Tjsummer 11

Vol. XIX, No.
27
Summer Issue 2011
Anthony Freda / Dan Zollinger
Game Changer
In this Trends Journal, we break new ground. In addition to identifying, analyzing and forecasting the trends shaping the future and suggesting proactive strategies to address them, we have taken up the banner of Direct Democracy. For some years weve been seeing the promising stirrings of a global Renaissance; a new order that would reject the gross materialism, excessive consumerism and glorified militarism that has dominated contemporary western societies. But each initiative undertaken to retrofit and change the failing system has had its momentum blocked or sabotaged by the entrenched agents of no change. On economic and political fronts, the only goal permitted was an increase in GDP growth and consumer consumption, even when that meant putting nations and consumers deeper in debt. In any rational society such an approach would be regarded as deranged. As for militarism, awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Bombs Away Obama perpetuator-in-chief of old wars, and precipitator-in-chief of new wars was proof apodictic that the system was beyond repair. And yet, despite the glaring dysfunction and the endless string of failures, many still look to the Presidents, Prime Ministers, Chancellors, Chairmen and assorted political, financial and business leaders who have been running the system, to change and fix the system. To entertain, even for a moment, the notion that somehow the people in control would willingly make changes that would wrest control from them, is to indulge in fantasy. Therefore, Ive come to the conclusion that the only solution is to take that control from the handful of them the power possessors and power brokers and put the power into the hands of the people. But how?
dmwphoto.com
Editor and Publisher Gerald Celente Executive Editor John Anthony West Senior Editor Alex Silberman Contributing Editors Dr. Paul Craig Roberts Ben Daviss Dr. Mitchell Skolnick Eldad Benary Consulting Editor Lynn Hazlewood Editor Laura Martin Subscriptions Manager Emily Arter Illustrations Anthony Freda / Dan Zollinger Liza Donnelly Fine Art Eugene Gregan Photo David Matthew Walters Design Norgaard Advertising & Design
Direct Democracy: The Future is in Your Hands

A Renaissance can take place only when there is a resurgence of the individual human spirit and a rediscovery of humanitys divine purpose. Neither of these can be achieved within a system that stifles creativity and individuality while raising to elite status a socioeconomic and political class whose only interest is the exercise of power and control. The Italian Renaissance of the 14th century was born out of a shattered Medieval system, in the aftermath of the Black Plague. For a 21st century Renaissance to take hold, the current system must also be shattered and disempowered. How can this be done? In this issue of Trends Journal, I propose the Celente Solution of Direct Democracy a potentially globe-changing movement that would replace todays representative democracy. Positive change will not and cannot occur until power is taken away from the power obsessed. While, in 2011, no one would dream of reinstituting the divine right of kings, what is passed off today as Democracy is little more than a structure to clandestinely support an ersatz nobility that perpetuates that very divine right practice. The Direct Democracy solution I propose will not only transfer power to the public (for better or for worse!), it will make we the people fully responsible for creating the future. The choice is stark. Either we take action to create our destiny, or others will continue to create it for us and judging by past performance, were not going to like what they create. Gerald Celente Publisher
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The Trends Research Institute P Box 3476, Kingston, NY 12402 .O. 845 331-3500 www.trendsresearch.com
The Trends Journal Summer 2011
The History of The Future: THE GLOBAL GAME CHANGER

