War By Other Means

John Pilger travels to many third world countries to investigate the devastating results of loans from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). 

This film shows how many wars today are not carried out at the barrel of a gun, but by the monetary policies of global banking institutions. 

Instead of bombs, it has been discovered that debt is a far more powerful weapon to control and maintain the power of global economic interests. 

It turns out that the "structural-adjustment" policies of neo-liberal economics are even more deadly than nerve gas and many other weapons of war. 

This documentary backs up many of the claims made by John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

The Truth Is Out: Money Is Just An IOU

The central bank can print as much money as it wishes.' Photograph: Alamy

The Bank of England's Dose Of Honesty Throws The Theoretical Basis For Austerity Out The Window

Back in the 1930s, Henry Ford is supposed to have remarked that it was a good thing that most Americans didn't know how banking really works, because if they did, "there'd be a revolution before tomorrow morning".

Last week, something remarkable happened. The Bank of England let the cat out of the bag. In a paper called "Money Creation in the Modern Economy", co-authored by three economists from the Bank's Monetary Analysis Directorate, they stated outright that most common assumptions of how banking works are simply wrong, and that the kind of populist, heterodox positions more ordinarily associated with groups such asOccupy Wall Street are correct. In doing so, they have effectively thrown the entire theoretical basis for austerity out of the window.

To get a sense of how radical the Bank's new position is, consider the conventional view, which continues to be the basis of all respectable debate on public policy. People put their money in banks. Banks then lend that money out at interest – either to consumers, or to entrepreneurs willing to invest it in some profitable enterprise. True, the fractional reserve system does allow banks to lend out considerably more than they hold in reserve, and true, if savings don't suffice, private banks can seek to borrow more from the central bank.

The central bank can print as much money as it wishes. But it is also careful not to print too much. In fact, we are often told this is why independent central banks exist in the first place. If governments could print money themselves, they would surely put out too much of it, and the resulting inflation would throw the economy into chaos. Institutions such as the Bank of England or US Federal Reserve were created to carefully regulate the money supply to prevent inflation. This is why they are forbidden to directly fund the government, say, by buying treasury bonds, but instead fund private economic activity that the government merely taxes.

It's this understanding that allows us to continue to talk about money as if it were a limited resource like bauxite or petroleum, to say "there's just not enough money" to fund social programmes, to speak of the immorality of government debt or of public spending "crowding out" the private sector. What the Bank of England admitted this week is that none of this is really true. To quote from its own initial summary: "Rather than banks receiving deposits when households save and then lending them out, bank lending creates deposits" … "In normal times, the central bank does not fix the amount of money in circulation, nor is central bank money 'multiplied up' into more loans and deposits."

In other words, everything we know is not just wrong – it's backwards. When banks make loans, they create money. This is because money is really just an IOU. The role of the central bank is to preside over a legal order that effectively grants banks the exclusive right to create IOUs of a certain kind, ones that the government will recognise as legal tender by its willingness to accept them in payment of taxes. There's really no limit on how much banks could create, provided they can find someone willing to borrow it. They will never get caught short, for the simple reason that borrowers do not, generally speaking, take the cash and put it under their mattresses; ultimately, any money a bank loans out will just end up back in some bank again. So for the banking system as a whole, every loan just becomes another deposit. What's more, insofar as banks do need to acquire funds from the central bank, they can borrow as much as they like; all the latter really does is set the rate of interest, the cost of money, not its quantity. Since the beginning of the recession, the US and British central banks have reduced that cost to almost nothing. In fact, with "quantitative easing" they've been effectively pumping as much money as they can into the banks, without producing any inflationary effects.

What this means is that the real limit on the amount of money in circulation is not how much the central bank is willing to lend, but how much government, firms, and ordinary citizens, are willing to borrow. Government spending is the main driver in all this (and the paper does admit, if you read it carefully, that the central bank does fund the government after all). So there's no question of public spending "crowding out" private investment. It's exactly the opposite.

Why did the Bank of England suddenly admit all this? Well, one reason is because it's obviously true. The Bank's job is to actually run the system, and of late, the system has not been running especially well. It's possible that it decided that maintaining the fantasy-land version of economics that has proved so convenient to the rich is simply a luxury it can no longer afford.

But politically, this is taking an enormous risk. Just consider what might happen if mortgage holders realised the money the bank lent them is not, really, the life savings of some thrifty pensioner, but something the bank just whisked into existence through its possession of a magic wand which we, the public, handed over to it.

Historically, the Bank of England has tended to be a bellwether, staking out seeming radical positions that ultimately become new orthodoxies. If that's what's happening here, we might soon be in a position to learn if Henry Ford was right.

