, 2014 @ 8:47 pm
Money is the life blood of the economy but our money is diseased.
Our whole society has a pathological blood disorder with diseased money
making laws, jobs, courts, everything sick.
Our money is a debt scam run by Jewish shysters.
These are facts you can verify. Jews head the Fed. Look at the names:
Greenspan, Bernanke, Yellen, Fischer.
Now, there are two battles being fought: monetary policy and fiscal policy.
Monetary policy comes first. It’s who creates our money. Fiscal policy
comes second. It’s how government spends the money.
Who makes our money? It says the government right on the bill. But it’s
actually the Jews who make it, not the ‘United States Of America.’
IF the government DID make our money it wouldn’t have to borrow it and
there’d be no national debt.
In 1913, Warburg, Schiff, Rothschild, Untermeyer, blackmailed and bribed
politicians with perks, insider tips, and bennies to give them the power
to create money AT INTEREST on debt.
This is one of the greatest crimes in the history of man.
Now, the Jewish bankers love the Austrian School—an economic scheme with
a Jewish stamp—because it opposes government regulation of their crimes.
Austrians also claim that fiat money is bad because it creates inflation.
That’s a crock.
Historically gold standard money has always been largely fiat paper. We
were on the gold standard in the ‘roaring’ 20’s. It didn’t slow
inflation down at all. That’s why we call the 20’s ‘roaring.’
Fiat money is only bad if its quantity is controlled by bankers for
their profit.
But it can be good like the greenback if its quantity is controlled by
the government. Historically, the American government has a perfectly
transparent record of issuing the legally allocated amount.
Either way fiat money is necessary. You can’t operate credit cards,
ATM’s, and debit cards without electronic fiat money.
I’m calling for a Nationalist Convention on Monetary Reform to replace
our sick money with healthy money.
The platform I’m presenting is the Chicago Plan which is already widely
recognized by economists.
Michael Kumhof of the IMF recently gave a paper on the Chicago Plan
which made a big splash in financial circles.
Martin Wolf of the Financial Times came out for the Chicago Plan. He
took flak.
And Dennis Kucinich sponsored legislation based on the Chicago Plan.
[Clip: “I propose legislation that will put the Fed under Treasury.
Legislation that will enable the United States government to not have to
borrow money from banks.”]
This is a band wagon fighting to get lined up. We need to pile it on and
help organize it.
Occupy backs it. Bill Still and Ellen Brown support it.
Here’s the Plan.
The government takes over the Fed from the Jews. The Treasury creates US
dollars without borrowing anything. Borrowing becomes unnecessary.
National debt disappears.
The government spends or lends the new money into circulation.
Elected officials, not Jewish bankers, periodically adjust the quantity
issued. That controls inflation based on fixed legal formulas, not on
banker profits.
Under the Chicago Plan, banks can’t create US dollars any more. They
need to get them the hard way, through earnings just like we do, or
through deposits. They can’t lend money they pretend to have.
The government stops selling bonds, like T-Bills, and redeems the old
ones with the new money.
Look, people with no jobs don’t have money. We want to get money into
their hands and collection agencies off their backs.
One way is by funding the rebuilding of our decaying infrastructure,
creating jobs; giving low interest loans to small businesses;
refinancing student loans at lower interest; and making student loans
eligible for bankruptcy.
Another way is through direct distribution. This may be necessary with
all our jobs offshored or taken over by robots. Economies need
purchasing power—money in the hands of the people—to succeed.
But first comes monetary policy…how our money is created. It’s in the
interests of both conservatives and liberals.
We can have a truce on fiscal policy long enough to get monetary policy
passed.
Monetary Reform is the mother of all reform. Without it Jews will
continue to rule the world.
(2) How to create a Public Bank - Ellen Brown
From: Ellen Brown <ellenhbrown@gmail.com> Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2014
15:43:41 +0000
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/26800-building-an-ark-how-to-protect-public-revenues-from-the-next-meltdown
Building an Ark: How to Protect Public Revenues From the Next Meltdown
Tuesday, 14 October 2014 10:47 By Ellen Brown
North Dakota is the only state to post a budget surplus every year since
2001. The state owns its own bank. Other local governments would do well
to follow suit, not just for the promising profit potential, but as
protection against a "bail in" of public deposits. (Image: Troy Page / t
r u t h o u t; Adapted From: AComment, ribarnica and austrini / flickr)
Concerns are growing that we are heading for another banking crisis, one
that could be far worse than in 2008. But this time, there will be no
government bailouts. Instead, per the Dodd-Frank Act, bankrupt banks
will be confiscating (or “bailing in”) their customers’ deposits.
That includes local government deposits. The fact that public funds are
secured with collateral may not protect them, as explained earlier here.
Derivative claims now get paid first in a bank bankruptcy; and
derivative losses could be huge, wiping out the collateral for other claims.
In a September 24th article titled “5 US Banks Each Have More Than 40
Trillion Dollars In Exposure To Derivatives, Michael Snyder warns:
Trading in derivatives is basically just a form of legalized
gambling, and the “too big to fail” banks have transformed Wall Street
into the largest casino in the history of the planet. When this
derivatives bubble bursts (and as surely as I am writing this it will),
the pain that it will cause the global economy will be greater than
words can describe.
The too-big-to-fail banks have collectively grown 37% larger since 2008.
Five banks now account for 42% of all US loans, and six banks control
67% of all banking assets.
Besides their reckless derivatives gambling, these monster-sized banks
have earned our distrust by being caught in a litany of frauds. In an
article in Forbes titled “Big Banks and Derivatives: Why Another
Financial Crisis Is Inevitable,” Steve Denning lists rigging municipal
bond interest rates, LIBOR price-fixing, foreclosure abuses, money
laundering, tax evasion, and misleading clients with worthless securities.
Particularly harmful to local governments have been interest rate swaps
misrepresented as protecting government agencies from higher rates.
Yet as Michael Snyder observes:
At this point our economic system is so completely dependent on
these banks that there is no way that it can function without them. . .
. We are steamrolling toward the greatest financial disaster in world
history, and nobody is doing much of anything to stop it.
Sidestepping the Steamroller
California Governor Jerry Brown sees it coming. Rather than rebuilding
the state’s crumbling infrastructure, rehiring teachers and other public
employees, and taking other steps to restore the Golden State to its
former prosperity, he has proposed a constitutional amendment requiring
all excess state revenues to go into a rainy day fund to prepare for the
next crisis.
But there is a better way forward.
In North Dakota – the only state to post a budget surplus every year
since 2001 – the state owns its own bank. When the state last went
over-budget in 2001 due to the Dot.com crisis, it merely issued itself
an extra dividend through the Bank of North Dakota – the only
state-owned depository bank in the country – and the next year it was
back on track.
Other local governments would do well to follow suit, not just for the
promising profit potential, but as protection against a “bail in” of
public deposits.
Forming their own banks can also protect local governments from a
looming and unaffordable rise in municipal bond interest rates. State
treasurers fear that the Fed’s September 2014 exclusion of municipal
bonds from the category of “high quality liquid assets” that big banks
must hold will drive up bond rates, as it shrinks the market for those
bonds and drives up the interest required to attract buyers.
There is also the big money local governments lose to Wall Street just
in fees. A 2013 study found that the city of Los Angeles spends over
$200 million annually on big bank fees and management – more than its
budget to maintain its extensive streets and highways.
In a recent press conference, Mayor Javier Gonzalez of Santa Fe raised
provocative questions facing all elected officials today. He said:
Right now our bank is Wells Fargo. They serve the City according
to our contract. But they also take city revenues, taxpayer dollars,
and they use those taxpayer dollars as part of their loan portfolio that
goes to places outside of Santa Fe and certainly outside of New Mexico.
And when you think of that most basic concept of taxpayer money being
used to earn revenues for national banks that have reduced their small
business lending by 53%, you have to pause and wonder – is this the best
structure for our community?
Addressing these concerns, Mayor Gonzalez has launched a formal process
to study the feasibility of a city-owned bank of Santa Fe. Public
banking efforts are also underway in other cities and states.
How to Start a Bank Overnight
Forming a state or municipal public bank need not be slow or expensive.
An online bank could be run out of the Treasurer’s office and
operational in a few months. And the bank could be turning a profit
immediately – without spending the local government’s own revenues.
How? The way Wall Street does it with our public deposits and
investments: by leveraging. We could reclaim those funds and put them to
work for our local economies.
The bank could be capitalized with a bond issue (borrowing from the
public), and this capital could be leveraged into a loan portfolio that
is about eight times the capital base. The bond issue could be financed
with 1/8th of the interest accruing from this portfolio. The remaining
7/8th could be pocketed as profit.
This profit could be earned immediately and without risk, by buying
municipal bonds rather than issuing loans. That move could also help
municipalities, by guaranteeing that their bond rates remain low in the
face of threatened interest rate rises on the private market.
How to Start a Bank at Virtually No Cost or Risk
To demonstrate the safety and viability of the model, the bank can start
small and build from there. For startup capital, a new bank needs
anywhere from a few million to $20 million nationwide. (The amount
varies from state to state.) To be cautious and conservative, however,
let’s say $40 million.
Many cities have this money available in “rainy day” or reserve funds.
Many others have substantial investments, often underperforming, that
could be more responsibly invested as an equity position in a bank. In
California, for example, a whopping $55 billion is languishing in the
Treasurer’s Pooled Money Investment Account, earning a mere 0.23% interest.
Moving a portion of those funds into the state’s own bank would just be
good portfolio management. State pension funds are another investment
option.
If surplus funds are not available, capital can be raised with a bond
issue. (That is how the Bank of North Dakota got its start in 1919.)
Assume the interest due on these bonds is 3%. The local government’s
cost of funds will be $1.2 million annually.
At a 10% capital requirement, $40 million is sufficient to capitalize
$400 million in loans. But again assume the bank is started
conservatively at a 20% capitalization, for a loan portfolio of $200
million.
To make those loans, the bank will need deposits. These can be acquired
without advertising or other costs, by moving $200 million out of the
local government’s existing deposit account at JPMorgan Chase or another
Wall Street bank. (In North Dakota, all of the state’s revenues are
deposited by law in its state-owned bank.) Assume the new bank pays 0.3%
interest on these deposits, or $0.6 million annually as its cost of funds.
To satisfy the 10% reserve requirement for deposits (something different
from the capital requirement), $20 million of this deposit pool would be
held in reserve. The remaining $180 million are counted as “excess
reserves,” which can be used to make an equivalent sum in loans or bond
purchases.
Assume the excess reserves are used to buy local municipal bonds paying
3% annually. The return to the bank will be $5.4 million less $0.6
million in interest on the deposits, for a total of $4.8 million annually.
To recoup the cost of the bond issue, $1.2 million can be paid from
these profits as a dividend to the local government. The bank will then
have a net profit of $3.6 million annually; and this profit will have
accrued to the local government as the bank’s owner, without needing to
advance any money from its own budget.
What if the state needs its deposits for its budget?
That is the beauty of being a bank rather than a revolving fund: banks
do not actually lend their deposits, as the Bank of England recently
acknowledged. Rather, they create deposits when they make loans. If the
state or local government needs more cash for its operating expenses
than the bank has kept in reserve, the bank can do what all banks do: it
can borrow. And if it has grown to be a large bank, it can borrow
quickly and cheaply – from other banks through the Fed funds market at
0.25%, or from the money market at 0.15%.
A smaller public bank might want to keep a larger cushion of deposits in
reserve for liquidity purposes. If it keeps 30% in reserve, in the above
example $140 million would be left to invest in bonds, generating $4.2
million annually in interest. Deducting $1.8 million as the cost of
servicing deposits and capital, the bank would still generate $2.4
million in profit, while providing a safe place to park public revenues.
What of the bank’s operating costs? These can be kept quite low. The
Bank of North Dakota operates without branches, tellers, ATMs, retail
services, mega-salaries or mega-bonuses. All those saved costs fall to
the bank’s bottom line.
Ballpark operating expenses for a small but growing public bank with a
President, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Lending Officer, Chief Credit
Risk Management Officer, Compliance Officer, and the systems required to
support a banking function are estimated at under $1 million per year. A
start-up focused on municipal bonds could be operated for even less.
This expense could come out of the initial $40 million in
capitalization, again without impairing the local government’s own
operating budget.
Manifesting the Bank’s Full Potential
Once a charter has been obtained and sound banking practices have been
demonstrated, the capital ratio can be dropped toward 10%. When the bank
has built up a sufficient capital cushion, it can begin to work with
community banks and other financial institutions for the broad range of
commercial lending that creates jobs and prosperity and generates
profits as non-tax revenue for the municipality, following the Bank of
North Dakota model.
The public bank can also invest in infrastructure loans to the state or
local government itself. Interest now composes about half of capital
outlays for public projects. Since the local government will own the
bank, it will get this interest back, cutting infrastructure costs in half.
These are just a few of the possibilities for a publicly-owned bank,
which can provide security from risk while generating a far greater
return on the local government’s money than it is getting now on its
Wall Street deposit accounts. As we peer into the jaws of another
economic meltdown, moving our public funds into our own banks is an
investment we can hardly afford not to make.
(3) How Economists With Bad Ideas Wreck Your Life, the Economy, and the
World
Author Jeff Madrick discusses what bad ideas cost us, and how to defeat
them.
Lynn Stuart Parramore
October 13, 2014
http://www.alternet.org/economy/how-economists-bad-ideas-wreck-your-life-
americas-economy-and-world
Many of us have long known in our guts that something about mainstream
economics doesn't add up. As a new, must-read book proves, we were
right. For decades, dubious, false and nonsensical ideas have dominated
public discourse and decision-making, from the irrational belief in the
efficiency of markets to a willful blindness about the inequalities of
wealth and economic opportunity in a system that has been rigged for the
benefit of the few. Author Jeff Madrick has just come out with his
latest challenge to the pernicious ideas that have captured the minds
and clouded the judgment of huge numbers of orthodox economists and the
legions who follow their advice: Seven Bad Ideas: How Mainstream
Economists Have Damaged America and the World. [3] In this brisk and
accessible volume, which should be on Econ 101 syllabi, Madrick outlines
the wrong-headed propositions, fictitious models, shoddy research, and
partisan agendas that have made a reexamination of the entire field long
overdue, especially in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008.
Madrick’s book is part of a healthy movement to set the record straight
and chart a new direction for an economics that can serve the whole of
society and lead to sustainable growth.
Lynn Parramore: Why does the invisible hand (the metaphor used by
18th-century economist Adam Smith to explain what he saw as the benefits
of individuals in pursuit of their own interests) get top billing in
your list of bad economic ideas? What value judgments come with this
model of how the economy works?
Jeff Madrick: Adam Smith’s invisible hand is really the hub of the
wheel: the other ideas are all spokes. It argues that if we all follow
our self-interest and the government stays out of the market—for
instance, it should not regulate prices—then the interaction of buyers
and sellers will result in the greatest prosperity for all.
The invisible hand suggests that all wages will be established at fair
levels and that regulation of financial markets can be minimized because
free markets will lead to the "right" price for securities or
commodities or currencies. On and on. But this is only an idea, if a
beautiful one. It tells us how a market may work, not how it actually
does work. Long after Adam Smith wrote about the invisible hand, as the
economics profession became increasingly ideologically conservative,
economists came to accept it as a rule, not a hypothesis.
LP: What do bad economic ideas cost the ordinary person?
JM: Bad economic ideas result in less income for most of us over time,
unfair rewards for work, and the exclusion of many groups. For example,
bad economic ideas do not deal with racism. They create a justification
for high pay for bankers and CEOs when such pay is not justified. Bad
economic ideas channel our precious savings into self-serving areas
rather into productive investments. They lead to financial crises when
many of us lose homes or a chunk of our pensions. On it goes.
LP: People with 401(k)s watching the stock market’s recent dip may have
heard experts cite the weakened European economy as a factor. How does
austerity economics in other parts of the world affect us at home?
JM: Austerity economics, which argues that we should cut budget deficits
through tax hikes and reduced social spending even in times of economic
weakness, have led to slow growth and outright recession in Europe.
Recessions result in very high unemployment rates—25 percent in Spain,
for example, and 50 percent for youth. European governments led by
Germany should be spending to stimulate growth, but they are caught in
the grips of bad economic ideas and so they are not doing this.
Americans pay a price because those countries export their slow growth
in the sense that they don’t buy what we make. They also jeopardize
financial markets because their debt levels rise as their incomes fall,
possibly sending up rates or leading to defaults. The U.S. has also
practiced austerity, if less so. The sequester took a lot of strength
out of the U.S. economy. Pro-austerity people argue that deficits reduce
a nation’s savings, but that is exactly what you want to do in weak
economies. Businesses will invest if they sell goods and services.
Savings will lie fallow, but conservative economists claim it is an
automatic adjustment, that savings will be invested. It is a tragically
wrong idea.
LP: You note that many conservative economists would like to see
government’s role in society and the economy drastically reduced. How
does this position impact our ability to respond to emergencies like Ebola?
JM: I think we have denigrated government in America since the 1970s and
clearly since Ronald Reagan. We react to Hurricane Katrina as if it is
an afterthought. As a result, our government is not ahead in all kinds
of fields — clean energy, for example. Or how about the technology
needed to restrain methane emission due to methane release, which could
be disastrous?
Ebola is yet another example. We wait for a crisis rather than trying to
get ahead of it. I fear Ebola most, but people should know this reflects
an anti-government attitude that started 40 years ago and has not truly
abated. It permeates economics today.
LP: You mention several forces that keep economists committed to bad
ideas, like the conformity required for professional success, the
pretense that economics is a science akin to physics, and the addiction
to simplistic models that do not account for the messiness of the real
world. Given these forces, how can we move toward a better economics?
Crisis should have moved us to a better economics, and to some small
extent it has. Economists have gone back to the drawing board. They are
trying to write finance into their forecasting models, something they
completely neglected before. They are a little more humble. But I would
say not much. They still think they have a special knowledge that others
don’t. Thus, they turned the seven bad ideas of my book into rules of
thumb rather than hypotheses that have to be adjusted to every new problem.
But it is easier to have a one-size-fits-all solution than to get down
and dirty and recognize the limitations of universalist ideas. The
notion of economics being akin to physics confers a certain kind of
prestige, but it is also easier to measure contributions, even if they
are wrong. These ideas are part of the sociology of academia, which
badly needs reforming.
(4) A serious depression is pending as a result of austerity - Michael
Hudson
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12533
Why Are Stock Markets So Volatile?
A serious depression is pending as a result of austerity, says Professor
Michael Hudson, author of The Bubble and Beyond, and Finance Capitalism
and Its Discontents - October 17, 14
Rel News Network Interview: Transcript
Why Are Stock Markets So Volatile? SHARMINI PERIES, EXEC. PRODUCER,
TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Sharmini Peries, coming to
you from Baltimore.
On Wednesday this week, the S&P 500 took a dive and then partially
recovered itself in what stock market watchers call a selloff scare.
To talk about what is behind the volatility is our regular guest, Prof
Michael Hudson.
Thank you so much for joining us, Michael.
MICHAEL HUDSON, PROF. ECONOMICS, UMKC: It's good to be back.
PERIES: Michael, if you heard stock market reporting yesterday or saw
The New York Times' business section today, you would have thought we
were in another stock market plunge. What's behind this fluctuation?
HUDSON: Well, the markets are obviously confused, because there are two
sets of forces on the market, one positive and one negative. The
positive thing is that we're going into a real serious depression
[incompr.] austerity in the United States, austerity in Europe. And for
the last six years, since 2008, almost all of the gains have been going
only to the 1 percent. This has caused--they've kept the debts on the
book. It's creating large unemployment.
And so Europe and America are saying, this the best opportunity we've
had in a century. Here is a chance to do what we call reform. A century
ago, reform meant increasing wage levels and increasing living standards
and taxing the rentiers, but right now reform means, in Europe, breaking
the labor unions, lowering wages, and putting the squeeze on labor. So
all of that is supposed to be good for profits.
PERIES: But, Michael, just last week the Bureau of Labor Statistics in
the U. S. announced that unemployment is the lowest it has been in a
very long time. Why? This is contrary to what you're saying.
HUDSON: Well, it's true that the unemployment rate among people
searching for jobs is low, but there's been a large movement out of the
market for a number of things. Number one, fewer people are even looking
for work. They've given up. Number two, many of the jobs that are being
created are very low wage jobs at the low end of the spectrum or they're
part-time jobs. And if you work for part time at all, you're not
considered unemployed. If you've given up looking
So even though some of the wage levels, the minimum wage has been raised
in Massachusetts and out West, when the minimum wage level is raised,
that means the families that have been living on food stamps while
they've been working at McDonald's or at other low-wage companies, they
don't qualify anymore. So there's been very little change in the actual
family budgets.
The markets were expected to sort of somehow take off with higher profit
if there was a business cycle recovery. But it's become apparent that
we're really not in a business cycle anymore. We're at the end of a long
50-year cycle since World War II, where the debts have been rising so
much that all of a sudden the economy can't be financed by debt anymore.
And if the economy isn't financed by debt, that means that markets can't
grow, that all of a sudden what was fueling the growth and consumer
demand that's been increasing profits has come to an end. This is
especially apparent in Europe. So, basically, what people thought was
supposed to be good news turns out to be quite bad news.
PERIES: Michael, when the World Bank and, actually, the IMF adjusted the
global growth rates last week, which has been a trend--you know, they've
done it consecutively for a number of years now where their long-term
projections aren't just turning out the way they had planned and
projected. Why is that happening?
HUDSON: Well, they had thought when the World Bank and other people had
forecast a trend, they'd take past growth rates as they were up to 2008
and just said, what if they just continue as if growth occurs
automatically? But what was fueling all of this growth was just a
creation of debt, largely by inflating real estate prices, and bank
credit creation, and government spending that has run a deficit.
Now, economies, in order to grow at this rate, they need credit and they
need income. Now, the credit either can come from governments running a
budget deficit and pumping money into the economy, or it can come from
bank lending. But at the IMF meetings last week, it was clear that as
far as Europe's concerned, the banks have not recovered yet. The banks
are not lending. And American banks are not lending. There has not been
any lending in Europe or in the United States for new capital
investment. And it's capital investment to build factories, to make new
means of production that employs labor.
So you have this whole source of employment that was fueling the global
economy since World War II is coming to an end, capital investment to
increase. The only capital investment that's occurring really is in the
BRICS countries, not in America and not in Europe. So the kind of
employment that occurred in the past has not been occurring since 2008.
What we have is sort of living on the corpse of the economy that was
left in 2008 and it's basically an economic shrinkage process we are in.
There's no infrastructure spending. The infrastructure's aging. There's
no corporate industrial investment. That stopped. There's simply
services trade in the military.
PERIES: Michael, only thing that held up yesterday were some of the
transportation stocks. Why is that? And also explained to me--you wrote
to me saying 91 percent of the S&P 500 earnings are spent on stock
buybacks and dividends. What does that mean?
HUDSON: Well, in 2008 the Federal Reserve here and the central bank in
Europe lowered interest rates way down to almost nothing. It's one-tenth
of a percent in the United States. That means that banks can borrow from
the Fed to make loans. And what they've been lending for are for
corporate takeovers and for stock buybacks. In the stock market in the
last year, one-third of all of the stock transactions in the United
States are stock buybacks. That means corporations are using--the S&P
500 have used, I think, 54 percent of their earnings to buy back their
own stock, and they've been using another 40 percent or so to pay
dividends. Now, that has left only 9 percent of earnings of the S&P 500
available for new investment. Never before has this ratio been so low.
Most companies use their earnings to reinvest. They expand. They try to
earn more by investing more to produce more to make more profits to keep
on growing. But that hasn't been occurring at all. They've been using
their earnings basically to give stock options to the managers. The
manager say, okay, I'm paid according to how much I can increase the
price of the stock. I'm not going to use my corporate earnings of IBM or
General Motors or whatever, I'm not going to use these to build more
plant, 'cause then I'm going to use it to push up the stock so I'm going
to get more in my stock option. And you have activist stockholders such
as have been raiding Apple and other companies, like Carl Icahn, that
have been pressing Apple and others to actually borrow not to invest as
the textbooks say, but to buy back their own stocks. So you have
companies that are actually going into debt to buy their own stock.
Now, the low interest rates that in economic theory are supposed to make
it more profitable for companies to invest and employ more labor and
grow are having just the opposite effect. The low interest rates are
creating a new stock market bubble, which is why the stock market has
gone up so much since 2008. But this rising stock market bubble has only
been in the price of the stock. It's stocks going up without any new
capital investment, without any new hiring, and, in fact, with
downsizing and outsourcing. So they've turned the traditional textbook
model of economic recovery inside out.
And gradually the investors and the hedge funds are realizing, wait a
minute, this isn't your textbook kind of recovery; this is a kind of
recovery that's only occurring in the financial sector and real estate
and insurance, the FIRE sector, finance, insurance, and real estate.
It's not occurring in the economy at large. And if all of these earnings
on Wall Street are not recycled in the economy at large, then markets
are going to shrink, there's not going to be much of a rental income for
commercial space, and with shrinking markets you're not going to have
companies earning more profit on investment, even if they're holding
down wages.
PERIES: Michael, does this have anything to do with the murmurs out
there that the interest rates might actually increase?
HUDSON: There was a fear that the markets--that the Federal Reserve was
going to stop quantitative easing. They've been saying, look, we can
hold down interest rates forever. And at the IMF meetings last week, the
Europeans are saying, look, we worry that these low interest rates are
spurring a financial bubble.
Now, if interest rates go up, that means that all of a sudden all of
this borrowed money that's gone into stocks is going to disappear.
People are going to say, okay, we can't make money borrowing to buy
stocks, we can't make money borrowing for real estate, so we're not
going to pay back the bank loans. We're going to stop gambling.
And all of this was exacerbated by the U. S., the new Cold War against
Russia, because essentially the United States went to Europe and said,
let's you and Russia fight. So Europe imposed sanctions, and Russia
imposed harder sanctions. So the European economy is shrinking. And so,
because the European economy's shrinking, the euros going down. The
Eurozone is turning into a dead zone, and the Europeans are moving their
money into the United States. That's pushing up the dollar.