the day George W. Bush took America to war against Iraq, Barack Obama took America to war with Libya. Promising victory in days, not weeks, four months later, what had been sugarcoated by the White House as a time-limited, scope-limited, kinetic action slogged on with nothing to show for it but billions of dollars spent, thousands of Libyans killed and civil war. Meanwhile, the Afghan and Iraq Wars dragged on with more billions spent and more lives lost. The US economy grew a miserly 1.8 percent in the first quarter of 2011, far below experts expectations. Despite all government efforts to prop up and revitalize the real estate market, housing prices continued their Great Depression plummet, while oil, food and other commodities were reaching new highs. Cleveland, St. Louis, Detroit, Cincinnati, Hartford one after another, Americas once proud and vibrant cities festered and decayed as Americas once enviable infrastructure rotted and crumbled. The physically deteriorating cities and infrastructure were mirrored in the physical and mental deterioration of the fast-food fattened, prescription drug-addicted citizenry. With poverty rates climbing, one in seven Americans on food stamps, student loan debt surpassing credit card debt, real wages slumping, unemployment intractable, home foreclosures mounting, education standards dropping, and virtually every quality-of-life indicator falling there were no detectable positive statistics to justify a forecast for a brighter, more prosperous future. Though the facts were common knowledge, the mainstream media either refused to add them up or were incapable of doing so. America was in the grip of a seemingly incurable malaise written off as simply the new normal. In a world away from the real world, Washington politicians cherry-picked the facts to suit their agendas. Depending upon which side of the aisle they stood, each pitched his or her own brand of quick fix (no fix) political solution. From the White House, the message was that the health of the nation was steadily improving, thanks to the skilled care of President Barack Obama. To assure full recovery, all that was needed was another four years in office.
EPISODE X On March 18, 2011, exactly eight years to
In early April 2011, fully 18 months before Election Day 2012, Barack Obama kicked off his campaign with a debut on the Oprah Winfrey Show, followed by a coast to coast fund-raising drive with dinner tickets topping out at $35,800 a pop. The Presidential Reality Show had begun. Sharing headlines with the President, billionaire TV personality and real estate mogul Donald Trump jumped onto the political stage. It was show business for ugly people. (See No Business Like Show Business, Trends Journal, Summer 2010.) Though not even having announced his candidacy, The Donald hogged the limelight with vitriolic attacks on the Presidents economic and foreign policies. But it was Trumps relentless badgering of Obama to produce his birth certificate (proving he had been born in America) that commandeered the headlines. After repeatedly refusing to address the so-called birther issue that had dogged him since his 2008 run for the White House, Obama finally caved in and produced a birth certificate. TRUMP AND DUMP With Trump snapping at his heels and his poll numbers hitting new lows, the President used his platform at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner to unleash an uncharacteristic torrent of ridicule and scorn on Trump that turned the mogul into a laughing stock and titillated the press, but did nothing to improve Obamas Presidential stature. It was more than jabs from Trump that had the President on the ropes. It was as it had been back in the 1992 Clinton campaign the economy, stupid! Except that in the Spring of 2011, the economy and, for that matter, the rest of the country, was in much worse shape than it had been in 1992. Pocketbook issues were gut issues. And rarely did anything or anyone trump those for long, not even Donald Trump. What also had the White House on the defensive at the end of April 2011 was blowback from a bombshell dropped by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke that had rocked the financial world. In a public relations effort to address complaints about the Feds secrecy, a history-making press conference was called (the first in its 98 years of existence). At the conference, the Feds Grand Master, Ben
Humanitarian Bombs
Bernanke, promised to keep interest rates at near-zero lows. In White Shoe Boy lingo, this was called a loose, accommodative or easy money policy. It was intended to stimulate economic growth by keeping interest rates low, thus making money less expensive to borrow. In practical everyday language, it was called flooding the world with cheap money. Effectively, it meant declaring war on the dollar, since the more digital dollars the Fed printed out of thin air, the more the dollar would devalue. What the Fed presented as esoteric and complex economic policy was understood by the financial community to be nothing more than a basic expression of supply and demand. If demand for a commodity is steady or decreasing, and supply is rapidly increasing, the price of that commodity is going to decrease commensurately. Despite denying that his loose-money policy would devalue the dollar, even before Bernanke left the stage, gold had spiked $20 an ounce, silver $2, and the dollar fell to a three-year low against the trade-weighted basket of currencies.
Ben Bernankes policy was no less than an act of financial terrorism. It would have far reaching and long lasting implications, not only for America, but for the world. As the dollar devalued, the cost of nearly everything was going up, except wages. Not only were jobs in general hard to find, well paying ones were even scarcer. In the US for example, 40 percent of job losses between Spring 2010 and Spring 2011 were in higher wage industries. Of the new jobs created during that same period, only 14 percent were in those industries. Meanwhile, low wage industries accounted for just 23 percent of job losses but 49 percent of job growth. The direction America was heading in was indisputable. Nearly everyone else was getting poorer while the richest were getting richer. In the US, where some 70 percent of GDP is consumer driven, fully 37 percent (of that 70 percent) was spent by the wealthiest 5 percent of the population. In fact, it was the upper 10 percent of the population that would most benefit from Bernankes low interest rate policy. Low interest rates meant low borrowing costs which translated into lowering the cost of risk. This meant financiers could continue to speculate and exploit the equity markets, with the profits going only to the 10 percent of Americans that owned 90 percent of the stocks, bonds and mutual funds. While the Fed correctly reasoned that a cheap dollar would give a competitive edge to big US exporters, as exports rose, so did the price of imports, putting further strains on average consumers whose real wages were falling ever further behind the pace of inflation. Prices of Imported Goods Increase as the Dollar Declines Prices of goods imported into the United States rose 2.2 percent in April, more than forecast, as the slumping dollar and growing economies overseas pushed up the cost of fuel and food. (New York Times, 10 May 2011) Economists were expecting only a 1.8 percent price rise. Following on the heels of a March price increase of 2.7 percent, the inflation was significant and in turn the standard of living eroding. But Bernanke blew off the trend as
transitory. As it unfolded, Bin Laden was not brought how a young half black/half Another victim of Fed polwhite Harvard Law School in at all, neither dead nor alive. icy was the dollars position as graduate worked his way up the worlds reserve currency. from a community organizer Proposals were being floated for the establishment of a in Chicago to become Commander in Chief of the worlds new global currency standard, and major countries such most powerful country; how he would help plan the inas Brazil, China, Russia and India were already cutting genious strategy that would finally bring in the notorious out Uncle Sam as the middle man by doing deals directly, terrorist Osama bin Laden, dead or alive. using the coin of their own realm. As it unfolded, Bin Laden was not brought in at all, All in all, Obamas April 2011 campaign kickoff ended neither dead nor alive. Rather, according to the initial the month on down notes. First it was Trump stealing the White House account, a crack team of US commandos headlines with the birther issue and his relentless attacks staged a crack-of-dawn raid on Osamas fortified, walled on Obamas economic and geopolitical incompetence. compound somewhere in Pakistan. A fierce 40-minute Then there was the Feds April 27th PR ploy. Intended firefight ensued in which a armed Bin Laden, despite havto prove its new transparency, it proved only how transing cravenly used his wife as a human shield, was killed. parently inept and self-defeating its Chairman and his His body was washed in accordance with Islamic custom, policies were. and dropped overboard from a US aircraft carrier into the Arabian Sea. OBOMBA Typical of the world media coverage was: The next bomb to drop on the Obama campaign was the Obama watched Bin Laden die on live humanitarian bomb dropped by NATO upon the home video as shoot-out beamed to White House of Muammar Qaddafis son, killing him and three of his children. President Obama was watching on a TV screen as The bungled attempt to assassinate Qaddafi, who had a commando gunned down Osama bin Laden. Via been visiting his son, was condemned by Russia, brought a video camera fixed to the helmet of a U.S. Navy recriminations against NATO from other UN members for Seal, the leader of the free world saw the terror overstepping the UN mandate, and called the legality of chief shot in the left eye. the air strike into question. With a groundswell of public The Seal then carried out what is known sympathy for Qaddafis murdered grandchildren building in the military as a double tap shooting him around the world, the very purpose and future of the enagain, probably in the chest, to make certain he tire mission was being called into question. was dead. While the leaders of France, the UK and US had all The footage of the battle in Bin Ladens Pakideclared that Qaddafi had to go (either voluntarily or othstani hideout which played out like an episode erwise), senselessly murdered grandchildren didnt sit well of 24 is said to show one of his wives acting as with the public at large, and even the compliant media were a human shield to protect him as he blasted away unable to put a positive spin on the collateral damage. with an AK47 assault rifle. She died, along with three other men, includFrom Osama to Obama Beset on all sides, poll numing one of Bin Ladens sons. Within hours, the Al bers plummeting and the newly fired-up Obama camQaeda leaders body was buried at sea. (UK Daily paign express moving in reverse, whether it was the result Mail, 3 May 2011) of providence, coincidental timing or a brilliant political master stroke, the campaign momentum suddenly rockBut by the next day, the script was already beginning to eted forward on the strength of a single event. change. There was no firefight. No one fired on the Navy On Sunday evening, May 1st, President Obama hit SEALs in Bin Ladens house. Only one of Osamas associthe airwaves: Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the ates was armed, and he was killed in an adjacent guestAmerican people and to the world that the United States house at the start of the operation. has conducted an operation that killed Osama Bin Laden, An unarmed Osama did not use his wife as a human the leader of Al Qaeda, and a terrorist whos responsible shield. What was at first described as an elaborate and forfor the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and tified million-dollar compound was neither elaborate nor children. fortified (apart from the wall around it, not uncommon in And so began Obama vs. Osama: a thrilling tale of a Muslim country).
Bin Laden was not living bags were all recorded by A cinema showing a Hollywood B high on the hog as claimed tiny helmet cameras worn movie as incoherent and unconvincing as by senior US defense and inby each of the 25 SEALs. Obama vs. Osama would be mercilessly telligence officials, nor was his We now know that the house a compound. Photos only firefight took place panned by film critics. revealed a rundown, rubbishin the guest house, where strewn, shabby structure worth one of bin Ladens courian estimated quarter million dollars situated on the outskirts ers opened fire and was quickly gunned down. No of the mid-size city of Abbottabad just down the road one in the main building got off a shot or was from Pakistans equivalent of West Point military academy. even armed, although there were weapons nearby. And despite the claim of respecting and adhering to (CBS News, 12 May 2011) Islamic custom, flying his body a thousand miles in order to consign it to the sea, was, according to Islamic scholars, What was the truth? Was there a 25-minute recording a flagrant and humiliating violation of tradition. gap, as the CIA Director claimed, or did the SEAL helmet And then there was the famous, historically significams record footage entirely different than the events porcant defining moment trayed for the public? photo released by the White What was historically House, the one showing a significant was the ineptitense President Obama, VP tude and lack of professionBiden, Secretary of State alism of the endlessly fiddled Clinton and National Secuand amended coverage. A rity team members anxiouscinema showing a Hollywood ly watching the Situation B movie as incoherent and Room TV screen that was unconvincing as Obama said to give them real-time vs. Osama would be mercivisibility into the progress of lessly panned by film critics. the operation. But the White House had an But the story line was alibi. It was the fog of war again swiftly changed by none other than CIA chief Leon explained White House Press Secretary and Meteorologist Panetta, who said, There was a time period of almost 20 James Carney except there was no war. or 25 minutes that we really didnt know just exactly what While it is indisputable that troops must prepare for was going on. the worst before a high-risk combat mission, the US assasAssuming they didnt know exactly what was going sination team of 80 Navy SEALs that stormed Bin Ladens on, was the defining moment photo staged to impress house armed with the most lethal and sophisticated the public that the Commander in Chief and his team of killing equipment on earth was opposed by only a few military experts were somehow in command? women, a few children, and an unarmed Osama. But just as virtually every element within the Obama DING, DONG, THE WITCH IS DEAD vs. Osama drama was subject to revisions, so was this one. It took nearly two weeks for the news to reveal a more While there was plenty of fog, what happened in Abbotaccurate defining moment that effectively discredited tabad was NOT war. And if it had been, considering the the earlier defining moments. series of contradictions, the first casualty of war would have been the truth. Had any CEO at a boardroom meetSEAL helmet cams recorded ing or defendant in a courtroom presented a case so shot entire bin Laden raid through with contradictions, inconsistencies and blatant WASHINGTON A new picture emerged Thurslies, he would have been either fired or convicted. But day of what really happened the night the Navy when the White House did it, it was trumpeted, applauded SEALs swooped in on Osama bin Ladens comand celebrated as a national day of victory. pound in Pakistan. Thousands of instant terrorism experts declared May CBS News national security correspondent Day an historic day, a globe-changing event. President David Martin reports the 40 minutes it took to Obama assured Americans that the world was now a safer kill bin Laden and scoop his archives into garbage place for justice had been done.
The guy is dead. That is good, seconded former President George W. Bush, who began the manhunt for Bin Laden ten years earlier. Osamas death is a great victory in the War on Terror. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed President Obamas justice assessment, but took tacit, undeclared exception to the worlds alleged enhanced safety. Not only was the War on Terror not over, she cautioned, but efforts to put an end to it needed to be redoubled which not only suggested that the world was actually less safe, it instantly reinvigorated the post-9/11 terror state of mind:
USA FREAK OUT: TERROR FEARS; FALSE ALARMS DRUDGE REPORT Sen. Schumer Calls For Amtrak Do Not Ride List Two tunnel breaches cause scare in NYC SUV bomb scare Threats Divert Planes in Three Separate Incidents Passengers, flight crew subdue man banging on cockpit door Yemeni passenger had Calif. ID Scary Flight To Chicago... Threatening Note In Bathroom Departing Detroit Are we gonna blow up? Dallas Train Station Evacuated: Man Asked For Help Carrying Packages Saudi Student Charged with university bomb threat 4 Arrested For Videotaping TSA Line At Denver Suspicious package found in mailbox: Cellphone sent back to company SHOCK PHOTO: TSA LOOKING FOR POOP BOMBS? (9 May 2011)
The Ghost of George Bush Lingers
Terror was back in vogue. The Drudge Report compendium of headlines paid homage to the revitalized terror trend, even though nothing of consequence had happened in the US since 9/11 excepting the bungled minor attempts of the Shoe, Underwear and Times Square bombers. Once again, the American people threw their support behind their President, cheered the brave warriors (a.k.a. assassination hit squad) for taking out Bin Laden, tamely relinquished what little was left of their Constitutional Rights, and would give more of what little money they had left to combat the newly re-ignited War on Terror. And pay they would: Bin Ladens Death Wont End His Toll on American Taxpayers Even in death, Osama bin Laden will be taking revenge on American taxpayers for years to come. The U.S. government spent $2 trillion combating bin Laden over the past decade, more than 20
percent of the nations $9.68 trillion public debt. That money paid for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as additional military, intelligence and homeland security spending above pre-Sept. 11 trends, according to a Bloomberg analysis. This year alone, taxpayers are spending more than $45 billion in interest on the money borrowed to battle Al Qaeda, the analysis shows. The financial bleeding wont stop with bin Ladens demise. One of every four dollars in red ink the U.S. expects to incur in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 will result from $285 billion in annual spending triggered by the terrorist scion of a wealthy Saudi family. (Bloomberg, 12 May 2011) Yet all the time, money and effort spent did nothing to prevent the Shoe, Underwear or Times Square bombers at home (who were caught only because their attempts failed, or as many alleged, they were set up as government patsies), and redoubled efforts would do nothing to stop the revenge attacks abroad. Pakistan suicide bombs kill 80 to avenge bin Laden HABQADAR, Pakistan A pair of Taliban suicide bombers attacked paramilitary police recruits eagerly heading home for a break after months of training, killing 80 people Friday in the first act of retaliation for the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden. (AP, 13 May 2011)
Eugene Gregan
Ten years later, trillions spent, millions killed and with more money and lives still on the line there was still no introspection. Thousands of TV hours were spent covering 9/11. Presidents, politicians and pundits endlessly pontificated, yet over the course of that decade, not one network or cable station has devoted an in-depth, investigative special to address the obvious question: Why was America attacked on 9/11? 60 Minutes didnt give it six seconds. It wasnt pressing enough for Meet the Press, and Face the Nation didnt face it. Was the attack really launched because they hated our freedom and liberty? Or were there possibly just possibly other reasons? Tens of millions of people at home and abroad were unconvinced by, or at least had misgivings about, the simplistic official explanation. Yet from the media, the Fourth Estate whose job was ostensibly to hold the three branches of government (Executive, Legislative, Judicial) accountable for their actions, there was silence. Surely such a program would have been a ratings sensation and an advertising revenue blockbuster. Indeed, not only was the broadcast arm of the Fourth Estate mum, the mainstream print media also couldnt find any other words than they hate us for our freedom and liberty that were fit to print.
Trend Forecast: As War on Terror efforts redouble, we forecast that revenge attacks will escalate commensurately. Not necessarily in response to the assassination of Bin Laden (though that may serve as the pretext) but rather in response to ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, and stepped-up CIA Predator drone strikes against Pakistan and Yemen. When the foreign nations involved in those conflicts are hit with reprisal attacks, Western political leaders will cry that the culprits were evil people who hate our freedom and liberty. Never once will they acknowledge their own seminal roles as invaders and occupiers. Publishers Note: Having watched 9/11 as it unfolded,
on 9/12, the first note I wrote in my journal, as a shocked America reacted to the strike, was: There was not a moment of introspection. Why did this happen? Evil people they said. It was an unprovoked attack. Women and men alike call for war.
Trendpost: What will another major terror strike mean? Should an attack hit one of the major NATO nations, the effects, this time, will go global. Bank holidays will be called, the US and other fragile economies will crumble, gold and silver will soar, and already-troubled currencies will crash. Economic martial law will be declared. Introduced as a temporary measure, once in place it will remain in place (like the curfews and draconian security precautions installed by despots and dictators everywhere). Civil rights will be suspended and, particularly in America, Homeland Security, already intolerably intrusive, will achieve an Orwellian omnipresence. With banks closed and economic martial law in place, restrictions will be set on the amounts, times and frequency of withdrawals. As we have cautioned before, it will be essential to have a stash of cash on hand. Even though governments will devalue their currencies, it will happen in stages. Speaking only for ourselves,
we at The Trends Research Institute will not be storing precious metals in bank safe deposit boxes.
Editors Note: While it appears that President Roosevelts 1933 order to search safe deposit boxes for gold is a widely held folk rumor, considering how invasive the Federal government has become since that time, and given that the government can demand access to all transaction records, in the midst of a crisis (false flag or real) it could readily use national security as the rationale for search and seizure.
Why Bin Laden and Why Now? Whether speaking metaphorically or literally, Osama bin Laden had been dead for years. Though the War on Terror launched in his honor went on apace draining treasuries, creating a growth industry in terror, and providing politicians (especially American politicians) with opportunities to smear opponents with charges of being soft on Terror Bin Ladens infrequently taped, empty threats were lightly covered and quickly forgotten. Wherever Bin Laden may have been in hiding, on the lam, or even, as some were suggesting, already dead he, or whatever was left of Al Qaeda, evidently did not have the capacity or the will to strike again. Apart from reawakening the dormant fear of terror and redoubling the nations fight against it, what was behind bringing Bin Laden back into the limelight? The question was never posed. And while the assassination plot must have been long in the planning, whatever its original motivation may have been, the sensational news had the effect of pushing out of the news virtually all other news. Swiftly overshadowed was the killing of Muammar Qaddafis son and three grandchildren, the Feds War on the Dollar, and that pesky little problem on the other side of the world, that even as it got worse, got ever less press the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima. What the surprise demise of the mothballed Bin Laden also accomplished was an abrupt reversal of the Presidents poll numbers an eerily similar replay of the effect 9/11 had upon then President Bushs similarly sagging poll numbers.
AP-GfK poll: Obama approval hits 60 percent WASHINGTON President Barack Obamas approval rating has hit its highest point in two years 60 percent and more than half of Americans now say he deserves to be re-elected, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll taken after U.S. forces killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. In worrisome signs for Republicans, the presidents standing improved not just on foreign
policy but also on the economy, and independents a key voting bloc in the November 2012 presidential election caused the overall uptick in support by sliding back to Obama after fleeing for much of the past two years. Comfortable majorities of the public now call Obama a strong leader who will keep America safe. Nearly three-fourths 73 percent also now say they are confident that Obama can effectively handle terrorist threats. And he improved his standing on Afghanistan, Iraq and the United States relationships with other countries. Despite a sluggish recovery from the Great Recession, 52 percent of Americans now approve of Obamas stewardship of the economy, giving him his best rating on that issue since the early days of his presidency; 52 percent also now like how hes handling the nations stubbornly high 9 percent unemployment. (11 May 2011) Whatever the motivation behind taking out Osama, the immediate effect upon Obamas poll numbers instantly reshaped the Presidential race. With his approval rating at a two-year high, Barack Obama took on the mantle of strong leader, tough on terror and a protector of the people. PRESTO CHANGE-O! After weeks of Obama vs. Osama monopolizing the news, the boisterous Republican presidential hopefuls were suddenly either muted or in retreat. Mike Huckabee, who had been leading the carefully watched Iowa polls, announced he wouldnt run. Next to announce his non-candidacy was Donald Trump, who, just days before the Osama hit, had been center stage, hogging the headlines and seemingly posing a real threat to Obama. So unpromising were the challengers that former First Lady Laura Bush was trying to convince Cheri Daniels, wife of little-known Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, to encourage her husband to seek the GOP nomination, despite a well-known sex scandal in her own past. GOP Search Continues A new Gallup poll shows that the Republican presidential race is remarkably fluid in the wake of decisions by Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump not to run. The GOP frontrunners are, not surprisingly, those figures with the highest name ID. Mitt Romney polls at 20 percent among potential primary voters, followed by Sarah Palin at 18 percent and
Newt Gingrich at 8 percent. Palin, Gingrich, and Romney are the three best-known candidates, and they top the list of Republicans preferences, says Gallup Poll director Frank Newport. The poll was taken before this weeks flap over Mr. Gingrichs criticism of the Medicare reforms recently passed by House Republicans. (The Wall Street Journal, 16 May 2011) Presto change-o! After just one month, Obama, who had stumbled out of the gate at the kickoff of his campaign, was running far ahead of a Republican pack of used-tobes, wannabes and also-rans. The conventional political wisdom in May 2011 was that, given the weak opposing field, Obama looked like a shoo-in for a second term. But in real life, trends have a life of their own. There was no real recovery in the United States, and the way the trends were heading, the economy would be a lot worse by Election Day 2012. And once again as it had been so many times before its the economy, stupid was the ballot box issue that mattered most to voters. Certainly, it wasnt war that was on the minds of most Americans. Ten years of the Afghan War, eight in Iraq, a proxy war in Pakistan, and a humanitarian mission in Libya, and missile and drone strikes on Yemen would not count as a vote changer. The nation had become so conditioned that another new normal was the constant state of war. The catastrophic drain on the treasury and the insidious moral toll on the American psyche were not part of the political or media discourse. In that March of 2011, it was (quietly) reported that the US, after 110-year run as the number one country in factory production, had ceded the crown to China just 20 years earlier a third world, backward giant. The business of China was business. The business of America had become war.
Trend Forecast: Should a foreign nation or terrorist
of 2011 Republican hopefuls were on a political suicide mission. Yes, entitlement excesses had to be addressed, but making that the main focus of their campaigns was a strategy that might have been devised by insidious Democratic infiltrators. Absent from both Republican and Democratic presidential platforms were planks devoted to slashing the military budget, immediately ending the wars, cutting foreign aid and raising taxes on mega-millionaires, billionaires, and multinational corporations and closing tax loopholes. Millions of average Americans were holding down two jobs to make ends meet. Real wages were in decline, inflation mounting, unemployment intractable, homes foreclosed, millions more scrambling just to survive, 44 million Americans below the poverty line and living on food stamps. Property taxes, nuisance taxes and fines, sales taxes, license fees all were going up to extract every last penny from those who had the least. SUICIDE MISSION Seventy-eight million baby boomers were reaching retirement age, many without enough to retire on, all facing mounting health care costs all while the availability and quality of medical services declined. With these facts in front of them, and with everyone except the top 10 percent of the population down the tubes or feeling the squeeze, the Republicans launched an all-out campaign to alienate the other 90 percent. To balance the budget, cuts had to be made and national debt levels reduced. The Republican final solution was to reduce and/or eliminate entitlements a word that had taken on a pejorative meaning. How dare people whove worked all their lives, acted responsibly and paid their taxes, feel entitled to anything from their government? Health care, elder care Republicans were running on a we dont care platform. And, if they got their way, any care the people did receive would be less than what they got before and would come from the private sector; the health industry that gives generous campaign contributions (i.e., bribes and payoffs) to politicians for passing legislation that will further enrich them. Another main Republican plank was to reform Social Security. Under a complex partial privatization plan crafted by Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan (Roadmap For Americas Future), Social Security and Medicare benefits would be cut, cost-of-living increases trimmed, and the retirement age for those under 55 would be modernized to eventually reach 70. At the same time, the Social Security agency itself would be significantly downsized to a level of
Not Playing with a Full Deck In the Spring
group attack the American homeland or pull off a substantial strike against a US foreign installation, it will be exploited as a causus belli to take the nation to war. Whether real (the terror strike against the USS Cole in Yemen) or contrived (the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the claim of the existence of Saddam Husseins weapons of mass destruction that, respectively, took America to war against Vietnam and Iraq), the fact or even the threat of terror in the months before Election Day will serve as a uniting force. Terror-fied Americans will rally round the flag and look to the President for leadership and protection.
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predictable inefficiency. The third major plank of the What accounted for the millions of Joe The end result of their Republican platform was to not and Jane Does who supported policies that only keep in place the Bush-iniRoadmap would be to steer they obviously stood to lose from? as much tax money as possible tiated and Obama-perpetuated away from the public sector and tax policy that gave breaks to the into the private sector. It was passionately held GOP Gospel richest, but under the Ryan plan, to further lower the top that corporations operated more efficiently than governtax rate from 36 percent to 25 percent. Incredible as it may ment bureaucracy. While perhaps attractive in principle, sound, the GOP genuinely believed that the more the very in practice there was ample evidence demonstrating that rich made and the less they paid, the better off everyone privatization had its limits. (Private Prisons Found to Ofelse would be. fer Little in Savings, NYT, 18 May 2011) The Republican platform boiled down to: What can And when it came to managing privatized social secuwe do to make the biggest bigger and the richest richer? rity investments, the pitch to the public was that Wall Street Not surprisingly, for the small percentile that stood to benwas best equipped to handle their money. It was as though efit, the Republican platform was attractive. But very surthe Panic of 08 had never happened and the Wall Street prisingly, the GOP support base extended far beyond big Mob and the Banking Bandits responsible for the greatest business and the very rich to a rich mix of all-collar/allfinancial crisis since the Great Depression had miraculouscolor ordinary Americans. ly become trustworthy and prescient. The Wannabes What accounted for the millions of But just in case the best and brightest brains on the average Joe and Jane Does who supported policies that Street couldnt resist their lives of crime and/or once again they obviously stood to lose from? While it was a comproved incapable of making sound financial judgments, the plex question with no simple answer, at least a part of it GOP attached a no risk clause to their Roadmap. If was the wannabe factor the ability of the average Joe contributors put money into government-approved personal or Jane to keep dreaming the American dream, with the retirement funds and the fund incurred losses or went bust, belief that if they worked hard and did what was right, the investments would be guaranteed by Uncle Sam (a.k.a. they would have a good chance of reaching the top and the American taxpayer). striking it rich. And when they did, they wouldnt want It was a variant of the Bush/Obama bailouts of Wall the government raising their taxes and giving the money Streets too-big-to-fails, in which profits were privatized to welfare cheats, illegal immigrants, abortions for the and losses socialized. In other words, the billionaire banks poor, and other social programs. and brokerages distributed the profits among themselves And why not believe? Throughout much of Ameriwhen business was good, but when it went bad, the taxpaycas history that dream was not mere fantasy. It could be ers were forced to bail them out. realized and it was a driving force behind the millions Similarly, under the GOP plan, the government-apfrom all over the world who flocked to the land of opproved private funds would earn profits from investing and portunity. Realistically, of course, who you were, where managing the money, but if losses occurred, the taxpayer you came from, and who you knew made it much easier would pay the bill. to open doors. But imbued with Yankee ingenuity and It had become fashionable for the new breed of Rea can-do spirit, the un-privileged and un-bankrolled publicans to look back to Ronald Reagan as Mentor in with big dreams and a small grub stake could, and often Chief, as the President who won the Cold War, cut taxes, did, succeed. shrank the government, and saved the economy. But it By 2011, that American Dream had, however, long would have behooved them to look further back into their been laid to rest, murdered in cold blood by Wall Street, Republican history to a two-term, equally popular Presicorporate executives, and American politicians. dent who counsel was: The one-two knockout punch that floored the Dream Should any political party attempt to abolish social sewas thrown by Bill Clinton and Al Gore back in 1993 with curity, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws the passage of the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again (NAFTA). For nearly a decade, corporate honchos and fiin our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of nanciers had been pressuring Congress to eliminate barcourse, that believes that you can do these things. Among riers to allow offshoring of jobs so they might generate them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional larger profits by accessing cheap foreign labor. politician or businessman from other areas. Their number (Continued on page 13) is negligible and they are stupid. Dwight D. Eisenhower
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A Chicken Hawk by Any Other Name

hat came into question, but a question never asked by the media was: what were the credentials of those politicians leading the budget deficit reduction charge that was primarily aimed at cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits? What was their life experience? What qualified them to propose policy changes so sweeping that even self-proclaimed conservative Newt Gingrich labeled them as radical examples of right wing social engineering? In endless hours of debate, not one word was devoted to the crucial subject of the character and life styles of the politicians promoting these dramatic proposals. Just who were they? An admirable model and poster boy for the lot was the 41-year-old Congressman from Wisconsin, Paul Ryan, who was leading the charge for the radical change. What expertise did he possess? What was the personal experience and hands-on qualifications that gave Ryan the professional and moral authority to craft a program that would impact every living American? It was not only an appropriate question, it was an obvious one. But the media, supposedly charged with a duty for investigative journalism, never investigated his resume. Was it that the question never occurred to them, that they didnt care, or that they didnt want to take a few minutes off from the scandal du jour to Google his past?
ON THE GOVERNMENT DOLE

