StumbleUpon | sharkat's blog posts

http://sharkat.stumbleupon.com/review/37189009/

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:41:38 -0700

IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman told the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Monday that the agency has set up a unit specifically to deal with rich Americans who are hiding assets.

"We will take a unified look at the entire web of business entities controlled by a high-wealth individual," Shulman said. "At least initially, we will be looking at individuals with tens of millions of dollars of assets or income."

"The high-wealth unit will focus on trusts, real estate investments, privately held companies and other business entities controlled by rich individuals. While use of sophisticated legal structures are at times legal, there are other instances where they 'mask aggressive tax strategies,' he said."

The Wall Street Journal says "wealth advisers" are upset.
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Yeah... well they would be upset, wouldn't they?

The wealth advisers have been feasting off of these tax avoidance scams for a long time and they want that gravy train to keep rolling.

In the 1940s and 1950s about 2/3 of all taxes were paid by the wealthy and corporations but now they only pay about 1/3 of taxes. Guess who got to make up that difference? Right... middle class wage earners who cannot take advantage of these ploys, designed especially for the very wealthy.

http://sharkat.stumbleupon.com/review/37185849/

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:37:07 -0700

THE two huge bombs that killed at least 155 people and injured more than 700 in Baghdad on Sunday have done more than kill and destroy. Apart from adding to the generalised misery that is Iraq, they have struck a blow at the unsteady arrangement of fiefdoms that the country has become.

The bombs have had several effects. The primary one is to undermine the government of the Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who faces parliamentary elections in January. Those elections are now in doubt because Iraq's power blocs cannot agree on an electoral law establishing how Iraqis are to vote. Before Sunday Maliki's chief claim was to have improved security to a point where its daily irritations - checkpoints, blast walls and barbed wire which choke traffic in the city - could be dismantled somewhat. Not any more. As the security apparatus returns, Maliki has little to point to in the way of achievements. The economy is still sluggish and unemployment is not improving. Security is fundamental to both. If he cannot guarantee that, he can make no improvements to Iraqis' lot.
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The bombings were the deadliest since April 2007, according to casualty figures released by Iraqi authorities, and they drew particular outrage because they struck at cabinet ministries and city government offices that are supposed to be especially secure.

One of the explosions also ruptured a water line, causing a flood that turned red as it mixed with blood. Corpses bobbed underwater and dangled from rooftops. An Iraqi soldier fainted at the scene upon hearing that eight of his comrades had died.

"This is unbearable; this is criminal," said Mahmoud al Fahmawi, an ambulance driver who collected jaws, a heart and other body parts from the scene.
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COMMENT: Iraq may have dropped off the radar of the US mainstream media, but the conflict there is far from over. Indeed, the real battle for the control of that oil-rich country may have barely started.

http://sharkat.stumbleupon.com/review/37185483/

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:21:20 -0700

While Goldman Sachs reports historic profits, more than 930,000 foreclosure applications have been processed in the past three months.

The gap between rich and poor is visibly growing much wider.

Author Les Leopold says financiers began looting the country in the 70's, as productivity rose, and salaries didn't.

"In 2007, those people who reported incomes of ten million dollars and over...had as much income as the bottom 35 million people," Leopold explained.

"And those reporting a million or more in income had as much income as half the population," he added.

"It's getting worse now because the 29 million unemployed and underemployed are using up their resources and the prospects of finding jobs now is very difficult," he concluded.

Leopold says America has turned into a billionaire bailout nation, as the poorest sink deeper into debt.

So, when Wall Street delivers a good forecast, the sunshine may all depend on where you stand.

http://sharkat.stumbleupon.com/review/37185214/

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:09:47 -0700

US economist and author Max Wolf says the American economy is a ticking time bomb, and there is no telling when it will go off.
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As a result of the cumulative mistakes in the government policies, another serious letdown in the US and global economy will definitely happen soon, Max Wolf says:

"The question is when. We've done a lot of things that are dangerous, so we could have it quite soon."