Now, if the Federal Reserve were to raise interest rates at this point,
this would not only slow, bring down the stock market and bring down the
bond market, but it would also bring so much money into the dollar,
because Europe cannot raise its interest rates, that this would price
American goods out of world markets. And that would shrink the market
for American industrial exports all the more. So the United States has
painted itself into a corner where it really can't increase interest
rates. Even though investors worry that the Fed is going to raise it,
the Fed knows that it can't raise interest rates without crashing the
market down.
PERIES: Michael, thank you so much for joining us.
HUDSON: It's always good to be here.
(5) Close the tax loophole on inversions - Jacob J. Lew (Treasury Secretary)
{the meaning is: The Federal Government is fanally serious about making
corporations pay tax - Peter M.}
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jacob-lew-close-the-tax-loophole-on-inversions/2014/07/27/2ea50966-141d-11e4-98ee-daea85133bc9_story.html
Close the tax loophole on inversions
By Jacob J. Lew
July 27
Jacob J.Lew is the U.S. treasury secretary.
Since we last overhauled our federal tax code, in 1986, countries around
the world have lowered their tax rates, leaving the United States with
the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. At the same time,
the system has become full of inefficiencies and special-interest
loopholes. That is why it is so important that we reform our business
tax code to make the U.S. economy more competitive and to accelerate
economic growth and job creation. Taking this step will make the United
States an even more attractive place to do business and ensure that
capital and talent are allocated more efficiently in pursuit of high
economic returns, rather than low tax bills.
The president put forward a framework for business tax reform more than
two years ago and has been pushing Congress to move forward on it. The
president’s proposal would lay the foundation for broadly shared
long-term growth by lowering corporate tax rates, broadening the tax
base, simplifying the system and eliminating wasteful carve-outs and tax
expenditures. These reforms would result in savings that could be
reinvested in our nation’s aging infrastructure.
But one particular tax loophole has become increasingly urgent to
address: the fact that the law rewards U.S. corporations with
substantial tax benefits when they buy foreign companies and declare
that they are based overseas.
This practice, known as an inversion, has accelerated in recent months,
with a significant number of big corporations nearing completion of such
deals and reports of many more in the works. To be clear, there is
nothing wrong with cross-border merger activity; our economy is stronger
for our investment overseas and for foreign investment in the United
States. But these activities should be based on economic efficiency, not
tax savings. Many of these transactions have been motivated by — and
even expressly justified by — the tax savings. In touting these
transactions, individual firms have projected saving as much as $1
billion per year. On July 15, I wrote a letter to Congress and called on
lawmakers to address this problem as soon as possible.
Many of these companies are for all intents and purposes still based in
the United States, and they remain here to take advantage of everything
that makes the United States the best place in the world to do business:
our rule of law, our universities, our research-and-development
capabilities, our innovative culture and our skilled workforce. By
moving their tax homes overseas, these companies are making the decision
to reduce their taxes, forcing a greater share of the responsibility of
maintaining core public functions on small businesses and hardworking
Americans. That includes paying for the things all of us, particularly
U.S. businesses, depend on: our national defense, education, medical
research, courts and vital infrastructure such as roads, bridges and
airports. In addition, by allowing these transactions to continue, we
run the risk of eroding our corporate tax base and undoing the progress
we have made to reduce our budget deficits.
Enacting comprehensive business tax reform is clearly the best way to
address the problems in our tax code that trigger inversions, although
even if we cut our tax rates and broaden the tax base, we would still
need to enact anti-inversion provisions because companies always would
find countries with near-zero rates to which they could relocate.
Moreover, even the most optimistic know that the administration and
Congress need more time to complete bipartisan comprehensive business
tax reform. While the business-tax-reform process moves steadily
forward, the pace of inversions is increasing at breakneck speed. We
must confront this problem now, before our tax base is so eroded as to
damage the prospects of comprehensive reform.
The president’s proposal applies a common-sense approach to determine
whether a corporation has truly switched its base of operations to
another country — a company would not be able to move outside the United
States for tax purposes if it is still managed and controlled in the
United States, does a significant amount of its business here and does
not do a significant amount of its business in the country it claims as
its new home.
The president’s plan also would eliminate the incentives a U.S.
corporation has to acquire a foreign company and use its foreign address
to claim tax status beyond our borders. To make sure the merged company
is not merely masquerading as a non-U.S. company, shareholders of the
foreign company would have to own at least 50 percent of the newly
merged company — the current legal standard requires only 20 percent.
This approach is based on a bipartisan law enacted in 2004 and could
serve as a basis for a bipartisan solution again. Right now, leaders in
Congress have put forward strong legislation that adopts elements of
this plan.
For legislation to be effective, it must be retroactive. Current
proposals in Congress would apply to any inversion deal after early May
of this year. The alternative — legislation taking effect after the
president signs it into law — could have the perverse effect of
encouraging corporations to act more quickly, negotiate new deals and
rush to close those transactions before the bill is enacted. It would be
a mistake for Congress to pass anti-inversion legislation that creates a
race against the clock and encourages more, not fewer, inversions.
Making legislation effective before the date that a bill is enacted is
not a new or novel approach; the Congressional Research Service referred
to the practice as “quite common” in a 2012 report. A good example of
this is the 2004 anti-inversion legislation. Passed by a Republican-led
Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush in October
2004, it had an effective date of March 2003.
For all these reasons, I call on Congress to close this loophole and
pass anti-inversion legislation as soon as possible. Our tax system
should not reward U.S. companies for giving up their U.S. citizenship,
and unless we tackle this problem, these transactions will continue.
Closing the inversion loophole is no substitute for comprehensive
business tax reform, but it is a necessary step down the path toward a
fair and more efficient tax system, and a step that needs to be in a
place for tax reform to work.
(6) ATO targeting Tax Crime; 5 years jail for respected tax agent; Mark
Leibler co-operative
https://www.ato.gov.au/General/The-fight-against-tax-crime/In-detail/Targeting-Tax-Crime-magazine/2014/Targeting-tax-crime--Project-DO-IT---October-2014/
Targeting tax crime: Project DO IT – October 2014
Opportunity ending - make the right choice before it is too late.
With its increasing capability to track money flows back to
beneficiaries, the ATO is one step away from knocking on the doors of
suspected tax evaders.
‘I want the people who have undisclosed money offshore to realise
they are on notice,' says Greg Williams, ATO Deputy Commissioner. 'If
they think they can remain undetected, they should think again. We are
just one step away from knocking on their door,' he says.
'To support the enforcement of Australia’s tax and super laws,
the law gives us full access to the details of every single
international funds transfer involving Australia. Further, our
international tax treaty partners are sharing more information with us
every day,' he says.
‘Make no mistake; the ATO has a long reach. Just because
something happens outside Australia's borders doesn’t mean it’s beyond
the watchful eye of the ATO,’ the deputy commissioner says.
The ATO is also working more closely with banks to get a better
understanding of the volumes of data available from AUSTRAC.
‘We now have a greater ability to follow the trail of money
across borders to the end beneficiary. Tax evaders should be aware that
complex structures designed to throw authorities off the scent won’t
stand up,’ Greg Williams says.
During 2012–13, AUSTRAC information contributed to 1,428 ATO
audits that raised $572 million in additional tax. This is an increase
of 127% from the $252 million raised in 2011–12.
For those who heed the warning and want to come forward, the
ATO’s offshore voluntary disclosure initiative, Project DO IT, should be
just the circuit breaker they are looking for.
Project DO IT provides Australians with the opportunity to
voluntarily declare undisclosed or incorrectly reported offshore
financial activities, and avoid steep penalties and the possibility of
criminal charges.
With just two months remaining until the 19 December deadline,
the ATO wants people to know that time is running out and they need to
act quickly.
Case Study: 5 years jail for respected tax agent
Those who think that that there is safety in numbers will find
that they are mistaken. It’s not a numbers game when it comes to
catching tax evaders; our access to data and ability to use it is
unprecedented, and momentum is only growing.
Recently a high-profile, respected tax agent was found to have
used money laundering and other methods to help clients avoid paying
tax. The court was told she used banks in Vanuatu to channel millions of
dollars.
When the ATO uncovered the fraud, every one of the tax agent’s
clients also came under suspicion, due to their tax file numbers being
associated with the crime. Some of those clients have already been
jailed under the Project Wickenby program while others are still being
investigated.
The position of trust tax agents have with their clients and
their knowledge of the tax system means they have a critical role in
maintaining and protecting the integrity of that system. When that
position is used to take advantage of the system for the agent's own
personal gain and that of their clients, the penalties are severe.
The tax agent was sentenced to five years in jail, with the judge
noting that the agent’s actions “were a significant breach of trust on
the part of a qualified and highly placed accountant.”
A good offer
Project DO IT – the ATO’s offer of reduced penalties for those who
disclose offshore income – is a genuine offer that advisers and relevant
individuals should take seriously. This is the advice of tax advisers,
Mark Leibler and Michael Bersten, in a panel interview with ATO deputy
commissioners, Michael Cranston and Greg Williams, hosted by David Koch.
'This is a unique once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Anyone who doesn’t
take advantage of it would have to be insane, frankly,' Mark Leibler
says in the interview, while Michael Bersten warns those affected: 'If
you have something to disclose, you should come forward'.
Reinforcing what Mark Leibler and Michael Bersten say, Deputy
Commissioner Michael Cranston urges taxpayers to act. 'Project DO IT is
a good offer and those who let it pass by will regret it,' he said.
'If you need to disclose international financial activities, act quickly
and decisively. If we detect you first, you will be exposed to the full
force of the law, including severe penalties.'
Under the initiative, the ATO is providing a number of benefits. Most
significantly, taxpayers have an opportunity to avoid steep penalties
and the risk of criminal prosecution for tax avoidance.
‘If you have something to disclose you should come forward, it’s in your
own best interests to get some further advice and find out what your
position is,' Michael Bersten says.
'It's an offer so good that we couldn’t possibly offer it again,' Greg
Williams says.
Project DO IT is an opportunity for all Australians who have engaged in
previously unreported offshore financial activities to get their tax
affairs in order.
There are very few taxpayers who would not be eligible to make a
disclosure under this initiative.
The process has been designed with the assistance of advisers and
professional associations.
'The ATO has gone through a really fantastic process of consulting and
ensuring this is a really robust, fair and balanced program. This is in
the best interests of Australia and the individuals concerned,' Michael
Bersten says.
For more information on the offer, eligibility, and what you need to do
to disclose, refer to ato.gov.au/projectdoit
tax agent
Newsletter published on 24 October 2014
(1) Without Monetary Reform, Jews will continue to rule the world -
Brother Nathanael
(2) How to create a Public Bank - Ellen Brown
(3) How Economists With Bad Ideas Wreck Your Life, the Economy, and the
World
(4) A serious depression is pending as a result of austerity - Michael
Hudson
(5) Close the tax loophole on inversions - Jacob J. Lew (Treasury Secretary)
(6) ATO targeting Tax Crime; 5 years jail for respected tax agent; Mark
Leibler co-operative
(1) Without Monetary Reform, Jews will continue to rule the world -
Brother Nathanael
Brother Nathanael<bn@realjewnews.com> 17 October 2014 14:35
http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=973
A Platform For Monetary Reform
By Brother Nathanael Kapner
October 16, 2014 @ 8:47 pm
Money is the life blood of the economy but our money is diseased.
Our whole society has a pathological blood disorder with diseased money
making laws, jobs, courts, everything sick.
Our money is a debt scam run by Jewish shysters.
These are facts you can verify. Jews head the Fed. Look at the names:
Greenspan, Bernanke, Yellen, Fischer.
Now, there are two battles being fought: monetary policy and fiscal policy.
Monetary policy comes first. It’s who creates our money. Fiscal policy
comes second. It’s how government spends the money.
Who makes our money? It says the government right on the bill. But it’s
actually the Jews who make it, not the ‘United States Of America.’
IF the government DID make our money it wouldn’t have to borrow it and
there’d be no national debt.
In 1913, Warburg, Schiff, Rothschild, Untermeyer, blackmailed and bribed
politicians with perks, insider tips, and bennies to give them the power
to create money AT INTEREST on debt.
This is one of the greatest crimes in the history of man.
Now, the Jewish bankers love the Austrian School—an economic scheme with
a Jewish stamp—because it opposes government regulation of their crimes.
Austrians also claim that fiat money is bad because it creates inflation.
That’s a crock.
Historically gold standard money has always been largely fiat paper. We
were on the gold standard in the ‘roaring’ 20’s. It didn’t slow
inflation down at all. That’s why we call the 20’s ‘roaring.’
Fiat money is only bad if its quantity is controlled by bankers for
their profit.
But it can be good like the greenback if its quantity is controlled by
the government. Historically, the American government has a perfectly
transparent record of issuing the legally allocated amount.
Either way fiat money is necessary. You can’t operate credit cards,
ATM’s, and debit cards without electronic fiat money.
I’m calling for a Nationalist Convention on Monetary Reform to replace
our sick money with healthy money.
The platform I’m presenting is the Chicago Plan which is already widely
recognized by economists.
Michael Kumhof of the IMF recently gave a paper on the Chicago Plan
which made a big splash in financial circles.
Martin Wolf of the Financial Times came out for the Chicago Plan. He
took flak.
And Dennis Kucinich sponsored legislation based on the Chicago Plan.
[Clip: “I propose legislation that will put the Fed under Treasury.
Legislation that will enable the United States government to not have to
borrow money from banks.”]
This is a band wagon fighting to get lined up. We need to pile it on and
help organize it.
Occupy backs it. Bill Still and Ellen Brown support it.
Here’s the Plan.
The government takes over the Fed from the Jews. The Treasury creates US
dollars without borrowing anything. Borrowing becomes unnecessary.
National debt disappears.
The government spends or lends the new money into circulation.
Elected officials, not Jewish bankers, periodically adjust the quantity
issued. That controls inflation based on fixed legal formulas, not on
banker profits.
Under the Chicago Plan, banks can’t create US dollars any more. They
need to get them the hard way, through earnings just like we do, or
through deposits. They can’t lend money they pretend to have.
The government stops selling bonds, like T-Bills, and redeems the old
ones with the new money.
Look, people with no jobs don’t have money. We want to get money into
their hands and collection agencies off their backs.
One way is by funding the rebuilding of our decaying infrastructure,
creating jobs; giving low interest loans to small businesses;
refinancing student loans at lower interest; and making student loans
eligible for bankruptcy.
Another way is through direct distribution. This may be necessary with
all our jobs offshored or taken over by robots. Economies need
purchasing power—money in the hands of the people—to succeed.
But first comes monetary policy…how our money is created. It’s in the
interests of both conservatives and liberals.
We can have a truce on fiscal policy long enough to get monetary policy
passed.
Monetary Reform is the mother of all reform. Without it Jews will
continue to rule the world.
(2) How to create a Public Bank - Ellen Brown
From: Ellen Brown <ellenhbrown@gmail.com> Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2014
15:43:41 +0000
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/26800-building-an-ark-how-to-protect-public-revenues-from-the-next-meltdown
Building an Ark: How to Protect Public Revenues From the Next Meltdown
Tuesday, 14 October 2014 10:47 By Ellen Brown
North Dakota is the only state to post a budget surplus every year since
2001. The state owns its own bank. Other local governments would do well
to follow suit, not just for the promising profit potential, but as
protection against a "bail in" of public deposits. (Image: Troy Page / t
r u t h o u t; Adapted From: AComment, ribarnica and austrini / flickr)
Concerns are growing that we are heading for another banking crisis, one
that could be far worse than in 2008. But this time, there will be no
government bailouts. Instead, per the Dodd-Frank Act, bankrupt banks
will be confiscating (or “bailing in”) their customers’ deposits.
That includes local government deposits. The fact that public funds are
secured with collateral may not protect them, as explained earlier here.
Derivative claims now get paid first in a bank bankruptcy; and
derivative losses could be huge, wiping out the collateral for other claims.
In a September 24th article titled “5 US Banks Each Have More Than 40
Trillion Dollars In Exposure To Derivatives, Michael Snyder warns:
Trading in derivatives is basically just a form of legalized
gambling, and the “too big to fail” banks have transformed Wall Street
into the largest casino in the history of the planet. When this
derivatives bubble bursts (and as surely as I am writing this it will),
the pain that it will cause the global economy will be greater than
words can describe.
The too-big-to-fail banks have collectively grown 37% larger since 2008.
Five banks now account for 42% of all US loans, and six banks control
67% of all banking assets.
Besides their reckless derivatives gambling, these monster-sized banks
have earned our distrust by being caught in a litany of frauds. In an
article in Forbes titled “Big Banks and Derivatives: Why Another
Financial Crisis Is Inevitable,” Steve Denning lists rigging municipal
bond interest rates, LIBOR price-fixing, foreclosure abuses, money
laundering, tax evasion, and misleading clients with worthless securities.
Particularly harmful to local governments have been interest rate swaps
misrepresented as protecting government agencies from higher rates.
Yet as Michael Snyder observes:
At this point our economic system is so completely dependent on
these banks that there is no way that it can function without them. . .
. We are steamrolling toward the greatest financial disaster in world
history, and nobody is doing much of anything to stop it.
Sidestepping the Steamroller
California Governor Jerry Brown sees it coming. Rather than rebuilding
the state’s crumbling infrastructure, rehiring teachers and other public
employees, and taking other steps to restore the Golden State to its
former prosperity, he has proposed a constitutional amendment requiring
all excess state revenues to go into a rainy day fund to prepare for the
next crisis.
But there is a better way forward.
In North Dakota – the only state to post a budget surplus every year
since 2001 – the state owns its own bank. When the state last went
over-budget in 2001 due to the Dot.com crisis, it merely issued itself
an extra dividend through the Bank of North Dakota – the only
state-owned depository bank in the country – and the next year it was
back on track.
Other local governments would do well to follow suit, not just for the
promising profit potential, but as protection against a “bail in” of
public deposits.
Forming their own banks can also protect local governments from a
looming and unaffordable rise in municipal bond interest rates. State
treasurers fear that the Fed’s September 2014 exclusion of municipal
bonds from the category of “high quality liquid assets” that big banks
must hold will drive up bond rates, as it shrinks the market for those
bonds and drives up the interest required to attract buyers.
There is also the big money local governments lose to Wall Street just
in fees. A 2013 study found that the city of Los Angeles spends over
$200 million annually on big bank fees and management – more than its
budget to maintain its extensive streets and highways.
In a recent press conference, Mayor Javier Gonzalez of Santa Fe raised
provocative questions facing all elected officials today. He said:
Right now our bank is Wells Fargo. They serve the City according
to our contract. But they also take city revenues, taxpayer dollars,
and they use those taxpayer dollars as part of their loan portfolio that
goes to places outside of Santa Fe and certainly outside of New Mexico.
And when you think of that most basic concept of taxpayer money being
used to earn revenues for national banks that have reduced their small
business lending by 53%, you have to pause and wonder – is this the best
structure for our community?
Addressing these concerns, Mayor Gonzalez has launched a formal process
to study the feasibility of a city-owned bank of Santa Fe. Public
banking efforts are also underway in other cities and states.
How to Start a Bank Overnight
Forming a state or municipal public bank need not be slow or expensive.
An online bank could be run out of the Treasurer’s office and
operational in a few months. And the bank could be turning a profit
immediately – without spending the local government’s own revenues.
How? The way Wall Street does it with our public deposits and
investments: by leveraging. We could reclaim those funds and put them to
work for our local economies.
The bank could be capitalized with a bond issue (borrowing from the
public), and this capital could be leveraged into a loan portfolio that
is about eight times the capital base. The bond issue could be financed
with 1/8th of the interest accruing from this portfolio. The remaining
7/8th could be pocketed as profit.
This profit could be earned immediately and without risk, by buying
municipal bonds rather than issuing loans. That move could also help
municipalities, by guaranteeing that their bond rates remain low in the
face of threatened interest rate rises on the private market.
How to Start a Bank at Virtually No Cost or Risk
To demonstrate the safety and viability of the model, the bank can start
small and build from there. For startup capital, a new bank needs
anywhere from a few million to $20 million nationwide. (The amount
varies from state to state.) To be cautious and conservative, however,
let’s say $40 million.
Many cities have this money available in “rainy day” or reserve funds.
Many others have substantial investments, often underperforming, that
could be more responsibly invested as an equity position in a bank. In
California, for example, a whopping $55 billion is languishing in the
Treasurer’s Pooled Money Investment Account, earning a mere 0.23% interest.
Moving a portion of those funds into the state’s own bank would just be
good portfolio management. State pension funds are another investment
option.
If surplus funds are not available, capital can be raised with a bond
issue. (That is how the Bank of North Dakota got its start in 1919.)
Assume the interest due on these bonds is 3%. The local government’s
cost of funds will be $1.2 million annually.
At a 10% capital requirement, $40 million is sufficient to capitalize
$400 million in loans. But again assume the bank is started
conservatively at a 20% capitalization, for a loan portfolio of $200
million.
To make those loans, the bank will need deposits. These can be acquired
without advertising or other costs, by moving $200 million out of the
local government’s existing deposit account at JPMorgan Chase or another
Wall Street bank. (In North Dakota, all of the state’s revenues are
deposited by law in its state-owned bank.) Assume the new bank pays 0.3%
interest on these deposits, or $0.6 million annually as its cost of funds.
To satisfy the 10% reserve requirement for deposits (something different
from the capital requirement), $20 million of this deposit pool would be
held in reserve. The remaining $180 million are counted as “excess
reserves,” which can be used to make an equivalent sum in loans or bond
purchases.
Assume the excess reserves are used to buy local municipal bonds paying
3% annually. The return to the bank will be $5.4 million less $0.6
million in interest on the deposits, for a total of $4.8 million annually.
To recoup the cost of the bond issue, $1.2 million can be paid from
these profits as a dividend to the local government. The bank will then
have a net profit of $3.6 million annually; and this profit will have
accrued to the local government as the bank’s owner, without needing to
advance any money from its own budget.
What if the state needs its deposits for its budget?
That is the beauty of being a bank rather than a revolving fund: banks
do not actually lend their deposits, as the Bank of England recently
acknowledged. Rather, they create deposits when they make loans. If the
state or local government needs more cash for its operating expenses
than the bank has kept in reserve, the bank can do what all banks do: it
can borrow. And if it has grown to be a large bank, it can borrow
quickly and cheaply – from other banks through the Fed funds market at
0.25%, or from the money market at 0.15%.
A smaller public bank might want to keep a larger cushion of deposits in
reserve for liquidity purposes. If it keeps 30% in reserve, in the above
example $140 million would be left to invest in bonds, generating $4.2
million annually in interest. Deducting $1.8 million as the cost of
servicing deposits and capital, the bank would still generate $2.4
million in profit, while providing a safe place to park public revenues.
What of the bank’s operating costs? These can be kept quite low. The
Bank of North Dakota operates without branches, tellers, ATMs, retail
services, mega-salaries or mega-bonuses. All those saved costs fall to
the bank’s bottom line.
Ballpark operating expenses for a small but growing public bank with a
President, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Lending Officer, Chief Credit
Risk Management Officer, Compliance Officer, and the systems required to
support a banking function are estimated at under $1 million per year. A
start-up focused on municipal bonds could be operated for even less.
This expense could come out of the initial $40 million in
capitalization, again without impairing the local government’s own
operating budget.
Manifesting the Bank’s Full Potential
Once a charter has been obtained and sound banking practices have been
demonstrated, the capital ratio can be dropped toward 10%. When the bank
has built up a sufficient capital cushion, it can begin to work with
community banks and other financial institutions for the broad range of
commercial lending that creates jobs and prosperity and generates
profits as non-tax revenue for the municipality, following the Bank of
North Dakota model.
The public bank can also invest in infrastructure loans to the state or
local government itself. Interest now composes about half of capital
outlays for public projects. Since the local government will own the
bank, it will get this interest back, cutting infrastructure costs in half.
These are just a few of the possibilities for a publicly-owned bank,
which can provide security from risk while generating a far greater
return on the local government’s money than it is getting now on its
Wall Street deposit accounts. As we peer into the jaws of another
economic meltdown, moving our public funds into our own banks is an
investment we can hardly afford not to make.
(3) How Economists With Bad Ideas Wreck Your Life, the Economy, and the
World
Author Jeff Madrick discusses what bad ideas cost us, and how to defeat
them.
Lynn Stuart Parramore
October 13, 2014
http://www.alternet.org/economy/how-economists-bad-ideas-wreck-your-life-
americas-economy-and-world
Many of us have long known in our guts that something about mainstream
economics doesn't add up. As a new, must-read book proves, we were
right. For decades, dubious, false and nonsensical ideas have dominated
public discourse and decision-making, from the irrational belief in the
efficiency of markets to a willful blindness about the inequalities of
wealth and economic opportunity in a system that has been rigged for the
benefit of the few. Author Jeff Madrick has just come out with his
latest challenge to the pernicious ideas that have captured the minds
and clouded the judgment of huge numbers of orthodox economists and the
legions who follow their advice: Seven Bad Ideas: How Mainstream
Economists Have Damaged America and the World. [3] In this brisk and
accessible volume, which should be on Econ 101 syllabi, Madrick outlines
the wrong-headed propositions, fictitious models, shoddy research, and
partisan agendas that have made a reexamination of the entire field long
overdue, especially in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008.
Madrick’s book is part of a healthy movement to set the record straight
and chart a new direction for an economics that can serve the whole of
society and lead to sustainable growth.
Lynn Parramore: Why does the invisible hand (the metaphor used by
18th-century economist Adam Smith to explain what he saw as the benefits
of individuals in pursuit of their own interests) get top billing in
your list of bad economic ideas? What value judgments come with this
model of how the economy works?
Jeff Madrick: Adam Smith’s invisible hand is really the hub of the
wheel: the other ideas are all spokes. It argues that if we all follow
our self-interest and the government stays out of the market—for
instance, it should not regulate prices—then the interaction of buyers
and sellers will result in the greatest prosperity for all.