According to Wikipedia and other sources, Ryan was brought up solidly middle class. His father, a lawyer, died when he was sixteen. Ryan collected Social Security survivors benefits for two years that he claims to have put toward his college tuition. During his senior year in college, he worked briefly as a Hotdogger, driving an Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. Upon graduation in 1995, he worked briefly as a staff member for Sen. Bob Kasten. In 1996, he worked as a speechwriter to both former US Drug Czar William Bennett and former US Rep. Jack Kemp. In 1997, he was legislative director for US Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas. According to his congressional campaign, Ryans only experience in the private sector (evidently overlapping his political jobs) was as a marketing consultant for his familys construction business. Ryan was first elected to Congress in 1998 at the age of 28. What goes unmentioned in neutral biographical accounts and his omnipresent press coverage is that, apart from his Wienermobile days and a vague nepotistic stint in the family business, Ryan never worked a day of his life in the private sector. Publishers Note: As I can personally attest from experience in not dissimilar jobs running political campaigns in New Yorks Westchester County and as assistant to the Secretary of the New York State Senate these jobs mainly consist of brownnosing, glad-handing, sucking up and bowing down all in preparation for a life in politics. It is a matter of record. Since his election to Congress at the age of 28, Ryan has been living off the taxpayer. Unlike the hundreds of millions in the private sector who have to make it on their own, Ryans job comes with substantial health care benefits and generous retirement programs, plus innumerable perks all approved by Congress, without having asked approval from we the people who pay them. In short, Ryan didnt have the experience, training, nor the moral authority to so rabidly wave the banner of sacrifice that he and the vast majority of his colleagues so ardently championed, but never carried. Determined to launch a Crusade to Kill the Deficit, the deficit hawk is the domestic equivalent of the chicken hawk. Just as the gutless chicken hawk, a well known fightless bird who has never worn a military uniform, screeches War and sends others out to fight and die, so the windbag deficit hawk pontificates from the political stump and on the media circuit, exhorting others to tighten belts and pull up bootstraps, while they get fatter sucking on the public tit. And speaking of Wienermobiles and the psychological Congressional profile, in the midst of the deficit reduction wrangling, the news was diverted by the scandal du jour. Anthony Weiner, the New York Congressman, was forced to resign in disgrace for
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social networking his weiner for the world to see. Regardless of the side of the aisle he sat or where he stood on the issues, the Weinergate episode provided an exemplary illustration of the divide between them and us. Weiner lost his job, but kept intact his bountiful pension and many of his perks: Weiners Pension, Benefits Could Top $1 Million While Rep. Anthony Weiner may no longer have the benefit of Congress generous health care plan once he resigns, he will still be able to collect his pension and other benefits that could total more than $1 million during his lifetime. According to an analysis of his available benefits by the National Taxpayers Union, the New York Democrats pension and a savings plan lawmakers have access to similar to a 401(k) could be worth $1.12 million to $1.28 million. At 46, Weiner will not be eligible for his pension for another decade, at which point he could begin drawing a reduced rate of $32,357 a year, according to NTU. If he waits until age 62 to begin drawing his pension, he will receive his full benefits, or $46,224, according to NTUs calculations. Additionally, if Weiner aggressively invested in the Thrift Savings Plan, his balance would be roughly $216,000, the organization said. (Roll Call, 16 June 2011) The House of Weiners (a.k.a. Congress) was filled with Ryan/Weiner clones who went into politics never having known what it was like to have a real job. Weiner, like Rep. Ryan, immediately began working for a member of Congress upon graduation from college. Like Ryan, while still in his 20s, Weiner began the life of an elected public servant (i.e., began sucking off the public tit). And as members of the privileged political class, special Congressional privileges come with the job. For example, no one else in the workforce who quits a job (or is forced to resign in disgrace) gets a penny in unemployment benefits, let alone a generous pension and perks. Should history serve as a guide and repeat itself, perhaps Anthony The Weiner Weiner, will be rewarded with a lucrative new job as a primetime CNN (Cartoon News Network) host, a la disgraced (and recently discarded) former NY Governor Eliott $4,300-a-NightHooker Spitzer. There were two sets of laws: one applying to those that made the laws, and another applying to those who were forced to obey them. n
THE HISTORY OF THE FUTURE (Continued from page 11)
A blatantly lethal, American job-destroying proposition that couldnt be sold to the people during the Reagan and G.H.W. Bush presidencies was slick-willied through Congress by Bill Slick Willie Clinton. Clinton and Congress conned the public into believing that, with the passage of NAFTA, a New Economy would arise and the American standard of living would rise with it. Out would go those dirty-fingernail manufacturing jobs, to be replaced by a shiny-clean service society spearheaded by the financial sector and juiced by good old Yankee Ingenuity and innovation. Another promised upside to off-shoring was based on the idea that as poor people in cheap labor countries earned more, they would evolve their own middle class, become consumer societies, and buy Made in USA imports. The entire scheme was a fallacy and a fraud from the onset, and we, like many others knew it. The jobs lost would never return, the touted high-skilled service society would never materialize, and Americas balance of trade became irretrievably unbalanced. (See What About Nafta? Trends Journal, Fall 1993) The New Economy was a busted economy busted dreams, busted careers, busted banks. The old economy was lost, and there was no new economy to take its place. Now, in the Summer of 2011, only a few will remem-
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Liza Donnelly
Yet, the wannabes down, out, overworked, underpaid kept on dreaming and kept on supporting the people and the policies responsible for making the dream virtually impossible to realize. It was an economic version of the Stockholm Syndrome; a paradoxical psychological phenomenon in which prisoners and hostages empathize with their captors, sometimes even defending them and ultimately reaching a state where they regard a lack of actual physical torture as an act of kindness. So it was in mid-2011, as America began gearing up for the distant 2012 presidential election. No matter how much abuse the public had been subjected to over the years by their Democratic and Republican enslavers, a startling number of them still deluded themselves into believing that one candidate or another, when elected, would prove to be a savior. From sea to shining sea it was one big Stockholm Syndrome. So out of kilter was the new GOP Medicare reform plan and so out of touch was the party with the concerns and needs of the general public, that it even drew fire from GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich. Brash, vocal, a media regular, the impeccably credentialed, self-promoted, right-of-center conservative Gingrich lashed out, calling the Ryan Roadmap right-wing social engineering. Republicans, infuriated by the use of this inflammatory term that conjured up inadmissible left-wing socialist proclivities, forced Gingrich to issue an apology. With Gingrich suddenly on the defensive for his comments, and continually confronted by his seamy history of well publicized extra-marital affairs which ran counter to the family values orientation so vociferously espoused by his Republican party, the Gingrich bandwagon was broadsided by yet another unseemly if not typically seamy scandal. It was reported that Newt Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend Gingrich had run up a $500,000 tab with Tiffanys. Moreover, wife Callista All in the Family Gingrich, who sat on the House Agriculture Committee, had been heavily lobbied by the exclusive jewelry company to support legislation favorable to its mining interests. As for that substantial tab, not only was it an extravagance unlikely to sit well with suffering voters hard put just to survive in recessionary times, the interest-free terms of his Tiffany loan added insult to injury. Pressed for details on the sweetheart deal, Gingrich explained, Its a standard, no interest account, we paid no interest on it. There was no
Out of Right Field
ber that 1993 tide-turning, trade-turning debate between Al Inconvenient Lies Gore and third party candidate Ross Perot. Some 17 million Americans viewers scored the bout 59-to-32 for Gore. The USA Today/CNN Gallup poll reported that viewers believed Gores position reflected optimism for the future, while Perot represented defeatism and fear. Days later, emboldened by the debate, Congress voted in NAFTA. In retrospect, Gore may have won the debate, but America lost both its soul and its empire. A few years later, when the exodus of US jobs to Mexico became the stampede of US jobs to China (manufacturing) and India (professional services), the giant sucking sound prophesied by Perot became reality. (See, Washingtons Response to a Failed Economy, page 34). If Free Trade was the Clinton knockout punch, the kick to the head that finished off the Dream was delivered by George W. Bush in 2008 when he imposed TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) upon the nation to rescue failing financial giants on the verge of going belly up through their own malfeasance. They were deemed, by Bush and his economic tag team, too big to fail four fateful words that would change the course of American history. It was now official. No longer, neither in principle nor in practice, were all businessmen created equal.
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problem with it. Its a normal way of doing business. While a no interest account may have been standard, no problem and a normal way of doing business for Newt Gingrich, it was neither standard nor normal for the roughly 180 million credit card-carrying Americans who had a big problem paying interest rates (as much as 30 percent) on a trillion dollars worth of debt. Was it blatant arrogance stemming from a sense of political privilege? Was it an inadvertent slip of the tongue? Was it pure hypocrisy on the part of the man who, as House Speaker, preached the virtues of fiscal conservatism? Or was it that the world of Gingrich was a world apart from everyone elses world, one in which interestfree credit did not exist? OUR GANG Actually, though not common knowledge, in the world of Washington and Wall Street, interest-free (or effectively interest-free) loans were normal. Just days after the Gingrich loan/lobbying story broke, an under-the-radar report briefly surfaced in the business news, revealing that other influential insiders also received standard, no problem loans. Under court order, the Federal Reserve was forced to make public the billions of virtually interest-free dollars bestowed upon too-big-to-fail banks: Fed Gave Banks Crisis Gains on Secretive Loans Low as 0.01% Credit Suisse Group AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc each borrowed at least $30 billion in 2008 from a Federal Reserve emergency lending program whose details werent revealed to shareholders, members of Congress or the public. The $80 billion initiative, called single-tranche open-market operations, or ST OMO, made 28-day loans from March through December 2008, and paid interest rates as low as 0.01 percent. This was a pure subsidy, said Robert A. Eisenbeis, former head of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Jeffrey V. Smith, a New York Fed spokesman [countering Eisenbeis] claimed, This program helped alleviate strains in financial markets and support the flow of credit to U.S. households and businesses. (Bloomberg, 26 May 2011) In fact, this program helped alleviate strains for only the biggest and best connected. It did nothing, nada, zip, zero, zilch to support the flow of credit to U.S. households and businesses (unless they were the size of GE and GM).
In a court of law, Jeffrey V. Smiths claim would amount to perjury. But in the world of White Shoe Boy reportage, Mr. Smith was given a free ride. No tough questions, and unlike non-White Shoe Boyz whod get raked over the coals, Smith walked away un-grilled. The same kid-glove treatment applied to other insiders who, rather than explain how and why they profited from the sweetheart deals, took a financial Fifth Amendment: Stephen Cohen, a spokesmen for Goldman Sachs, declined to comment. n Steven Vames, a Credit Suisse spokesman in New York, declined to comment. n John Gallagher, a [Deutsche Bank] spokesman, declined to comment. n Mark Lane, a Barclays spokesman, declined to comment. n Mary Claire Delaney, a spokeswoman for Morgan Stanley; Jon Diat, a Citigroup spokesman in New York; Howard Opinsky, a spokesman for New York-based JPMorgan Chase; and Megan Stinson, a spokeswoman in New York for BNP Paribas, declined to comment on their banks borrowing.
n
Not only did the White Shoe Boyz get the free money, they got a free pass from the Presstitutes. No comment on the special treatment they got to rescue their own failing businesses (and keep on paying themselves enormous bonuses) while everyone else was left to fend for themselves. Back in the 1930s, in Hitlers Germany and Mussolinis Italy, such overt collusion between the corporate sector and the government was called Fascism. In 2011, in Obamas America it was called no comment. This was not the first revelation of behind-the-scenes schemes between the Fed and the well-fed. The trillions in back door deals with global banks, big businesses, hedge funds and financial institutions had been earlier exposed through law suits and requirements in the recently passed Dodd-Frank Act without which no one would know anything. Yet, it hardly mattered, because knowledge, in these cases, did not mean power. The Fed, Washington and the Pentagon all did as they pleased and, regardless of how many egregious failures were added to old egregious failures, they were never held accountable. PUBLIC ENEMY #1 As card-carrying sociopaths, they were exonerated from admitting to failure, and the Presstitutes, who would have eviscerated anyone outside the club who had been responsible for failures of similar stature, bowed,
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scraped, groveled and asked polite questions about how they intended to fix the failures theyd created. And when it came to financial failure, there was no one in Washington or on earth who had masterminded more disastrous policies or produced more erroneous forecasts than Federal Chairman Ben Bernanke. Had he been an imperial soothsayer in a medieval court he would have lost his head or, at best, hed be rotting in a dungeon. Instead, with real estate home prices plunging more sharply than they did during the Great Depression, with unemployment intractable and rising, retail sales softening, consumer confidence sinking and the equity markets falling, Ben He of Short Sight Bernanke finally saw what we and a few others had been screaming about for over four years:
last met, eight weeks ago. At that time, the central bank said the job market was gradually improving. (AP, 22 June 2011)
But instead of headlines blaring, Fed Chief Batting Zero Fails Again or Bumbling Bernanke Baffled by Bad News or Wrong Again Ben Only an Imbecile Would Still Take You Seriously, the media played it with a straight face. A Presstitute is a Presstitute is a Presstitute. ABC, CBS, CNN, AP, BBC, PBS; reporters and journalists massage the egos of the rich, powerful and famous, while reducing the rest of the population to a mass of lower beings barely capable of tying their shoes, incapable of having an original thought, and lost without direction from higher authorities. It made perfect media sense that the economys continuing Presstitute struggles would confound ordinary Americans, but that the Economic Trouble Puzzles Fed Chief Too non-recovery had also stumped the head of the Federal Reserve that was newsworthy. After all, if Bernanke The economys continuing struggles arent just was caught off guard by recent signs of deterioration in confounding ordinary Americans. Theyve also the economy how could lesser beings expect to be unstumped the head of the Federal Reserve. stumped? Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told reporters The bland journalistic language conceals a shriekWednesday that the central bank had been caught ing message: troubles could continue into next year off guard by recent signs of deterioration in the We dont have a precise read on why this slower pace of economy. And he said the troubles could continue growth is persisting more persistent than we thought into next year. factors working against economic growth appeared to We dont have a precise read on why this be transitory economy will face serious challenges next slower pace of growth is persisting, Bernanke year in contrast to the Feds more upbeat view when said. He said the weak housing market and probofficials last met, eight weeks ago. lems in the banking system might be more perWhat this story is saying, without saying it, is that the sistent than we thought. Chairman of the Federal Reserve is clueless and, by extenIt was the Fed chiefs most explicit warning sion, so is everyone else in charge. The real story should yet that the economy will face serious challenges have read, Fed & White House Fail Again they didnt next year. For several months, he had said the facsee it coming, and once it came the measures they took to tors working against economic growth appeared fix it didnt work. to be transitory. When we said that the Feds financial policies and The Feds statement Wednesday stood in conWashingtons fiscal policies would serve only to devaltrast to the Feds more upbeat view when officials
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ue the dollar and do next to nothing to regenerate the economy, some, such as Foxs phony-liberal, Wimpocrat, Obamapologist Alan Colmes, dismissed us as alarmists, and others ignored us. But when Alan Greenspan, the cheap money chief engineer and mastermind behind the ruinous policies that would culminate in the Great Recession, belatedly acknowledged what we had been saying for years, the media minions treated his proclamation with the respect due a Papal encyclical: Feds Massive Stimulus Had Little Impact: Greenspan The Federal Reserves massive stimulus program had little impact on the U.S. economy besides weakening the dollar and helping US exports, Federal Reserve Governor Alan Greenspan told CNBC Thursday. In a blunt critique of his successor, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Greenspan said the $2 trillion in quantative easing over the past two years had done little to loosen credit and boost the economy. There is no evidence that huge inflow of money into the system basically worked, Greenspan said in a live interview. Greenspan said he would be surprised if there was a QE3 because it would continue erosion of the dollar. (CNBC, 30 June 2011) The unholy alliance between Washington and Wall Street proved how fixed the game was, and how far it extended; and when the layers of fraud and corruption were peeled back, why and how those four simple words, too big to fail destroyed the American dream. Monumental failures were rewarded with bonanzas of billions while the rest of the nation was left to make it on their own. As the nation went into Fourth of July holiday mode, the White Houses Council of Economic Advisors reported that using mainstream estimates of economic multipliers for the effects of fiscal stimulus (which it describes as a natural way to estimate the effects of the legislation) has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs at a cost to date of $666 billion or $278,000 per job. Alternatively, if the government had cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was stimulus generated, taxpayers would have come out an estimated $427 billion ahead. Since the government emphatically did not cut $100K checks for anyone, what happened to the rest of the money?
UNSTIMULATED Since working people did not get stimulated by the stimulus, who did? Certainly, many billions were frittered away mysteriously to contractors, middle men and insiders, and this money was not easily traceable. But there was one group that cashed in big time and openly: the too-big-to-fails. As the middle class evaporated and the working class was fast becoming the workless class, Wall Street and corporate America were awash in profits, awarding chief executives with pre-recession-size bonuses. Compensation for the 200 highest-paid CEOs increased by 23 percent, cash bonuses were up 38 percent (three times pre-recession levels) while the average workers hourly wages (adjusted for inflation) declined by 1.6 percent since May 2010.
Trendpost: Now, in the Summer of 2011, the Fed implicit-
ly acknowledges it misinterpreted the data to read recovery and now they openly admit they read it wrong. But the mainstream media not only give both Bernanke and Greenspan a free pass, they also fail to acknowledge and/ or give credit to the few of us who predicted that both the Feds money-pumping swindle and Washingtons stimulus scams were doomed to fail. As a result, the great mass of the public is kept in the calculated dark. The Panic Button has been pushed. But it has been muffled in linguistic media soundproofing. Dont be fooled, the Panic is ON! While the US and other economies are sinking ships, they will not go under in a couple of hours. There is still time to take stock of the situation and take measures that will assure safety. If the Fed and Washington could not keep the economy afloat after pumping tens of trillions into it, it follows that nothing they do now will save it either. At this juncture, safety wealth preservation not speculation, should be paramount.
The Economy We had forecast that declining condi-
tions prevailing during the Spring of 2011 would become dire conditions during the coming winter of discontent. But thats not the way the Street saw it back in late June. Forced to lower their growth forecasts, the medias select circle of economic experts nevertheless did their best to remain upbeat about the future. Forecasts for Growth Drop, Some Sharply A drumbeat of disappointing data about consumer behavior, factory sales and weak hiring in recent weeks has prompted economists to ratchet down their 2011 economic forecasts to as little as half what they expected at the beginning of the year.
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Two months ago, Goldman Sachs projected that the economy would grow at a 4 percent annual rate in the quarter ending in June. The company now expects the government to report no more than 2 percent growth Macroeconomic Advisers, a research firm, projected 3.5 percent growth back in April and is now down to just 2.1 percent for this quarter. Both these firms, well respected in their analysis, have cut their forecasts for the second half of the year as well. Then this week, the Federal Reserve downgraded its projections for the full year, to under 3 percent growth. It started the year with guidance as high as 3.9 percent. Two years into the official recovery, the economy is still behaving like a plane taxiing indefinitely on the runway. Few economists are predicting an out-and-out return to recession, but the risk has increased, with the health of the American economy depending in part on what is really transitory. Analysts generally expect the economy to pick up in the second half (NYT, 25 June 2011)
Editors Note: The New York Times account of slowing growth but no return to recession represented the general economic consensus. Opposing forecasts (such as ours) were either absent or, when cited, written off as long shots. Thus, since the general public generally accepts the general consensus as reported by the Times and other mainstream sources, few in that portentous Summer of 2011 were actively preparing for the worst. (See Trend Lesson: Unspinning The Spin, page 20)
When America Sneezes
privatized (sold at fire sale prices to friends with connections). Greece would not be the only one of the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain) that would have its throat slit by the Troika (European Commission, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund). IMFD Neither in Greece nor in any of the PIIGS had the major underlying problems been fixed. The budget deficits, debt burdens, real estate crises, and intractable unemployment (particularly among youth) continued to plague much of Europe as well as the United States. As long as money kept flowing in (digital money not worth the paper it was not printed on), the Ponzi scheme could keep going. That such flagrant finagles were passed off as policies was a criminal act in itself. As we had been insisting since the Panic of 08 hit and the rescue/bailout policies were put in place, it was a cover up, not a recovery. (See Trend Alert, Celente on Russia Today - Cover up, not Recovery, 15 September 2009) Yet, as we continued to forecast no recovery, the pompom pundits of the Fortune 500 monopolized the financial news with their upbeat message: the recession was over, confidence was being restored, corporate profits were at record highs, consumers were shopping, manufacturing was robust, and job creation was back on track. Go back to July 7, 2011, the day before the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its much anticipated employment numbers. Read what well respected analysts such as Mark Off the Mark Zandi said. The oftquoted mouthpiece for Moodys Investor Service (the rating firm that escaped federal prosecution for fraud
By early July, General Consensus was still leading the economic charge since no one in charge had seen fit to call his bluff. The stormy June equity markets ended the month on a high note: US benchmark indexes had their biggest weekly gains in two years on the news that the US manufacturing index unexpectedly rose, and Greece (according to the General) had moved closer to averting a default. Thats not the way we saw it. Yes, the equity markets had improved. With interest rates near zero, betting on stocks was seen by many as a better gamble than keeping it in the bank and watching it devalue. The cheap money policies of the US, EMU and China had kept the global economy from crashing. But Greece was not bailed out! Greece was sold out! New debt was piled on old, taxes were raised, services were cut, and valuable public resources and properties were
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Eugene Gregan
despite finding evidence that the firm misled investors) predicted a net increase of 110,000 jobs in June. Most economists (a.k.a. General Consensus) were expecting 125,000 new jobs, while Nigel Gault of the oft-cited firm, IHS Global Insight, projected 140,000 new jobs for June. Listen to a CNBC interview with Larry Meyer, former Federal Reserve Governor and current vice chairman of Macroeconomics Advisers (one of the well respected for their analyses firms singled out by the Times) as he forecasts 160,000 new jobs for June just minutes before the numbers were released. Watch each one of CNBCs selfdescribed All-Star Economic Panel strike out in turn, missing the mark by a Meyer mile: Jobs growth stalls, setting back recovery hopes WASHINGTON U.S. jobs growth ground to a near halt in June as employers hired the fewest workers in nine months, frustrating hopes the economy would bounce back quickly from a slowdown in the first half of the year. Nonfarm payrolls rose only 18,000, the Labor Department said on Friday. It was the weakest reading since September and below even the most dire forecast in a Reuters poll of economists. The dismal report, which showed the unemployment rate climbing to a six-month high of 9.2 percent, stood in stark contrast with recent data on manufacturing and retail sales that had shown activity starting to perk up. This report has dashed hopes that the economy was about to accelerate again, said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts. It is showing a much bleaker picture than other indicators and we must hope that it is overstating the extent of the slowdown. (Reuters, 8 July 2011) One day later, and 122,000 jobs off the mark, with hopes dashed but still insisting we must hope that the terrible employment numbers were overstating the extent of the slowdown, Gault, along with most economists and those well respected analysts who got it dead wrong were not only spared criticism for their way off-the-mark forecasts, but were given another shot at getting it wrong again. Whether delivered by Wall Street Barkers or White House Hypesters, no matter how flagrant the miss or the size of the broken promise no admission of error would be forthcoming; no one would be held accountable:
Biden predicts economy will create up to 500,000 jobs a month soon Vice President Biden predicted Friday at a Pennsylvania fundraiser that the U.S. economy would be adding up to 500,000 jobs each month some time in the next couple of months. All in all were going to be creating somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 jobs next month, I predict Im here to tell you, sometime in the next couple of months, were going to be creating between 250,000 jobs a month and 500,000 jobs a month. (Washington Post, 23 April 2010) Fifteen months later, no one from the media dared tell the notoriously wrong windbag Veep he was full of sh*t. Worse, he would be quoted again and again, the band would strike up each time he entered the room or strode down the red carpet, the crowds would cheer and admirers would ask for autographs. This constant drumbeat of unsupported optimism kept the general public believing in General Consensus. The Trends Research Institute, however, contends that, sooner or later, the speculative equity markets will have to reflect the real world. But when? In 2008, incontrovertible data pointed to an economic final solution in 2010. But while the data didnt lie, we, along with the rest of the world, were being lied to and kept in the dark about the back door money-pumping deals made to keep the sinking economies afloat. Binding treaties, agreements and accords (Maastricht, Lisbon, ECB) were broken as though they had never existed while the Fed kept feeding major banks, hedge funds, corporations and financial institutions with tens of trillions of cheap dollars. In knowing what we know now and also knowing how little we can know of what goes on behind the scenes it nevertheless appears that, rather than the total collapse we initially forecast, the world will suffer a serial meltdown. Governments will resort to increasingly desperate measures to keep propping up the system to no avail. The end result will still be the Greatest Depression.
Publishers Note: At every level the Federal Reserve,
the White House, the Justice Department, Wall Street and the Media it was one big fraud and all were accessories to the crime. Fascism, the merger of state and corporate power, had replaced capitalism. It wasnt just that the economic playing field had been tilted to benefit the biggest with bailout and rescue packages, the laws themselves had been changed or bent to allow both government and the corporations to operate and collaborate beyond the law.
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TREND LESSON: Unspinning The Spin

