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Thursday, July 3, 2008 |
M&C: "Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner Tuesday opened the 35th summit of heads of state of the South American trade bloc Mercosur with a salvo aimed at financial investors who are speculating in rising food prices.
Speaking in the Argentine city of San Miguel de Tucuman, Fernandez de Kirchner charged there was a definite connection between the rise in the prices of foodstuffs and the downswing in the financial sector triggered by the US subprime mortgage crisis.
'When banks start to flounder, when no bank is reliable, speculative movements start in the food sector. The 'casino' economy, speculation, which was circumscribed to the financial realm, are now starting to move on to the world of foodstuffs,' the Argentine President said."
Aljazeera: "The International Monetary Fund has warned that rocketing oil and food prices could worsen poverty.
Many poor and developing countries will have to adjust their economic policies in response to soaring commodity prices, according to an IMF report issued on Tuesday."
It figures. Capitalism has reached its predatory stage. When you have absolute power, how do you increase profits? By creating shortage, so you can sell as little as possible for as high as possible prices. You create poverty, so people will be forced to work for lower wages. You privatize and deregulate everything. And if need be, you start a war to grab more oil, and, of course, you use the stupid and impoverished population as cannon fodder. It's not the future, it's happening right now in many parts of the world, and soon coming to a theatre near you.
10:49:17 AM 
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RandomHouse: "'We're mad as Heaven, and we're not going to take it anymore!' declares historian Robert McElvaine in this passionate and often hilarious rallying cry for sincere Jesus Followers. He lets the rest of society know that the extreme right wing won't be allowed to speak for all Christians any longer. His whip-smart, take-no-prisoners polemic lays bare the Christian Right's 'Easy Jesus' creed, in which people who claim to accept Jesus get a free pass to lie in his name. Grand Theft Jesus exposes the televangelists and the leaders of megachurches as the people Jesus warned us about - the wolves in sheep's clothing of our day."
Well, religion is usually nothing more than power politics or business. Gott mit uns. God bless America. All the same boloney.
10:38:05 AM
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Two days ago I reported about privacy regulations in international financial transactions.
Yesterday I made an international payment and realized that our privacy is already being breached on an unprecedented scale. There was a note on my bank's site that told me the transaction data were also transmitted to SWIFT US, so that the US government can monitor every payment. Here is their information page.
Swift: "Currently, SWIFT has operating centres (OPCs) in Europe and the US. Message data is processed simultaneously at both locations to prevent data loss should an OPC be incapacitated. The precise locations are kept confidential for security reasons."
Fact is that all transactions are also sent to Swift US, as well as to the Swift Europe headquarters, that also includes purely national transactions. Which means the US have complete oversight of all transactions effected through banks all over the world.
When there is connection trouble with any of the two main depositories of information, the transaction could be blocked, as the information is always sent to two storage bases. Which means that the US can simply block all international financial traffic and disguise it as a 'communication failure'.
If a serious breakdown of the American economy occurs - and this simply is among the possibilities - you can bet on it the US will block financial traffic worldwide.
Bloomberg: "A disorderly decline in the dollar remains a possibility as losses on U.S. assets pile up and the current-account deficit triggers 'a sudden rush for the exits', the Bank for International Settlements said."
The fact that this spying on all transactions is effective from April 17 this year, without the consent of our national governments or the European community - I don't know about secret agreements, which shouldn't be ruled out - shows how imperialistic the US is and how it flouts all privacy regulations.
Their 'data protection' policies, don't mean a thing. Protection is usually meant for the authorities that enforce illegal spying.
Well, we could always reprogram our tactical nuclear missiles at Volkel to destination Washington, D.C. if the worst comes to the worst.
10:30:35 AM
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© Copyright 2008.
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