The invisible hand suggests that all wages will be established at fair
levels and that regulation of financial markets can be minimized because
free markets will lead to the "right" price for securities or
commodities or currencies. On and on. But this is only an idea, if a
beautiful one. It tells us how a market may work, not how it actually
does work. Long after Adam Smith wrote about the invisible hand, as the
economics profession became increasingly ideologically conservative,
economists came to accept it as a rule, not a hypothesis.
LP: What do bad economic ideas cost the ordinary person?
JM: Bad economic ideas result in less income for most of us over time,
unfair rewards for work, and the exclusion of many groups. For example,
bad economic ideas do not deal with racism. They create a justification
for high pay for bankers and CEOs when such pay is not justified. Bad
economic ideas channel our precious savings into self-serving areas
rather into productive investments. They lead to financial crises when
many of us lose homes or a chunk of our pensions. On it goes.
LP: People with 401(k)s watching the stock market’s recent dip may have
heard experts cite the weakened European economy as a factor. How does
austerity economics in other parts of the world affect us at home?
JM: Austerity economics, which argues that we should cut budget deficits
through tax hikes and reduced social spending even in times of economic
weakness, have led to slow growth and outright recession in Europe.
Recessions result in very high unemployment rates—25 percent in Spain,
for example, and 50 percent for youth. European governments led by
Germany should be spending to stimulate growth, but they are caught in
the grips of bad economic ideas and so they are not doing this.
Americans pay a price because those countries export their slow growth
in the sense that they don’t buy what we make. They also jeopardize
financial markets because their debt levels rise as their incomes fall,
possibly sending up rates or leading to defaults. The U.S. has also
practiced austerity, if less so. The sequester took a lot of strength
out of the U.S. economy. Pro-austerity people argue that deficits reduce
a nation’s savings, but that is exactly what you want to do in weak
economies. Businesses will invest if they sell goods and services.
Savings will lie fallow, but conservative economists claim it is an
automatic adjustment, that savings will be invested. It is a tragically
wrong idea.
LP: You note that many conservative economists would like to see
government’s role in society and the economy drastically reduced. How
does this position impact our ability to respond to emergencies like Ebola?
JM: I think we have denigrated government in America since the 1970s and
clearly since Ronald Reagan. We react to Hurricane Katrina as if it is
an afterthought. As a result, our government is not ahead in all kinds
of fields — clean energy, for example. Or how about the technology
needed to restrain methane emission due to methane release, which could
be disastrous?
Ebola is yet another example. We wait for a crisis rather than trying to
get ahead of it. I fear Ebola most, but people should know this reflects
an anti-government attitude that started 40 years ago and has not truly
abated. It permeates economics today.
LP: You mention several forces that keep economists committed to bad
ideas, like the conformity required for professional success, the
pretense that economics is a science akin to physics, and the addiction
to simplistic models that do not account for the messiness of the real
world. Given these forces, how can we move toward a better economics?
Crisis should have moved us to a better economics, and to some small
extent it has. Economists have gone back to the drawing board. They are
trying to write finance into their forecasting models, something they
completely neglected before. They are a little more humble. But I would
say not much. They still think they have a special knowledge that others
don’t. Thus, they turned the seven bad ideas of my book into rules of
thumb rather than hypotheses that have to be adjusted to every new problem.
But it is easier to have a one-size-fits-all solution than to get down
and dirty and recognize the limitations of universalist ideas. The
notion of economics being akin to physics confers a certain kind of
prestige, but it is also easier to measure contributions, even if they
are wrong. These ideas are part of the sociology of academia, which
badly needs reforming.
(4) A serious depression is pending as a result of austerity - Michael
Hudson
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12533
Why Are Stock Markets So Volatile?
A serious depression is pending as a result of austerity, says Professor
Michael Hudson, author of The Bubble and Beyond, and Finance Capitalism
and Its Discontents - October 17, 14
Rel News Network Interview: Transcript
Why Are Stock Markets So Volatile? SHARMINI PERIES, EXEC. PRODUCER,
TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Sharmini Peries, coming to
you from Baltimore.
On Wednesday this week, the S&P 500 took a dive and then partially
recovered itself in what stock market watchers call a selloff scare.
To talk about what is behind the volatility is our regular guest, Prof
Michael Hudson.
Thank you so much for joining us, Michael.
MICHAEL HUDSON, PROF. ECONOMICS, UMKC: It's good to be back.
PERIES: Michael, if you heard stock market reporting yesterday or saw
The New York Times' business section today, you would have thought we
were in another stock market plunge. What's behind this fluctuation?
HUDSON: Well, the markets are obviously confused, because there are two
sets of forces on the market, one positive and one negative. The
positive thing is that we're going into a real serious depression
[incompr.] austerity in the United States, austerity in Europe. And for
the last six years, since 2008, almost all of the gains have been going
only to the 1 percent. This has caused--they've kept the debts on the
book. It's creating large unemployment.
And so Europe and America are saying, this the best opportunity we've
had in a century. Here is a chance to do what we call reform. A century
ago, reform meant increasing wage levels and increasing living standards
and taxing the rentiers, but right now reform means, in Europe, breaking
the labor unions, lowering wages, and putting the squeeze on labor. So
all of that is supposed to be good for profits.
PERIES: But, Michael, just last week the Bureau of Labor Statistics in
the U. S. announced that unemployment is the lowest it has been in a
very long time. Why? This is contrary to what you're saying.
HUDSON: Well, it's true that the unemployment rate among people
searching for jobs is low, but there's been a large movement out of the
market for a number of things. Number one, fewer people are even looking
for work. They've given up. Number two, many of the jobs that are being
created are very low wage jobs at the low end of the spectrum or they're
part-time jobs. And if you work for part time at all, you're not
considered unemployed. If you've given up looking
So even though some of the wage levels, the minimum wage has been raised
in Massachusetts and out West, when the minimum wage level is raised,
that means the families that have been living on food stamps while
they've been working at McDonald's or at other low-wage companies, they
don't qualify anymore. So there's been very little change in the actual
family budgets.
The markets were expected to sort of somehow take off with higher profit
if there was a business cycle recovery. But it's become apparent that
we're really not in a business cycle anymore. We're at the end of a long
50-year cycle since World War II, where the debts have been rising so
much that all of a sudden the economy can't be financed by debt anymore.
And if the economy isn't financed by debt, that means that markets can't
grow, that all of a sudden what was fueling the growth and consumer
demand that's been increasing profits has come to an end. This is
especially apparent in Europe. So, basically, what people thought was
supposed to be good news turns out to be quite bad news.
PERIES: Michael, when the World Bank and, actually, the IMF adjusted the
global growth rates last week, which has been a trend--you know, they've
done it consecutively for a number of years now where their long-term
projections aren't just turning out the way they had planned and
projected. Why is that happening?
HUDSON: Well, they had thought when the World Bank and other people had
forecast a trend, they'd take past growth rates as they were up to 2008
and just said, what if they just continue as if growth occurs
automatically? But what was fueling all of this growth was just a
creation of debt, largely by inflating real estate prices, and bank
credit creation, and government spending that has run a deficit.
Now, economies, in order to grow at this rate, they need credit and they
need income. Now, the credit either can come from governments running a
budget deficit and pumping money into the economy, or it can come from
bank lending. But at the IMF meetings last week, it was clear that as
far as Europe's concerned, the banks have not recovered yet. The banks
are not lending. And American banks are not lending. There has not been
any lending in Europe or in the United States for new capital
investment. And it's capital investment to build factories, to make new
means of production that employs labor.
So you have this whole source of employment that was fueling the global
economy since World War II is coming to an end, capital investment to
increase. The only capital investment that's occurring really is in the
BRICS countries, not in America and not in Europe. So the kind of
employment that occurred in the past has not been occurring since 2008.
What we have is sort of living on the corpse of the economy that was
left in 2008 and it's basically an economic shrinkage process we are in.
There's no infrastructure spending. The infrastructure's aging. There's
no corporate industrial investment. That stopped. There's simply
services trade in the military.
PERIES: Michael, only thing that held up yesterday were some of the
transportation stocks. Why is that? And also explained to me--you wrote
to me saying 91 percent of the S&P 500 earnings are spent on stock
buybacks and dividends. What does that mean?
HUDSON: Well, in 2008 the Federal Reserve here and the central bank in
Europe lowered interest rates way down to almost nothing. It's one-tenth
of a percent in the United States. That means that banks can borrow from
the Fed to make loans. And what they've been lending for are for
corporate takeovers and for stock buybacks. In the stock market in the
last year, one-third of all of the stock transactions in the United
States are stock buybacks. That means corporations are using--the S&P
500 have used, I think, 54 percent of their earnings to buy back their
own stock, and they've been using another 40 percent or so to pay
dividends. Now, that has left only 9 percent of earnings of the S&P 500
available for new investment. Never before has this ratio been so low.
Most companies use their earnings to reinvest. They expand. They try to
earn more by investing more to produce more to make more profits to keep
on growing. But that hasn't been occurring at all. They've been using
their earnings basically to give stock options to the managers. The
manager say, okay, I'm paid according to how much I can increase the
price of the stock. I'm not going to use my corporate earnings of IBM or
General Motors or whatever, I'm not going to use these to build more
plant, 'cause then I'm going to use it to push up the stock so I'm going
to get more in my stock option. And you have activist stockholders such
as have been raiding Apple and other companies, like Carl Icahn, that
have been pressing Apple and others to actually borrow not to invest as
the textbooks say, but to buy back their own stocks. So you have
companies that are actually going into debt to buy their own stock.
Now, the low interest rates that in economic theory are supposed to make
it more profitable for companies to invest and employ more labor and
grow are having just the opposite effect. The low interest rates are
creating a new stock market bubble, which is why the stock market has
gone up so much since 2008. But this rising stock market bubble has only
been in the price of the stock. It's stocks going up without any new
capital investment, without any new hiring, and, in fact, with
downsizing and outsourcing. So they've turned the traditional textbook
model of economic recovery inside out.
And gradually the investors and the hedge funds are realizing, wait a
minute, this isn't your textbook kind of recovery; this is a kind of
recovery that's only occurring in the financial sector and real estate
and insurance, the FIRE sector, finance, insurance, and real estate.
It's not occurring in the economy at large. And if all of these earnings
on Wall Street are not recycled in the economy at large, then markets
are going to shrink, there's not going to be much of a rental income for
commercial space, and with shrinking markets you're not going to have
companies earning more profit on investment, even if they're holding
down wages.
PERIES: Michael, does this have anything to do with the murmurs out
there that the interest rates might actually increase?
HUDSON: There was a fear that the markets--that the Federal Reserve was
going to stop quantitative easing. They've been saying, look, we can
hold down interest rates forever. And at the IMF meetings last week, the
Europeans are saying, look, we worry that these low interest rates are
spurring a financial bubble.
Now, if interest rates go up, that means that all of a sudden all of
this borrowed money that's gone into stocks is going to disappear.
People are going to say, okay, we can't make money borrowing to buy
stocks, we can't make money borrowing for real estate, so we're not
going to pay back the bank loans. We're going to stop gambling.
And all of this was exacerbated by the U. S., the new Cold War against
Russia, because essentially the United States went to Europe and said,
let's you and Russia fight. So Europe imposed sanctions, and Russia
imposed harder sanctions. So the European economy is shrinking. And so,
because the European economy's shrinking, the euros going down. The
Eurozone is turning into a dead zone, and the Europeans are moving their
money into the United States. That's pushing up the dollar.
Now, if the Federal Reserve were to raise interest rates at this point,
this would not only slow, bring down the stock market and bring down the
bond market, but it would also bring so much money into the dollar,
because Europe cannot raise its interest rates, that this would price
American goods out of world markets. And that would shrink the market
for American industrial exports all the more. So the United States has
painted itself into a corner where it really can't increase interest
rates. Even though investors worry that the Fed is going to raise it,
the Fed knows that it can't raise interest rates without crashing the
market down.
PERIES: Michael, thank you so much for joining us.
HUDSON: It's always good to be here.
(5) Close the tax loophole on inversions - Jacob J. Lew (Treasury Secretary)
{the meaning is: The Federal Government is fanally serious about making
corporations pay tax - Peter M.}
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jacob-lew-close-the-tax-loophole-on-inversions/2014/07/27/2ea50966-141d-11e4-98ee-daea85133bc9_story.html
Close the tax loophole on inversions
By Jacob J. Lew
July 27
Jacob J.Lew is the U.S. treasury secretary.
Since we last overhauled our federal tax code, in 1986, countries around
the world have lowered their tax rates, leaving the United States with
the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. At the same time,
the system has become full of inefficiencies and special-interest
loopholes. That is why it is so important that we reform our business
tax code to make the U.S. economy more competitive and to accelerate
economic growth and job creation. Taking this step will make the United
States an even more attractive place to do business and ensure that
capital and talent are allocated more efficiently in pursuit of high
economic returns, rather than low tax bills.
The president put forward a framework for business tax reform more than
two years ago and has been pushing Congress to move forward on it. The
president’s proposal would lay the foundation for broadly shared
long-term growth by lowering corporate tax rates, broadening the tax
base, simplifying the system and eliminating wasteful carve-outs and tax
expenditures. These reforms would result in savings that could be
reinvested in our nation’s aging infrastructure.
But one particular tax loophole has become increasingly urgent to
address: the fact that the law rewards U.S. corporations with
substantial tax benefits when they buy foreign companies and declare
that they are based overseas.
This practice, known as an inversion, has accelerated in recent months,
with a significant number of big corporations nearing completion of such
deals and reports of many more in the works. To be clear, there is
nothing wrong with cross-border merger activity; our economy is stronger
for our investment overseas and for foreign investment in the United
States. But these activities should be based on economic efficiency, not
tax savings. Many of these transactions have been motivated by — and
even expressly justified by — the tax savings. In touting these
transactions, individual firms have projected saving as much as $1
billion per year. On July 15, I wrote a letter to Congress and called on
lawmakers to address this problem as soon as possible.
Many of these companies are for all intents and purposes still based in
the United States, and they remain here to take advantage of everything
that makes the United States the best place in the world to do business:
our rule of law, our universities, our research-and-development
capabilities, our innovative culture and our skilled workforce. By
moving their tax homes overseas, these companies are making the decision
to reduce their taxes, forcing a greater share of the responsibility of
maintaining core public functions on small businesses and hardworking
Americans. That includes paying for the things all of us, particularly
U.S. businesses, depend on: our national defense, education, medical
research, courts and vital infrastructure such as roads, bridges and
airports. In addition, by allowing these transactions to continue, we
run the risk of eroding our corporate tax base and undoing the progress
we have made to reduce our budget deficits.
Enacting comprehensive business tax reform is clearly the best way to
address the problems in our tax code that trigger inversions, although
even if we cut our tax rates and broaden the tax base, we would still
need to enact anti-inversion provisions because companies always would
find countries with near-zero rates to which they could relocate.
Moreover, even the most optimistic know that the administration and
Congress need more time to complete bipartisan comprehensive business
tax reform. While the business-tax-reform process moves steadily
forward, the pace of inversions is increasing at breakneck speed. We
must confront this problem now, before our tax base is so eroded as to
damage the prospects of comprehensive reform.
The president’s proposal applies a common-sense approach to determine
whether a corporation has truly switched its base of operations to
another country — a company would not be able to move outside the United
States for tax purposes if it is still managed and controlled in the
United States, does a significant amount of its business here and does
not do a significant amount of its business in the country it claims as
its new home.
The president’s plan also would eliminate the incentives a U.S.
corporation has to acquire a foreign company and use its foreign address
to claim tax status beyond our borders. To make sure the merged company
is not merely masquerading as a non-U.S. company, shareholders of the
foreign company would have to own at least 50 percent of the newly
merged company — the current legal standard requires only 20 percent.
This approach is based on a bipartisan law enacted in 2004 and could
serve as a basis for a bipartisan solution again. Right now, leaders in
Congress have put forward strong legislation that adopts elements of
this plan.
For legislation to be effective, it must be retroactive. Current
proposals in Congress would apply to any inversion deal after early May
of this year. The alternative — legislation taking effect after the
president signs it into law — could have the perverse effect of
encouraging corporations to act more quickly, negotiate new deals and
rush to close those transactions before the bill is enacted. It would be
a mistake for Congress to pass anti-inversion legislation that creates a
race against the clock and encourages more, not fewer, inversions.
Making legislation effective before the date that a bill is enacted is
not a new or novel approach; the Congressional Research Service referred
to the practice as “quite common” in a 2012 report. A good example of
this is the 2004 anti-inversion legislation. Passed by a Republican-led
Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush in October
2004, it had an effective date of March 2003.
For all these reasons, I call on Congress to close this loophole and
pass anti-inversion legislation as soon as possible. Our tax system
should not reward U.S. companies for giving up their U.S. citizenship,
and unless we tackle this problem, these transactions will continue.
Closing the inversion loophole is no substitute for comprehensive
business tax reform, but it is a necessary step down the path toward a
fair and more efficient tax system, and a step that needs to be in a
place for tax reform to work.
(6) ATO targeting Tax Crime; 5 years jail for respected tax agent; Mark
Leibler co-operative
https://www.ato.gov.au/General/The-fight-against-tax-crime/In-detail/Targeting-Tax-Crime-magazine/2014/Targeting-tax-crime--Project-DO-IT---October-2014/
Targeting tax crime: Project DO IT – October 2014
Opportunity ending - make the right choice before it is too late.
With its increasing capability to track money flows back to
beneficiaries, the ATO is one step away from knocking on the doors of
suspected tax evaders.
‘I want the people who have undisclosed money offshore to realise
they are on notice,' says Greg Williams, ATO Deputy Commissioner. 'If
they think they can remain undetected, they should think again. We are
just one step away from knocking on their door,' he says.
'To support the enforcement of Australia’s tax and super laws,
the law gives us full access to the details of every single
international funds transfer involving Australia. Further, our
international tax treaty partners are sharing more information with us
every day,' he says.
‘Make no mistake; the ATO has a long reach. Just because
something happens outside Australia's borders doesn’t mean it’s beyond
the watchful eye of the ATO,’ the deputy commissioner says.
The ATO is also working more closely with banks to get a better
understanding of the volumes of data available from AUSTRAC.
‘We now have a greater ability to follow the trail of money
across borders to the end beneficiary. Tax evaders should be aware that
complex structures designed to throw authorities off the scent won’t
stand up,’ Greg Williams says.
During 2012–13, AUSTRAC information contributed to 1,428 ATO
audits that raised $572 million in additional tax. This is an increase
of 127% from the $252 million raised in 2011–12.
For those who heed the warning and want to come forward, the
ATO’s offshore voluntary disclosure initiative, Project DO IT, should be
just the circuit breaker they are looking for.
Project DO IT provides Australians with the opportunity to
voluntarily declare undisclosed or incorrectly reported offshore
financial activities, and avoid steep penalties and the possibility of
criminal charges.
With just two months remaining until the 19 December deadline,
the ATO wants people to know that time is running out and they need to
act quickly.
Case Study: 5 years jail for respected tax agent
Those who think that that there is safety in numbers will find
that they are mistaken. It’s not a numbers game when it comes to
catching tax evaders; our access to data and ability to use it is
unprecedented, and momentum is only growing.
Recently a high-profile, respected tax agent was found to have
used money laundering and other methods to help clients avoid paying
tax. The court was told she used banks in Vanuatu to channel millions of
dollars.
When the ATO uncovered the fraud, every one of the tax agent’s
clients also came under suspicion, due to their tax file numbers being
associated with the crime. Some of those clients have already been
jailed under the Project Wickenby program while others are still being
investigated.
The position of trust tax agents have with their clients and
their knowledge of the tax system means they have a critical role in
maintaining and protecting the integrity of that system. When that
position is used to take advantage of the system for the agent's own
personal gain and that of their clients, the penalties are severe.
The tax agent was sentenced to five years in jail, with the judge
noting that the agent’s actions “were a significant breach of trust on
the part of a qualified and highly placed accountant.”
A good offer
Project DO IT – the ATO’s offer of reduced penalties for those who
disclose offshore income – is a genuine offer that advisers and relevant
individuals should take seriously. This is the advice of tax advisers,
Mark Leibler and Michael Bersten, in a panel interview with ATO deputy
commissioners, Michael Cranston and Greg Williams, hosted by David Koch.
'This is a unique once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Anyone who doesn’t
take advantage of it would have to be insane, frankly,' Mark Leibler
says in the interview, while Michael Bersten warns those affected: 'If
you have something to disclose, you should come forward'.
Reinforcing what Mark Leibler and Michael Bersten say, Deputy
Commissioner Michael Cranston urges taxpayers to act. 'Project DO IT is
a good offer and those who let it pass by will regret it,' he said.
'If you need to disclose international financial activities, act quickly
and decisively. If we detect you first, you will be exposed to the full
force of the law, including severe penalties.'
Under the initiative, the ATO is providing a number of benefits. Most
significantly, taxpayers have an opportunity to avoid steep penalties
and the risk of criminal prosecution for tax avoidance.
‘If you have something to disclose you should come forward, it’s in your
own best interests to get some further advice and find out what your
position is,' Michael Bersten says.
'It's an offer so good that we couldn’t possibly offer it again,' Greg
Williams says.
Project DO IT is an opportunity for all Australians who have engaged in
previously unreported offshore financial activities to get their tax
affairs in order.
There are very few taxpayers who would not be eligible to make a
disclosure under this initiative.
The process has been designed with the assistance of advisers and
professional associations.
'The ATO has gone through a really fantastic process of consulting and
ensuring this is a really robust, fair and balanced program. This is in
the best interests of Australia and the individuals concerned,' Michael
Bersten says.
For more information on the offer, eligibility, and what you need to do
to disclose, refer to ato.gov.au/projectdoit
692 Brazil under CIA Pressure; Bolivia expels US ambassador
Brazil under CIA Pressure; Bolivia expels US ambassador
Newsletter published on 24 October 2014
(1) Soros and the CIA now banking on Neves to defeat Rousseff
(2) Brazil under CIA Pressure
(3) Marina Silva The Zionists Brazillian Trojan Horse
(4) Bolivia expels US ambassador, US military and IMF
(5) CIA coup agaimst Whitlam government (Australia, 1975)
(1) Soros and the CIA now banking on Neves to defeat Rousseff
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/10/21/Soros-and-cia-now-banking-on-neves-to-defeat-rousseff.html
Wayne MADSEN | 21.10.2014 | 00:00
After the corporate media and the CIA and George Soros manipulators
tried to engineer Green Party-turned-Brazilian Socialist presidential
candidate Marina Silva into the Brazilian presidency after the classic
CIA textbook aerial assassination of Socialist Party presidential
standard bearer Eduardo Campos, these same forces are at it again on
behalf of Social Democratic Party candidate Aecio Neves. Although Neves
was polling in second place to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff before
the first-round presidential election on October, the death of Campos
and his senior aides in a highly suspicious plane crash on August 13,
forced Neves into third place in polls. Silva, a favorite of Soros and
his international network of cash-flush non-governmental organizations,
was propelled into second place.
However, thanks to an aware Brazilian investigative journalism press
corps, Silva’s connections to Soros and his team of interventionists and
hedge fund tycoons was exposed. With Brazilian voters wise to Silva’s
puppet strings to Soros and other global bankers, she managed to only
come in third on October 5. Silva subsequently endorsed Neves, Soros’s
second selection to take over the reins of presidential power in Brazil
from Rousseff.
Neves’s chief economic adviser and the man who would become Finance
Minister in a Neves presidency is Arminio Fraga Neto. A former close
friend and associate of Soros and his Quantum hedge fund, Fraga is
hoping that a Neves presidency will open up Brazil to “market forces,”
the very same forces that have declared economic war on Venezuela and
are attempting to swindle Argentina through vulture funds run by Soros’s
Wall Street friends. Fraga, a habitué of the annual World Economic Forum
in Davos, Switzerland, is also a former executive with Salomon Brothers
and a former president of the Brazilian Central Bank. Fraga has also
been linked to Goldman Sachs through a Manhattan real estate deal
involving the purchase of a $7.5 million condominium from a former
Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers executive. Fraga’s membership of the
elitist Council on Foreign Relations and Group of 30 puts Fraga in the
same camp as such Wall Street villains as Alan Greenspan, David
Rockefeller, former Bank of Israel chairman Jacob Frenkel, and Wall
Street apologist/columnist Paul Krugman, and former U.S. Treasury
Secretary Larry Summers.
Rousseff’s easy first place victory on October 5 sent Wall Street and
its owned-and-operated media outlets opposed to Rousseff's plans to
create an alternative development bank among Brazil, Russia, India,
China, and South Africa to compete with the World Bank into extreme
propaganda mode. Questionable polls suggesting that Rousseff and Neves
are running neck-and-neck as the October 26 second round election
approaches were featured as credible news stories by the usual Wall
Street pathetic “stenographers” masquerading as journalists at The Wall
Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg News, and Forbes.
Neves's grandfather, Tancredo Neves, a left-of-center threat to the
longtime Brazilian military dictatorship, fell seriously ill just as he
was to sworn in as president on March 15, 1985. Neves's illness resulted
in his lackluster and more conservative vice presidential candidate José
Sarney being sworn in as president. Tancredo Neves never recovered from
what was said to be diverticulitis and he died on April 21. Later, it
was revealed that Neves had a cancerous tumor that was not discovered
until it was too late. Rousseff's sudden illness after her October 16
televised debate with Aecio Neves alarmed a number of Brazilians who
remember the fate of Tancredo Neves.
In addition to the Central Intelligence Agency arranging for convenient
plane crashes such as those that killed Portuguese Prime Minister
Francisco Sá Carneiro, Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos, and Ecuadorian
President Jaime Roldos all within a six-month period between December
1980 and April 1981 [after the election of Ronald Reagan as U.S.
president and the return to power within the CIA of George H W Bush's
and William Casey's infamous gunslingers], the agency's Technical
Services Division continued to develop biological weapons, including
cancer weapons, to assassinate its political targets.