eople often ask, How do you track and forecast trends? There are many facets to our Globalnomic method, but as with learning to play an instrument, before you can play the music, you have to learn the scales. In trend tracking, one of the scales to learn is how to parse the language for the real story behind the printed story. Sometimes its relatively obvious, e.g., when opponents of invading and/or occupying nations are demonized by the invaders/occupiers as insurgents, militants, radicals and extremists. Repeated often enough ( la Josef Goebbels) those labels become accepted as the truth. So ingrained is the practice, that it is standard operating procedure within the invading American military to refer to the enemy as the bad guys and themselves as the good guys. Following the military lead, the media and politicians take up the theme. As former TV host Ted Koppel explained during the US-led Kosovo/Serbian war, People like to reduce the news to good guys and bad guys. Maybe so, or is it that Koppel and his media mates like to reduce the news to good guys and bad guys rather than do their job as journalists and report the news in its messy complexity? In other instances, the language of propaganda is less obvious and the nuggets of spin have to be extracted from the raw journalistic ore. Thus, that studiously bland Times story quoted (see page 18) reveals itself as little more than economic propaganda. Though the headline (Forecasts for Growth Drop, Some Sharply) sets up the reader for a downbeat message, the cumulative elements instead lead the reader to believe that though the road to recovery may be bumpier than anticipated, better times lie ahead.
AN ANALYSIS OF THE LANGUAGE UNCOVERS THE SPIN:

The spin: weak hiring in recent weeks has prompted economists to ratchet down their 2011 economic forecasts to as little as half what they expected at the beginning of the year. The spin un-spun: Rather than simply state that the economists growth forecasts were dead wrong, the Times gives them the leave to ratchet down their forecast. The spin: Both these firms [Goldman and Macroeconomics Advisers], well respected in their analysis, have cut their forecasts for the second half of the year as well. The spin un-spun: To apply the adjective well respected to the Goldman Gang deserves a place of honor in the annals of journalistic audacity. Macroeconomics Advisers is self-described as the most trusted source for US macroeconomic analysis. As a Blue Chip member in good standing of the White Shoe Boyz Club, when they make a wrong call, theyre given leeway to cut their forecast by 40 percent without impugning their well respected status. The reader is implicitly counseled to continue following the advice of these firms no matter that they were wrong. Since they have received the Times imprimatur, they are well respected. The spin: Two years into the official recovery. The spin un-spun: The recovery may well be official, but its so far short of the recovery promised by officials that calling it a recovery at all is as unwarranted as characterizing Goldman Sachs as well respected. The spin: The economy is still behaving like a plane taxiing indefinitely on the runway. The spin un-spun: For the jobless, the foreclosed, food stamp-fed and the barely-making-ends-meet millions, there aint no plane and the millions not on it are not taxiing. Moreover, the bogus analogy implies that although taxiing indefinitely, sooner or later, the non-existent jumbo jet on the runway will be taking off. The spin: Few economists are predicting an out-and-out return to recession. The spin un-spun: That only few economists see a return to recession is both irrelevant and misleading. Even fewer economists forecast the real estate crash, Panic of 08, the ensuing credit crisis and the Great Recession. So why should anybody pay heed to what the majority are now forecasting? The hard data have obliged those well respected analysts to radically downgrade their forecasts, and there is no reason whatsoever to assume the new figures are any better than the old. The spin: Analysts generally expect the economy to pick up in the second half. The spin un-spun: Which analysts and on what basis? We, who correctly forecast the Panic of 08, the real estate bubble,
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CRIME PAYS For example, the United States government now officially adopted new guidelines which, despite a raft of inquiries into alleged financial crimes that led to the Panic of 08, resulted in just a few cases brought to trial. Termed deferred prosecution by the Justice Department, the new unconfrontational approach was lauded in White Shoe Boyz lingo by Sullivan and Cromwell (a prominent law firm specializing in defending white collar criminal cases) as an important step away from the more aggressive prosecutorial practices seen in some cases under their predecessors. Euphemized as a gentler approach by The New York Times, in plain English it meant crime pays: the Washington-protected Wall Street Mob was too-big-toprosecute and too-big-to-jail. No better illustration could be found than the deal the Justice Department cut with American International Group (A.I.G.) back in 2004 for helping clients improperly burnish financial statements (a.k.a. cook the books). Let off the hook with a deferred prosecution agreement and a paltry $126 million fine, A.I.G. given a free ride to pursue its business as usual would go down in history as the notorious too big to fail that the American taxpayer was forced to bailout in 2008, to the tune of $182 billion. Nevertheless, even though the money mobsters were free to live their luxurious lives of crime, even they couldnt keep the mega-Ponzi scheme going in perpetuity. The Panic Button had been pushed.
Trendpost: However tough the times, in the developed
countries, the majority will survive. Although the standard of living will decline (absent any of the Doomsday prophesies coming to pass) life will go on. There will be areas of safety and refuge for many and even oases of great prosperity offering opportunities in health, alternative energy, food, water, new education, higher tech, etc., for the trend aware. Obviously some countries will fare better than others. Canada, Australia, Sweden, Norway resource rich, selfsufficient, low GDP-to-debt ratios, strong export markets, manageable populations, highly educated, politically stable, low poverty rates are a few examples. (We had included New Zealand as a country to consider, but its recent earthquakes that have destroyed so much of Christchurch, and the potential for continued activity, makes it less attractive.) We do not share the long-term enthusiasm of many financial analysts for most of the emerging markets and BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China). Where they see booms, we see bubbles. While there is no doubt that some investors, speculators and businesses will continue to cash in even after the bubble bursts, many will be caught up in the global contagion. As the old saying goes, When America sneezes, the rest of the world catches cold. The Panic of 08 exposed the fragility of those economies. But by July 2011, the drastic money-pumping schemes they too employed to re-inflate their sagging
(Continued on page 30)
the Great Recession and the bogusness of the vaunted recovery, see no pick up indicated by the data. However, considering the lengths the Fed and White House will go to in order to prop up the failing economy, they may well pump more trillions into it. Less than three weeks after Analysts generally expect the economy to pick up in the second half, Ben Wrong Again Bernanke told Congress, We dont know where the economy is going to go. He left open the possibility for yet another round of Fed intervention. More stimulus atop of old stimulus that didnt work before would, again, at best, provide the appearance of a pick-up, but the reprieve would again be only temporary. Pubishers Note: If you were going for your MBA at Harvard, or any top-of-the-line or bottom-of-the-barrel business school, despite the tens of thousands of dollars spent, the thousands of hours endured listening to mind-numbing lectures, and the endless hours spent poring through overpriced text books written in impenetrable business jargon, you would not be taught this trend tracking lesson on how to distinguish spin from story. And, to make matters worse, you would be systematically indoctrinated into the cult of the expert, where general consensus (most economists believe) is presented as if it were equivalent to evidence. The Sun orbits the Earth, phlogiston is what allows combustion to take place, and the atom cannot be split are just a few of the hundreds of exploded ideas that were once held as axiomatic truths by general consensus. Yet, it is as though history had never happened. For anyone to draw definitive conclusions in any of the disciplines (health, science, politics, economics, etc.) based upon general consensus is not just folly, but an insult to the intellect. The fundamentals of the economy are sound Go back to your offices, the fire in the North Tower is under control. The failure to Think for Yourself could cost you money, and even your life. n
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THE GLOBAL GAME CHANGER