"We have done absolutely nothing to basically change the root causes of those problems in the economy, which means we're living on borrowed time," he added.
Root causes

So what are the roots of the problem? The economist names the wage of an average American, which has stayed flat for too long:

"For 35 years the average American's wages has gone nowhere. They've been flat... And the problem we have now is that they cannot borrow that much again. And if Americans do not borrow, and their wages don't go up... this becomes a problem, because 70% of the US GDP is private consumption."

Moreover, 15% of the economic activity in the world, Wolf says, is American private consumption:

"If that turns down, which it has, and if it stays down, which it likely will, this means we basically push down economic activity for all 6.2 billion people on Earth."
"Exaggerate and simplify"

Despite all the obvious problems of the credit crunch and alarming prognoses, American politicians have announced a recovery. Max Wolf is sure they will continue doing this unless it becomes "unbelievably obvious" that there is not any.

On top of that, he says there is hardly any difference between the policy of the Obama administration and that of his predecessor, George W. Bush:

"You have to try really hard to see the difference... and in many areas - a shocking lack of difference."

"What we've been celebrating for the last four months is that life is getting worse for the average American more slowly than it was getting for the average American last year. The bottom 80% of people in this country are continuing to struggle," he added.

The coverage of the crisis in the United States represents another problem. The country's media seem to be trying to distract common Americans from reality by following the two-part rule, the economist says: "exaggerate and simplify."
Dollar diplomacy

With all that, should we still trust the US dollar as a reserve currency?

"The long-term trajectory of the US government is bad for the US macro-economy and is bad for the dollar," Wolf says.

Apart from the path the US economy has taken, the problem is also in the nature of modern fiat currencies, or paper currencies, like the US dollar. They are backed by nothing but the will of the world to hold them, and have no intrinsic value.

http://sharkat.stumbleupon.com/review/37165036/

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:38:36 -0700

Six recent developments indicating USA in decline

1. The G-7 (G-8 if you include Russia) agreed to turn over responsibility for oversight of the world economy to a larger, more inclusive Group of 20 (G-20), adding in China, India, Brazil, Turkey...there is no doubt that the move itself signaled a shift in the locus of world economic power from the West to the global East and South -- and with this shift, a seismic decline in America's economic preeminence has been registered.

2. America's economic rivals are conducting secret (and not-so-secret) meetings to explore a diminished role for the U.S. dollar -- fast losing its value -- in international trade.

3. Washington has been rebuffed by both Russia and China in its drive to line up support for increased international pressure on Iran to cease its nuclear enrichment program. Moscow's quick dismissal of U.S. pleas for cooperation on the Iranian enrichment matter can only be interpreted as a further sign of waning American influence.

4. Exactly the same inference can be drawn from a high-level meeting in Beijing on October 15th between Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and Iran's first vice president, Mohammed Reza Rahimi.

5. Efforts to secure international support for the allied war effort in Afghanistan have also met with a strikingly disappointing response.

6. Rio de Janeiro picked to be the host of the 2016 summer Olympics, the first time a South American nation was selected for the honor.

http://sharkat.stumbleupon.com/review/37115004/

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:22:57 -0700

John McCain -- `Tech Troglodyte' And Top Recipient Of Telecom Cash -- Unveils Bill To Block Net Neutrality

John McCain On Thursday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) became the Republican Party's lead man on technology issues (and probably made Glenn Beck a happy man) by introducing the "Internet Freedom Act." The legislation would prohibit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from making sure that Internet service providers don't create a pay-for-play system where they could selectively block or slow content and applications. McCain called these net neutrality rules a "government takeover of the Internet."

John McCain On Thursday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) became the Republican Party's lead man on technology issues (and probably made Glenn Beck a happy man) by introducing the "Internet Freedom Act." The legislation would prohibit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from making sure that Internet service providers don't create a pay-for-play system where they could selectively block or slow content and applications. McCain called these net neutrality rules a "government takeover of the Internet."

Ironically, McCain cites Google and Yahoo as examples of why net neutrality rules need to be blocked. In fact, both companies have said that without such measures, the "longstanding openness of the Internet" will be threatened.

However, telecoms largely support blocking net neutrality rules, and McCain is a long-time friend of these businesses. McCain was the top recipient of campaign contributions from the telecom industry, taking in $894,379 in the past two years.