In recent years, a number of Latin American leaders have been felled or
have been stricken with cancer or heart attacks. The two most notable
victims were Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Argentine President
Nestor Kirchner. Kirchner's wife, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez
de Kirchner, was reported to have thyroid cancer, later denied by her
spokespersons. The sudden onset of varying degrees of cancer also
plagued such Latin American leaders as former Paraguayan President
Fernando Lugo (later ousted in a CIA-engineered coup), Colombian
President Juan Manuel Santos (after he signed a peace agreement with the
left-wing FARC guerrilla movement), former Brazilian President Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva, and Bolivia's recently-reelected President Evo
Morales.
Guyana's President Forbes Burnham died from throat cancer and Nauru's
President Bernard Dowiyogo died from a sudden heart attack while being
cared for in Washington, DC hospitals. Suspicions surrounded the two
deaths at Georgetown University and George Washington Hospitals,
respectively.
The CIA's macabre Jewish-Hungarian chief scientist Dr. Sidney Gottlieb
developed a host of biological weapons for the CIA's MK-ULTRA program
during his over 20 years of service with the agency. One was a
biological toxin that was put inside a tube of toothpaste that was to be
used by Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and another was a
botulism-infected handkerchief that was to be handed to Iraqi leader
General Abdul Karim Kassem.
As for Aecio Neves abandoning the left-of-center credentials of his
grandfather, this represents another aspect of CIA influence operations.
Aecio Neves represents the interests of Wall Street, which is manifested
by the presence of Fraga as his chief economic adviser. Wall Street
vultures, including Soros and Fraga’s other associates in New York, want
to privatize the Brazilian state-owned Petrobras oil corporation.
Therefore, Aecio Neves has been handsomely bought off by the same
globalized financial interests who attempted to engineer Marina Silva
into office. With her defeat, these same forces have unsurprisingly
rallied behind Neves.
For the CIA, blood is not thicker than water. It actually doesn't matter
to Aecio that the CIA may have played a part in assassinating his
grandfather. Omar Torrijos's son, Martin Torrijos, became president of
Panama only to sign a pro-Wall Street free trade agreement with
Washington. Martin Torrijos also gladly followed the global bankers'
orders to increase Panama's retirement age and reform social security.
Martin Torrijos also became a close ally of U.S. President George W.
Bush even though Bush's father, George H W Bush, likely signed off on
the CIA's operation to assassinate Torrijos's own father.
George Soros's favorite Asian opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, does
not seem to mind the fact that it was Soros's friends at the Office of
Strategic Services/CIA who ordered British intelligence to assassinate
her father Aung San. Aung San, a founder of the Burmese Communist Party,
was slated to become independent Burma's first post-independence leader.
Aung San was killed by terrorists working for pro-British former prime
minister U Saw. The weapons for the assassins came directly from British
Army Captain David Vivian, who managed, with high-level “assistance”
from the Burmese government, to escape from a Burmese prison in 1949.
Canada's Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau, the son of former Prime
Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, has, unlike his father, warmed up to
the United States, Wall Street, and the cause of globalization. Justin
Trudeau and Aecio Neves are prime examples of how the CIA eagle will
take under its wings the progeny of leftist icons to achieve its goals.
President Rousseff's policies have created powerful enemies within the
walls of the CIA in Langley, Virginia and among the board rooms of Wall
Street and the West's most powerful corporations. She succeeded in
proving the polls and pundits wrong on October 5 but October 26 remains
yet another hurdle. The people of Brazil will be voting on October 26 as
if their lives depend on it. For Brazil’s poor and new middle class, a
Neves victory will destroy their livelihoods, as well as their very lives.
(2) Brazil under CIA Pressure
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/10/21/brazil-under-cia-pressure.html
Nil NIKANDROV | 21.10.2014 | 00:00
Over two thousand Brazilian political activists, intellectuals, people
of art and culture signed a manifest on October 26 highlighting the
hostile actions of Washington aimed at prevention of Dilma Rousseff
election victory. The document is posted to social nets. It says the
coming to power of Aécio Neves of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party
(Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira - PSDB), who serves the
interests of tycoons, will inflict irreparable damage to the country and
take away all the snags on the way of US direct interference into the
Brazilian internal affairs. Neves is to play the role of obedient tool
in the hands of US administration. Washington goes to any length to
achieve its goal and bring the desired candidate to power – some things
are done covertly, some tricks are resorted to in a clandestine way.
All CIA information and propaganda resources are used to support Neves.
Around 80 million Brazilians have access to Internet, 150 million are
cell phone users. The US special services have perfect command of
destabilization techniques. The recent protests and social unrest in
Brazil threatened the World Cup proving that the forces are ready to
react as the «color revolution» scenario to be implemented at any time.
The activities of non-government organizations are not restricted in any
way; their members have close ties with US embassy and consulate staff,
as well as ISAID workers. The human intelligence is used to discredit
the policy of the Dilma Rousseff government. The lies about its
ineffectiveness are spread around by all available means. «Experts»
forecast collapse in case the President wins another term. They
disseminate dubious results of «rating polls» that complicate the vision
of reality.
Propaganda publications devoted to forecasts often use the term
«technical draw» which provides many opportunities for CIA to
manipulate, falsify and juggle with facts as a way to bolster the
chances of the presidential hopeful the US wants to win the race. Some
years ago the same thing took place in Mexico. Enrique Peña Nieto, the
US-supported candidate ran against Lopez Obrador, a populist and a
supporter of Hugo Chavez. The manipulations and rigging to make Peña win
were widespread, many Mexicans still doubt his victory, but Washington
said the election was transparent and honest.
Rubens Antônio Barbosa, the senior adviser of Aécio Neves on
international affairs and a candidate for the position of Minister of
Foreign affairs. The Rousseff supporters believe him to be the leading
CIA’s agent of influence. He has been US ambassador to London. Now he
heads the Superior Council of Foreign Trade of Federation of Industries
of the State of São Paulo. In accordance with his pro-US orientation, he
calls for «depoliticization of foreign policy» and the «reconsideration
of US strategic priorities in relation to the United States and China».
After the spying scandal, when the fact of taping the phone of Dilma
Rousseff, members of cabinet, military leadership and top leaders of
special services by the CIA surfaced, followed by the refusal by
President Obama to apologize, Brazil strengthened the relationship with
China – the leading trade partner since the tenure of former President
Lula da Silva. Now Barbosa says that in case Neves wins the United
States will occupy a proper (meaning predominant) place in the Brazil’s
foreign policy priorities.
There is a phrase said by Barbosa which provides a clue to what the
would-be foreign policy of Brazil will be like. He said that the
protection of national interests will no more be that passive. Bolivia
has expropriated two oil refineries of Petrobraz and the government has
done nothing to protect the interests of Brazil. Neves and Barbosa
promise to provide access to US oil companies to oil extraction in the
Brazilian continental shelf. The Neves staff says the policy will be
«more pragmatic» and completely devoid of ideological approach typical
for the Workers’ Party. The stand on such issues as relationship with
Mercosur (the Southern Common Market, a sub-regional bloc), BRICS and
other international groups will be corrected.
Washington has gone through thorough preparation for the election race
in Brazil; it is at the final stage now. The US State Department and
special services have sent to the country dozens of seasoned operatives
with rich experience of being involved in similar operations conducted
across the world. For instance, Liliana Ayalde, the current US
ambassador to Brazil, has done good job in Paraguay doing her best to
contain the spread of «populist ideology». Brazil is next. There leading
actors involved in the conspiracy against Dilma are the officers of the
US embassy and consulate in Brazil: Alexis Ludwig (political
counsellor), Paloma Gonsalez (political economic section officer),
Samantha Carl-Yoder (chief of consular section), Kathryn Hoffman
(political officer, the US Consulate General in São Paulo), and Amy
Radetsky (political and economic chief, U.S. Consulate Rio de Janeiro).
It’s enough to look at the Radetsky’s career record to understand that
Washington has prepared for a «non-standard situation in Brazil. In the
State Department she has been responsible for monitoring the events in
Brazil to see how they affect the bilateral relations and working out
the policy towards this country. She was the one to see all the messages
going out of the US embassy in the Brazilian capital. A bit later she
headed a special State Department team monitoring the emergence and
development of crisis situations in the region and preparing situation
reports for State Secretary John Kerry. Now she was urgently sent to
Rio! What crisis situation makes Radetsky go to Brazil?
Political scholar for Venezuela Eleazar DÃaz Rangel calls a possible
defeat of Dilma a «disaster». The governments of Lula da Silva and Dilma
Rousseff have made life better for dozens of millions in Brazil who had
not even had electricity before. The Workers Party has initiated drastic
positive changes on the South American continent. According to Ranhel,
the Obama administration has mobilized all the opposition forces in
Brazil and other Latin America countries, all the potential of media and
information agencies to prevent the re-election of Dilma. There are
funds allocated for providing support to Neves in the presidential race.
Influential US financial and economic circles are involved to help Neves
win.
Will Brazilians mobilize themselves and avoid the disaster predicted by
Eleazar DÃaz Rangel? We’ll know in a week.
(3) Marina Silva The Zionists Brazillian Trojan Horse
http://wideawakegentile.wordpress.com/2014/09/01/marina-silva-the-zionists-brazillian-trojan-horse/
Posted on September 1, 2014
by Indian Gentile
Marina Silva has probably never heard of Aya Ram Gaya Ram Its a term to
describe the mercenary political party hopping by Indian politicians
Although Silva wouldnt quite match the standards of the Haryana
politicians she has shown a remarkable ability to change Political
Parties to suit her needs. She begun her politics with the Workers’
Party, and was appointed Environment Minister by Lula in his first term
(2003). She remained in office until 2008 despite being subject to
several criticisms from entrepreneurs Silva resigned mid-May in 2008.
She was replaced by Carlos Minc who happens to be Jewish
On 19 August 2009, Silva announced her switch from the Workers’ Party to
the Green Party, primarily in protest against the environmental policies
endorsed by the Workers Party (PT in Portuguese). Confirming the
expectations, Marina Silva launched her candidacy to the 2010
Presidential election under the Green Party ticket on 16 May 2010 She
received 19.4% of the votes cast. This number far exceeded earlier
estimates (more than double), but not enough to join the runoff against
Dilma Rousseff or José Serra.
From Green to Socialist her transformation was rapid . On 16 February
2013 she launched a new party in Brasillia that was named ” Rede
Sustentabilidade” (Sustainability Network). According to the BBC little
was known about the political affiliations of the new party .In 4
October 2013, the Supreme Electoral Court blocked the party’s creation,
due to the lack of necessary signatures to register it.The following
day, Marina announced her affiliation to the Brazilian Socialist Party
The Brazilian Socialist Party already had a leader and a Presidential
candidate Eduardo Campos In April 2014, Eduardo Campos announced his
name for the October 2014 presidential election, naming Marina Silva as
his candidate for vice president. In what can only be termed a stroke a
luck for her on Wednesday, 13 August 2014, Campos’ private jet, with six
others on board, crashed in bad weather as it was preparing to land in
the coastal city of Santos, just south of São Paulo. After his death,
Silva became the Brazilian Socialist Party’s candidate for President of
Brazil;
The Rothschild rag The Guardian had a gushing article on her Will Brazil
elect Marina Silva as the world’s first Green president? —- “Following
a strong performance in the first TV debate between candidates, polls
suggest she will come second in the first-round vote on 5 October and
then beat the incumbent, Dilma Rousseff , in the runoff three weeks later.
Silva does have some Kosher and Rich friends and has been awarded some
Kosher awards
Silva is also more moderate than Rousseff on Israel’s policies toward
Palestine.As an Assemblies of God Pentecostal Christian, Silva is a
member of a denomination that provides core membership for the worldwide
movement of «Christian Zionists» who are as avidly as pro-Israel as such
Zionist Jewish organizations as B’nai B’rith and the World Jewish Congress.
One of Silva’s biggest backers is banking heir and philanthropist Maria
Alice Setubal, more commonly referred to as Neca, who is also acting as
a campaign coordinator for the candidate. A member of one of Brazil’s
most distinguished banking dynasties,Setubal is a shareholder of Sao
Paulo-based conglomerate Itausa, which has interests in finance, real
estate and a range of industries. Itausa also controls Itau Unibanco,
the largest bank in the southern hemisphere with total assets of $500
billion.
In a Silva government, Setubal is expected to be play a big role,
possibly as a minister or as a chief of staff. Her presence around
Silva, which is certainly being explored by the candidate’s media aides,
also serves as an indicator that investors can feel secure should Silva
win the election.
Remember Lula Silva and President DilmaRousseff have strongly supported
the formation of the US$100 billion BRICS Development Bank and a reserve
currency pool worth over another US$100 billion and are also supportive
of a new International Reserve Currency to supplement and eventually
replace the dollar something Ms Setubal will surely oppose that
In 1996, Silva won the Goldman Environmental Prize instituted by
Richard N. Goldman (April 16, 1920 – November 29, 2010) was an American
philanthropist whom the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has called “one of
the most influential Jewish philanthropists in the United States.”. In
2007, the United Nations Environment Program named her one of the
Champions of the Earth and the 2009 Sophie Prize In 2010, she, along
with others was named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top
global thinkers, for taking Green mainstream. Foreign Policy magazine is
edited by David Rothkopf, a former managing director of Kissinger
Associates, In 2012 she was one of the eight people chosen to carry the
flag into opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games.
The U.S. and Soros have been looking for various ways to penetrate and
disrupt the BRICS nations. The Soros/CIA attempt to advance Chinese
Politburo member Bo Xilai into the Chinese presidency collapsed when he
and his wife were arrested and jailed for corruption. With Russia and
South Africa off-limits for any similar intrigue, India and Brazil are
the focus for CIA and Soros disruption of BRICS. Although Narendra
Modi’s right-wing government in India is new, the early signs for BRICS
disruption are encouraging. For example, India’s Foreign Minister,
Sushma Swaraj, as an outspoken and committed ally of Israel.
Brazil under Rousseff is seen by the CIA and Soros as the best
opportunity to insert one of their own, in this case, Marina Silva, into
the leadership of a BRICS nation in order to exact a «Trojan horse»
attack on the increasingly important economic bloc.
Sources
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andersonantunes/2014/08/27/meet-the-multi-millionaire-banking-heir-who-is-backing-brazils-marina-silva-presidential-bid/
http://m.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/08/19/another-suspicious-plane-crash-latin-america-bolsters-american-globalist-interests.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Silva
(4) Bolivia expels US ambassador, US military and IMF
From: Paul de Burgh-Day <pdeburgh@lorinna.net>
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 21:51:22 +1100
Subject: Al Jazeera: "We Are Better Off Without US Government" Evo Morales
"We Are Better Off Without US Government" Evo Morales
Bolivia's president talks about the country's ongoing socio-economic
transformation and his third term in office.
By Al Jazeera
October 19, 2014 ICH
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40021.htm
I have no regrets - in fact, I am pleased to have expelled the US
ambassador, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and to have closed
the US military base in Bolivia. Now, without a US ambassador, there is
less conspiracy, and more political stability and social stability.
Without the International Monetary Fund, we are better off economically.
In 2009, under the country's first indigenous president a new
constitution declared Bolivia a plurinational state - ending centuries
of undeclared apartheid.
Opponents in the oil-rich eastern region launched a civil disobedience
movement, confronting the east against the poorer, indigenous majority
who support President Evo Morales. Critics denounced the president's
fiery socialist rhetoric and the nationalisation of Bolivia's oil and
gas industry in the poorest and most undeveloped nation in South America.
Five years later, from the World Bank to the IMF, Evo Morales is getting
full marks for overseeing an unprecedented transformation of Bolivia.
Spurred by high commodity prices, economic growth is now the highest in
the region.
And while the president's anti-capitalist discourse is as strong as
ever, a mix of mainstream economics and social programmes has
dramatically reduced poverty and unemployment, while allowing the
private sector to flourish.
"We have taken flight towards development. What others could not do in
180 years we have done in some nine years of profound changes .... We
are going to make Bolivia the energy hub for South America," says Morales.
In a region where personality cults are too common, millions of
Bolivians have come to worship Morales.
He has just been re-elected after a disputed court decision allowing him
to run for a third consecutive term as president.
"I believe that some revolutions, some transformations, are driven by a
person. I don't like it, but I am happy that there is now an Evo
generation, a new generation of young men and women with a great deal of
knowledge, principles, and values, who are assuming leadership. I am
very pleased with the way young people are getting involved. Obviously,
much depends on the process, on the steps we take to ensure good
economic stability with social benefits," Morales says.
Morales not only opposes the eradication and abolition of the coca leaf,
the raw material for cocaine. He is also waging an international
campaign to legalise and industrialise its use for traditional and
medicinal purposes. He made headlines when he demonstrated how the plant
is chewed at the United Nations, the same body that declared the plant
an illegal narcotic in 1961.
He says: "It [drug trafficking] must be fought - we are convinced of
that - and we are doing so more effectively and more wisely. When the
United States was in control of counternarcotics, the US governments
used drug trafficking for purely geopolitical purposes .... The US uses
drug trafficking and terrorism for political control .... We have
nationalised the fight against drug trafficking. "
"The best way to fight drug trafficking is to engage the people. Then
there will not be zero coca, but neither can there be unfettered coca
cultivation, because a problem does exist. As long as there is market
demand for cocaine, the sacred, natural leaf, the medicinal coca leaf
will always be associated with this illegal problem. The root cause of
drug trafficking is demand, because the developed countries are not
stopping the demand for cocaine."
On Talk to Al Jazeera, President Evo Morales gives an insight into his
personal life and discusses his controversial decision to legalise child
labour, his expulsion of the US ambassador, the issue of drug
trafficking - and whether he plans to step down when this term is over.
(5) CIA coup agaimst Whitlam government (Australia, 1975)
From: Paul de Burgh-Day <pdeburgh@lorinna.net>
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 10:45:58 +1100
Subject: John Pilger: The Forgotten Coup How America and Britain
Crushed the Government of Their 'Ally', Australia
The Forgotten Coup
How America and Britain Crushed the Government of Their 'Ally', Australia
By John Pilger
October 23, 2014
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40040.htm
http://johnpilger.com/articles/the-forgotten-coup-how-america-and-britain-crushed-the-government-of-their-ally-australia
Australia briefly became an independent state during the Whitlam years,
1972-75. An American commentator wrote that no country had "reversed its
posture in international affairs so totally without going through a
domestic revolution". Whitlam ended his nation's colonial servility. He
abolished Royal patronage, moved Australia towards the Non-Aligned
Movement, supported "zones of peace" and opposed nuclear weapons testing.
Although not regarded as on the left of the Labor Party, Whitlam was a
maverick social democrat of principle, pride and propriety. He believed
that a foreign power should not control his country's resources and
dictate its economic and foreign policies. He proposed to "buy back the
farm". In drafting the first Aboriginal lands rights legislation, his
government raised the ghost of the greatest land grab in human history,
Britain's colonisation of Australia, and the question of who owned the
island-continent's vast natural wealth.
Latin Americans will recognise the audacity and danger of this "breaking
free" in a country whose establishment was welded to great, external
power. Australians had served every British imperial adventure since the
Boxer rebellion was crushed in China. In the 1960s, Australia pleaded to
join the US in its invasion of Vietnam, then provided "black teams" to
be run by the CIA. US diplomatic cables published last year by WikiLeaks
disclose the names of leading figures in both main parties, including a
future prime minister and foreign minister, as Washington's informants
during the Whitlam years.
Whitlam knew the risk he was taking. The day after his election, he
ordered that his staff should not be "vetted or harassed" by the
Australian security organisation, ASIO - then, as now, tied to
Anglo-American intelligence. When his ministers publicly condemned the
US bombing of Vietnam as "corrupt and barbaric", a CIA station officer
in Saigon said: "We were told the Australians might as well be regarded
as North Vietnamese collaborators."
Whitlam demanded to know if and why the CIA was running a spy base at
Pine Gap near Alice Springs, a giant vacuum cleaner which, as Edward
Snowden revealed recently, allows the US to spy on everyone. "Try to
screw us or bounce us," the prime minister warned the US ambassador,
"[and Pine Gap] will become a matter of contention".
Victor Marchetti, the CIA officer who had helped set up Pine Gap, later
told me, "This threat to close Pine Gap caused apoplexy in the White
House... a kind of Chile [coup] was set in motion."
Pine Gap's top-secret messages were de-coded by a CIA contractor, TRW.
One of the de-coders was Christopher Boyce, a young man troubled by the
"deception and betrayal of an ally". Boyce revealed that the CIA had
infiltrated the Australian political and trade union elite and referred
to the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, as "our man Kerr".
Kerr was not only the Queen's man, he had long-standing ties to
Anglo-American intelligence. He was an enthusiastic member of the
Australian Association for Cultural Freedom, described by Jonathan
Kwitny of the Wall Street Journal in his book, 'The Crimes of Patriots',
as, "an elite, invitation-only group... exposed in Congress as being
founded, funded and generally run by the CIA". The CIA "paid for Kerr's
travel, built his prestige... Kerr continued to go to the CIA for money".
When Whitlam was re-elected for a second term, in 1974, the White House
sent Marshall Green to Canberra as ambassador. Green was an imperious,
sinister figure who worked in the shadows of America's "deep state".
Known as the "coupmaster", he had played a central role in the 1965 coup
against President Sukarno in Indonesia - which cost up to a million
lives. One of his first speeches in Australia was to the Australian
Institute of Directors - described by an alarmed member of the audience
as "an incitement to the country's business leaders to rise against the
government".
The Americans and British worked together. In 1975, Whitlam discovered
that Britain's MI6 was operating against his government. "The Brits were
actually decoding secret messages coming into my foreign affairs
office," he said later. One of his ministers, Clyde Cameron, told me,
"We knew MI6 was bugging Cabinet meetings for the Americans." In the
1980s, senior CIA officers revealed that the "Whitlam problem" had been
discussed "with urgency" by the CIA's director, William Colby, and the
head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield. A deputy director of the CIA said:
"Kerr did what he was told to do."
On 10 November, 1975, Whitlam was shown a top secret telex message
sourced to Theodore Shackley, the notorious head of the CIA's East Asia
Division, who had helped run the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile
two years earlier.
Shackley's message was read to Whitlam. It said that the prime minister
of Australia was a security risk in his own country. The day before,
Kerr had visited the headquarters of the Defence Signals Directorate,
Australia's NSA where he was briefed on the "security crisis".
On 11 November - the day Whitlam was to inform Parliament about the
secret CIA presence in Australia - he was summoned by Kerr. Invoking
archaic vice-regal "reserve powers", Kerr sacked the democratically
elected prime minister. The "Whitlam problem" was solved, and Australian
politics never recovered, nor the nation its true independence.
Newsletter published on 24 October 2014
(1) Soros and the CIA now banking on Neves to defeat Rousseff
(2) Brazil under CIA Pressure
(3) Marina Silva The Zionists Brazillian Trojan Horse
(4) Bolivia expels US ambassador, US military and IMF
(5) CIA coup agaimst Whitlam government (Australia, 1975)
(1) Soros and the CIA now banking on Neves to defeat Rousseff
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/10/21/Soros-and-cia-now-banking-on-neves-to-defeat-rousseff.html
Wayne MADSEN | 21.10.2014 | 00:00
After the corporate media and the CIA and George Soros manipulators
tried to engineer Green Party-turned-Brazilian Socialist presidential
candidate Marina Silva into the Brazilian presidency after the classic
CIA textbook aerial assassination of Socialist Party presidential
standard bearer Eduardo Campos, these same forces are at it again on
behalf of Social Democratic Party candidate Aecio Neves. Although Neves
was polling in second place to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff before
the first-round presidential election on October, the death of Campos
and his senior aides in a highly suspicious plane crash on August 13,
forced Neves into third place in polls. Silva, a favorite of Soros and
his international network of cash-flush non-governmental organizations,
was propelled into second place.
However, thanks to an aware Brazilian investigative journalism press
corps, Silva’s connections to Soros and his team of interventionists and
hedge fund tycoons was exposed. With Brazilian voters wise to Silva’s
puppet strings to Soros and other global bankers, she managed to only
come in third on October 5. Silva subsequently endorsed Neves, Soros’s
second selection to take over the reins of presidential power in Brazil
from Rousseff.
Neves’s chief economic adviser and the man who would become Finance
Minister in a Neves presidency is Arminio Fraga Neto. A former close
friend and associate of Soros and his Quantum hedge fund, Fraga is
hoping that a Neves presidency will open up Brazil to “market forces,”
the very same forces that have declared economic war on Venezuela and
are attempting to swindle Argentina through vulture funds run by Soros’s
Wall Street friends. Fraga, a habitué of the annual World Economic Forum
in Davos, Switzerland, is also a former executive with Salomon Brothers
and a former president of the Brazilian Central Bank. Fraga has also
been linked to Goldman Sachs through a Manhattan real estate deal
involving the purchase of a $7.5 million condominium from a former
Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers executive. Fraga’s membership of the
elitist Council on Foreign Relations and Group of 30 puts Fraga in the
same camp as such Wall Street villains as Alan Greenspan, David
Rockefeller, former Bank of Israel chairman Jacob Frenkel, and Wall
Street apologist/columnist Paul Krugman, and former U.S. Treasury
Secretary Larry Summers.
Rousseff’s easy first place victory on October 5 sent Wall Street and
its owned-and-operated media outlets opposed to Rousseff's plans to
create an alternative development bank among Brazil, Russia, India,
China, and South Africa to compete with the World Bank into extreme
propaganda mode. Questionable polls suggesting that Rousseff and Neves
are running neck-and-neck as the October 26 second round election
approaches were featured as credible news stories by the usual Wall
Street pathetic “stenographers” masquerading as journalists at The Wall
Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg News, and Forbes.