Who Can Save America Who Can Save The World?
By Gerald Celente
C E L E N T E
The American Economy is in collapse. Nothing the White House, Congress or the Federal Reserve tries to do to stop the crash will stop it. Bushs TARP, Obamas stimulus and Bernankes money-pumping schemes none have delivered the recovery each had promised. The digital trillions injected by the government to keep financial firms afloat put America on temporary life-support, no more than that. When the plug is pulled and the money pump stops, the US economy will go down and much of the world will sink with it.
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On the war front, the storys the same. Nothing the White House, Congress or the Pentagon does will bring the results they promise. Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya Bush, Obama, Gates, Petraeus big talk, trillions spent, millions killed, nations destroyed, antiAmerican hatred seething and no victory in sight. Undeterred by having batted zero, Republican and Democratic leaders and government lackeys defend pitiful performances with the same hollow lines: Progress is being made; more time is needed. From the economy to war and peace, from education to health care reform, new failures are piled on old ones. Major disasters are compounded into tragic debacles. But wait, theres hope! The 2012 campaign bandwagon is rolling. Jam-packed with a new class of Presidential candidates, this time it will be different. The cameras roll, and candidates boast that they, and only they, have what it takes to bring about prosperity and set the nation straight. And from right and left, the kids at the circus jump from their seats and cheer for the clowns. History tells us, in the most unequivocal terms, that a vote for any Republican or Democratic party candidate in 2012 will be a vote for more of the same. Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, NOTHING that any Presidential front runner promises will bring about prosperity or Change You Can Believe In.
DELUSION SOLUTION
C E L E N T E
Come Election Day, the media and politicians will be spinning the same old tale: Get out and vote. If you dont exercise your right to vote, you lose your right to complain. What nincompoop made up this deceptive line, one that sounds politically correct and morally persuasive, but, in reality, is pure nonsense? Vote for whom? Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum? A lesser of two evils? A choice between very dishonest and very incompetent or just plain dishonest and incompetent? What an historic day it would be if the electorate entered the polling place bewildered about having to choose between the greater of two greats. Then, and only then, would the citizen who did not vote lose their right to complain. Regardless of who is elected Republican or Democrat the only solution I can see at
this time that could save America (and be applied worldwide) is to take the power out of the hands of politicians and put it into the hands of the people. In Switzerland, where this is practiced, it is called Direct Democracy. The people vote on major issues that affect them locally and globally, and the elected officials (whether they agree or not) perform their duties as public servants, carrying out the will of the people. The US and other nations that call themselves democratic have representative democracy. In theory, elected officials pledged to carry out (represent) the will of the people. But, in practice, at least in modern memory, most elected officials carry out the will of special interests whose campaign contributions (a.k.a. bribes and payoffs) assure their subservience. While most everybody knows this, its both
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Regardless of who is elected, the only solution I can see that could save America (and be applied worldwide) is to take the power out of the hands of politicians and put it into the hands of the people.
tolerated and accepted as political business as usual. Only school children, the delusional and the willfully dont-knownuthin still believe that the officials theyve elected represent them.
bailouts, rescue packages, budgets, taxes, health care, oil drilling, hydrofracking, subsidies, education, abortion, drug lega l i zat ion, same sex marriage, zoning, eminent doDancing with Direct Democracy: The Third Party is You! main and yes, secessionCALL TO ACTION Virtually every day ism for all those who no longer want to be part we receive emails asking us for direction on how of an increasingly imperfect and dysfunctional to reverse negative trends we have identified, and union the European or the American Way: how to successfully navigate the future. Let the People vote! Given todays dire socioeconomic and geoGive the public servants the unique oppolitical conditions and our forecast for them to portunity to truly play the role they so insistently dramatically deteriorate, I believe that changing pretend they have been playing all along and from a faux-representative democracy to Direct serve the public. Democracy would be a giant step in the right diWHERE TO START Understanding rection. If the Swiss can do it successfully, why the tremendous power that social networking cant anyone else? played in galvanizing the revolutions of the As a political atheist, I belong to no politiArab Spring and the uprisings and protests cal party nor adhere to an ideology. At this early raging through Europe, I propose using the stage of the 2012 campaign (though I disagree same model to bring about a Direct Democracy with certain of his strict libertarian principles), I revolution. would vote for Ron Paul for his bring-home-theThere will be legal hurdles to jump and potroops, close-the-bases, shrink-the-military, endlitical obstacles erected that will need to be overthe-drug-war, bring-down-the-Federal-Reserve come. It is going to take passion and persistence platform. from people with relevant skills to push the moveYet, even if Paul were elected, the special ment forward. It should never be forgotten that no interests would fight to keep what they have law is immutable. Laws are made only to be superand possibly kill not to lose it. And with a viable, seded by new laws. No clearer example can be givtruly independent third party not in the cards for en than the wholesale raping of the Constitution 2012, the only viable solution I can envisage that by the Supreme Court and successive presidents. could reverse the trends is take the vote out of What better time to write a new one? the hands of party politicians and put it in the If the Founding Fathers could pull it off with hands of the people: Direct Democracy! horses, sheer will and quill pens, surely 21st cenOn issues ranging from federal to local tury revolutionaries can make Direct Democracy going to war, foreign aid, trade agreements,
Eugene Gregan
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a reality with the strokes of a keyboard. Not only can the Internet serve as the galvanizing force to bring about Direct Democracy, it can also be used as the 21st century ballot box. Voting online could be subject to hacking and fraud, the entrenched parties will argue. But casting a vote online is no more susceptible to irregularities than casting a vote at the polling place be it stuffing the ballot boxes or rigging the voting machines. In fact, voting online, with full transparency, would prove more secure than any polling place run by party operatives. I say, If you can bank online, buy online, gamble on line, you can vote online! Going to vote should be easier than going to the ATM. And if you dont have your own computer, theres always the polling place. It is due time Thomas Jeffersons vision that in due time the voice of the people will be heard and their latent wisdom will prevail, prevails. For that vision to become a reality it will take dedicated attorneys to create the legal framework required to change old laws, make new ones, and surmount the massive roadblocks that the politically entrenched will erect to stop the movement. And it will take inspired web programmers and designers to build the hi-tech site that provides the needed online structure, and savvy social networkers to galvanize the public. The Trends Research Institute has taken the first step by securing the domain name DirectDemocracyNow.org. As G.I. Gurdjieff told his students, I provide the leather, you make the shoes. We look forward to hearing from those with the skills and dedication.
Publishers Note: Representative Democracy,
C E L E N T E
have changed. No longer called Kings, Queens, Czars, Dukes and Barons, the new aristocracy is called the too big to fail. My call for the institution and spread of Direct Democracy, which has been broadcast on national and international radio and TV programs, is resonating globally. While the concept is not new, the interest in it is only now gaining global traction. Thinking people everywhere are recognizing that Direct Democracy can provide a blueprint for revolution in the New Millennium. Non-violent, intellectually and philosophically sound, emotionally empowering, and potentially inexorable the greatest obstacle to Direct Democracy is to do nothing.
THE DD TREND
C E L E N T E
the form of government we adhere to in the West, is no more than a cruel sham, a bone thrown to the proles following the overthrow of the aristocracies of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. The restive public was gulled into believing that, by voting for members of political parties pledged to represent their interests, their voices would be heard. While attractive in principle, in practice, political parties come to represent the same very rich and very powerful interests that have ruled throughout history. Only the names and ranks
Trends are born, grow, mature, reach old age and die. While modern age Direct Democracy (DD) was born in mid-19th-century Switzerland, its success has been confined within that nations borders. But seeds are now being sown in other places. DD advocates in Poland, for example, disgusted with politics as usual and determined to break free of party chains, have launched a bold and practical initiative. Similar initiatives exist in the UK, Czech Republic, and elsewhere. These incipient movements all recognize the basic need to radically change the system, but to date, theyve not yet gathered the necessary momentum to galvanize a mass movement. A Polish Direct Democracy group that we are in contact with emphasizes the need for DD advocates to be very careful on the implementation of details to clear the maze of legal, bureaucratic and political hurdles purposely set in place by the agents of no change. They write, Therefore, it is worthwhile to prepare the change into Direct Democracy carefully. We would be happy to recommend some of our very knowledgeable colleagues to any group of people that would like to make changes in their political system in the direction of Direct Democracy. They recommend three great sources of information: n Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe: The president of IRI is Mr. Bruno Kauffmann, who can be very helpful. He is very much involved in the direct democratization in Iceland. He has a huge knowledge on issues of
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Direct Democracy and the biggest connections network in the community. n The Centre for Democracy Studies (ZDA): A Swiss think tank that is also active in Icelandic efforts to introduce Direct Democracy. n Democracy International: An international network for Direct Democracy.
On-Trend For Action Even with a Direct De-
mocracy system in place, voting to elect public servants (representatives in pre-DD jargon) will still be necessary. To help assure that public servants serve the publics interests rather than special interests, international financier Jim Rogers has spearheaded GovAtHome, an important step in that direction. While the Rogers proposal does not entail the citizenry voting Swiss-style, directly on important individual issues, its focus is on requiring Congressmen and Senators to live and work in their home districts, out of the reach of Washington-based lobbyists who, under the present system, are the de facto lawmakers. Washington is full of lobbyists and nearly all laws are written by lobbyists and certainly strongly influenced by lobbyists and so the American public has little to do with how laws come out or whats good for us, said Rogers. The current system rewards corruption. When Congressmen live isolated from those they serve, and are constantly seduced and watched
by high-dollar campaign donors, is it any wonder that they are so corrupt? asks GovatHome. Some 40,000 registered lobbyists contributed $3.5 billion (a.k.a. bribes) to political campaigns in 2010, with the goal of passing legislation furthering their interests. A career in government has become a stepping stone to a lucrative career in lobbying. Politicians dont just take money from lobbyists they become lobbyists. Thousands of former federal employees, hundreds of former White House staffers and ex-members of Congress, as well as numerous former heads of government departments have gone on to work for, or run, lobbying firms. The Rogers plan would retain the requirement written into the Constitution that representatives spend a week in DC and return occasionally as needed. Otherwise, the rest of their duties would be performed in their home districts, using Internet, video conferencing, and email technology. When they cast their votes, it will be under the watchful eyes of their constituents and with complete and immediate transparency. Until the lobbyist/corporate stranglehold is broken, the individual voter is but a slave to a system he had no say in creating, and to masters who are indifferent to the general welfare. An immediate advantage of GovAtHome is that it could be implemented without necessitating a drastic rewriting of existing constitutions.
S O L U T I O N S C E L E N T E
FIGHT!
Your Life Depends on It
What prevents people from standing up, speaking out, and taking action rather than getting steamrolled by an army of self-serving politicians and bloated bureaucrats?
Are they afraid or do they just feel powerless when from Town Hall to Capitol Hill its the power-mad that make the laws, give the orders, and mete out punishment for disobedience except, of course, for the privileged few and the well-connected? We the people are not obliged to blindly follow orders that are designed to enrich the few at the expense of the many. At a certain junc-
ture, obedience itself becomes a moral crime. The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality, wrote Dante Alighieri. Be it a local zoning change pushed through for a crooked crony or a corporate marauder, a mountain top removed for a mega-mine or toxic chemical hydrofracking approved for big energy, a Presidential dictate that leads to war, or an Executive Order that robs the people of their Constitutional Rights silence and submission are willful acts of self-enslavement. Exhibit A. While the global financial wreck-
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age was almost entirely the responsibility of rapacious banks, too-big-to-fail financiers and their political flunkies, it was the people who were forced, by law, to pay the price. Exhibit B. While the ongoing, ruinously expensive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the newly minted US/NATO Libyan War were launched by politicians, without the consent of the people, it is the people, not the politicians, that foot the bills and pay with their lives. The above are just two of the more egregious examples. By 2011, the prescient words of Ralph Waldo Emerson rang truer than ever, Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well.
THE FUTURE IS IN YOUR HANDS
C E L E N T E
Indeed, at virtually every level of government, the legislative system is rigged. Politics today is little more than legalized prostitution. While a streetwalker gets busted for selling her body to a john, politicians get rewarded with campaign contributions for selling their souls to a corporation or lobbyist. With all of the whoring going on the money exchanged and the pleasures lavished the only one actually getting screwed was John Q. Public. The proof lay in the report showing that two million fewer people were employed in June 2011 than 28 months earlier, when Congress passed President Obamas $800 billion economic stimulus package, designed specifically to create jobs. Where did all the money go? The billions went mostly to their banking and other business buddies and by law John Q. Public was stuck with the tab. It was big business as usual. Under such circumstances, practically speaking, what course of action is open to the Good men (and Good women) to not obey the laws too well or better yet, not obey them at all? What! Not obey the laws? Sold to the pub-
lic as though they warranted Ten Commandment status, many were no more than criminal acts (disguised as legislation) passed by money-junkies and power-junkies (disguised as lawmakers) to further their own interests. What to do? What are you prepared to do? How do you prepare? First, take inner inventory. Are you afraid to speak out? Concerned you may jeopardize your job, your reputation, your family? Dont have the time or just dont care enough to take action? Or do you believe that higher political authorities, by virtue of their office, actually know (or care about) whats best for you? Do you lack the nerve? Or do you feel powerless, convinced that you cant fight City Hall much less change Congress or the White House? You can! Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead The theme of this Trends Journal is Fight For Freedom! Fight for your rights, fight for your dignity, and fight as though your life is on the line because it is! Not everyone will agree, and possibly the majority wont. On the issue of nuclear power, many dismiss the radiation threats to their bodies and the timerelease threats to the worlds food supply, air and water from the nuclear fallout that continues to spread from the Fukushima meltdown, half a world away. They feel reassured by experts and politicians who attest that measures have been taken to prevent future nuclear disasters on such a disastrous scale. On the issues of food, air and water, most express little concern and/or believe government officials and industry experts that the amounts of pesticides, poisons and chemicals they breathe and ingest meet regulatory safety standards.
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For example, The theme of this Trends Journal is Fight For Freedom! Its a headrecent US federache it imFight for your rights, fight for your dignity, and fight al tests found 48 plies that someas though your life is on the line because it is! different pestithing terrible is cide residues in going on, said 98 percent of apples (the nations second most Mark Seetin, the trade groups director of regulaconsumed fruit). The public was reassured by tory affairs. But growers are doing nothing illethe government that the pesticides were within gal. Theyre just trying to keep their apples fresh limits that federal regulators consider safe. and nutritious. The data we collect confirms that consumYes, for a majority, the apples, celery, spiners can assume that residues, for the most part, fall ach, potatoes, etc., are accepted as fresh and within the EPAs tolerance level for safe food, said nutritious, and pose no health dangers. But for Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan. the members of the 20 Percent Club susCan assume? For the most part? picious of government safety standards and disWhat about all those other parts that do not trustful of all industry spokespersons avoiding add up to such an assumption? It has been estabgenetically modified, chemically fertilized, and lished (I wrote about it at length, 15 years ago, in pesticide-doused foods was a matter of life and Trends 2000) that there is no way for the EPA, or death. (See 20 Percent Solution, Trends Jouranyone else, to measure the long-term effects of nal, Spring 2010) accumulated doses of the spectrum of pesticides, TAXED TO DEATH toxins and chemicals that virtually everyone in the developed world is subjected to, nor is there a way When Benjamin Franklin noted, In this world to gauge their complex interactions. nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes, he was not taking into account the effects Pesticides Far More Harmful of taxes upon death! When Combined, Study Finds In todays world, the more the government takes in taxes, the greater the toll it takes on the Pesticides that by themselves have been individual. The tried-and-true school, property, linked to breast cancer and male birth income and sales taxes combined with a host defects are up to one thousand times of license, sin, nuisance and other creative taxes more potent when combined, according are generally accepted as just another unpleasto a study. ant fact of life. But, in fact, like those doses of raIf you test them individually you diation, and like a steady diet of pesticide-tainted could almost conclude that they were factory food, chemically-treated water and pollutnon-estrogenic, almost inconsequential, ed air, the cumulative effects of oppressive taxes he [John A. McLachlan of Tulane Unibecomes a real matter of life and death. versity] said. But when you put them in The greater the taxes, the greater the stress. combination their potency jumped up The more the taxman takes, the less there is to five hundred- to one thousand-fold. pay the bills, with next to nothing left to put away Instead of one plus one equaling two, for retirement. The worse the economy gets, the we found that in some cases one plus one more difficult it becomes for the tens of millions equals a thousand. (AP, 7 June 1996) with little or no cushion to make it through the hard times. Yet, when the apple story was reported in June Yes, its a matter of life and death. The sta2011, mention of the well-known, established tistics support the obvious: the greater the stress dangers of the chemical interactions were comlevel, the greater the impact on mental and physpletely avoided. True to form, rather than acical health. knowledging any potential danger, the US Apple Its more than just spirit-sapping: with the Association countered with the argument that revenuers taking ever bigger cuts, even the health the pesticide amounts found fell within the limconscious who would like to eat pricier clean its of the law which industry lobbyists had food cant put money they dont have where their helped to write.
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C E LE NTE
mouth is. (See Clean Food Trend, Trends Journal, Spring 1994) And when it comes to the issue of war, the question of life and death is self-evident in the numbers of the dead, the wounded, the psychologically crippled. Less immediately evident are the not-so-hidden financial costs. Everyone knows that keeping the military machine welloiled and fighting is astronomically expensive. The military is marketed to the public as brave young men and women in uniform sacrificing their lives for the safety of the nation. And the wars themselves are also packaged in patriotism. Absent from the sales pitch is the military high commands proven incompetence, gross and reckless financial profligacy, and its monumental battlefield follies and failures. More men, more money, more time, is the motto.
COMBAT FATIGUE
Naturally the common people dont want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country. Sound familiar? Remember, the theme of this Trends Journal is FIGHT but not for THEM. Fight as though your life depends upon it, because it DOES. And if it doesnt yet, it will. The fight takes different forms. In recent Trends Journals we have featured articles by Close Combat masters John Perkins and Bradley Steiner. While concentrating on the kinds of preparation needed to survive physical combat, the mindset involved in that training is applicable to any other kind of fight; political, intellectual, financial (taxes, foreclosures, pay scale, etc.) emotional even spiritual. Its a fight for your self-respect and dignity. There is no higher authority (not on the terrestrial plane) qualified to impose their moral dictates and precepts on you and tell you what to believe in, who to follow, what is right and wrong, and/or how to worship. It is a fight for freedom. Not the fake freedom that allows you to vote for a lesser of two evils, but the real freedom that frees you from peer pressure, conventional wisdom, social/educational conditioning, and allows you to Think for Yourself. On certain issues, strength in numbers is essential. Join with others to fight for common causes that you believe are, in one way or another, life threatening. Be it the zoning change, mega-mine, hydrofracking, call to war, loss of Constitutional Rights, tax hikes for you, tax exemptions for THEM (e.g., General Electric, whose CEO, heading President Obamas Jobs and Competitiveness Council, reaped $14 billion in profits and paid not a cent in Federal taxes) do something, start something. n
C E L E N T E
Average citizens live in a state of disconnect. Unless they served in the military themselves, they have no idea of the organizational dysfunction that prevails from top to bottom. From maintaining several hundred far flung camps and bases, and engaging in wars waged a world away, to multi-billions spent on extravagant weapons programs and military contractors (a.k.a. mercenaries), the militarys agenda is: increase the budget and spend every dime. The more money that goes to feed the military machine, the less there is for ordinary people to pay rent, mortgages, health needs, medical care, tuition, retirement, etc. But cozened by politicians into believing its a patriotic duty to support the troops, and poorly served by a media that plays up wars while playing down both the moral consequences and the financial costs, the public at large accepts the unacceptable. With barely a protest, they let the government dig into their pockets, take what they want, reduce them to penury and keep them at war all under the guise of national security. How could the public allow themselves to accept this? Actually, it was very easy. There was a simple, tried-and-true formula, famously explained by Herman Goering with the crystal clarity of a man on his way to the gallows at Nuremberg:
S O L UTI O N S
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A Working Model for Direct Democracy

