Friday, September 14th, 2012
CAROLINE SALAS GAGE and CRAIG TORRE, - Bloomberg
Stephan: This, finally, is act of a principled man committed not to partisanship but to national wellness. I think it is extraordinary. However, it requires fiscal policy. Even if the House fails to act, because the Republicans want Obama to fail more than they want a healthy country, Bernanke's act will lower interest rates which will stimulate real estate, which will create jobs.
Ben S. Bernanke for the first time pledged that the Federal Reserve will buy bonds until the economy gets closer to his goals, cementing his place as the Fed’s most innovative chairman and signaling the battle against unemployment eclipses any concerns about inflation for now.
The central bank yesterday announced its third round of large-scale asset purchases since 2008, with the difference that it didn’t set any limit on the ultimate amount it would buy or the duration of the program. Instead, Bernanke said stimulus will be expanded until the Fed sees ‘sustained improvement
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Friday, September 14th, 2012
, - The Pew Charitable Trusts
Stephan: This is simple greed coupled to willful ignorance. Equal to the man with an axe cutting down the last tree on Eastern Island, even while knowing that by doing this act his culture and environment will be destroyed. This is why we need regulation. You cannot rely on people doing the right thing. Regulation should be the expression of collective intention, with national wellness as its goal. All other considerations should come second. A child can tell you that if two marbles go into the pot, and four come out eventually there will be no more marbles. In this a case a world stripped of fish. This is real data.
The Pew Environment Group is the conservation arm of The Pew Charitable Trusts, a nongovernmental organization that works globally to establish pragmatic, science-based policies that protect our oceans, preserve our wild lands, and promote clean energy. www.PewEnvironment.org
For more than 20 years, Ecotrust has converted $80 million in grants into more than $500 million in capital for local people, businesses, and organizations from Alaska to California. Ecotrust's many innovations include co-founding the world's first environmental bank, starting the world's first ecosystem investment fund, creating a range of programs in fisheries, forestry, food, farms, and indigenous affairs, and developing new scientific and information tools to improve social, economic, and environmental decision making. Ecotrust works locally in ways that promise hope abroad, and it honors and supports the wisdom of Native and First Nation leadership in its work. www.ecotrust.org
The respected Pew Charitable Trusts
ORLANDO, FLORIDA — Pew-commissioned study underscores need for protecting species
The Southeast sustained tens of millions of dollars in economic losses during a five-year period because years of overfishing depleted species led to fewer recreational fishing trips, according to an analysis commissioned by the Pew Environment Group.
The study, conducted by the nonprofit consulting firm Ecotrust, examined the impact of overfishing from 2005 to 2009 on nine severely depleted species, including black sea bass and red snapper, in the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, respectively.
The biggest loss in direct expenditures-nearly $53 million a year on average-came from fewer fishing trips to catch South Atlantic black sea bass. The figure represents money that was not spent on items such as boat rentals, charter fees, tackle, bait, fuel, and other businesses directly dependent on anglers targeting this species. When looking at the broader economy, including spending at hotels, restaurants, wholesale suppliers, and other downstream businesses, the region had a total estimated loss of $138 million because of fewer trips for black sea bass alone.
‘Overfishing-catching fish faster than they can reproduce-leaves a costly legacy that hurts our communities and fishermen,
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Friday, September 14th, 2012
EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO and RYAN J. REILLY, - Talking Points Memo
Stephan: I'm sorry, the two political parties are not equivalents, and their behavior is not equivalent. The Republican Party actively undermines democracy in America with voter suppression laws and, now, this vile nonsense. Almost every day I find -- or am sent -- stories about absolutely treacherous behavior on the part of Theocratic Rightists. I don't mean the usual partisan nonsense we see during election. There is real danger here. I haven't run these stories because I hadn't wanted to get SR embroiled in partisan shouting matches. But it is so consistent that it has become a trend. I have never seen its equal in my life time. Citizens need to speak out against this. Make your voice heard, sign petitions, go to rallies. But most important of all: Vote against people who do such things!
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, an informal advisor to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, said on Thursday he and his fellow members of a state board were considering removing President Barack Obama from the Kansas ballot this November.
Kobach is part of the State Objections Board along with Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer, all Republicans. The Topeka Capital-Journal reported that on Thursday the board agreed consider whether to take Obama off the ballot because they said they lacked sufficient evidence about his birth certificate.
‘I don’t think it’s a frivolous objection,
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Friday, September 14th, 2012
KENNETH SCHORTGEN JR, - San Francisco Examiner
Stephan: This is a huge deal, and it has implications that will affect the U.S. as a nation and each citizen personally. Part of America's economic primacy is based on the fact that the dollar is the reference currency. If we get in a jam we can print more dollars. If other countries get in a jam they can print more currency but, since their currency is referenced to the dollar the effect is not positive. More than that the Chinese have linked the Yuan to oil, breaking the iron clad deal Kissinger made with the house of Saud that oil would be traded only in dollars.
On Sept. 11, Pastor Lindsey Williams, former minister to the global oil companies during the building of the Alaskan pipeline, announced the most significant event to affect the U.S. dollar since its inception as a currency. For the first time since the 1970’s, when Henry Kissenger forged a trade agreement with the Royal house of Saud to sell oil using only U.S. dollars, China announced its intention to bypass the dollar for global oil customers and began selling the commodity using their own currency.
Lindsey Williams: ‘The most significant day in the history of the American dollar, since its inception, happened on Thursday, Sept. 6. On that day, something took place that is going to affect your life, your family, your dinner table more than you can possibly imagine.’
‘On Thursday, Sept. 6… just a few days ago, China made the official announcement. China said on that day, our banking system is ready, all of our communication systems are ready, all of the transfer systems are ready, and as of that day, Thursday, Sept. 6, any nation in the world that wishes from this point on, to buy, sell, or trade crude oil, can […]
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Thursday, September 13th, 2012
DAVID ROSEN, - AlterNet (U.S.)
Stephan: Here one sees what I have been predicting for almost ten years, the confluence trend of law enforcement and intelligence agencies and the corporate world. Once again I counsel: Assume everything you say, or write, anything that enters the digital world is recorded. Assume when you walk through a city you are the focus of multiple video recordings. You have no privacy, even your electric meter is spying on you. None of this matters, until you do something or say something that attracts attention so that your data stream rises out of the background noise. Then it matters.
Americans’ personal privacy is being crushed by the rise of a four-headed corporate-state surveillance system. The four ‘heads
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