Neves's grandfather, Tancredo Neves, a left-of-center threat to the
longtime Brazilian military dictatorship, fell seriously ill just as he
was to sworn in as president on March 15, 1985. Neves's illness resulted
in his lackluster and more conservative vice presidential candidate José
Sarney being sworn in as president. Tancredo Neves never recovered from
what was said to be diverticulitis and he died on April 21. Later, it
was revealed that Neves had a cancerous tumor that was not discovered
until it was too late. Rousseff's sudden illness after her October 16
televised debate with Aecio Neves alarmed a number of Brazilians who
remember the fate of Tancredo Neves.
In addition to the Central Intelligence Agency arranging for convenient
plane crashes such as those that killed Portuguese Prime Minister
Francisco Sá Carneiro, Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos, and Ecuadorian
President Jaime Roldos all within a six-month period between December
1980 and April 1981 [after the election of Ronald Reagan as U.S.
president and the return to power within the CIA of George H W Bush's
and William Casey's infamous gunslingers], the agency's Technical
Services Division continued to develop biological weapons, including
cancer weapons, to assassinate its political targets.
In recent years, a number of Latin American leaders have been felled or
have been stricken with cancer or heart attacks. The two most notable
victims were Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Argentine President
Nestor Kirchner. Kirchner's wife, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez
de Kirchner, was reported to have thyroid cancer, later denied by her
spokespersons. The sudden onset of varying degrees of cancer also
plagued such Latin American leaders as former Paraguayan President
Fernando Lugo (later ousted in a CIA-engineered coup), Colombian
President Juan Manuel Santos (after he signed a peace agreement with the
left-wing FARC guerrilla movement), former Brazilian President Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva, and Bolivia's recently-reelected President Evo
Morales.
Guyana's President Forbes Burnham died from throat cancer and Nauru's
President Bernard Dowiyogo died from a sudden heart attack while being
cared for in Washington, DC hospitals. Suspicions surrounded the two
deaths at Georgetown University and George Washington Hospitals,
respectively.
The CIA's macabre Jewish-Hungarian chief scientist Dr. Sidney Gottlieb
developed a host of biological weapons for the CIA's MK-ULTRA program
during his over 20 years of service with the agency. One was a
biological toxin that was put inside a tube of toothpaste that was to be
used by Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and another was a
botulism-infected handkerchief that was to be handed to Iraqi leader
General Abdul Karim Kassem.
As for Aecio Neves abandoning the left-of-center credentials of his
grandfather, this represents another aspect of CIA influence operations.
Aecio Neves represents the interests of Wall Street, which is manifested
by the presence of Fraga as his chief economic adviser. Wall Street
vultures, including Soros and Fraga’s other associates in New York, want
to privatize the Brazilian state-owned Petrobras oil corporation.
Therefore, Aecio Neves has been handsomely bought off by the same
globalized financial interests who attempted to engineer Marina Silva
into office. With her defeat, these same forces have unsurprisingly
rallied behind Neves.
For the CIA, blood is not thicker than water. It actually doesn't matter
to Aecio that the CIA may have played a part in assassinating his
grandfather. Omar Torrijos's son, Martin Torrijos, became president of
Panama only to sign a pro-Wall Street free trade agreement with
Washington. Martin Torrijos also gladly followed the global bankers'
orders to increase Panama's retirement age and reform social security.
Martin Torrijos also became a close ally of U.S. President George W.
Bush even though Bush's father, George H W Bush, likely signed off on
the CIA's operation to assassinate Torrijos's own father.
George Soros's favorite Asian opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, does
not seem to mind the fact that it was Soros's friends at the Office of
Strategic Services/CIA who ordered British intelligence to assassinate
her father Aung San. Aung San, a founder of the Burmese Communist Party,
was slated to become independent Burma's first post-independence leader.
Aung San was killed by terrorists working for pro-British former prime
minister U Saw. The weapons for the assassins came directly from British
Army Captain David Vivian, who managed, with high-level “assistance”
from the Burmese government, to escape from a Burmese prison in 1949.
Canada's Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau, the son of former Prime
Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, has, unlike his father, warmed up to
the United States, Wall Street, and the cause of globalization. Justin
Trudeau and Aecio Neves are prime examples of how the CIA eagle will
take under its wings the progeny of leftist icons to achieve its goals.
President Rousseff's policies have created powerful enemies within the
walls of the CIA in Langley, Virginia and among the board rooms of Wall
Street and the West's most powerful corporations. She succeeded in
proving the polls and pundits wrong on October 5 but October 26 remains
yet another hurdle. The people of Brazil will be voting on October 26 as
if their lives depend on it. For Brazil’s poor and new middle class, a
Neves victory will destroy their livelihoods, as well as their very lives.
(2) Brazil under CIA Pressure
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/10/21/brazil-under-cia-pressure.html
Nil NIKANDROV | 21.10.2014 | 00:00
Over two thousand Brazilian political activists, intellectuals, people
of art and culture signed a manifest on October 26 highlighting the
hostile actions of Washington aimed at prevention of Dilma Rousseff
election victory. The document is posted to social nets. It says the
coming to power of Aécio Neves of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party
(Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira - PSDB), who serves the
interests of tycoons, will inflict irreparable damage to the country and
take away all the snags on the way of US direct interference into the
Brazilian internal affairs. Neves is to play the role of obedient tool
in the hands of US administration. Washington goes to any length to
achieve its goal and bring the desired candidate to power – some things
are done covertly, some tricks are resorted to in a clandestine way.
All CIA information and propaganda resources are used to support Neves.
Around 80 million Brazilians have access to Internet, 150 million are
cell phone users. The US special services have perfect command of
destabilization techniques. The recent protests and social unrest in
Brazil threatened the World Cup proving that the forces are ready to
react as the «color revolution» scenario to be implemented at any time.
The activities of non-government organizations are not restricted in any
way; their members have close ties with US embassy and consulate staff,
as well as ISAID workers. The human intelligence is used to discredit
the policy of the Dilma Rousseff government. The lies about its
ineffectiveness are spread around by all available means. «Experts»
forecast collapse in case the President wins another term. They
disseminate dubious results of «rating polls» that complicate the vision
of reality.
Propaganda publications devoted to forecasts often use the term
«technical draw» which provides many opportunities for CIA to
manipulate, falsify and juggle with facts as a way to bolster the
chances of the presidential hopeful the US wants to win the race. Some
years ago the same thing took place in Mexico. Enrique Peña Nieto, the
US-supported candidate ran against Lopez Obrador, a populist and a
supporter of Hugo Chavez. The manipulations and rigging to make Peña win
were widespread, many Mexicans still doubt his victory, but Washington
said the election was transparent and honest.
Rubens Antônio Barbosa, the senior adviser of Aécio Neves on
international affairs and a candidate for the position of Minister of
Foreign affairs. The Rousseff supporters believe him to be the leading
CIA’s agent of influence. He has been US ambassador to London. Now he
heads the Superior Council of Foreign Trade of Federation of Industries
of the State of São Paulo. In accordance with his pro-US orientation, he
calls for «depoliticization of foreign policy» and the «reconsideration
of US strategic priorities in relation to the United States and China».
After the spying scandal, when the fact of taping the phone of Dilma
Rousseff, members of cabinet, military leadership and top leaders of
special services by the CIA surfaced, followed by the refusal by
President Obama to apologize, Brazil strengthened the relationship with
China – the leading trade partner since the tenure of former President
Lula da Silva. Now Barbosa says that in case Neves wins the United
States will occupy a proper (meaning predominant) place in the Brazil’s
foreign policy priorities.
There is a phrase said by Barbosa which provides a clue to what the
would-be foreign policy of Brazil will be like. He said that the
protection of national interests will no more be that passive. Bolivia
has expropriated two oil refineries of Petrobraz and the government has
done nothing to protect the interests of Brazil. Neves and Barbosa
promise to provide access to US oil companies to oil extraction in the
Brazilian continental shelf. The Neves staff says the policy will be
«more pragmatic» and completely devoid of ideological approach typical
for the Workers’ Party. The stand on such issues as relationship with
Mercosur (the Southern Common Market, a sub-regional bloc), BRICS and
other international groups will be corrected.
Washington has gone through thorough preparation for the election race
in Brazil; it is at the final stage now. The US State Department and
special services have sent to the country dozens of seasoned operatives
with rich experience of being involved in similar operations conducted
across the world. For instance, Liliana Ayalde, the current US
ambassador to Brazil, has done good job in Paraguay doing her best to
contain the spread of «populist ideology». Brazil is next. There leading
actors involved in the conspiracy against Dilma are the officers of the
US embassy and consulate in Brazil: Alexis Ludwig (political
counsellor), Paloma Gonsalez (political economic section officer),
Samantha Carl-Yoder (chief of consular section), Kathryn Hoffman
(political officer, the US Consulate General in São Paulo), and Amy
Radetsky (political and economic chief, U.S. Consulate Rio de Janeiro).
It’s enough to look at the Radetsky’s career record to understand that
Washington has prepared for a «non-standard situation in Brazil. In the
State Department she has been responsible for monitoring the events in
Brazil to see how they affect the bilateral relations and working out
the policy towards this country. She was the one to see all the messages
going out of the US embassy in the Brazilian capital. A bit later she
headed a special State Department team monitoring the emergence and
development of crisis situations in the region and preparing situation
reports for State Secretary John Kerry. Now she was urgently sent to
Rio! What crisis situation makes Radetsky go to Brazil?
Political scholar for Venezuela Eleazar DÃaz Rangel calls a possible
defeat of Dilma a «disaster». The governments of Lula da Silva and Dilma
Rousseff have made life better for dozens of millions in Brazil who had
not even had electricity before. The Workers Party has initiated drastic
positive changes on the South American continent. According to Ranhel,
the Obama administration has mobilized all the opposition forces in
Brazil and other Latin America countries, all the potential of media and
information agencies to prevent the re-election of Dilma. There are
funds allocated for providing support to Neves in the presidential race.
Influential US financial and economic circles are involved to help Neves
win.
Will Brazilians mobilize themselves and avoid the disaster predicted by
Eleazar DÃaz Rangel? We’ll know in a week.
(3) Marina Silva The Zionists Brazillian Trojan Horse
http://wideawakegentile.wordpress.com/2014/09/01/marina-silva-the-zionists-brazillian-trojan-horse/
Posted on September 1, 2014
by Indian Gentile
Marina Silva has probably never heard of Aya Ram Gaya Ram Its a term to
describe the mercenary political party hopping by Indian politicians
Although Silva wouldnt quite match the standards of the Haryana
politicians she has shown a remarkable ability to change Political
Parties to suit her needs. She begun her politics with the Workers’
Party, and was appointed Environment Minister by Lula in his first term
(2003). She remained in office until 2008 despite being subject to
several criticisms from entrepreneurs Silva resigned mid-May in 2008.
She was replaced by Carlos Minc who happens to be Jewish
On 19 August 2009, Silva announced her switch from the Workers’ Party to
the Green Party, primarily in protest against the environmental policies
endorsed by the Workers Party (PT in Portuguese). Confirming the
expectations, Marina Silva launched her candidacy to the 2010
Presidential election under the Green Party ticket on 16 May 2010 She
received 19.4% of the votes cast. This number far exceeded earlier
estimates (more than double), but not enough to join the runoff against
Dilma Rousseff or José Serra.
From Green to Socialist her transformation was rapid . On 16 February
2013 she launched a new party in Brasillia that was named ” Rede
Sustentabilidade” (Sustainability Network). According to the BBC little
was known about the political affiliations of the new party .In 4
October 2013, the Supreme Electoral Court blocked the party’s creation,
due to the lack of necessary signatures to register it.The following
day, Marina announced her affiliation to the Brazilian Socialist Party
The Brazilian Socialist Party already had a leader and a Presidential
candidate Eduardo Campos In April 2014, Eduardo Campos announced his
name for the October 2014 presidential election, naming Marina Silva as
his candidate for vice president. In what can only be termed a stroke a
luck for her on Wednesday, 13 August 2014, Campos’ private jet, with six
others on board, crashed in bad weather as it was preparing to land in
the coastal city of Santos, just south of São Paulo. After his death,
Silva became the Brazilian Socialist Party’s candidate for President of
Brazil;
The Rothschild rag The Guardian had a gushing article on her Will Brazil
elect Marina Silva as the world’s first Green president? —- “Following
a strong performance in the first TV debate between candidates, polls
suggest she will come second in the first-round vote on 5 October and
then beat the incumbent, Dilma Rousseff , in the runoff three weeks later.
Silva does have some Kosher and Rich friends and has been awarded some
Kosher awards
Silva is also more moderate than Rousseff on Israel’s policies toward
Palestine.As an Assemblies of God Pentecostal Christian, Silva is a
member of a denomination that provides core membership for the worldwide
movement of «Christian Zionists» who are as avidly as pro-Israel as such
Zionist Jewish organizations as B’nai B’rith and the World Jewish Congress.
One of Silva’s biggest backers is banking heir and philanthropist Maria
Alice Setubal, more commonly referred to as Neca, who is also acting as
a campaign coordinator for the candidate. A member of one of Brazil’s
most distinguished banking dynasties,Setubal is a shareholder of Sao
Paulo-based conglomerate Itausa, which has interests in finance, real
estate and a range of industries. Itausa also controls Itau Unibanco,
the largest bank in the southern hemisphere with total assets of $500
billion.
In a Silva government, Setubal is expected to be play a big role,
possibly as a minister or as a chief of staff. Her presence around
Silva, which is certainly being explored by the candidate’s media aides,
also serves as an indicator that investors can feel secure should Silva
win the election.
Remember Lula Silva and President DilmaRousseff have strongly supported
the formation of the US$100 billion BRICS Development Bank and a reserve
currency pool worth over another US$100 billion and are also supportive
of a new International Reserve Currency to supplement and eventually
replace the dollar something Ms Setubal will surely oppose that
In 1996, Silva won the Goldman Environmental Prize instituted by
Richard N. Goldman (April 16, 1920 – November 29, 2010) was an American
philanthropist whom the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has called “one of
the most influential Jewish philanthropists in the United States.”. In
2007, the United Nations Environment Program named her one of the
Champions of the Earth and the 2009 Sophie Prize In 2010, she, along
with others was named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top
global thinkers, for taking Green mainstream. Foreign Policy magazine is
edited by David Rothkopf, a former managing director of Kissinger
Associates, In 2012 she was one of the eight people chosen to carry the
flag into opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games.
The U.S. and Soros have been looking for various ways to penetrate and
disrupt the BRICS nations. The Soros/CIA attempt to advance Chinese
Politburo member Bo Xilai into the Chinese presidency collapsed when he
and his wife were arrested and jailed for corruption. With Russia and
South Africa off-limits for any similar intrigue, India and Brazil are
the focus for CIA and Soros disruption of BRICS. Although Narendra
Modi’s right-wing government in India is new, the early signs for BRICS
disruption are encouraging. For example, India’s Foreign Minister,
Sushma Swaraj, as an outspoken and committed ally of Israel.
Brazil under Rousseff is seen by the CIA and Soros as the best
opportunity to insert one of their own, in this case, Marina Silva, into
the leadership of a BRICS nation in order to exact a «Trojan horse»
attack on the increasingly important economic bloc.
Sources
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andersonantunes/2014/08/27/meet-the-multi-millionaire-banking-heir-who-is-backing-brazils-marina-silva-presidential-bid/
http://m.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/08/19/another-suspicious-plane-crash-latin-america-bolsters-american-globalist-interests.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Silva
(4) Bolivia expels US ambassador, US military and IMF
From: Paul de Burgh-Day <pdeburgh@lorinna.net>
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 21:51:22 +1100
Subject: Al Jazeera: "We Are Better Off Without US Government" Evo Morales
"We Are Better Off Without US Government" Evo Morales
Bolivia's president talks about the country's ongoing socio-economic
transformation and his third term in office.
By Al Jazeera
October 19, 2014 ICH
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40021.htm
I have no regrets - in fact, I am pleased to have expelled the US
ambassador, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and to have closed
the US military base in Bolivia. Now, without a US ambassador, there is
less conspiracy, and more political stability and social stability.
Without the International Monetary Fund, we are better off economically.
In 2009, under the country's first indigenous president a new
constitution declared Bolivia a plurinational state - ending centuries
of undeclared apartheid.
Opponents in the oil-rich eastern region launched a civil disobedience
movement, confronting the east against the poorer, indigenous majority
who support President Evo Morales. Critics denounced the president's
fiery socialist rhetoric and the nationalisation of Bolivia's oil and
gas industry in the poorest and most undeveloped nation in South America.
Five years later, from the World Bank to the IMF, Evo Morales is getting
full marks for overseeing an unprecedented transformation of Bolivia.
Spurred by high commodity prices, economic growth is now the highest in
the region.
And while the president's anti-capitalist discourse is as strong as
ever, a mix of mainstream economics and social programmes has
dramatically reduced poverty and unemployment, while allowing the
private sector to flourish.
"We have taken flight towards development. What others could not do in
180 years we have done in some nine years of profound changes .... We
are going to make Bolivia the energy hub for South America," says Morales.
In a region where personality cults are too common, millions of
Bolivians have come to worship Morales.
He has just been re-elected after a disputed court decision allowing him
to run for a third consecutive term as president.
"I believe that some revolutions, some transformations, are driven by a
person. I don't like it, but I am happy that there is now an Evo
generation, a new generation of young men and women with a great deal of
knowledge, principles, and values, who are assuming leadership. I am
very pleased with the way young people are getting involved. Obviously,
much depends on the process, on the steps we take to ensure good
economic stability with social benefits," Morales says.
Morales not only opposes the eradication and abolition of the coca leaf,
the raw material for cocaine. He is also waging an international
campaign to legalise and industrialise its use for traditional and
medicinal purposes. He made headlines when he demonstrated how the plant
is chewed at the United Nations, the same body that declared the plant
an illegal narcotic in 1961.
He says: "It [drug trafficking] must be fought - we are convinced of
that - and we are doing so more effectively and more wisely. When the
United States was in control of counternarcotics, the US governments
used drug trafficking for purely geopolitical purposes .... The US uses
drug trafficking and terrorism for political control .... We have
nationalised the fight against drug trafficking. "
"The best way to fight drug trafficking is to engage the people. Then
there will not be zero coca, but neither can there be unfettered coca
cultivation, because a problem does exist. As long as there is market
demand for cocaine, the sacred, natural leaf, the medicinal coca leaf
will always be associated with this illegal problem. The root cause of
drug trafficking is demand, because the developed countries are not
stopping the demand for cocaine."
On Talk to Al Jazeera, President Evo Morales gives an insight into his
personal life and discusses his controversial decision to legalise child
labour, his expulsion of the US ambassador, the issue of drug
trafficking - and whether he plans to step down when this term is over.
(5) CIA coup agaimst Whitlam government (Australia, 1975)
From: Paul de Burgh-Day <pdeburgh@lorinna.net>
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 10:45:58 +1100
Subject: John Pilger: The Forgotten Coup How America and Britain
Crushed the Government of Their 'Ally', Australia
The Forgotten Coup
How America and Britain Crushed the Government of Their 'Ally', Australia
By John Pilger
October 23, 2014
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40040.htm
http://johnpilger.com/articles/the-forgotten-coup-how-america-and-britain-crushed-the-government-of-their-ally-australia
Australia briefly became an independent state during the Whitlam years,
1972-75. An American commentator wrote that no country had "reversed its
posture in international affairs so totally without going through a
domestic revolution". Whitlam ended his nation's colonial servility. He
abolished Royal patronage, moved Australia towards the Non-Aligned
Movement, supported "zones of peace" and opposed nuclear weapons testing.
Although not regarded as on the left of the Labor Party, Whitlam was a
maverick social democrat of principle, pride and propriety. He believed
that a foreign power should not control his country's resources and
dictate its economic and foreign policies. He proposed to "buy back the
farm". In drafting the first Aboriginal lands rights legislation, his
government raised the ghost of the greatest land grab in human history,
Britain's colonisation of Australia, and the question of who owned the
island-continent's vast natural wealth.
Latin Americans will recognise the audacity and danger of this "breaking
free" in a country whose establishment was welded to great, external
power. Australians had served every British imperial adventure since the
Boxer rebellion was crushed in China. In the 1960s, Australia pleaded to
join the US in its invasion of Vietnam, then provided "black teams" to
be run by the CIA. US diplomatic cables published last year by WikiLeaks
disclose the names of leading figures in both main parties, including a
future prime minister and foreign minister, as Washington's informants
during the Whitlam years.
Whitlam knew the risk he was taking. The day after his election, he
ordered that his staff should not be "vetted or harassed" by the
Australian security organisation, ASIO - then, as now, tied to
Anglo-American intelligence. When his ministers publicly condemned the
US bombing of Vietnam as "corrupt and barbaric", a CIA station officer
in Saigon said: "We were told the Australians might as well be regarded
as North Vietnamese collaborators."
Whitlam demanded to know if and why the CIA was running a spy base at
Pine Gap near Alice Springs, a giant vacuum cleaner which, as Edward
Snowden revealed recently, allows the US to spy on everyone. "Try to
screw us or bounce us," the prime minister warned the US ambassador,
"[and Pine Gap] will become a matter of contention".
Victor Marchetti, the CIA officer who had helped set up Pine Gap, later
told me, "This threat to close Pine Gap caused apoplexy in the White
House... a kind of Chile [coup] was set in motion."
Pine Gap's top-secret messages were de-coded by a CIA contractor, TRW.
One of the de-coders was Christopher Boyce, a young man troubled by the
"deception and betrayal of an ally". Boyce revealed that the CIA had
infiltrated the Australian political and trade union elite and referred
to the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, as "our man Kerr".
Kerr was not only the Queen's man, he had long-standing ties to
Anglo-American intelligence. He was an enthusiastic member of the
Australian Association for Cultural Freedom, described by Jonathan
Kwitny of the Wall Street Journal in his book, 'The Crimes of Patriots',
as, "an elite, invitation-only group... exposed in Congress as being
founded, funded and generally run by the CIA". The CIA "paid for Kerr's
travel, built his prestige... Kerr continued to go to the CIA for money".
When Whitlam was re-elected for a second term, in 1974, the White House
sent Marshall Green to Canberra as ambassador. Green was an imperious,
sinister figure who worked in the shadows of America's "deep state".
Known as the "coupmaster", he had played a central role in the 1965 coup
against President Sukarno in Indonesia - which cost up to a million
lives. One of his first speeches in Australia was to the Australian
Institute of Directors - described by an alarmed member of the audience
as "an incitement to the country's business leaders to rise against the
government".
The Americans and British worked together. In 1975, Whitlam discovered
that Britain's MI6 was operating against his government. "The Brits were
actually decoding secret messages coming into my foreign affairs
office," he said later. One of his ministers, Clyde Cameron, told me,
"We knew MI6 was bugging Cabinet meetings for the Americans." In the
1980s, senior CIA officers revealed that the "Whitlam problem" had been
discussed "with urgency" by the CIA's director, William Colby, and the
head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield. A deputy director of the CIA said:
"Kerr did what he was told to do."
On 10 November, 1975, Whitlam was shown a top secret telex message
sourced to Theodore Shackley, the notorious head of the CIA's East Asia
Division, who had helped run the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile
two years earlier.
Shackley's message was read to Whitlam. It said that the prime minister
of Australia was a security risk in his own country. The day before,
Kerr had visited the headquarters of the Defence Signals Directorate,
Australia's NSA where he was briefed on the "security crisis".
On 11 November - the day Whitlam was to inform Parliament about the
secret CIA presence in Australia - he was summoned by Kerr. Invoking
archaic vice-regal "reserve powers", Kerr sacked the democratically
elected prime minister. The "Whitlam problem" was solved, and Australian
politics never recovered, nor the nation its true independence.
691 Soros says Europe "indirectly at war" with Russia; UKIP, Marine Le Pen & Orbán are allies of Putin
Soros says Europe "indirectly at war" with Russia; UKIP, Marine Le Pen &
Orbán are allies of Putin
Newsletter published on 24 October 2014
(1) Soros: UKIP, Marine Le Pen & Orbán are allies of Putin
(2) Soros tell Europe they are "indirectly at war" with Russia
(3) Putin restores 23,000 Orthodox churches
(4) Two billion rubles to restore holy sites, monasteries & churches
destroyed by Communism
(5) Putin: Orthodox Church is giving Russians a moral compass
(6) Russians embrace Orthodoxy for a Spiritual remedy after decades of
Communism
(7) Pussy Riot, and art exhibitions at Sakharov Museum, fall foul of
Hate law
(8) Russian parliament passes new blasphemy law as protesters call for
secular state
(9) Topless activist fined for exhibitionism in attack on Putin wax figure
(1) Soros: Russia (backed by UKIP, Marine Le Pen, & Orbán) an
"existential threat" to Europe
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 02:54:27 +0900 From: chris lancenet
<chrislancenet@gmail.com>
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/23/george-soros-russia-threat-europe-vladimir-putin
George Soros: Russia poses existential threat to Europe
Investor says Vladimir Putin’s aggressive nationalism challenges values
and principles on which the EU was founded
Julian Borger
The Guardian, Thursday 23 October 2014 18.55 AEST
George Soros has warned that Russia’s expansionism poses an existential
threat to the EU and called for greater material support for Ukraine.
The investor and philanthropist argues that Vladimir Putin’s mix of
authoritarianism and aggressive nationalism represents an alternative
model to western liberal democracies, referring to the admiration for
the Russian president expressed by the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, the
president of France’s Front National, Marine Le Pen, and Hungary’s prime
minister, Viktor Orbán.
“Europe is facing a challenge from Russia to its very existence. Neither
the European leaders nor their citizens are fully aware of this
challenge or know how best to deal with it,” Soros writes in an article
published in the New York Review of Books.
“Now Russia is presenting an alternative that poses a fundamental
challenge to the values and principles on which the European Union was
originally founded. It is based on the use of force that manifests
itself in repression at home and aggression abroad, as opposed to the
rule of law.”
Soros told the Guardian: “There is a general dissatisfaction with the EU
as a result of the euro crisis, which has perverted the initial impetus
for forming a union of like-minded democratic states. The euro crisis
was mishandled and lasted a long time, and it turned a voluntary union
of equals into something quite different.”