By Thomas H. Naylor
aking note of the unsustainable, unfixable, gridlock nature of the US government and its inability to fix the American economy, Gerald Celente has proposed that the United States turn to Swiss-style Direct Democracy as an alternative way to resolve such divisive issues as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the magnitude of the governments budget deficit, how to finance health care, the size of the defense budget, and national immigration policy. He envisions this being carried out on the Internet. With a population of only 7.3 million, a little larger than that of an average American state, Switzerland is one of the wealthiest, most democratic, least violent, most market-oriented countries in the world, with the weakest central government and the most decentralized social welfare system. Founded in 1291 near Lake Lucerne, the Swiss Confederation may be the most sustainable nation-state of all time. Situated in the heart of Europe, Switzerland has always existed in a state of tension between opening and closing its borders to the outside world. Even today it has nearly one million so-called guest workers. For centuries it has been an area of settlement and a transit region of European northsouth commerce. The countrys economy has long been geared to processing imported raw materials and re-exporting them as finished goods, such as specialty foods and pharmaceutical products. The Swiss enjoy state-of-the-art technology, and their banks and financial institutions are among the most stable and financially secure anywhere in the world. The same is true of the Swiss franc. Over the past 700 or so years Switzerland has developed a unique social and political structure, with a strong emphasis on federalism and Direct Democracy, which brings together its 26 cantons (tiny states), with populations ranging from 14,900 to 1,187,000, and its four languages and cultures German, French, Italian, and Romansch. The Swiss cantons enjoy considerably more autonomy than do American states. One finds a host of local and regional cultures and traditions melded into a patchwork of sights and events that are considered typically Swiss.
Switzerland has a coalition government with a rotating presidency, in which the president serves for only one year. Many Swiss do not know who of the seven Federal Councillors in the government is the president at any given time, since he or she is first among equals. In Switzerland a petition signed by 100,000 voters can force a nationwide vote on a proposed constitutional change and the signatures of only 50,000 voters can force a national referendum on any federal law passed by Parliament. VOICE OF THE PEOPLE Among the high profile issues that have been resolved by Swiss national referendums are womens voting rights, abortion rights, creation of a new canton, abolition of the army, and Swiss membership in the League of Nations, United Nations, World Bank, IMF and the European Union. , Several cantons still follow the centuries-old traditions of Landsgemeinde (or open-air parliaments) each spring. Others are experimenting with voting over the Internet. However, it is at the commune level that Swiss democracy is most direct. Within the cantons, there are 2,902 communes in the Swiss Confederation, each run by a local authority. Just as the cantons enjoy a high degree of independence from the national government, within the cantons many of the communes also enjoy a high degree of independent authority and decision-making. Most political scientists agree that the Swiss have taken the concept of democracy to levels heretofore unattainable any place else in the world. In his excellent book Direct Democracy in Switzerland (Transaction Publishers, 2002), Gregory Fossedal describes Switzerland as a Direct Democracy, in which, to an extent, the people pass their own laws, judge the constitutionality of statutes, and even have written, in effect, their own constitution. Thats a lot! All of this is in stark contrast to the United States in which our government is owned, operated, and controlled by Wall Street, Corporate America, the Pentagon, and domestic and foreign lobbies. Whereas the primary role of Swiss Direct Democracy is to protect the Swiss people from the Swiss government, the US government is more concerned with protecting its powerful clients from the will of the American people.
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In Switzerland the people own their government. In the United States the government owns us. But a word of caution is in order before embracing the Swiss model of Direct Democracy. The United States is more than 40 times larger than Switzerland in terms of population. On one hand, it has one of the most centralized governments in the world. On the other, it is also highly decentralized across 50 states, some of which, like California, Texas, New York, and Florida are quite large and powerful, unlike Swiss cantons. Even if one sorts out all of the conceptual, constitutional, and legal problems required to make Direct Democracy work in the United States, the political balancing act will be formidable. Direct Democracy works in Switzerland because Switzerland is a tiny, well-educated, hard-working country with a strong sense of community. The United States is not Switzerland. For starters, retrofitting the U.S. Constitution and legal system to accommodate Direct Democracy would require the expertise of a plethora of constitutional scholars and legal experts. For those legal scholars and political scientists up to the challenge of designing such a complex system, courage and dedication will be required. A process would also have to be developed to bring important issues to the table for consideration by a nationwide referendum. And then there is the matter of the computer network and software required to make Internet voting work. Although introducing Direct Democracy into the United States sounds like a very good idea, it would involve a number of conceptual, legal, constitutional, economic, technical, and political challenges. Such a move would require bold, creative leadership combined with world-class marketing skills. But the alternative is a nation whose government has lost its moral authority and is tightly controlled by a self-serving military/industrial/congressional complex accountable only to itself a nation that has become unsustainable economically, militarily, socially, environmentally, and politically. The United States is so large that it may no longer be governable and has possibly become unfixable. If there is a way out of our nations death spiral, Direct Democracy just might be one of our last remaining viable options. We could do a lot worse than emulate the Swiss. n About the author: Thomas H. Naylor is Founder of the Second Vermont Republic (www.vermontrepublic.org) and is Professor Emeritus of Economics at Duke University. Mr. Naylor is co-author of Affluenza, Downsizing the USA, and The Search for Meaning.
THE HISTORY OF THE FUTURE (Continued from page 21)
economies had largely been forgotten. If the West cuts back on imports and consumers dont consume, BRIC markets cannot sustain domestic prosperity. And given the socio-political climate within these nations, they are not destinations we would choose as homes for our money or ourselves.
Meanwhile Back on the Campaign Trail By the
Summer of 2011, with the great Obama got Osama saga long since faded from the news and the public consciousness, President Obamas poll numbers fell back to a 42 percent approval vs. 50 percent disapproval rating. With terror off the table and the wars a losing issue, President Obama again played the populist/class warfare card that played so well for him in 2008, when he was candidate Obama. In a June 29th press conference, he self-righteously denounced the Bush tax cuts (which he had extended in December 2010) and railed, on six separate occasions, against the tax breaks awarded to corporate jet owners. With everyday people stuck in grinding daily commutes or forced to suffer groping, irradiation and cattle car discomfort when flying the unfriendly skies, fastening on the fat cat image of the corporate jet was a skillful stroke of populist propaganda. Translated into policy, eliminating corporate jet tax breaks would save the government a grand total of $3 billion over ten years. Put into proper perspective, ten years of corporate jet tax break savings was equivalent to just one week of spending for the Iraq War, that Obama perpetuated, and the Afghan War that he escalated.
BACKTRACKS BACK Despite his barefaced hypocrisy and a presidential term replete with economic policies that enriched the richest while, at best, maintaining only basic social services for the poorest (while slashing others), he again positioned himself as Obama, the Peoples President. It was a simple, time-honored strategy. Its what incumbents do regardless of which side of which mouth of the two-headed one-party system was speaking: make big, bold promises during the campaign and, once elected, renege on as many as possible, blaming your inability to deliver on the opposing party. Having been swept into office on a platform of Hope and Change and in full control of the house and Senate for his first two years, Obamas greatest success was to seamlessly perpetuate the G.W. Bush economic and military doctrine he had vilified as candidate Obama. Los-
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ing the House in the midterm Undaunted by his string of broken promises, controlled Ampad, had 2010 elections, but retaining in the Summer of 2011, the born-again populist not done enough to settle the Senate, provided the covthe strike and save some positioned himself to retain his core er for Backtrack Obama to 200 jobs . go on backtracking. Throughout his 15Democratic base. Undaunted by his string year career at Bain Capof broken promises, in the Summer of 2011, the born-again ital, which bought, sold, and merged dozens of populist positioned himself to retain his core Democratic companies, Romney had other chances to fight to base, while wooing swelling legions of the hard-pressed, save jobs, but didnt. His ultimate responsibility desperate for a government handout. Hoping against hope was to make money for Bains investors, former that Obama would, this time, deliver on his pledges, the partners said. out of work and down and out were left with a Hobsons Much as he did when running for MassachuChoice: either take Obama or be left out in the cold by the setts governor, Romney is now touting his busiRepublicans. ness credentials as he campaigns for president, Even with all of the necessary ingredients in place for asserting that he helped create thousands of jobs a one-term presidency in place, given the cast of unimposas CEO of Bain. But a review of Bains investments ing Republican presidential hopefuls, an Obama victoryduring Romneys tenure indicates that job growth by-default became a distinct possibility. was not a particular priority But in almost all By mid-July, the Republican card of candidates showed cases Bain Capital made money. (Boston Globe, neither a clear favorite nor the kind of widespread public 27 January 2008) enthusiasm that could win the race for the White House: As a candidate, Romney was twice cursed. His checkered Majority of Republicans business credentials distanced him from independent votCant Name a 2012 Favorite ers, who saw him as a ruthless takeover artist. And he had More than half of Republicans and Republicanalienated conservatives by signing into law, as Governor leaning independents, 58%, do not express a of Massachusetts, a mandatory health care plan that has preference when asked in an open-ended format been compared to the Affordable Care Act, also known as with no candidates names read whom they are Obamacare. most likely to support for the partys 2012 presiIS THAT ALL THERE IS? dential nomination. Those who do have a preference most often mention Mitt Romney and MiNumber two in the Gallup poll, with 9 percent, was Michele Bachmann. (Gallup, 15 July 2011) chele Bachman. First elected to the House in 2006, the former Minnesota state senator entered the race with a Romney, leading the pack with a mere 13 percent of those resum as thin as Barack Obamas, when he ran for Presipolled, had brought to the 2012 table exactly what he had dent. A Tea Party favorite for her Get government out left behind in his failed 2008 bid. Though he had proof the way of business message, a deficit hawk opposed moted himself as a savvy and experienced businessman to increasing government debt, Bachman voted against who could create jobs and turn the country around, RomBushs TARP and Obamas stimulus. neys resum was that of the kind of corporate raider who Nevertheless, in July 2011, most media coverage helped killed the American Dream: pigeonholed her as a family values kind of gal with a political history of uncompromising and impassioned As Bain Slashed Jobs, Romney Stayed to Side opposition to same sex marriage and gay rights. While A review of Bains investments during Romneys it attracted strong support among the evangelical contenure indicates that job growth was not a servative wing of the Republican Party, and could well particular priority. set her up for the first presidential primary in Iowa, we In early 1995, as the Ampad paper plant in Marforecast it would prove too polarizing a stance to win the ion, Ind., neared its shutdown following a bitter White House, even in the event of a long-shot nominastrike, Randy Johnson, a worker and union offition victory. cial, scrawled a personal letter to Mitt Romney, Although the rest of the announced Republican field pouring out his disappointment that Romney, registered 1s and 2s in the Gallup poll, the race had just then chief executive of the investment firm that begun. With a year before the nomination was to be de-
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cided, and with the medias saturation coverage of candidates on the campaign trail licking ice cream cones, chatting it up with just plain folks over coffee at the local diner, and patting cows at the state fair it would not be long before voter fatigue would set in, leaving an opening for a dark horse to win the nomination, and conceivably the White House.
Trend Forecast: In late July of 2011, our two dark horse
favorites, with the potential to break away from the pack, are Texas Congressman Ron Paul, and Former Utah Governor and Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman. The Libertarian-leaning Ron Paul, a known quantity, has run the Presidential race twice before and has a stalwart support base. As a Congressman, Paul commands more air-time than most of his fellow Representatives. As a Presidential candidate, however, he has been marginalized by his own party, maligned by pundits of both parties and but dutifully acknowledged as a contender by the mainstream media. Pauls poll numbers may have looked negligible, but they belied his strong populist appeal and his proven ability to trump higher profile candidates in various Republican straw polls.
diehard liberals forget all the other points of agreement and, instead, support four more years of the Democrat Obama who extended and expanded the Patriot Act, increased military spending, prolonged old wars and started new ones, operated torture compounds in foreign countries, ratcheted up the War on Terror and increased funding for the War on Drugs. As for the hardcore conservatives, Paul was unacceptable to them because of his anti-militarism, antiWar on Drugs, anti-War on Terror platform. Nevertheless, given his substantial core support base and his Ross Perot-style populist appeal among the growing ranks of the unaffiliated and undecided, it was not inconceivable that Paul could mount a serious challenge to the sitting President. JON WHO? Jon Huntsman was, at first glance, the darkest of horses. However, Huntsman had political chops, appealing credentials and a broad skill set. Governor of Utah from 2004 to 2009, a US ambassador to Singapore, deputy US trade ambassador, and fluent in Mandarin Chinese from his days as a Mormon missionary, he was appointed Ambassador to China by Democrat Obama. Praising the Republican Huntsman as the right man for what is arguably Americas most challenging ambassadorial position, Obama described his appointee as the kind of leader who always puts country ahead of party and is always willing to sacrifice on behalf of our nation. Independently wealthy, and therefore seemingly unbeholden to special interests, Huntsman who acknowledged climate change and supported civil unions stood at odds with the Republican far right. Upon announcing his candidacy, Huntsman also put himself at odds with former boss Obama, who (according to Beltway scuttlebutt) had granted him the Chinese ambassadorship with the tacit understanding Huntsman would not make a run for the White House. Fifty years old, fit, good looking, and a scandal-free family man with solid professional credentials that Huntsman had also played in a high-school rock band, rode his bike to work in Beijing and is a motorcycle enthusiast made him a perfect contestant for the media driven Presidential Reality Show. Indeed, in a country on the brink of financial ruin, bogged down in wars, faced with an ever growing list of unsolvable social problems, that Esquire would waste ink praising Mr. Huntsman for his perfectly cut, redchecked shirt, and noting that his distressed leather belt actually makes him seem relatable, epitomized the
LIBERALTARIAN? Pauls uncompromising end-the-wars, close-all-overseasmilitary bases, bring-home-the-troops platform should have been music to the ears of the liberal left a foreign policy dream come true, one that no Democrat President in living history had dared propose. What liberal would not support a President who pledged to end the War on Drugs, legalize marijuana and dismantle the Patriot Act that made a travesty of the Constitution? Surely, these conscientious quiche-eaters would never vote for a Republican with a track record that included extending and expanding the Patriot Act, increasing military spending, prolonging old wars and starting new ones, operated torture compounds in foreign countries, ratcheting up the War on Terror, and increasing funding for the War on Drugs. So why would they want to bring back Obama when this was his precise track record, and why would they refuse to embrace Paul, who stood with them on so many issues dear to their bleeding liberal hearts? It couldnt have been Pauls anti-bail-out-the-bigs and close-downthe-Fed stances that were the definitive turn off. No, it was mostly one issue that the ideologically entrapped liberals claimed turned them off: abortion. While he opposed abortion, Paul contended it was a states issue, not a federal one. Abortion! That was enough to make
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Winning Friends and Influencing Voters on the Campaign Trail