Even as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee from 1997 to 2001 and again from 2003 to 2005, McCain made sure to craft technology rules that benefited his campaign donors. He opposed a program designed to provide discounts to schools and libraries to connect to the Internet and supported large telecom mergers.

Of course, the GOP point man on technology issues is someone who, just last year, called himself a computer "illiterate who has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance that I can get." In July 2008, he said he has "never felt the particular need to e-mail." As former FCC chairman Reed Hundt has explained, "Basically, John is a technological troglodyte, and proud of it" -- and we're now supposed to trust him to shape the way we use the Internet.
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See video explanation of this matter at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/33456265#33456265

http://sharkat.stumbleupon.com/review/37092349/

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:05:00 -0700

Nonprofit in name only, "AARP is the equivalent of a Fortune 500 company, employing a staff of 2,419 employees, $1.16 billion in operating expenses and overseeing annual revenues (well above) $1 billion," around 60% of which comes from so-called Medigap supplemental insurance sales.

According to Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), "Some of these products are total rip offs," so bad, in fact, that AARP was forced to withdraw its Essential Health Insurance Plan and Essential Plus Health Insurance Plan, developed by United Health Group and sold to 44,000 of its members.

PNHP calls AARP "part of the problem and not part of the solution. It is nothing but an insurance (and financial) broker disguised as an advocacy group - and they will never take on the health insurance industry. (It) represent(s) the insurance industry rather than the public welfare in discussions about health reform."

As a result, it's largely profit-driven offering 17 types of insurance reaping hundreds of millions annually in royalties and millions more from selling drugs; other products and services including mutual funds; plus federal subsidies exceeding $80 million annually.....and a 2008 $28 million lobbying budget, much like major corporations and for the same purpose - profits at the expense of member interests...

http://sharkat.stumbleupon.com/review/37089267/

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:45:15 -0700

A federal judge has rejected a series of arguments by lawyers for the private military contractor Blackwater who were seeking to dismiss five war crimes cases brought by Iraqi victims against the company and its owner, Erik Prince. We speak to award-winning investigative journalist and Democracy Now! correspondent, Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

A federal judge has rejected a series of arguments by lawyers for the private military contractor Blackwater who were seeking to dismiss five war crimes-cases brought by Iraqi victims against the company and its owner, Erik Prince. At the same time, the judge ruled that lawyers for the Iraqi plaintiffs need to amend and re-file their cases to provide more specific details on the alleged crimes before a decision could be made on whether the lawsuits will proceed.

http://sharkat.stumbleupon.com/review/37089168/

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:40:54 -0700

A federal judge's ruling Wednesday won't shutter a war crimes suit against the security contracting firm formerly known as Blackwater, despite the fact that lawyers must refile their claims against the company.

64 Iraqis -- including the estates of 19 who died -- have sued the company, now called Xe, for indiscriminate beatings and killings.

Judge TS Ellis III dismissed several of the suits on Wednesday, citing a new ruling by the Supreme Court which raises the bar for allegations of war crimes.

"Ellis's ruling was not necessarily a response to faulty pleadings by the Iraqis' lawyers, but rather appears to be the result of a Supreme Court decision that came down after the Blackwater cases were originally filed," The Nation's Jeremy Scahill, who has covered the case closely, wrote Thursday. "In a 5-4 ruling in May 2009 in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the court reversed decades of case law and imposed much more stringent standards for plaintiffs' to document facts before going to trial, According to Ellis's ruling, which cites Iqbal, the Iraqis must now file complaints that meet these new standards."

"We were very pleased with the ruling," says Susan Burke, the Iraqis' lead attorney, was quoted as saying. A Blackwater spokesman said, ""We are confident that [the plaintiffs] will not be able to meet the high standard specified in Judge Ellis' opinion."
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Blackwater's image has been so tarnished that the company was forced to change their name. In August, two former Blackwater employees accused the company of pimping out Iraqi children.

The declarations described Blackwater as "having young girls provide oral sex to Enterprise members in the `Blackwater Man Camp' in exchange for one American dollar." They added even though Prince frequently visited this camp, he "failed to stop the ongoing use of prostitutes, including child prostitutes, by his men."