Soros said the EU had become a dysfunctional relationship between
creditor and debtor nations, resulting in widespread resentment. “Putin
has established good relations with those agitating against Europe,” he
said. “The failure of Europe as an experiment in supranational
government would make Russia a potent threat … The collapse of Ukraine
would be a tremendous loss for Nato, the European Union and the United
States. A victorious Russia would become much more influential within
the EU and pose a potent threat to the Baltic states with large ethnic
Russian populations.”
Soros, founder and chairman of the Open Society network of pro-democracy
foundations, predicts that after the elections in Ukraine on Sunday, the
Russian president will offer his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro
Poroshenko, a gas supply deal on condition he appoint a prime minister
acceptable to Putin. If that is refused, Putin “may then revert to the
smaller victory that would still be within his reach: he could open by
force a land route from Russia to Crimea and Transnistria [a pro-Moscow
breakaway statelet in Moldova] before winter”.
Soros calls for radically boosted western support of Ukraine with an
“immediate cash injection of at least $20bn with a promise of more when
needed” to help write off public debt, and help to reform the country’s
energy sector to make it less dependent on Russia. By assisting
Ukrainian reformers, he argues that the EU would be rediscovering its
founding principles. “The European Union would save itself by saving
Ukraine,” Soros said.
(2) Soros tell Europe they are "indirectly at war" with Russia
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/nov/20/wake-up-europe/?insrc=hpss
Wake Up, Europe
George Soros
November 20, 2014 Issue
The following article will appear in The New York Review’s November 20
issue.
Europe is facing a challenge from Russia to its very existence. Neither
the European leaders nor their citizens are fully aware of this
challenge or know how best to deal with it. I attribute this mainly to
the fact that the European Union in general and the eurozone in
particular lost their way after the financial crisis of 2008.
The fiscal rules that currently prevail in Europe have aroused a lot of
popular resentment. Anti-Europe parties captured nearly 30 percent of
the seats in the latest elections for the European Parliament but they
had no realistic alternative to the EU to point to until recently. Now
Russia is presenting an alternative that poses a fundamental challenge
to the values and principles on which the European Union was originally
founded. It is based on the use of force that manifests itself in
repression at home and aggression abroad, as opposed to the rule of law.
What is shocking is that Vladimir Putin’s Russia has proved to be in
some ways superior to the European Union—more flexible and constantly
springing surprises. That has given it a tactical advantage, at least in
the near term.
Europe and the United States—each for its own reasons—are determined to
avoid any direct military confrontation with Russia. Russia is taking
advantage of their reluctance. Violating its treaty obligations, Russia
has annexed Crimea and established separatist enclaves in eastern
Ukraine. In August, when the recently installed government in Kiev
threatened to win the low-level war in eastern Ukraine against
separatist forces backed by Russia, President Putin invaded Ukraine with
regular armed forces in violation of the Russian law that exempts
conscripts from foreign service without their consent.
In seventy-two hours these forces destroyed several hundred of Ukraine’s
armored vehicles, a substantial portion of its fighting force. According
to General Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander for
Europe, the Russians used multiple launch rocket systems armed with
cluster munitions and thermobaric warheads (an even more inhumane weapon
that ought to be outlawed) with devastating effect.* The local militia
from the Ukrainian city of Dnepropetrovsk suffered the brunt of the
losses because they were communicating by cell phones and could thus
easily be located and targeted by the Russians. President Putin has, so
far, abided by a cease-fire agreement he concluded with Ukrainian
President Petro Poroshenko on September 5, but Putin retains the choice
to continue the cease-fire as long as he finds it advantageous or to
resume a full-scale assault.
In September, President Poroshenko visited Washington where he received
an enthusiastic welcome from a joint session of Congress. He asked for
“both lethal and nonlethal” defensive weapons in his speech. However,
President Obama refused his request for Javelin hand-held missiles that
could be used against advancing tanks. Poroshenko was given radar, but
what use is it without missiles? European countries are equally
reluctant to provide military assistance to Ukraine, fearing Russian
retaliation. The Washington visit gave President Poroshenko a façade of
support with little substance behind it.
Equally disturbing has been the determination of official international
leaders to withhold new financial commitments to Ukraine until after the
October 26 election there (which will take place just after this issue
goes to press). This has led to an avoidable pressure on Ukrainian
currency reserves and raised the specter of a full-blown financial
crisis in the country.
There is now pressure from donors, whether in Europe or the US, to “bail
in” the bondholders of Ukrainian sovereign debt, i.e., for bondholders
to take losses on their investments as a precondition for further
official assistance to Ukraine that would put more taxpayers’ money at
risk. That would be an egregious error. The Ukrainian government
strenuously opposes the proposal because it would put Ukraine into a
technical default that would make it practically impossible for the
private sector to refinance its debt. Bailing in private creditors would
save very little money and it would make Ukraine entirely dependent on
the official donors.
To complicate matters, Russia is simultaneously dangling carrots and
wielding sticks. It is offering—but failing to sign—a deal for gas
supplies that would take care of Ukraine’s needs for the winter. At the
same time Russia is trying to prevent the delivery of gas that Ukraine
secured from the European market through Slovakia. Similarly, Russia is
negotiating for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
to monitor the borders while continuing to attack the Donetsk airport
and the port city of Mariupol.
It is easy to foresee what lies ahead. Putin will await the results of
the elections on October 26 and then offer Poroshenko the gas and other
benefits he has been dangling on condition that he appoint a prime
minister acceptable to Putin. That would exclude anybody associated with
the victory of the forces that brought down the Viktor Yanukovych
government by resisting it for months on the Maidan—Independence Square.
I consider it highly unlikely that Poroshenko would accept such an
offer. If he did, he would be disowned by the defenders of the Maidan;
the resistance forces would then be revived.
Putin may then revert to the smaller victory that would still be within
his reach: he could open by force a land route from Russia to Crimea and
Transnistria before winter. Alternatively, he could simply sit back and
await the economic and financial collapse of Ukraine. I suspect that he
may be holding out the prospect of a grand bargain in which Russia would
help the United States against ISIS—for instance by not supplying to
Syria the S300 missiles it has promised, thus in effect preserving US
air domination—and Russia would be allowed to have its way in the “near
abroad,” as many of the nations adjoining Russia are called. What is
worse, President Obama may accept such a deal.
That would be a tragic mistake, with far-reaching geopolitical
consequences. Without underestimating the threat from ISIS, I would
argue that preserving the independence of Ukraine should take
precedence; without it, even the alliance against ISIS would fall apart.
The collapse of Ukraine would be a tremendous loss for NATO, the
European Union, and the United States. A victorious Russia would become
much more influential within the EU and pose a potent threat to the
Baltic states with their large ethnic Russian populations. Instead of
supporting Ukraine, NATO would have to defend itself on its own soil.
This would expose both the EU and the US to the danger they have been so
eager to avoid: a direct military confrontation with Russia. The
European Union would become even more divided and ungovernable. Why
should the US and other NATO nations allow this to happen?
The argument that has prevailed in both Europe and the United States is
that Putin is no Hitler; by giving him everything he can reasonably ask
for, he can be prevented from resorting to further use of force. In the
meantime, the sanctions against Russia—which include, for example,
restrictions on business transactions, finance, and trade—will have
their effect and in the long run Russia will have to retreat in order to
earn some relief from them.
These are false hopes derived from a false argument with no factual
evidence to support it. Putin has repeatedly resorted to force and he is
liable to do so again unless he faces strong resistance. Even if it is
possible that the hypothesis could turn out to be valid, it is extremely
irresponsible not to prepare a Plan B.
There are two counterarguments that are less obvious but even more
important. First, Western authorities have ignored the importance of
what I call the “new Ukraine” that was born in the successful resistance
on the Maidan. Many officials with a history of dealing with Ukraine
have difficulty adjusting to the revolutionary change that has taken
place there. The recently signed Association Agreement between the EU
and Ukraine was originally negotiated with the Yanukovych government.
This detailed road map now needs adjustment to a totally different
situation. For instance, the road map calls for the gradual replacement
and retraining of the judiciary over five years whereas the public is
clamoring for immediate and radical renewal. As the new mayor of Kiev,
Vitali Klitschko, put it, “If you put fresh cucumbers into a barrel of
pickles, they will soon turn into pickles.”
Contrary to some widely circulated accounts, the resistance on the
Maidan was led by the cream of civil society: young people, many of whom
had studied abroad and refused to join either government or business on
their return because they found both of them repugnant. (Nationalists
and anti-Semitic extremists made up only a minority of the
anti-Yanukovych protesters.) They are the leaders of the new Ukraine and
they are adamantly opposed to a return of the “old Ukraine,” with its
endemic corruption and ineffective government.
The new Ukraine has to contend with Russian aggression, bureaucratic
resistance both at home and abroad, and confusion in the general
population. Surprisingly, it has the support of many oligarchs,
President Poroshenko foremost among them, and the population at large.
There are of course profound differences in history, language, and
outlook between the eastern and western parts of the country, but
Ukraine is more united and more European-minded than ever before. That
unity, however, is extremely fragile.
The new Ukraine has remained largely unrecognized because it took time
before it could make its influence felt. It had practically no security
forces at its disposal when it was born. The security forces of the old
Ukraine were actively engaged in suppressing the Maidan rebellion and
they were disoriented this summer when they had to take orders from a
government formed by the supporters of the rebellion. No wonder that the
new government was at first unable to put up an effective resistance to
the establishment of the separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine. It is
all the more remarkable that President Poroshenko was able, within a few
months of his election, to mount an attack that threatened to reclaim
those enclaves.
To appreciate the merits of the new Ukraine you need to have had some
personal experience with it. I can speak from personal experience
although I must also confess to a bias in its favor. I established a
foundation in Ukraine in 1990 even before the country became
independent. Its board and staff are composed entirely of Ukrainians and
it has deep roots in civil society. I visited the country often,
especially in the early years, but not between 2004 and early 2014, when
I returned to witness the birth of the new Ukraine.
I was immediately impressed by the tremendous improvement in maturity
and expertise during that time both in my foundation and in civil
society at large. Currently, civic and political engagement is probably
higher than anywhere else in Europe. People have proven their
willingness to sacrifice their lives for their country. These are the
hidden strengths of the new Ukraine that have been overlooked by the West.
The other deficiency of the current European attitude toward Ukraine is
that it fails to recognize that the Russian attack on Ukraine is
indirectly an attack on the European Union and its principles of
governance. It ought to be evident that it is inappropriate for a
country, or association of countries, at war to pursue a policy of
fiscal austerity as the European Union continues to do. All available
resources ought to be put to work in the war effort even if that
involves running up budget deficits. The fragility of the new Ukraine
makes the ambivalence of the West all the more perilous. Not only the
survival of the new Ukraine but the future of NATO and the European
Union itself is at risk. In the absence of unified resistance it is
unrealistic to expect that Putin will stop pushing beyond Ukraine when
the division of Europe and its domination by Russia is in sight.
Having identified some of the shortcomings of the current approach, I
will try to spell out the course that Europe ought to follow. Sanctions
against Russia are necessary but they are a necessary evil. They have a
depressive effect not only on Russia but also on the European economies,
including Germany. This aggravates the recessionary and deflationary
forces that are already at work. By contrast, assisting Ukraine in
defending itself against Russian aggression would have a stimulative
effect not only on Ukraine but also on Europe. That is the principle
that ought to guide European assistance to Ukraine.
Germany, as the main advocate of fiscal austerity, needs to understand
the internal contradiction involved. Chancellor Angela Merkel has
behaved as a true European with regard to the threat posed by Russia.
She has been the foremost advocate of sanctions on Russia, and she has
been more willing to defy German public opinion and business interests
on this than on any other issue. Only after the Malaysian civilian
airliner was shot down in July did German public opinion catch up with
her. Yet on fiscal austerity she has recently reaffirmed her allegiance
to the orthodoxy of the Bundesbank—probably in response to the electoral
inroads made by the Alternative for Germany, the anti-euro party. She
does not seem to realize how inconsistent that is. She ought to be even
more committed to helping Ukraine than to imposing sanctions on Russia.
The new Ukraine has the political will both to defend Europe against
Russian aggression and to engage in radical structural reforms. To
preserve and reinforce that will, Ukraine needs to receive adequate
assistance from its supporters. Without it, the results will be
disappointing and hope will turn into despair. Disenchantment already
started to set in after Ukraine suffered a military defeat and did not
receive the weapons it needs to defend itself.
It is high time for the members of the European Union to wake up and
behave as countries indirectly at war. They are better off helping
Ukraine to defend itself than having to fight for themselves. One way or
another, the internal contradiction between being at war and remaining
committed to fiscal austerity has to be eliminated. Where there is a
will, there is a way.
Let me be specific. In its last progress report, issued in early
September, the IMF estimated that in a worst-case scenario Ukraine would
need additional support of $19 billion. Conditions have deteriorated
further since then. After the Ukrainian elections the IMF will need to
reassess its baseline forecast in consultation with the Ukrainian
government. It should provide an immediate cash injection of at least
$20 billion, with a promise of more when needed. Ukraine’s partners
should provide additional financing conditional on implementation of the
IMF-supported program, at their own risk, in line with standard practice.
The spending of borrowed funds is controlled by the agreement between
the IMF and the Ukrainian government. Four billion dollars would go to
make up the shortfall in Ukrainian payments to date; $2 billion would be
assigned to repairing the coal mines in eastern Ukraine that remain
under the control of the central government; and $2 billion would be
earmarked for the purchase of additional gas for the winter. The rest
would replenish the currency reserves of the central bank.
The new assistance package would include a debt exchange that would
transform Ukraine’s hard currency Eurobond debt (which totals almost $18
billion) into long-term, less risky bonds. This would lighten Ukraine’s
debt burden and bring down its risk premium. By participating in the
exchange, bondholders would agree to accept a lower interest rate and
wait longer to get their money back. The exchange would be voluntary and
market-based so that it could not be mischaracterized as a default.
Bondholders would participate willingly because the new long-term bonds
would be guaranteed—but only partially—by the US or Europe, much as the
US helped Latin America emerge from its debt crisis in the 1980s with
so-called Brady bonds (named for US Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady).
Such an exchange would have a few important benefits. One is that, over
the next two or three critical years, the government could use
considerably less of its scarce hard currency reserves to pay off
bondholders. The money could be used for other urgent needs.
By trimming Ukraine debt payments in the next few years, the exchange
would also reduce the chance of a sovereign default, discouraging
capital flight and arresting the incipient run on the banks. This would
make it easier to persuade owners of Ukraine’s banks (many of them
foreign) to inject urgently needed new capital into them. The banks
desperately need bigger capital cushions if Ukraine is to avoid a
full-blown banking crisis, but shareholders know that a debt crisis
could cause a banking crisis that wipes out their equity.
Finally, Ukraine would keep bondholders engaged rather than watch them
cash out at 100 cents on the dollar as existing debt comes due in the
next few years. This would make it easier for Ukraine to reenter the
international bond markets once the crisis has passed. Under the current
conditions it would be more practical and cost-efficient for the US and
Europe not to use their own credit directly to guarantee part of
Ukraine’s debt, but to employ intermediaries such as the European Bank
for Reconstruction and Development or the World Bank and its subsidiaries.
The Ukrainian state-owned company Naftogaz is a black hole in the budget
and a major source of corruption. Naftogaz currently sells gas to
households for $47 per thousand cubic meters (TCM), for which it pays
$380 per TCM. At present people cannot control the temperature in their
apartments. A radical restructuring of Naftogaz’s entire system could
reduce household consumption at least by half and totally eliminate
Ukraine’s dependence on Russia for gas. That would involve charging
households the market price for gas. The first step would be to install
meters in apartments and the second to distribute a cash subsidy to
needy households.
The will to make these reforms is strong both in the new management and
in the incoming government but the task is extremely complicated (how do
you define who is needy?) and the expertise is inadequate. The World
Bank and its subsidiaries could sponsor a project development team that
would bring together international and domestic experts to convert the
existing political will into bankable projects. The initial cost would
exceed $10 billion but it could be financed by project bonds issued by
the European Investment Bank and it would produce very high returns.
It is also high time for the European Union to take a critical look at
itself. There must be something wrong with the EU if Putin’s Russia can
be so successful even in the short term. The bureaucracy of the EU no
longer has a monopoly of power and it has little to be proud of. It
should learn to be more united, flexible, and efficient. And Europeans
themselves need to take a close look at the new Ukraine. That could help
them recapture the original spirit that led to the creation of the
European Union. The European Union would save itself by saving Ukraine.
—October 23, 2014
1. * I am deeply disturbed by a report in The New York Times
quoting Human Rights Watch that subsequently—on October 2 and
5—Ukrainians also used cluster bombs, which I condemn. NATO should
clarify both alleged Ukrainian and Russian use of such munitions.
(3) Putin restores 23,000 Orthodox churches
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/how-vladimir-putin-helped-resurrect-the-russian-orthodox-church/article16361650/
How Vladimir Putin helped resurrect the Russian Orthodox Church ...
Mark MacKinnon
YEKATERINBURG, RUSSIA — The Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Jan. 15 2014, 9:53 PM EST
Last updated Thursday, Jan. 16 2014, 8:33 AM EST
Tamara Leontieva’s voice fills with pain as she talks about the darkest
day faced by her Russian Orthodox Church. “This is the place where the
Tsar and his whole family were killed,” the guide whispers dramatically
as we approach the dimly lit altar of the Church on the Blood, built
where Nicholas II, the last of the Romanov tsars, and his family were
murdered in 1918.
Worshipers at kiss the cross held by Priest Alexei Kulberg during
service at The Bolshoi Zlatoust Church (translates as the "Big (or
Great) Chrysostom" Church) in Yekaterinburg, Russia January 15, 2014.
Worshipers at kiss the cross held by Priest Alexei Kulberg during
service at The Bolshoi Zlatoust Church (translates as the "Big (or
Great) Chrysostom" Church) in Yekaterinburg, Russia January 15, 2014.
The Globe and Mail
Until his death at the hands of Bolsheviks, Nicholas II was viewed by
the Russian Orthodox faithful as the divinely appointed head of an
empire that stretched from Poland to the Pacific Ocean. On the day he
died, a sacred icon that had gone missing centuries earlier is said to
have reappeared in Moscow, a signal to believers that God’s chosen ruler
was gone.
Ms. Leontieva calls what followed “the turmoils.” But the Russian
Orthodox Church outlasted the official atheism of the Soviet Union and
now, after almost a century in the wilderness, has regained most of the
power and prestige it enjoyed under the Romanovs.
Many in the church credit that to a man they believe may also be
inspired from above: President Vladimir Putin. “Even his family name
comes from the church,” Ms. Leontieva says with admiration. (The first
syllable – pronounced “poot” – means “the path” or “the way” in Russian.)
Over 15 years as either president or prime minister of the Russian
Federation, Mr. Putin has left his mark – and a trail of megaprojects –
around this vast country. The Winter Olympics that begin in less than
three weeks are the latest monument to the Putin era, with the host city
of Sochi overhauled for the occasion at a startling cost of more than
$50-billion.
Long before he turned his attention to such international celebrations,
Mr. Putin oversaw the resurrection of the Russian Orthodox Church,
including the reconstruction of some 23,000 Churches that had been
destroyed or fallen into disuse. The Church on the Blood is not included
in that count, since it’s a completely new house of worship, completed
in 2003.
To the delight of the church leadership, Mr. Putin’s policies have also
taken a sharply conservative turn since his return to the Kremlin last
year for a third term as President. Once viewed as a liberal, Mr. Putin
has in the past 12 months embraced the church’s positions on such
sensitive issues as abortion and gay rights.
“There are no conflicts between the church and the state,” smiles Father
Alexey Kulberg, an outspoken priest in Yekaterinburg, this city of 1.4
million near the Ural Mountains that separate Russia into its European
and Asian halves. “The President’s ideology for developing Russia
coincides with the direction of the Russian Orthodox Church.”
In other words, while the church doesn’t quite recognize Mr. Putin as
chosen by God, it’s quite happy with the job he’s doing.
On the surface, it seems an odd match. Mr. Putin, after all, was a
long-time member of the KGB, the organization that spearheaded the
Soviet Union’s repression of “counter-revolutionary” entities such as
the church.
But Mr. Putin is that rare KGB agent who was baptized, in secret, as a
child. Meanwhile, the head of the church, Patriarch Kirill, has been
publicly accused of working for the KGB during the Soviet era.
Both the Kremlin and the church have benefited from resuming their
centuries-old alliance. Early in Mr. Putin’s rule, a law was passed
returning all church property that had been seized during the Soviet
era, almost surely making the Moscow Patriarchate the largest landowner
in Russia. State-owned energy companies have contributed billions of
rubles to the reconstruction of Churches around the country.
Mr. Putin has made a proud show of his own faith, and the church has
rewarded him with robust support in times of need. As street protests
swelled in 2012 against Mr. Putin’s return to the presidency, Patriarch
Kirill declared on television that “liberalism will lead to legal
collapse and then the apocalypse.” Mr. Putin’s rule was a “miracle,” the
patriarch said on another occasion.
In a country where 90 per cent of the population self-identifies as
Russian Orthodox (though 30 per cent also say they’re atheists, giving
rise to the term “Orthodox atheist”), that intervention unquestionably
helped quiet calls for change in the Kremlin.
Those same street protests – and the belief among Mr. Putin’s inner
circle that the demonstrators were aided and abetted by Western
governments – further cemented the Kremlin-church alliance. Mr. Putin
increasingly speaks of Russia as a civilization distinct from the West.
It’s a view shared by the church, which blames “Western influence” for
the spread of liberal ideas, like gay rights, in Russia.
The church has loudly supported the “anti-homosexual propaganda” law
that Mr. Putin signed last year (which prohibits the publication of any
material portraying lesbians, gays, bisexual or transgendered people as
normal), as well as a Kremlin move to ban the advertising of abortion
services.
“The church and the state are moving toward separating Russia from the
West,” said Anna Gizulinna, a 52-year-old transgendered university
lecturer who says she has faced increasing persecution at work since the
passing of the anti-propaganda law. “They see the West as a danger and
say they’re fighting to save Russian souls.”
She, like many LGBT Russians, fears Mr. Putin’s assault on gay rights
has only paused for the Sochi Olympics. There’s an expectation that the
social conservative march will resume once the athletes, and the
international media, are gone.
Father Alexey hopes that’s true. Sitting in his office under a portrait
of the murdered Romanovs (the Russian Orthodox Church now considers
Nicholas II a martyred saint), he says he’d like to see the country
return to the “theocratic values” of tsarist times. He believes Mr.
Putin might be the man to guide Russia there.
“I don’t want to idealize the President, but I can understand Putin’s
words and Putin’s decisions,” Father Alexey said, fingering the large
gold cross hanging from his neck. “As a citizen, I trust him.”
(4) Two billion rubles to restore holy sites, monasteries & churches
destroyed by Communism
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Orthodox-Christmas-strengthens-alliance-between-Putin-and-Patriarch-Kirill-17280.html
01/07/2010
Orthodox Christmas strengthens alliance between Putin and Patriarch Kirill
Church and state work closer together for a strong and united Russia.
The government announces two billion rubles to restore holy places
destroyed by Communism. The old Novodevichy Convent is set to be
returned to the Church. Kirill blesses the actions by Putin and the
government in tackling the economic crisis.
Moscow (AsiaNews) – More than 150 million Russian Orthodox Christians
and 30,000 Russian Orthodox Churches celebrated Christmas today around
the world. In Moscow for the first time since he took over from the late
Aleksij II, Patriarch Kirill celebrated Midnight Mass in the traditional
Vigil liturgy in Saint Christ the Saviour Cathedral in the presence of
4,000 people, including Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas following the old
Julian calendar, which is 13 days "behind" the Gregorian calendar
adopted by the Catholic, Protestant and some Orthodox Churches as well
as the secular world.
In Russia, 7 January also marks the end of the period of abstinence from
eating meat and sweets and drinking alcoholic beverages that began on 28
November. It is also a national holiday, and a time when security forces
are on maximum alert as a result of recent terrorist attacks around the
world. Some 8,500 police agents have been deployed in the capital until
tonight to ensure order and security.
Christmas is also a time when secular and religious worlds come
together. For the past five years, this has meant growing ties between
political and Church leaders. Both have used the occasion to tell the
nation about their ever closer relationship for a stronger and more
united Russia.
This year, in addition to the traditional exchange of wishes and thanks
with the Patriarchate of Moscow, the Russian government gave the Church
a special Christmas gift. In his meeting with the patriarch at the
Danilov Monastery, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced that
the government would provide RUB 2 billion (US$ 63 million) to restore
holy sites, monasteries and churches destroyed during last century's
atheist drive by the state against religion. He also said that the
Novodevichy Convent, one of most beautiful and important in the country,
would be returned to the Patriarchate before the end of the year.
Putin praised the Church for "educating citizens in a spirit of
patriotism and love of country, passing on love for spiritual values and
history." For his part, Kirill said that he hoped that the Lord would
help Putin "in performing the high task God gave him." The patriarch
also praised the prime minister for the way he managed the economic
crisis, which has had a greater impact in Russia than elsewhere in the
world.
In his message to the Orthodox community on Christmas Eve, Kirill
stressed the "unity of Holy Russia". Going over the various trips he
took in his first year as patriarch, he explained that it is through
"the strength of faith in a multiethnic society" that transcend "ethnic
and social differences" that Russia will be able to maintain "its
spiritual unity" in today's world.
Funding to restore Christian sites and the return of properties seized
from the Church in Soviet times are but the latest gift of the Kremlin
to the Patriarchate. This year, Russia's Justice Ministry is set to
present plans to amend the federal law on "Freedom of Conscience and
Religious Organisations", which, if approved, would severely restrict
the activities of certain religious communities, like Evangelical
Christians.
In addition, the authorities plan to add religious education in public
schools as well as chaplains paid by the state to the armed forces. It
also appears possible that the Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow will be
granted the right to vet parliamentary bills before they go to the Duma.