Manufacturers and retailers at both ends of the consumer spectrum would do well to recognize the class warfare atmosphere that will not only dominate the US Presidential campaign, but also permeates many other nations both developed and developing where the widening gap between haves and have-nots has created tensions, sparked protests and threatens governments. On the high end, when an economic crisis such as the Panic of 08 strikes, upper income consumers in no financial jeopardy cut spending more as a reflex action than out of need, and also as a concession to public opinion. But soon after the panic subsides, so do the qualms of conscience and the spending spree resumes. (According to the Bloomberg Retail Sales Luxury Index, the 2010 Christmas shopping season showed high-end retail sales increasing 8.1 percent from Christmas 2009, while the Bloomberg Retail Sales Discount Index showed only a 0.9 percent rise.) Socially conscious programs initiated by high-end manufactures and retailers that actually help, rather than hype will not only assuage second thoughts about conspicuous consumption among the upper income demographic, but generate good will, as well as provide a number of jobs. As evidenced by the current round of budget cuts, the ax falls first on programs and services that provide the simple pleasures of life to those who cannot afford to pay more than nominal fees for them. Since a return to WPAstyle government-funded public works (swimming pools, parks, the arts, etc.) is unlikely, luxury sector individual and corporate patrons stepping into the breach could become a harmonizing force, both economically and emotionally, in increasingly polarized societies. At the low end fast food/restaurant chains, discount/mass market retail, consumer products forward-looking management would do well to recognize the goodwill potential of an active social conscience. Caveat: a not-so-fine line separates giving back to the community from brazenly buying your way into it: As It Campaigns to Build in the City, Wal-Mart Donates $4 Million He called Wal-Mart one of the great corporate citizens in this country. He praised its efforts to conduct background checks before selling guns. He flatly rebuffed suggestions that the company was killing jobs. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took on the role of ardent defender of big-box America on Tuesday at a news conference announcing a $4 million donation by Wal-Mart to a city program that offers summer jobs to young people. (NYT, 5 July 2011) With Wal-Mart in the midst of an aggressive campaign to open its first store in New York City, was the donation simply a coincidence? While calling Wal-Mart one of the greatest corporate citizens might make for lively debate and livelier stand-up comedy, the obvious self-serving agenda behind their donation is hardly the philanthropy that will ease the class warfare trend. Unfortunately, in 2011, the Wal-Mart way of giving a little in the hope of getting a lot back was still the norm. n
deep shallowness of what it takes to become President of the United States of America. The Republican primary field of late July was an open field. Rounded out by former Governor of Minnesota Tim Pawlenty, former Senator Rick Santorum, and former columnist, radio host and CEO of Godfathers Pizza, Herman Cain, none displayed breakaway potential. But, at that time, we saw Huntsman as having more of what it took to
win his partys nomination and a better chance than any of the others of beating Obama.
Publishers Note: As the campaign heats up, it behooves
the voting public to keep in mind President Dwight D. Eisenhowers seldom quoted, but sobering and appropriate insight, Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy. n
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Washingtons Response to a Failed Ecomomy: More War

By Paul Craig Roberts
s the second decade of the 21st century began, the US economy had not recovered from the Great Recession that began in December 2007. The economys failure to recover was despite the largest fiscal and monetary stimulus in the countrys history. There was a $700 billion bank bailout, a $700 billion stimulus program, a couple of trillion in quantitative easing, that is, in debt monetization or the printing of money to finance the governments expenditures. In addition the Federal Reserves balance sheet had expanded by trillions of dollars as the Fed purchased troubled mortgage bonds and derivatives in its effort to keep the financial system solvent and functioning. According to the Government Accountability Offices audit of the Federal Reserve released by Senator Bernie Sanders, the Federal Reserve provided secret loans to US and foreign banks totaling $16.1 trillion, a sum larger than US Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Despite the enormous fiscal and monetary stimulus, the economy remained dead in the water. In 2011 the deficit in the federal governments annual expenditures was 43 percent of the budget. In other words, the US government had to borrow, or the Fed had to monetize, 43 percent of federal expenditures during fiscal year 2011. Despite this unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus, the economy did not recover. At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the economys decline was temporarily halted by federal subsidies for car and home purchases. The $8,000 housing subsidy helped newlyweds purchase starter homes as the subsidy was a big chunk of the down payment in a depressed housing market. The car purchase subsidy moved future demand into the present. When these subsidies expired, the economys life support was turned off. Problems with the statistical reporting of unemployment, inflation, and GDP disguised the worsening economy. Seasonal adjustments used to smooth the data over the course of the year were not designed for prolonged recession. Neither was the birth-death model used by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to estimate non-reported jobs from new start-up companies and losses from companies that have gone out of business. The birth-death model was designed for a growing economy and during downturns overestimates the number of new jobs created. The substitution effect used in the consumer price
index (CPI) underestimates inflation by assuming that consumers substitute cheaper foods for those that rise in price. For example, if the price of New York strip steak rises, this does not show up in the CPI, because of the assumption that people shift their purchases to a less expensive cut such as round steak.
COOKING THE BOOKS

The widely used core inflation measure does not include food or energy. Core inflation is a useful measure for those who want to put an optimistic spin on the outlook. By underestimating inflation, the government can overestimate real GDP growth, thus creating a fictional rosy outlook. Similarly, by using the employment measure known as U.3, the government underestimates unemployment. The headline unemployment rate, the one emphasized by the media and the financial press, stood at 9.2 percent in June, 2011. But this rate does not include any discouraged workers. A discouraged worker is a person who has ceased looking for a job, because there are no jobs to be found. A discouraged worker is not considered to be in the work force and is not counted among the U.3 unemployed. The federal government knows that this is phony and has a U.6 measure of unemployment that counts the shortterm discouraged. This measure, seldom reported by the media, stood at 16.2 percent in June, 2011. Statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) continues to count also the long-term discouraged workers according to the way it was officially done in 1980. In June, 2011, this full measure of the US unemployment rate was 22.7 percent. In other words, by 2011 between one-fifth and onefourth of the US work force were without jobs. As 2011 progressed, the United States faced three simultaneous economic crises. One crisis arose from the loss of US jobs, GDP, consumer income, and tax base caused by corporations offshoring their production for the US market. Instead of making their products at home with American labor and providing Americans with jobs and states and localities with tax revenues, US corporations provided countries such as China, India, and Indonesia with GDP, jobs, consumer income and a tax base. This practice meant that economic stimulus was unable to revive the US economy as Americans cannot be called back
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to work jobs that have been it became clear that the wars purmoved abroad. pose was to evict China from its Another crisis was the fioil investments in eastern Libya. nancial crisis resulting from deUnlike the previous Arab proregulation, fraud, and greed. Setests, the Libyan rebellion was curitization of mortgages meant an armed uprising in which some that issuers of mortgages no saw the CIAs hand. longer had any incentive to asThe Libyan war upped the risk, certain the credit worthiness because although hiding behind of the borrower, because the the veil of Arab protest, the US was issuers sold the mortgages to actually confronting China. Simithird parties who combined the larly, in the US-supported armed mortgages with others and sold rebellion in Syria, Washingtons them to investors. target was the Russian naval base As mortgages were issued at Tartus. Overthrowing the Assad for fees, the more mortgages isgovernment in Syria and installing sued, the higher the income from a US friendly regime would put fees. In order to collect fee inpaid to Russias naval presence in come, some issuers faked credit the Mediterranean. reports for borrowers. With the By hiding its purposes behousing market booming, many hind Arab protests in Libya and Viking Spirit people took mortgages in order Syria that it might have initiated, to make money on the resale Washington avoided face-to-face of the properties. With housing prices rising rapidly, down conflicts with China and Russia, but nevertheless the two payments and credit worthiness became concerns of the powers understood that Washington was striking at their past. The financial crisis was made worse by the ability of interests. This elevated the recklessness of Washingtons investment banks to get around capital requirements and, aggressive policies by initiating confrontation with two nuthereby, leverage their equity by incurring enormous debt. clear powers, one of which held financial power over the US When all the bubbles burst, the house of cards collapsed. as Americas largest foreign creditor.
ECONOMIC ARMAGEDDON
The third crisis was the $1.5+ trillion annual federal budget deficits, which were too large to be financed without the Federal Reserve buying the Treasurys new debt issues. Known as monetizing debt, the Federal Reserve purchased the Treasurys bills, notes, and bonds by creating a checking account, which the Treasury would then draw upon to pay the governments bills. The outpouring of Treasury debt raised concerns about the dollars exchange value and role as reserve currency, and it raised fears of inflation. Gold and silver prices rose as the dollar declined in foreign exchange markets. Any one of these crises was serious. All together, they implied economic armageddon. There was no obvious way out, but even if one could be found, the government was focused elsewhere on wars. In addition to ongoing military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, the US and NATO began military operations against Libya on March 19, 2011. As with the existing wars, the real purpose of the aggression against Libya was not acknowledged, but
Chinas oil investments in Angola and Nigeria were another target. To counter Chinas economic penetration of Africa, the US created the American African Command in the closing years of the first decade of the 21st century. Disturbed by Chinas rise, the US undertook to prevent China from having independent sources of energy. The great game that in the past has always led to war is being played out once again. September 11, 2001, provided Washington with a new threat to replace the Soviet threat, which had expired in 1991. Despite the absence of the Soviet threat, the military/ security budget had been kept alive for a decade. September 11, 2001, injected rapid growth into the military/security budget. A decade later the budget stood at approximately $1.1 trillion annually, or approximately 70 percent of the federal deficit which was crippling the dollar and threatening the US Treasurys credit rating. Focused on Middle Eastern wars, Washington was losing the war for the US economy. As the expectation of economic recovery evaporated over the course of 2011, the need for war became more imperative. (See Antiwar.com, Sen. Graham Very Close to War.) n
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EU Bailouts: Serfs Up
By Paul Craig Roberts
e dont know what rhetoric elites used in the 13th century, when peasants were uprooted from the land that had provided their sustenance for centuries, to disguise expropriation by fire and sword. Eight centuries later with expropriation again underway, the rhetoric is Orwellian. Today the peasants in Greece, Ireland, and Spain are being expropriated by having their wages and pensions cut, their taxes raised, their jobs abolished, their social services slashed, and their social infrastructure privatized in the name of making democracy work, rescuing Greek finances, winning a bailout, saving the Euro, internal devaluation, free market reform, and avoiding contagion. Economist Michael Hudson calls it financialized neofeudalism. Peoples are being enserfed and economies destroyed so that bankers dont have to suffer losses on their casino gambling bets. Not only is the process immoral, it is also illegal. The European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are illegally supplying the funds to bailout the German, French, and Dutch banks that hold the Greek governments bonds. The treaties that created the European Union (EU) prohibit the ECB from bailing out EU member governments. The IMF Articles of Agreement prevent the IMF from lending to governments for the purpose of fiscal or budgetary support. IMF loans are restricted to balance of payments loans when a country lacks the foreign exchange reserves to cover a deficit in its balance of payments. Greeces problem is not its balance of payments. Despite the legal clarity, the charters of both financial organizations are being ignored for no other reason than to absolve bankers from having to pay for their own mistakes. Except for the UK, which still retains its own currency, EU members no longer have central banks that can extend credit to the government by monetizing the governments debt. EU countries have to rely on private banks to finance their deficits. Quantitative easing the purchase of the governments debt by a central bank is not an option open to them, and the ECB is not allowed to finance member countries deficits. Despite the prohibition, the ECB is nevertheless lending money to governments in order to finance the bailouts of EU countries creditor banks. Bankers bought more Greek debt than Greece can pay interest on or retire. Normally what happens in such a case is that the debt is restructured and reduced to an amount that the debtor is able to pay. This involves the holders of the bonds taking a haircut and having to write down losses on their investments. However, the bankers now have too much power
for it to work this way. In Greeces case, the banker-imposed solution is that the ECB and IMF violate the laws under which they are supposed to operate and lend enough money to Greece for Greece to repay the bankers with more borrowed money. Indeed, it is even worse than that. Obviously, if Greece cannot make its bonds good, Greece cannot repay the loans from the ECB and IMF. For the scheme to go forward, the Greek government has to be coerced into selling to private interests that is, to the bankers the state lottery, the countrys ports, its postal service, the water companies of municipalities, and a string of Greek islands. The banks, or business interests funded with bank loans, expect to pick up these privatized public assets for pennies on the dollar.
TAKEOVER
In addition, the Greek government has to free up tax revenues with which to repay the loans by laying off public employees, cutting their pensions, raising taxes, and slashing the remaining public services. All the money and income flows leave Greece and go to foreign bankers, driving the Greek economy deeper into recession and inability to pay. Needless to say, the Greek population opposes the austerity that is mandated in order to receive what the New York Times calls the prize of winning a bailout. The winner, of course, is not Greece, but the German, Dutch, and French bankers. This is why Greeks have been protesting in the streets for weeks, only to find that their socialist government does not represent them. The Greek government has aligned with the foreign bankers. On June 23, the Greek finance minister won the bailout with a five-year austerity plan that lowers the minimum threshold for income tax to 8,000 euros a year ($11,200), increases the tax on heating oil, and imposes a solidarity levy on income of between 1 and 5 percent. Obviously, the poor are being made to pay for the rich bankers mistakes. According to the head of the ECB, Jean-Claude Trichet, the next step in making democracy work is to remove the sovereignty of the Greek government. In a speech on June 2, Trichet said that the task was to bring Europe beyond a strict concept of nationhood and the traditional practice of protecting debtors. Whether a country could afford to pay its debts was no longer a question of its budgetary condition if the country has public domain that can be privatized. Greece would have to be made to pay, said Trichet, or other EU member states would demand restructuring and writedowns of their excessive debts. In order to avoid a contagion (Continued on page 39)
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A MEGA-TREND-IN-WAITING
here was a new normal! It was not only a matter of downgraded expectations for income, jobs and hobbled GDP resulting in a lower standard of living. What federal, state and municipal governments had formerly provided, they could no longer afford to provide at previous levels. Health care reform, with its obvious grave implications for the future of America, was a hot button issue that dominated heated partisan political debate at the onset of Campaign 2012. But a no less crucial issue that was not part of the debate at all, and that had even graver implications for the future of America, was education. Like public health care, public education was a budgetdraining, bureaucracy-heavy burden on the taxpayer. Even when it makes its way onto the campaign trail, candidates debate how to improve education, rather than acknowledge that the system itself is inadequate, obsolete, dilapidated and beyond repair. Those forward-thinking, deep-pocketed and big-hearted businesses and individuals that want to give back with the intention of bringing the United States (or any nation) back to prosperity, might consider taking a page from the Andrew Carnegie book of philanthropy. Understanding that it is also in their economic interest to have a well educated society and that the more people earn, the more they will spend, it presents an opportunity for the private sector to practice a form of enlightened self interest.
version of his vision. More libraries, no, but education in many new forms, yes! Today, the educational system, especially in America, is in crisis. Everyone knows it and the facts confirm it. Although the US spends more per student than most of the developed worlds nations, its high school graduation rate is below the world average. Not only is the entire system outmoded, inefficient and dysfunctional, its also corrupt: Systematic Cheating Is Found in Atlantas School System ATLANTA A state investigation released Tuesday showed rampant, systematic cheating on test scores in this citys long-troubled public schools, ending two years of increasing skepticism over remarkable improvements touted by school leaders. The results of the investigation, made public by Gov. Nathan Deal, showed that the cheating occurred at 44 schools and involved at least 178 teachers and principals, almost half of whom have confessed, the governor said. A culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation existed in the district, which led to a conspiracy of silence, he said in a prepared statement. Mayor Kasim Reed of Atlanta called the release of the investigation a dark day for the Atlanta public school system. The cheating, he said, showed a complete failure of leadership that hurt thousands of children who might have been promoted to the next grade without meeting basic academic standards. At the center of the cheating scandal is former Superintendent Beverly L. Hall, who was named the 2009 National Superintendent of the Year and has been considered one of the nations best at running large, urban districts. (NYT, 6 July 2011) In a world where President Obama is a Nobel Peace Prize recipient for perpetuating the Iraq War, ramping up the Afghan War, escalating the drone wars in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia and taking the nation to war against Libya, it made perfect sense that the recipient of the 2009 National Superintendent of the Year award would be at the center of the cheating scandal. While students cheating on tests is nothing new, teachers and administrators rigging the scores and cook-
THE GREATER GOOD