One of the statements also charged that "Prince's North Carolina operations had an ongoing wife-swapping and sex ring, which was participated in by many of Mr. Prince's top executives."

According to the two former employees, Blackwater supervisors in Iraq sometimes sent men back to the United States for wanting to "kill ragheads," excessive drinking, steroid use, or failure to follow weapon safety procedures, but "Mr. Prince and his executives would send them back" with a reprimand to the supervisor for costing the firm money. Blackwater even fired "those mental health professionals who were not willing to endorse deployments of unfit men."

The former employees stated that Prince was engaged in illegal arms dealing, money laundering, and tax evasion, that he created "a web of companies in order to obscure wrong-doing, fraud, and other crimes," and that Blackwater's chief financial officer had "resigned ... stating he was not willing to go to jail for Erik Prince."
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Yet AP has this headline on the story:

Judge tosses lawsuits against Blackwater

A federal judge has tossed out a series of lawsuits filed by alleged Iraqi victims of the contractor once known as Blackwater, but is allowing the plaintiffs to refile their claims.
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COMMENT: Knowing that most people only read the headlines, the mainstream press can create the impression that this case is over...even though it is not.

http://sharkat.stumbleupon.com/review/37086388/

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:41:13 -0700

The Bush White House (used) to manipulate, control, punish and bully the very few media outlets which were ever hostile to it -- each of those Bush measures, standing alone, is infinitely more invasive and threatening than the mild and perfectly appropriate criticisms of Fox coming from the Obama White House. Indeed, the Bush White House did exactly the same thing with NBC as the Obama White House is doing with Fox, and virtually all of the media stars who today are so righteously lamenting the "attacks on Fox" said nothing. Worse, the very same Bush official who this week said it was "like what dictators do" for the Obama White House to criticize Fox -- Dana Perino -- herself stood at the White House podium a mere two years ago and did exactly that to NBC News.

But the Bush administration did far worse to media outlets than merely criticize them. They explicitly threatened to prosecute New York Times journalists -- to criminally prosecute them -- for reporting on Bush's illegal spying program aimed at American citizens. They imprisoned numerous foreign journalists covering their various wars. The administration's obsessive and unprecedented secrecy -- Dick Cheney refused to disclose even the most basic information about his whereabouts, his meetings, or even the number of staff members he had -- was the ultimate form of media control. And what was the Pentagon's embedding process other than an attempt to control media coverage and ensure favorable reporting? One will search in vain for much media protests about any of that.

But it was the Bush Pentagon's "military analyst"/domestic propaganda program that was, far and away, the most egregious case in a long, long time of a White House attempting to control media content and political coverage in the United States. And with very rare exception, not a single television network or cable news program ever even mentioned any of that -- despite David Barstow's having won the Pulitzer Prize for uncovering it -- because all their networks were implicated by it. To see how extreme a form of "media control" that was, just look at what the Bush Pentagon itself said it was doing.

As part of that propaganda program, the Bush DOD -- as they put it -- "develop[ed] a core group from within our media analyst list of those that we can count on to carry our water." They then fed those water-carriers with exclusive, secret tips about what the Government was doing, to ensure that TV programs would be forced to rely only on pro-Bush sources -- armed with "exclusives" -- while ignoring their critics.

The Bush Pentagon had a program "to weed out the less reliably friendly analysts" from appearing on television networks. That would ensure not only that on-air pundits were "carrying water" for the Bush White House, but also that the networks' story choices and coverage of military matters would be shaped by those same water-carriers, since the networks' military analysts "have a huge amount of influence on what stories the network decides to cover proactively with regard to the military. . . . " It's hardly possible to imagine a more blatant effort to "control the media" than that. There is nothing the Obama White House has done regarding the media that even comes close.

Whatever else is true, Fox has taken on a political role that is very rare, at least in modern times, for a large American news organization. Its news coverage is not merely biased or opinionated; there'd be nothing unusual about that. Instead, it is a major participant -- the leading participant -- in organizing, promoting and fueling protests, including street protests, against the government. Fox has undertaken a role typically played by media outlets in, say, Venezuela or various unstable, under-developed countries -- sponsoring rather than reporting on protests against the government