This would indicate that now laws might have to be blessed before they
are approved.
(5) Putin: Orthodox Church is giving Russians a moral compass
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/07/25/putin-hosts-world-orthodox-leaders-at-unique-gathering/
Putin hosts world's Orthodox leaders at unique gathering
AFP
By Anna Smolchenko
Published July 25, 2013
MOSCOW (AFP) – President Vladimir Putin praised close ties between the
Kremlin and the powerful Orthodox Church as he hosted top Orthodox
clergy from across the world Thursday to mark the 1025th anniversary of
the arrival of Christianity in Russia.
Convening the heads and senior members of 15 Orthodox Churches for an
unprecedented meeting at the Kremlin, Putin praised the moral authority
of the Church as he seeks to strengthen his power following huge
protests against his 13-year rule.
"It is important that relations between the state and the church are
developing at a new level," Putin said in televised remarks, with
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill by his side.
"We act as genuine partners and colleagues to solve the most pressing
domestic and international tasks, to implement joint initiatives for the
benefit of our country and people," he told the black-robed clerics.
Alongside Kirill, those present included Patriarch Theodore II of
Alexandria, Theophilos III of Jerusalem and Ilia II of Georgia, the
Kremlin said.
Also present were the heads of the Bulgarian, Serbian, Polish and
Cypriot Orthodox Churches. Together they represented more than 227
million faithful.
Conspicuously, however, the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomew I did not go to the meeting and was represented by a
lower-ranking cleric.
The Russian Orthodox Church was suppressed under Communism but has
staged an astonishing recovery in post-Soviet Russia to become one of
the country's most powerful institutions.
Putin, an ex-KGB agent who has said his mother had him secretly
christened in the Soviet Union, has enjoyed unstinting support from the
Church throughout his years in power, including during the unprecedented
protests that broke out in Moscow and other big cities in the winter of
2011.
Since returning to the presidency for a third term last year, Putin has
been promoting an unflinchingly conservative agenda in a move aimed at
cementing his support among blue-collar workers and elderly Russians,
his core backers.
This summer Russia's parliament passed a law imposing jail terms of up
to three years on those who offend religious believers.
The controversial bill was proposed after several members of rock band
Pussy Riot belted out a "punk prayer" against Putin and his close ties
with the Church last year.
Two Pussy Riot members, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, are
now serving two years in a penal colony after being convicted last
August on charges of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.
The Russian parliament also adopted a law imposing jail terms for people
promoting homosexual "propaganda" to minors, while another recently
adopted law bans gay and lesbian couples in foreign countries from
adopting Russian children.
Putin said Thursday that the Church was giving Russians a moral compass
when so many were looking for help.
"Today when people are once again searching for moral support, millions
of our compatriots see it in religion," Putin said. "They trust the
wise, pastoral word of the Russian Orthodox Church."
Historian Alexei Beglov said Putin was the first Russian leader to have
convened so many heads of Orthodox Churches, calling the meeting a
"political gesture."
But he said it was not appropriate to speak of the coalescence of church
and state in Russia, noting Putin was simply using the Church to advance
his political goals.
"Putin is trying to exploit the Orthodox religion to strengthen the
authoritarian system," added Vladimir Oivin of credo.ru, an online
portal writing about religion.
"The regime is wobbling, and they are looking at how to strengthen it."
Accompanied by Patriarch Kirill, Putin is set to travel to neighbouring
Ukraine at the weekend to meet his counterpart Viktor Yanukovych and
attend ceremonies marking the anniversary of Christianity.
(6) Russians embrace Orthodoxy for a Spiritual remedy after decades of
Communism
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2014/04/02/understanding-a-more-religious-and-assertive-russia/
Understanding a More Religious and Assertive Russia
April 2, 2014
By Mark Tooley
In his widely analyzed March 18 speech to the Russian Parliament, Putin
cited the baptism of Vladimir the Great over 1000 years ago in Crimea as
the seminal event binding Ukraine and Russia. That baptism is considered
the birth of Russian Orthodoxy. Orthodox faith has been key to Moscow’s
historic self conceived role as defender of all Russians, of Slavs, and
of Orthodox, wherever they are.
Putin has formed a close association with Russian Orthodoxy, as Russian
rulers typically have across centuries. He is smart to do so, as Russia
has experienced somewhat of a spiritual revival. Although regular church
goers remain a small minority, strong majorities of Russians now
identify as Orthodox. Orthodoxy is widely and understandably seen as the
spiritual remedy to the cavernous spiritual vacuum left by over 70
disastrous, often murderous years of Bolshevism.
Resurgent religious traditionalism has fueled Russia’s new law against
sexual orientation proselytism to minors and its new anti-abortion law.
Both laws also respond to Russia’s demographic struggle with plunging
birth rates and monstrously high abortion rates that date to Soviet
rule. Some American religious conservatives have looked to Russian
religious leaders as allies in international cooperation on pro-family
causes.
It remains to be seen whether geopolitical tensions over Putin’s moves
in Russia temper this alliance. A few liberal commentators have
predictably denounced it as toxic. A few conservative commentators have
cautioned against saber rattling against Russia, whose religious revival
they hope might counter Western secularism. A realistic perspective
should welcome Christian vitality in Russia while recognizing it won’t
necessarily mitigate and may in fact reinforce Russia as a strategic
competitor with the West. East-West rivalry predates Soviet Communism by
a millennium.
Historically Moscow politically and religiously has understood itself as
the “third Rome” and the natural successor to Constantinople as
protector of Orthodox civilization. The formal schism between Eastern
and Western churches a thousand years ago created an unhealed
civilizational divide. Western powers have periodically sought Russian
alliance against common foes. But just as often Western powers have
warred with or at least sought to contain Russia.
The “great game” of which Rudyard Kipling wrote described Britain’s
ongoing designs to keep Czarist Russia away from South Asia and warm
water ports. [...]
(7) Pussy Riot, and art exhibitions at Sakharov Museum, fall foul of
Hate law
http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2014/01/religion-rules-in-russia/
Religion rules in Russia
Why does freedom of religion and belief continue to cause conflict in
post-Soviet Russia?
By Alexander Verkhovsky / 22 January, 2014
{photo}
Pussy Riot supporters prevented from praying for Putin’s resignation
outside the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow (Image: Anton
Belitskiy / Demotix)
{end photo}
Two issues preoccupying post-Soviet society are a wish to oppose outside
influences (mainly from the West), and to resist aggressive behaviour in
matters of religion. It is not difficult to point out inconsistencies
and contradictions in these approaches, but more germane is the fact
that both have survived, if in modified form, to the present day. When
the possibility of further restrictions on freedom of conscience are
being discussed, a key topic is invariably the need to protect society
from the “expansionism” of new religious movements and radical Islam.
The arrests of members of the Pussy Riot punk band after their
performance outside Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour proved a
powerful catalyst for both these concerns. The protest was seen as a
frontal attack on “tradition” by “pro-Western forces” (the actual point
Pussy Riot wanted to make was neither here nor there), and as an attack
on the religious sensibilities of the “Orthodox majority”. The reaction
was accordingly heavy-handed, including not only imprisonment of two
members of the group, but also the passing of a law criminalising the
“offending of believers’ religious sensibilities”, often referred to as
the “blasphemy” law. [...]
Among the first major “anti-extremist” trials associated with religion
were those targeting contemporary art exhibitions at the Andrey Sakharov
Museum, which presaged the Pussy Riot case. Also, in 2011, a journalist
was convicted for making rude remarks about believers in general, and
the clergy in particular, even though his was not by any means a high
profile protest and could not be represented as involving incitement to
hatred against any group. Lastly, over several years there has been a
serious campaign of criminal prosecution against people who read or
distribute the works of a Sufi teacher, the late Said Nursi, even though
neither he nor his Russian followers have links to terrorism, or engage
in conduct which might constitute a threat to society.
In the case of the Sakharov museum exhibitions, the general public could
at least understand more clearly what was going on. Some might consider
the exhibition a profound artistic meditation on relations between the
church and society; others might see the exhibits as an amusing send-up
of the church and/or orthodoxy; some might consider it a send-up in bad
taste or even an attack on the church, but within acceptable limits of
freedom of expression; others, however, were determined to prove that
the exhibition was a criminal incitement to hatred of orthodoxy and
Orthodox Christians. [...]
Translated by Arch Tait
(8) Russian parliament passes new blasphemy law as protesters call for
secular state
http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2013/06/russian-parliament-passes-new-blasphemy-law-as-protesters-call-for-secular-state
Posted: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:20
Russia's parliament has overwhelmingly approved a new blasphemy law
allowing jail sentences of up to three years for "offending religious
feelings", an initiative launched in the wake of the trial against the
anti-Kremlin punk band Pussy Riot.
Under the proposed new law, Russian citizens would face a year in jail
for "intentional" and "public" displays that cause "offense to religious
sensibilities," and up to three years in jail for desecrating religious
sites and paraphernalia".
Mikhail Markelov, a member of the ruling United Russia party, said: "We
are not talking about the subjective term 'religious offense', which is
admittedly difficult to qualify. The law only punishes public acts that
obviously go out of their way to insult a religion." She said the new
law has been "chiseled to perfection, and reflects the desires of the
majority of our society."
The Russian parliament, the Duma, will hear a third and final reading in
the next week. If approved, it will then go to President Putin for final
approval.
The Duma this week also unanimously passed a federal law banning gay
"propaganda" – imposing heavy fines for providing information about
homosexuality to people under 18. Together, the two laws are intended to
boost the power of the Russian Orthodox Church, which professes total
allegiance to the state.
In a recent public address President Vladimir Putin praised the special
role that the church plays in the society. "The church incessantly cares
about strengthening high moral and ethical ideals and family traditions
in society, and the younger generation's upbringing. The church does a
lot to solve pressing social problems," said Putin.
International rights groups have called the current situation in Russia
the worst human rights climate in the post-Soviet era.
Meanwhile, in the city of Tomsk, protesters have gathered for a rally
for a secular state and freedom of conscience.
This rally's co-organiser Andrei Verkhov called for top-ranking
officials to adhere to the constitution so that religion is not imposed.
"It [the constitution] says that no religion shall enjoy preferences but
we can see that the authorities breach the constitution by granting
preferences to worshippers," Verkhov said.
Protesters carried signs calling for the abolition of religious subjects
in schools.
(9) Topless activist fined for exhibitionism in attack on Putin wax figure
http://af.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idAFKCN0I416O20141015
Wed Oct 15, 2014 2:24pm GMT
PARIS (Reuters) - A Ukrainian activist belonging to topless feminist
group Femen was convicted for exhibitionism by a Paris court on
Wednesday for having attacked a statue of Russian President Vladimir
Putin at a wax museum in the capital.
Iana Zhdanova, with "Kill Putin" written on her nude breasts, attacked
the likeness of Putin at the Musee Grevin in the capital with a wooden
stake in June.
The activist, who has lived in France for two years as a political
refugee, laughed in court after the judge ordered her to pay fine of
1,500 euros ($1,897) (1,187 pound) for vandalism and a crime called
"sexual exhibition" in French, as well as other damages payable to Musee
Grevin.
"I'm laughing because it's very strange," said Zhdanova, 26, outside the
courtroom. "I'm very surprised by this decision."
Zhdanova's lawyer, Marie Dose, said it was the first time a French court
had sentenced a Femen member for sexual exhibition, calling it a
precedent that would thwart the group's ability to protest. Dose said
she would appeal.
Femen specialises in shock bare-breast appearances to dramatise women's
rights causes, mainly in the male-dominated hierarchies of Russia and
its former Soviet allies, with Putin a particular target.
"In a society like ours where the display of (sexual) commercial
messages is everywhere, it makes no sense," Dose said.
The wax statue of Putin fell over during the attack, a part of the head
shattering. It has since been repaired.
Most recently, a court acquitted nine members of Femen who staged a
topless protest inside Notre Dame Cathedral last year.
(Reporting By Chine Labbe, Writing by Alexandria Sage; Editing by Andrew
Callus)
Orbán are allies of Putin
Newsletter published on 24 October 2014
(1) Soros: UKIP, Marine Le Pen & Orbán are allies of Putin
(2) Soros tell Europe they are "indirectly at war" with Russia
(3) Putin restores 23,000 Orthodox churches
(4) Two billion rubles to restore holy sites, monasteries & churches
destroyed by Communism
(5) Putin: Orthodox Church is giving Russians a moral compass
(6) Russians embrace Orthodoxy for a Spiritual remedy after decades of
Communism
(7) Pussy Riot, and art exhibitions at Sakharov Museum, fall foul of
Hate law
(8) Russian parliament passes new blasphemy law as protesters call for
secular state
(9) Topless activist fined for exhibitionism in attack on Putin wax figure
(1) Soros: Russia (backed by UKIP, Marine Le Pen, & Orbán) an
"existential threat" to Europe
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 02:54:27 +0900 From: chris lancenet
<chrislancenet@gmail.com>
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/23/george-soros-russia-threat-europe-vladimir-putin
George Soros: Russia poses existential threat to Europe
Investor says Vladimir Putin’s aggressive nationalism challenges values
and principles on which the EU was founded
Julian Borger
The Guardian, Thursday 23 October 2014 18.55 AEST
George Soros has warned that Russia’s expansionism poses an existential
threat to the EU and called for greater material support for Ukraine.
The investor and philanthropist argues that Vladimir Putin’s mix of
authoritarianism and aggressive nationalism represents an alternative
model to western liberal democracies, referring to the admiration for
the Russian president expressed by the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, the
president of France’s Front National, Marine Le Pen, and Hungary’s prime
minister, Viktor Orbán.
“Europe is facing a challenge from Russia to its very existence. Neither
the European leaders nor their citizens are fully aware of this
challenge or know how best to deal with it,” Soros writes in an article
published in the New York Review of Books.
“Now Russia is presenting an alternative that poses a fundamental
challenge to the values and principles on which the European Union was
originally founded. It is based on the use of force that manifests
itself in repression at home and aggression abroad, as opposed to the
rule of law.”
Soros told the Guardian: “There is a general dissatisfaction with the EU
as a result of the euro crisis, which has perverted the initial impetus
for forming a union of like-minded democratic states. The euro crisis
was mishandled and lasted a long time, and it turned a voluntary union
of equals into something quite different.”
Soros said the EU had become a dysfunctional relationship between
creditor and debtor nations, resulting in widespread resentment. “Putin
has established good relations with those agitating against Europe,” he
said. “The failure of Europe as an experiment in supranational
government would make Russia a potent threat … The collapse of Ukraine
would be a tremendous loss for Nato, the European Union and the United
States. A victorious Russia would become much more influential within
the EU and pose a potent threat to the Baltic states with large ethnic
Russian populations.”
Soros, founder and chairman of the Open Society network of pro-democracy
foundations, predicts that after the elections in Ukraine on Sunday, the
Russian president will offer his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro
Poroshenko, a gas supply deal on condition he appoint a prime minister
acceptable to Putin. If that is refused, Putin “may then revert to the
smaller victory that would still be within his reach: he could open by
force a land route from Russia to Crimea and Transnistria [a pro-Moscow
breakaway statelet in Moldova] before winter”.
Soros calls for radically boosted western support of Ukraine with an
“immediate cash injection of at least $20bn with a promise of more when
needed” to help write off public debt, and help to reform the country’s
energy sector to make it less dependent on Russia. By assisting
Ukrainian reformers, he argues that the EU would be rediscovering its
founding principles. “The European Union would save itself by saving
Ukraine,” Soros said.
(2) Soros tell Europe they are "indirectly at war" with Russia
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/nov/20/wake-up-europe/?insrc=hpss
Wake Up, Europe
George Soros
November 20, 2014 Issue
The following article will appear in The New York Review’s November 20
issue.
Europe is facing a challenge from Russia to its very existence. Neither
the European leaders nor their citizens are fully aware of this
challenge or know how best to deal with it. I attribute this mainly to
the fact that the European Union in general and the eurozone in
particular lost their way after the financial crisis of 2008.
The fiscal rules that currently prevail in Europe have aroused a lot of
popular resentment. Anti-Europe parties captured nearly 30 percent of
the seats in the latest elections for the European Parliament but they
had no realistic alternative to the EU to point to until recently. Now
Russia is presenting an alternative that poses a fundamental challenge
to the values and principles on which the European Union was originally
founded. It is based on the use of force that manifests itself in
repression at home and aggression abroad, as opposed to the rule of law.
What is shocking is that Vladimir Putin’s Russia has proved to be in
some ways superior to the European Union—more flexible and constantly
springing surprises. That has given it a tactical advantage, at least in
the near term.
Europe and the United States—each for its own reasons—are determined to
avoid any direct military confrontation with Russia. Russia is taking
advantage of their reluctance. Violating its treaty obligations, Russia
has annexed Crimea and established separatist enclaves in eastern
Ukraine. In August, when the recently installed government in Kiev
threatened to win the low-level war in eastern Ukraine against
separatist forces backed by Russia, President Putin invaded Ukraine with
regular armed forces in violation of the Russian law that exempts
conscripts from foreign service without their consent.
In seventy-two hours these forces destroyed several hundred of Ukraine’s
armored vehicles, a substantial portion of its fighting force. According
to General Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander for
Europe, the Russians used multiple launch rocket systems armed with
cluster munitions and thermobaric warheads (an even more inhumane weapon
that ought to be outlawed) with devastating effect.* The local militia
from the Ukrainian city of Dnepropetrovsk suffered the brunt of the
losses because they were communicating by cell phones and could thus
easily be located and targeted by the Russians. President Putin has, so
far, abided by a cease-fire agreement he concluded with Ukrainian
President Petro Poroshenko on September 5, but Putin retains the choice
to continue the cease-fire as long as he finds it advantageous or to
resume a full-scale assault.
In September, President Poroshenko visited Washington where he received
an enthusiastic welcome from a joint session of Congress. He asked for
“both lethal and nonlethal” defensive weapons in his speech. However,
President Obama refused his request for Javelin hand-held missiles that
could be used against advancing tanks. Poroshenko was given radar, but
what use is it without missiles? European countries are equally
reluctant to provide military assistance to Ukraine, fearing Russian
retaliation. The Washington visit gave President Poroshenko a façade of
support with little substance behind it.
Equally disturbing has been the determination of official international
leaders to withhold new financial commitments to Ukraine until after the
October 26 election there (which will take place just after this issue
goes to press). This has led to an avoidable pressure on Ukrainian
currency reserves and raised the specter of a full-blown financial
crisis in the country.
There is now pressure from donors, whether in Europe or the US, to “bail
in” the bondholders of Ukrainian sovereign debt, i.e., for bondholders
to take losses on their investments as a precondition for further
official assistance to Ukraine that would put more taxpayers’ money at
risk. That would be an egregious error. The Ukrainian government
strenuously opposes the proposal because it would put Ukraine into a
technical default that would make it practically impossible for the
private sector to refinance its debt. Bailing in private creditors would
save very little money and it would make Ukraine entirely dependent on
the official donors.
To complicate matters, Russia is simultaneously dangling carrots and
wielding sticks. It is offering—but failing to sign—a deal for gas
supplies that would take care of Ukraine’s needs for the winter. At the
same time Russia is trying to prevent the delivery of gas that Ukraine
secured from the European market through Slovakia. Similarly, Russia is
negotiating for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
to monitor the borders while continuing to attack the Donetsk airport
and the port city of Mariupol.
It is easy to foresee what lies ahead. Putin will await the results of
the elections on October 26 and then offer Poroshenko the gas and other
benefits he has been dangling on condition that he appoint a prime
minister acceptable to Putin. That would exclude anybody associated with
the victory of the forces that brought down the Viktor Yanukovych
government by resisting it for months on the Maidan—Independence Square.
I consider it highly unlikely that Poroshenko would accept such an
offer. If he did, he would be disowned by the defenders of the Maidan;
the resistance forces would then be revived.
Putin may then revert to the smaller victory that would still be within
his reach: he could open by force a land route from Russia to Crimea and
Transnistria before winter. Alternatively, he could simply sit back and
await the economic and financial collapse of Ukraine. I suspect that he
may be holding out the prospect of a grand bargain in which Russia would
help the United States against ISIS—for instance by not supplying to
Syria the S300 missiles it has promised, thus in effect preserving US
air domination—and Russia would be allowed to have its way in the “near
abroad,” as many of the nations adjoining Russia are called. What is
worse, President Obama may accept such a deal.
That would be a tragic mistake, with far-reaching geopolitical
consequences. Without underestimating the threat from ISIS, I would
argue that preserving the independence of Ukraine should take
precedence; without it, even the alliance against ISIS would fall apart.
The collapse of Ukraine would be a tremendous loss for NATO, the
European Union, and the United States. A victorious Russia would become
much more influential within the EU and pose a potent threat to the
Baltic states with their large ethnic Russian populations. Instead of
supporting Ukraine, NATO would have to defend itself on its own soil.
This would expose both the EU and the US to the danger they have been so
eager to avoid: a direct military confrontation with Russia. The
European Union would become even more divided and ungovernable. Why
should the US and other NATO nations allow this to happen?
The argument that has prevailed in both Europe and the United States is
that Putin is no Hitler; by giving him everything he can reasonably ask
for, he can be prevented from resorting to further use of force. In the
meantime, the sanctions against Russia—which include, for example,
restrictions on business transactions, finance, and trade—will have
their effect and in the long run Russia will have to retreat in order to
earn some relief from them.
These are false hopes derived from a false argument with no factual
evidence to support it. Putin has repeatedly resorted to force and he is
liable to do so again unless he faces strong resistance. Even if it is
possible that the hypothesis could turn out to be valid, it is extremely
irresponsible not to prepare a Plan B.
There are two counterarguments that are less obvious but even more
important. First, Western authorities have ignored the importance of
what I call the “new Ukraine” that was born in the successful resistance
on the Maidan. Many officials with a history of dealing with Ukraine
have difficulty adjusting to the revolutionary change that has taken
place there. The recently signed Association Agreement between the EU
and Ukraine was originally negotiated with the Yanukovych government.
This detailed road map now needs adjustment to a totally different
situation. For instance, the road map calls for the gradual replacement
and retraining of the judiciary over five years whereas the public is
clamoring for immediate and radical renewal. As the new mayor of Kiev,
Vitali Klitschko, put it, “If you put fresh cucumbers into a barrel of
pickles, they will soon turn into pickles.”
Contrary to some widely circulated accounts, the resistance on the
Maidan was led by the cream of civil society: young people, many of whom
had studied abroad and refused to join either government or business on
their return because they found both of them repugnant. (Nationalists
and anti-Semitic extremists made up only a minority of the
anti-Yanukovych protesters.) They are the leaders of the new Ukraine and
they are adamantly opposed to a return of the “old Ukraine,” with its
endemic corruption and ineffective government.
The new Ukraine has to contend with Russian aggression, bureaucratic
resistance both at home and abroad, and confusion in the general
population. Surprisingly, it has the support of many oligarchs,
President Poroshenko foremost among them, and the population at large.
There are of course profound differences in history, language, and
outlook between the eastern and western parts of the country, but
Ukraine is more united and more European-minded than ever before. That
unity, however, is extremely fragile.
The new Ukraine has remained largely unrecognized because it took time
before it could make its influence felt. It had practically no security
forces at its disposal when it was born. The security forces of the old
Ukraine were actively engaged in suppressing the Maidan rebellion and
they were disoriented this summer when they had to take orders from a
government formed by the supporters of the rebellion. No wonder that the
new government was at first unable to put up an effective resistance to
the establishment of the separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine. It is
all the more remarkable that President Poroshenko was able, within a few
months of his election, to mount an attack that threatened to reclaim
those enclaves.
To appreciate the merits of the new Ukraine you need to have had some
personal experience with it. I can speak from personal experience
although I must also confess to a bias in its favor. I established a
foundation in Ukraine in 1990 even before the country became
independent. Its board and staff are composed entirely of Ukrainians and
it has deep roots in civil society. I visited the country often,
especially in the early years, but not between 2004 and early 2014, when
I returned to witness the birth of the new Ukraine.
I was immediately impressed by the tremendous improvement in maturity
and expertise during that time both in my foundation and in civil
society at large. Currently, civic and political engagement is probably
higher than anywhere else in Europe. People have proven their
willingness to sacrifice their lives for their country. These are the
hidden strengths of the new Ukraine that have been overlooked by the West.
The other deficiency of the current European attitude toward Ukraine is
that it fails to recognize that the Russian attack on Ukraine is
indirectly an attack on the European Union and its principles of
governance. It ought to be evident that it is inappropriate for a
country, or association of countries, at war to pursue a policy of
fiscal austerity as the European Union continues to do. All available
resources ought to be put to work in the war effort even if that
involves running up budget deficits. The fragility of the new Ukraine
makes the ambivalence of the West all the more perilous. Not only the
survival of the new Ukraine but the future of NATO and the European
Union itself is at risk. In the absence of unified resistance it is
unrealistic to expect that Putin will stop pushing beyond Ukraine when
the division of Europe and its domination by Russia is in sight.
Having identified some of the shortcomings of the current approach, I
will try to spell out the course that Europe ought to follow. Sanctions
against Russia are necessary but they are a necessary evil. They have a
depressive effect not only on Russia but also on the European economies,
including Germany. This aggravates the recessionary and deflationary
forces that are already at work. By contrast, assisting Ukraine in
defending itself against Russian aggression would have a stimulative
effect not only on Ukraine but also on Europe. That is the principle
that ought to guide European assistance to Ukraine.
Germany, as the main advocate of fiscal austerity, needs to understand
the internal contradiction involved. Chancellor Angela Merkel has
behaved as a true European with regard to the threat posed by Russia.
She has been the foremost advocate of sanctions on Russia, and she has
been more willing to defy German public opinion and business interests
on this than on any other issue. Only after the Malaysian civilian
airliner was shot down in July did German public opinion catch up with
her. Yet on fiscal austerity she has recently reaffirmed her allegiance
to the orthodoxy of the Bundesbank—probably in response to the electoral
inroads made by the Alternative for Germany, the anti-euro party. She
does not seem to realize how inconsistent that is. She ought to be even
more committed to helping Ukraine than to imposing sanctions on Russia.