Unappreciated and barely remembered was Carnegies bold and noble gift. By building libraries throughout much of the English-speaking world, Andrew Carnegie provided the general public access to a world of knowledge otherwise reserved for the wealthy and the formally educated. Unlike those soulless, bottom-line book repositories built by contemporary municipalities that blight the neighborhood, the Carnegie libraries were architectural gems. Providing thousands of jobs for highly skilled craftsmen, each was unique, constructed in various styles (BeauxArts, Italian Renaissance, Baroque, Classical Revival, Spanish Colonial, Scottish Baronial). Not only was the intellect stimulated by the wealth of available knowledge, the beauty of the surroundings enriched the soul. With Carnegie as a viable model of what money can buy, in a world filled with billionaires, oligarchs and oil sheiks, opportunities exist to create a worthy 21st century
37
The Trends Research Institute has been providing Under Pressure, Teachers evidence for the breakdown of the entire Tamper with Tests educational system for over two decades. It was a trend that could not be denied. The staff of Normandy Crossing ElYet the government, teachers unions and ementary School outside Houston vested interests were still adamantly ineagerly awaited the results of state sisting that the unfixable could be fixed. achievement tests this spring. For A Nation at Risk, No Child Left Bethe principal and assistant princihind, harebrained schemes executed pal, high scores could buoy their by Education Czars that squandered huncareers at a time when success is Peace Prize dreds of billions but left the nation more increasingly measured by such at risk than ever and a generation of children left behind. tests. For fifth-grade math and science teachers, the The basic problem was obvious: resistance to change. In rewards were more tangible: a bonus of $2,850. the private sector, market forces put outmoded systems out of But when the results came back, some seemed business. But government bureaucracies, education included, too good to be true. Indeed, after an investigation by will fight to perpetuate their existence long after theyve bethe Galena Park Independent School District, the princome irrelevant. cipal, assistant principal and three teachers resigned Back in 1990, Gerald Celente wrote in his book Trend TrackMay 24 in a scandal over test tampering. ing, Our school system was designed to meet the needs of a The district said the educators had distributed a growing industrial society. It taught people how to read, write, detailed study guide after stealing a look at the state and do some arithmetic. More important, it taught them how science test by tubing it squeezing a test booklet, to follow instructions and be good employees. It didnt teach without breaking its paper seal, to form an open tube them how to think. It didnt teach them how to ask questions, so that questions inside could be seen and used in the how to analyze problems, or how to find solutions. guide. The district invalidated students scores. The solution is: New Millennium Education. Of all the forms of academic cheating, none may be as startling as educators tampering with childrens standardized tests. But investigations in Georgia, IndiTrendpost: Of all the trends we forecast, New Millennium ana, Massachusetts, Nevada, Virginia and elsewhere Education ranks high as both a game changer and a money this year have pointed to cheating by educators. maker. Twenty-one years ago, the computer revolution was in Educators feel that their schools reputation, its infancy. In those days of dial-up, the digital age was still but their livelihoods, their psychic meaning in life is at a dream. Now that hi-tech has become an integral part of daily stake, said Robert Schaeffer, public education direclife, it is curious that it has not already supplanted or drastically tor for FairTest, a nonprofit group critical of standardre-shaped the entire educational system. ized testing. That ends up pushing more and more of The possibilities for new courseware and new systems for them over the line. teaching it are limitless. Just as online shopping has taken a Not everyone agrees. Beverly L. Hall, who, as the big chunk out of brick-and-mortar retail business, so, too, the superintendent of the Atlanta Public Schools, has won technology already exists for advanced, interactive, virtual realnational recognition for elevating test scores, said disity classrooms to take a big chunk out of expensive, high mainhonesty was relatively low in education. Teachers tenance, bus-dependent public schools. over all are principled people in terms of wanting to be With an entire younger generation tech hard-wired and sure what they teach is what students are learning, ready for change, the only obstacles impeding hi-tech educashe said. (NYT, 10 June 2010) tional advances are the entrenched agents of no change. Its the executive-level salaried superintendants, administrators, A year later, with Ms. Hall herself at the center of the cheattenured teachers and their unions who so adamantly oppose ing scandal, and with the District of Columbia, Maryland, Calieven discussing any new educational model. fornia, Florida, and Ohio added to the test tampering roster, On the infrequent occasions when the possibilities of an it became hard to make the case that Teachers over all are alternative system are raised, they are immediately attacked,
ing the books to keep funding flowing, in order to protect their jobs and be awarded bonuses, was an alarming new national trend:
principled people and that dishonesty was relatively low in education.
Whatsamatta U?
38
dismissed or filibustered. Nevertheless, since necessity is the mother of invention (and skyrocketing school taxes are a major issue to a large demographic segment), despite the roadblocks erected by credentialed Commissars, as the millennium moves forward nothing will be able to stifle the creation of a new educational model a Renaissance of individuality, creativity, independent thinking and dissent.
dants, to principals, to teachers to bored and refractory students forced to suffer through a curriculum that starves creativity and stifles individual thought, the system does not work. Just as no amount of retrofitting an old typewriter can produce a computer, no amount of reconfiguration of an outmoded system can create New Millennium Education.
Publishers Note: Whether online or off, not everyone is suitTrendpost: Whether or not still merited, America retains its
reputation for Yankee Ingenuity. New Millennium Education provides an open-book opportunity to prove that America has not lost the spirit of innovation that made it what it was. Unlike health care, an area where other countries operate more costefficient and effective systems to refer to as models for reform, New Millennium Education does not yet exist as a government funded enterprise. In 2011, educational reform at its best and most inventive a mix of online courses and charter schools was little more than a remodeling of the system in place. To recoin a phrase, its the system, stupid. From Education Czars to superintened for academic studies with an eye toward college. For those not college bound, the public system has provided a technical/vocational school option that requires extensive hands-on training that could not be replaced by online learning. Yet, in 2011, with less than a third of 25 to 29-year-olds holding a bachelors degree or higher, the Obama administration made it a priority to increase funding for raising academic standards (aimed at improving the college graduation rate) by 11 percent, while cutting back on already under-funded career and technical education facilities and programs. So what were the options open to that majority who cant (Continued on next page)
WASHINGTONS RESPONSE (Continued from page 36 ) of write-downs, which would be at the expense of creditor banks, the UCB was justified in disregarding its charter and providing the forbidden loans to Greece in the context of a strong adjustment program. However, if the Greek government did not stick to the mandates of the adjustment program and sell off its public domain, a second stage of intervention would come into play. European Union authorities would exercise an authoritative say in the formation of the countrys economic policies. EU interdependence, Trichet said, means that countries de facto do not have complete internal authority. The second stage would make this de jure. European Union authorities would simply take over Greeces fiscal affairs and decide its budget. Sovereignty and representative government would be abrogated, and EU member states would come under the rule of private bankers. Much the same thing has happened in the US. The Wall Street executives who control the Treasury and financial regulatory agencies used public money and the Federal Reserves balance sheet to bail out the casino bets of the irresponsible financial institutions that they formerly headed, while millions of taxpayers lost their homes, jobs and medical insurance. In the US, Direct Democracy appears to be the only recourse to rule by the private bankers. But the Greek crisis has not yet played out, despite the decision of the Greek government to submit, when its best option was simply to default and to leave the EU. Germans have
been suspicious of monetary union from the start, because it removes control over inflation from their hands. As the bailouts of EU member countries by the ECB breach multiple clauses of EU treaty law, the bailouts breach Germanys supreme and sovereign Basic Law and have ended up in the German Constitutional Court, which must rule on their constitutionality. The court began hearing the cases on July 5, and a ruling could be months away. The court will be pressured to follow a higher law than the one on the books and to accept that bailing out bankers is more important than German law. If that is the result, then Germanys supreme and sovereign Basic Law will be overthrown along with the ECB and IMF charters. The supremacy of the bankers will be total. On the other hand, if the court rules against the bailout, the resulting fireworks could result in defaults and debtor countries leaving the EU. Another alternative is that the Greek and Spanish peoples will overthrow their non-representative governments and repudiate the debts. This alternative had been open to Ireland, but having lost their characteristic pugnacity, the Irish have submitted to rule by bankers. So far only the people of Iceland, via the referendums of Direct Democracy, have managed to force their government to defy the bankers. n About the author: Former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and columnist for Business Week, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts served on personal and committee staffs in the House and Senate, and served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration.
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A MEGATREND (Continued from page 39 ) go to, didnt want to go to, or couldnt finish college? After four years of conventional high school, a student who couldnt make the academic grade left school having learned next to nothing, with no marketable skills. In 2011, however, those who had graduated from career/technical/vocational high schools left with marketable, hands-on skills and practical knowledge, with more possibilities than many college grads with degrees in worthlessness and mountains of debt. Apart from their obvious role in providing young people with skill sets for careers in reliable, solidly paying and satisfy-
ing trades, many studies attested to the value of a vocational education: higher graduation rates, improved standardized testing scores, and keeping in school those students most at risk of being left behind. In other countries, particularly Europe, vocational programs have long been viable choices of a significant percentage of teenagers. Cutting funding for vocational programs with high job market potential, while increasing funding for academic-oriented careers in a shrinking job market, would have been front page news and ridiculed as the height of government folly in any advanced nation. In America, it was government as usual. n
When you subscribe to the Trends Journal, this is also what you get:
Inspired by todays headlines, these provocative and entertaining video commentaries by Gerald Celente are uploaded to our website twice weekly and accessible to subscribers only. If its in the news and pertinent, Gerald Celente will have something to say about it in a Trends in The News video. (Watch a Trends in The News video)
Trends in The News
Hans Himmler, younger brother of Heinrich, fled to Argentina after World War II, where he served as torture expert for successive dictators. Hans immigrated to the USA which, with its embrace of torture and abrogation of constitutional rights, now feels just like home. Hans appears weekly with his unique, tongue-in-cheek perspective on a Nazis take on the news. (Watch a Hans Himmler video)
Carlins Corner For a lighter look at trends, subscribers have access to webcasts by Patrick Carlin, the older and wiser brother of George Carlin (as the late great comedian referred to him). Edgy, raucous and wickedly funny, Carlins take on trends will give you a laugh and something to think about. (Watch a Carlins Corner video)
Trend Alert Throughout
the year, as current events of major social, economic and political significance occur, Gerald Celente provides you an e-mailed analysis of their implications and, when appropriate, indicates actions to take or strategies to adopt in response. Subscribers receive access to Trend Alert archives. (See a recent Trend Alert)
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Vol. XIX, No.

Summer Issue 2011

Anthony Freda / Dan Zollinger

Direct Democracy: The Future is in Your Hands

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

The History of The Future: THE GLOBAL GAME CHANGER

EPISODE X On March 18, 2011, exactly eight years to

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

Anthony Freda / Dan Zollinger

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

The Ghost of George Bush Lingers

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

Anthony Freda / Dan Zollinger

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

Not Playing with a Full Deck In the Spring

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

A Chicken Hawk by Any Other Name

ON THE GOVERNMENT DOLE

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

THE HISTORY OF THE FUTURE (Continued from page 11)

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

Anthony Freda / Dan Zollinger

Out of Right Field

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

The Economy We had forecast that declining condi-

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

When America Sneezes

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

TREND LESSON: Unspinning The Spin

AN ANALYSIS OF THE LANGUAGE UNCOVERS THE SPIN:

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

Trendpost: However tough the times, in the developed

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

THE GLOBAL GAME CHANGER

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

On-Trend For Action Even with a Direct De-

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

A Working Model for Direct Democracy

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

THE HISTORY OF THE FUTURE (Continued from page 21)

Meanwhile Back on the Campaign Trail By the

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

Winning Friends and Influencing Voters on the Campaign Trail

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

Washingtons Response to a Failed Ecomomy: More War

COOKING THE BOOKS

The Trends Journal Summer 2011

The Trends Journal Summer 2011