The new Ukraine has the political will both to defend Europe against
Russian aggression and to engage in radical structural reforms. To
preserve and reinforce that will, Ukraine needs to receive adequate
assistance from its supporters. Without it, the results will be
disappointing and hope will turn into despair. Disenchantment already
started to set in after Ukraine suffered a military defeat and did not
receive the weapons it needs to defend itself.
It is high time for the members of the European Union to wake up and
behave as countries indirectly at war. They are better off helping
Ukraine to defend itself than having to fight for themselves. One way or
another, the internal contradiction between being at war and remaining
committed to fiscal austerity has to be eliminated. Where there is a
will, there is a way.
Let me be specific. In its last progress report, issued in early
September, the IMF estimated that in a worst-case scenario Ukraine would
need additional support of $19 billion. Conditions have deteriorated
further since then. After the Ukrainian elections the IMF will need to
reassess its baseline forecast in consultation with the Ukrainian
government. It should provide an immediate cash injection of at least
$20 billion, with a promise of more when needed. Ukraine’s partners
should provide additional financing conditional on implementation of the
IMF-supported program, at their own risk, in line with standard practice.
The spending of borrowed funds is controlled by the agreement between
the IMF and the Ukrainian government. Four billion dollars would go to
make up the shortfall in Ukrainian payments to date; $2 billion would be
assigned to repairing the coal mines in eastern Ukraine that remain
under the control of the central government; and $2 billion would be
earmarked for the purchase of additional gas for the winter. The rest
would replenish the currency reserves of the central bank.
The new assistance package would include a debt exchange that would
transform Ukraine’s hard currency Eurobond debt (which totals almost $18
billion) into long-term, less risky bonds. This would lighten Ukraine’s
debt burden and bring down its risk premium. By participating in the
exchange, bondholders would agree to accept a lower interest rate and
wait longer to get their money back. The exchange would be voluntary and
market-based so that it could not be mischaracterized as a default.
Bondholders would participate willingly because the new long-term bonds
would be guaranteed—but only partially—by the US or Europe, much as the
US helped Latin America emerge from its debt crisis in the 1980s with
so-called Brady bonds (named for US Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady).
Such an exchange would have a few important benefits. One is that, over
the next two or three critical years, the government could use
considerably less of its scarce hard currency reserves to pay off
bondholders. The money could be used for other urgent needs.
By trimming Ukraine debt payments in the next few years, the exchange
would also reduce the chance of a sovereign default, discouraging
capital flight and arresting the incipient run on the banks. This would
make it easier to persuade owners of Ukraine’s banks (many of them
foreign) to inject urgently needed new capital into them. The banks
desperately need bigger capital cushions if Ukraine is to avoid a
full-blown banking crisis, but shareholders know that a debt crisis
could cause a banking crisis that wipes out their equity.
Finally, Ukraine would keep bondholders engaged rather than watch them
cash out at 100 cents on the dollar as existing debt comes due in the
next few years. This would make it easier for Ukraine to reenter the
international bond markets once the crisis has passed. Under the current
conditions it would be more practical and cost-efficient for the US and
Europe not to use their own credit directly to guarantee part of
Ukraine’s debt, but to employ intermediaries such as the European Bank
for Reconstruction and Development or the World Bank and its subsidiaries.
The Ukrainian state-owned company Naftogaz is a black hole in the budget
and a major source of corruption. Naftogaz currently sells gas to
households for $47 per thousand cubic meters (TCM), for which it pays
$380 per TCM. At present people cannot control the temperature in their
apartments. A radical restructuring of Naftogaz’s entire system could
reduce household consumption at least by half and totally eliminate
Ukraine’s dependence on Russia for gas. That would involve charging
households the market price for gas. The first step would be to install
meters in apartments and the second to distribute a cash subsidy to
needy households.
The will to make these reforms is strong both in the new management and
in the incoming government but the task is extremely complicated (how do
you define who is needy?) and the expertise is inadequate. The World
Bank and its subsidiaries could sponsor a project development team that
would bring together international and domestic experts to convert the
existing political will into bankable projects. The initial cost would
exceed $10 billion but it could be financed by project bonds issued by
the European Investment Bank and it would produce very high returns.
It is also high time for the European Union to take a critical look at
itself. There must be something wrong with the EU if Putin’s Russia can
be so successful even in the short term. The bureaucracy of the EU no
longer has a monopoly of power and it has little to be proud of. It
should learn to be more united, flexible, and efficient. And Europeans
themselves need to take a close look at the new Ukraine. That could help
them recapture the original spirit that led to the creation of the
European Union. The European Union would save itself by saving Ukraine.
—October 23, 2014
1. * I am deeply disturbed by a report in The New York Times
quoting Human Rights Watch that subsequently—on October 2 and
5—Ukrainians also used cluster bombs, which I condemn. NATO should
clarify both alleged Ukrainian and Russian use of such munitions.
(3) Putin restores 23,000 Orthodox churches
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/how-vladimir-putin-helped-resurrect-the-russian-orthodox-church/article16361650/
How Vladimir Putin helped resurrect the Russian Orthodox Church ...
Mark MacKinnon
YEKATERINBURG, RUSSIA — The Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Jan. 15 2014, 9:53 PM EST
Last updated Thursday, Jan. 16 2014, 8:33 AM EST
Tamara Leontieva’s voice fills with pain as she talks about the darkest
day faced by her Russian Orthodox Church. “This is the place where the
Tsar and his whole family were killed,” the guide whispers dramatically
as we approach the dimly lit altar of the Church on the Blood, built
where Nicholas II, the last of the Romanov tsars, and his family were
murdered in 1918.
Worshipers at kiss the cross held by Priest Alexei Kulberg during
service at The Bolshoi Zlatoust Church (translates as the "Big (or
Great) Chrysostom" Church) in Yekaterinburg, Russia January 15, 2014.
Worshipers at kiss the cross held by Priest Alexei Kulberg during
service at The Bolshoi Zlatoust Church (translates as the "Big (or
Great) Chrysostom" Church) in Yekaterinburg, Russia January 15, 2014.
The Globe and Mail
Until his death at the hands of Bolsheviks, Nicholas II was viewed by
the Russian Orthodox faithful as the divinely appointed head of an
empire that stretched from Poland to the Pacific Ocean. On the day he
died, a sacred icon that had gone missing centuries earlier is said to
have reappeared in Moscow, a signal to believers that God’s chosen ruler
was gone.
Ms. Leontieva calls what followed “the turmoils.” But the Russian
Orthodox Church outlasted the official atheism of the Soviet Union and
now, after almost a century in the wilderness, has regained most of the
power and prestige it enjoyed under the Romanovs.
Many in the church credit that to a man they believe may also be
inspired from above: President Vladimir Putin. “Even his family name
comes from the church,” Ms. Leontieva says with admiration. (The first
syllable – pronounced “poot” – means “the path” or “the way” in Russian.)
Over 15 years as either president or prime minister of the Russian
Federation, Mr. Putin has left his mark – and a trail of megaprojects –
around this vast country. The Winter Olympics that begin in less than
three weeks are the latest monument to the Putin era, with the host city
of Sochi overhauled for the occasion at a startling cost of more than
$50-billion.
Long before he turned his attention to such international celebrations,
Mr. Putin oversaw the resurrection of the Russian Orthodox Church,
including the reconstruction of some 23,000 Churches that had been
destroyed or fallen into disuse. The Church on the Blood is not included
in that count, since it’s a completely new house of worship, completed
in 2003.
To the delight of the church leadership, Mr. Putin’s policies have also
taken a sharply conservative turn since his return to the Kremlin last
year for a third term as President. Once viewed as a liberal, Mr. Putin
has in the past 12 months embraced the church’s positions on such
sensitive issues as abortion and gay rights.
“There are no conflicts between the church and the state,” smiles Father
Alexey Kulberg, an outspoken priest in Yekaterinburg, this city of 1.4
million near the Ural Mountains that separate Russia into its European
and Asian halves. “The President’s ideology for developing Russia
coincides with the direction of the Russian Orthodox Church.”
In other words, while the church doesn’t quite recognize Mr. Putin as
chosen by God, it’s quite happy with the job he’s doing.
On the surface, it seems an odd match. Mr. Putin, after all, was a
long-time member of the KGB, the organization that spearheaded the
Soviet Union’s repression of “counter-revolutionary” entities such as
the church.
But Mr. Putin is that rare KGB agent who was baptized, in secret, as a
child. Meanwhile, the head of the church, Patriarch Kirill, has been
publicly accused of working for the KGB during the Soviet era.
Both the Kremlin and the church have benefited from resuming their
centuries-old alliance. Early in Mr. Putin’s rule, a law was passed
returning all church property that had been seized during the Soviet
era, almost surely making the Moscow Patriarchate the largest landowner
in Russia. State-owned energy companies have contributed billions of
rubles to the reconstruction of Churches around the country.
Mr. Putin has made a proud show of his own faith, and the church has
rewarded him with robust support in times of need. As street protests
swelled in 2012 against Mr. Putin’s return to the presidency, Patriarch
Kirill declared on television that “liberalism will lead to legal
collapse and then the apocalypse.” Mr. Putin’s rule was a “miracle,” the
patriarch said on another occasion.
In a country where 90 per cent of the population self-identifies as
Russian Orthodox (though 30 per cent also say they’re atheists, giving
rise to the term “Orthodox atheist”), that intervention unquestionably
helped quiet calls for change in the Kremlin.
Those same street protests – and the belief among Mr. Putin’s inner
circle that the demonstrators were aided and abetted by Western
governments – further cemented the Kremlin-church alliance. Mr. Putin
increasingly speaks of Russia as a civilization distinct from the West.
It’s a view shared by the church, which blames “Western influence” for
the spread of liberal ideas, like gay rights, in Russia.
The church has loudly supported the “anti-homosexual propaganda” law
that Mr. Putin signed last year (which prohibits the publication of any
material portraying lesbians, gays, bisexual or transgendered people as
normal), as well as a Kremlin move to ban the advertising of abortion
services.
“The church and the state are moving toward separating Russia from the
West,” said Anna Gizulinna, a 52-year-old transgendered university
lecturer who says she has faced increasing persecution at work since the
passing of the anti-propaganda law. “They see the West as a danger and
say they’re fighting to save Russian souls.”
She, like many LGBT Russians, fears Mr. Putin’s assault on gay rights
has only paused for the Sochi Olympics. There’s an expectation that the
social conservative march will resume once the athletes, and the
international media, are gone.
Father Alexey hopes that’s true. Sitting in his office under a portrait
of the murdered Romanovs (the Russian Orthodox Church now considers
Nicholas II a martyred saint), he says he’d like to see the country
return to the “theocratic values” of tsarist times. He believes Mr.
Putin might be the man to guide Russia there.
“I don’t want to idealize the President, but I can understand Putin’s
words and Putin’s decisions,” Father Alexey said, fingering the large
gold cross hanging from his neck. “As a citizen, I trust him.”
(4) Two billion rubles to restore holy sites, monasteries & churches
destroyed by Communism
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Orthodox-Christmas-strengthens-alliance-between-Putin-and-Patriarch-Kirill-17280.html
01/07/2010
Orthodox Christmas strengthens alliance between Putin and Patriarch Kirill
Church and state work closer together for a strong and united Russia.
The government announces two billion rubles to restore holy places
destroyed by Communism. The old Novodevichy Convent is set to be
returned to the Church. Kirill blesses the actions by Putin and the
government in tackling the economic crisis.
Moscow (AsiaNews) – More than 150 million Russian Orthodox Christians
and 30,000 Russian Orthodox Churches celebrated Christmas today around
the world. In Moscow for the first time since he took over from the late
Aleksij II, Patriarch Kirill celebrated Midnight Mass in the traditional
Vigil liturgy in Saint Christ the Saviour Cathedral in the presence of
4,000 people, including Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas following the old
Julian calendar, which is 13 days "behind" the Gregorian calendar
adopted by the Catholic, Protestant and some Orthodox Churches as well
as the secular world.
In Russia, 7 January also marks the end of the period of abstinence from
eating meat and sweets and drinking alcoholic beverages that began on 28
November. It is also a national holiday, and a time when security forces
are on maximum alert as a result of recent terrorist attacks around the
world. Some 8,500 police agents have been deployed in the capital until
tonight to ensure order and security.
Christmas is also a time when secular and religious worlds come
together. For the past five years, this has meant growing ties between
political and Church leaders. Both have used the occasion to tell the
nation about their ever closer relationship for a stronger and more
united Russia.
This year, in addition to the traditional exchange of wishes and thanks
with the Patriarchate of Moscow, the Russian government gave the Church
a special Christmas gift. In his meeting with the patriarch at the
Danilov Monastery, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced that
the government would provide RUB 2 billion (US$ 63 million) to restore
holy sites, monasteries and churches destroyed during last century's
atheist drive by the state against religion. He also said that the
Novodevichy Convent, one of most beautiful and important in the country,
would be returned to the Patriarchate before the end of the year.
Putin praised the Church for "educating citizens in a spirit of
patriotism and love of country, passing on love for spiritual values and
history." For his part, Kirill said that he hoped that the Lord would
help Putin "in performing the high task God gave him." The patriarch
also praised the prime minister for the way he managed the economic
crisis, which has had a greater impact in Russia than elsewhere in the
world.
In his message to the Orthodox community on Christmas Eve, Kirill
stressed the "unity of Holy Russia". Going over the various trips he
took in his first year as patriarch, he explained that it is through
"the strength of faith in a multiethnic society" that transcend "ethnic
and social differences" that Russia will be able to maintain "its
spiritual unity" in today's world.
Funding to restore Christian sites and the return of properties seized
from the Church in Soviet times are but the latest gift of the Kremlin
to the Patriarchate. This year, Russia's Justice Ministry is set to
present plans to amend the federal law on "Freedom of Conscience and
Religious Organisations", which, if approved, would severely restrict
the activities of certain religious communities, like Evangelical
Christians.
In addition, the authorities plan to add religious education in public
schools as well as chaplains paid by the state to the armed forces. It
also appears possible that the Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow will be
granted the right to vet parliamentary bills before they go to the Duma.
This would indicate that now laws might have to be blessed before they
are approved.
(5) Putin: Orthodox Church is giving Russians a moral compass
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/07/25/putin-hosts-world-orthodox-leaders-at-unique-gathering/
Putin hosts world's Orthodox leaders at unique gathering
AFP
By Anna Smolchenko
Published July 25, 2013
MOSCOW (AFP) – President Vladimir Putin praised close ties between the
Kremlin and the powerful Orthodox Church as he hosted top Orthodox
clergy from across the world Thursday to mark the 1025th anniversary of
the arrival of Christianity in Russia.
Convening the heads and senior members of 15 Orthodox Churches for an
unprecedented meeting at the Kremlin, Putin praised the moral authority
of the Church as he seeks to strengthen his power following huge
protests against his 13-year rule.
"It is important that relations between the state and the church are
developing at a new level," Putin said in televised remarks, with
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill by his side.
"We act as genuine partners and colleagues to solve the most pressing
domestic and international tasks, to implement joint initiatives for the
benefit of our country and people," he told the black-robed clerics.
Alongside Kirill, those present included Patriarch Theodore II of
Alexandria, Theophilos III of Jerusalem and Ilia II of Georgia, the
Kremlin said.
Also present were the heads of the Bulgarian, Serbian, Polish and
Cypriot Orthodox Churches. Together they represented more than 227
million faithful.
Conspicuously, however, the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomew I did not go to the meeting and was represented by a
lower-ranking cleric.
The Russian Orthodox Church was suppressed under Communism but has
staged an astonishing recovery in post-Soviet Russia to become one of
the country's most powerful institutions.
Putin, an ex-KGB agent who has said his mother had him secretly
christened in the Soviet Union, has enjoyed unstinting support from the
Church throughout his years in power, including during the unprecedented
protests that broke out in Moscow and other big cities in the winter of
2011.
Since returning to the presidency for a third term last year, Putin has
been promoting an unflinchingly conservative agenda in a move aimed at
cementing his support among blue-collar workers and elderly Russians,
his core backers.
This summer Russia's parliament passed a law imposing jail terms of up
to three years on those who offend religious believers.
The controversial bill was proposed after several members of rock band
Pussy Riot belted out a "punk prayer" against Putin and his close ties
with the Church last year.
Two Pussy Riot members, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, are
now serving two years in a penal colony after being convicted last
August on charges of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.
The Russian parliament also adopted a law imposing jail terms for people
promoting homosexual "propaganda" to minors, while another recently
adopted law bans gay and lesbian couples in foreign countries from
adopting Russian children.
Putin said Thursday that the Church was giving Russians a moral compass
when so many were looking for help.
"Today when people are once again searching for moral support, millions
of our compatriots see it in religion," Putin said. "They trust the
wise, pastoral word of the Russian Orthodox Church."
Historian Alexei Beglov said Putin was the first Russian leader to have
convened so many heads of Orthodox Churches, calling the meeting a
"political gesture."
But he said it was not appropriate to speak of the coalescence of church
and state in Russia, noting Putin was simply using the Church to advance
his political goals.
"Putin is trying to exploit the Orthodox religion to strengthen the
authoritarian system," added Vladimir Oivin of credo.ru, an online
portal writing about religion.
"The regime is wobbling, and they are looking at how to strengthen it."
Accompanied by Patriarch Kirill, Putin is set to travel to neighbouring
Ukraine at the weekend to meet his counterpart Viktor Yanukovych and
attend ceremonies marking the anniversary of Christianity.
(6) Russians embrace Orthodoxy for a Spiritual remedy after decades of
Communism
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2014/04/02/understanding-a-more-religious-and-assertive-russia/
Understanding a More Religious and Assertive Russia
April 2, 2014
By Mark Tooley
In his widely analyzed March 18 speech to the Russian Parliament, Putin
cited the baptism of Vladimir the Great over 1000 years ago in Crimea as
the seminal event binding Ukraine and Russia. That baptism is considered
the birth of Russian Orthodoxy. Orthodox faith has been key to Moscow’s
historic self conceived role as defender of all Russians, of Slavs, and
of Orthodox, wherever they are.
Putin has formed a close association with Russian Orthodoxy, as Russian
rulers typically have across centuries. He is smart to do so, as Russia
has experienced somewhat of a spiritual revival. Although regular church
goers remain a small minority, strong majorities of Russians now
identify as Orthodox. Orthodoxy is widely and understandably seen as the
spiritual remedy to the cavernous spiritual vacuum left by over 70
disastrous, often murderous years of Bolshevism.
Resurgent religious traditionalism has fueled Russia’s new law against
sexual orientation proselytism to minors and its new anti-abortion law.
Both laws also respond to Russia’s demographic struggle with plunging
birth rates and monstrously high abortion rates that date to Soviet
rule. Some American religious conservatives have looked to Russian
religious leaders as allies in international cooperation on pro-family
causes.
It remains to be seen whether geopolitical tensions over Putin’s moves
in Russia temper this alliance. A few liberal commentators have
predictably denounced it as toxic. A few conservative commentators have
cautioned against saber rattling against Russia, whose religious revival
they hope might counter Western secularism. A realistic perspective
should welcome Christian vitality in Russia while recognizing it won’t
necessarily mitigate and may in fact reinforce Russia as a strategic
competitor with the West. East-West rivalry predates Soviet Communism by
a millennium.
Historically Moscow politically and religiously has understood itself as
the “third Rome” and the natural successor to Constantinople as
protector of Orthodox civilization. The formal schism between Eastern
and Western churches a thousand years ago created an unhealed
civilizational divide. Western powers have periodically sought Russian
alliance against common foes. But just as often Western powers have
warred with or at least sought to contain Russia.
The “great game” of which Rudyard Kipling wrote described Britain’s
ongoing designs to keep Czarist Russia away from South Asia and warm
water ports. [...]
(7) Pussy Riot, and art exhibitions at Sakharov Museum, fall foul of
Hate law
http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2014/01/religion-rules-in-russia/
Religion rules in Russia
Why does freedom of religion and belief continue to cause conflict in
post-Soviet Russia?
By Alexander Verkhovsky / 22 January, 2014
{photo}
Pussy Riot supporters prevented from praying for Putin’s resignation
outside the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow (Image: Anton
Belitskiy / Demotix)
{end photo}
Two issues preoccupying post-Soviet society are a wish to oppose outside
influences (mainly from the West), and to resist aggressive behaviour in
matters of religion. It is not difficult to point out inconsistencies
and contradictions in these approaches, but more germane is the fact
that both have survived, if in modified form, to the present day. When
the possibility of further restrictions on freedom of conscience are
being discussed, a key topic is invariably the need to protect society
from the “expansionism” of new religious movements and radical Islam.
The arrests of members of the Pussy Riot punk band after their
performance outside Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour proved a
powerful catalyst for both these concerns. The protest was seen as a
frontal attack on “tradition” by “pro-Western forces” (the actual point
Pussy Riot wanted to make was neither here nor there), and as an attack
on the religious sensibilities of the “Orthodox majority”. The reaction
was accordingly heavy-handed, including not only imprisonment of two
members of the group, but also the passing of a law criminalising the
“offending of believers’ religious sensibilities”, often referred to as
the “blasphemy” law. [...]
Among the first major “anti-extremist” trials associated with religion
were those targeting contemporary art exhibitions at the Andrey Sakharov
Museum, which presaged the Pussy Riot case. Also, in 2011, a journalist
was convicted for making rude remarks about believers in general, and
the clergy in particular, even though his was not by any means a high
profile protest and could not be represented as involving incitement to
hatred against any group. Lastly, over several years there has been a
serious campaign of criminal prosecution against people who read or
distribute the works of a Sufi teacher, the late Said Nursi, even though
neither he nor his Russian followers have links to terrorism, or engage
in conduct which might constitute a threat to society.
In the case of the Sakharov museum exhibitions, the general public could
at least understand more clearly what was going on. Some might consider
the exhibition a profound artistic meditation on relations between the
church and society; others might see the exhibits as an amusing send-up
of the church and/or orthodoxy; some might consider it a send-up in bad
taste or even an attack on the church, but within acceptable limits of
freedom of expression; others, however, were determined to prove that
the exhibition was a criminal incitement to hatred of orthodoxy and
Orthodox Christians. [...]
Translated by Arch Tait
(8) Russian parliament passes new blasphemy law as protesters call for
secular state
http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2013/06/russian-parliament-passes-new-blasphemy-law-as-protesters-call-for-secular-state
Posted: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:20
Russia's parliament has overwhelmingly approved a new blasphemy law
allowing jail sentences of up to three years for "offending religious
feelings", an initiative launched in the wake of the trial against the
anti-Kremlin punk band Pussy Riot.
Under the proposed new law, Russian citizens would face a year in jail
for "intentional" and "public" displays that cause "offense to religious
sensibilities," and up to three years in jail for desecrating religious
sites and paraphernalia".
Mikhail Markelov, a member of the ruling United Russia party, said: "We
are not talking about the subjective term 'religious offense', which is
admittedly difficult to qualify. The law only punishes public acts that
obviously go out of their way to insult a religion." She said the new
law has been "chiseled to perfection, and reflects the desires of the
majority of our society."
The Russian parliament, the Duma, will hear a third and final reading in
the next week. If approved, it will then go to President Putin for final
approval.
The Duma this week also unanimously passed a federal law banning gay
"propaganda" – imposing heavy fines for providing information about
homosexuality to people under 18. Together, the two laws are intended to
boost the power of the Russian Orthodox Church, which professes total
allegiance to the state.
In a recent public address President Vladimir Putin praised the special
role that the church plays in the society. "The church incessantly cares
about strengthening high moral and ethical ideals and family traditions
in society, and the younger generation's upbringing. The church does a
lot to solve pressing social problems," said Putin.
International rights groups have called the current situation in Russia
the worst human rights climate in the post-Soviet era.
Meanwhile, in the city of Tomsk, protesters have gathered for a rally
for a secular state and freedom of conscience.
This rally's co-organiser Andrei Verkhov called for top-ranking
officials to adhere to the constitution so that religion is not imposed.
"It [the constitution] says that no religion shall enjoy preferences but
we can see that the authorities breach the constitution by granting
preferences to worshippers," Verkhov said.
Protesters carried signs calling for the abolition of religious subjects
in schools.
(9) Topless activist fined for exhibitionism in attack on Putin wax figure
http://af.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idAFKCN0I416O20141015
Wed Oct 15, 2014 2:24pm GMT
PARIS (Reuters) - A Ukrainian activist belonging to topless feminist
group Femen was convicted for exhibitionism by a Paris court on
Wednesday for having attacked a statue of Russian President Vladimir
Putin at a wax museum in the capital.
Iana Zhdanova, with "Kill Putin" written on her nude breasts, attacked
the likeness of Putin at the Musee Grevin in the capital with a wooden
stake in June.
The activist, who has lived in France for two years as a political
refugee, laughed in court after the judge ordered her to pay fine of
1,500 euros ($1,897) (1,187 pound) for vandalism and a crime called
"sexual exhibition" in French, as well as other damages payable to Musee
Grevin.
"I'm laughing because it's very strange," said Zhdanova, 26, outside the
courtroom. "I'm very surprised by this decision."
Zhdanova's lawyer, Marie Dose, said it was the first time a French court
had sentenced a Femen member for sexual exhibition, calling it a
precedent that would thwart the group's ability to protest. Dose said
she would appeal.
Femen specialises in shock bare-breast appearances to dramatise women's
rights causes, mainly in the male-dominated hierarchies of Russia and
its former Soviet allies, with Putin a particular target.
"In a society like ours where the display of (sexual) commercial
messages is everywhere, it makes no sense," Dose said.
The wax statue of Putin fell over during the attack, a part of the head
shattering. It has since been repaired.
Most recently, a court acquitted nine members of Femen who staged a
topless protest inside Notre Dame Cathedral last year.
(Reporting By Chine Labbe, Writing by Alexandria Sage; Editing by Andrew
Callus)
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