(By David Graeber)

The International Banking Cartel

Courtesy Of: PressTV

A look at the International Banking Cartel led by the Bank for International Settlement (in Basel, Switzerland) known as the bank of central banks (58 central banks) and The US Federal reserve System. 

Also a look at banking tycoons: from the Rothschild family in Europe to JP Morgan and others in the US. How banks not only control governments but also appoint politicians through huge campaign donations. 

Governments at the service of the major banks, the best example: the Obama administration and the history's biggest bail out of the same institutions that caused the Great Recession.

Four Horseman Of The Banking Cartel

They Rule The World

Courtesy Of Press TV

Rothchilds family are worth over 100 trillion dollars. This name Rothchild comes from Germany, The Rothchilds real family name is really Bauer. This Family changed the last name to match the name of a old Masonic German bank. 

There are 13 Families that rule the world

Capitalism Has Failed The World

Courtesy Of Al-Jazeera

It seems that mistakes made in Wall Street and the City of London are paid for by people around the world, but can we govern greed within the realm of capitalism or is it all just money down the drain? Is austerity really needed? Can we trust the banks?

Lord Turner said: “I’m not an egalitarian, I’m not a socialist, but I am worried about the sheer extent of the inequality that’s now growing. I think finance is part of that story.”

Lord Turner was at the helm of the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) in the wake of the financial meltdown and is now trying to find ground-breaking solutions to global problems at the Institute of New Economic Thinking. Hasan challenges a man at the heart of rethinking the global economic system about his past experience, his present thoughts, and our future.

“I am concerned that we have not been radical enough in our reform,” concluded Lord Turner.

But he also sounded a note of hope based on some of the new ideas and policies coming out from previously orthodox bastions of economic thinking.

Joining our discussion are: Jon Moulton, a venture capitalist and the founder of the private equity firm Better Capital. He has nurtured a reputation for forthrightness even to point of challenging his private equity peers for abusing tax regimes. He is also one of the few men in the City of London who warned about the impending crash before it happened; Professor Costas Lapavitsas, who teaches economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London and is the author of several notable books on the crash and its consequences including Crisis in the Eurozone and Financialisation in Crisis; and Ann Pettifor, the director of PRIME (Policy Research in Macroeconomics),

and a fellow of the New Economics Foundation. She was one of the first to warn about the debt crisis in her bookThe Coming First World Debt Crisis, and is also well-known for her leadership of the successful worldwide campaign to cancel developing world debt - Jubilee 2000.

How Money Drives The ‘Cycle Of Tyranny’

In Order For The “Cycle Of Tyranny” To Exist, There Are 4 Key Institutions That Must Be Totally Co-Opted

By Jason Charles

This process can be termed the “Cycle of Tyranny” and is basically the method large institutions such as government, corporations, and banks participate in as a on going feed back loop that is totally driven by money and power.

This cycle is designed to centralize power, rob people of their liberties, wealth and ultimately dignity due to the very dehumanizing and egregious actions of the men who sell themselves to this system. In fact, this whole system thrives on the dehumanizing process and erosion of individual rights enshrined in the Constitution.

To achieve this effect in a society large amounts of money are infused at every layer of the targeted and co-opted institution to assure that typically good moral people are bribed and in continual defense of the corrupted institution. With out the money factor the internationalist system simply would not work because the incentive component with in the cycle would be removed. The ablity for banks to create money out of thin air is the driving force behind the “Cycle of Tyranny”. 

The Banks

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.  Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”  - Thomas Jefferson

The banking families of Europe have utilized a debt based system to centralize a vast empire of wealth and power over the course of hundreds of years. By lending governments and institutions money, it creates a state of perpetual dependence, the fear of losing the money source is how banks control and socially engineer these institutions to pliable agencies of the internationalists worldview. Money truly corrupts the hearts of man, as long as the money is flowing men will turn a blind eye to atrocities of all types. It is through the corrupting influence money has had on mankind we begin to see how money and it’s love is truly the engine in the “Cycle of Tyranny”.

Today’s America serves as a perfect model as to how the old banking families have been able to leverage their large financial capabilities into a free country in order to corrupt and take over all of the major institutions with in a society. America was founded on the Principles of Liberty which detested banking institutions to the point of war with England and the British monarchy.

The process begins with the establishment of a central bank, in America’s case the Federal Reserve in the year 1913. It is no coincidence that the American Industrial Revolution coincided with the founding of the Federal Reserve. What we termed the “Robber Barons” during the early 20th century like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, J.P. Morgan were really no more than agents of the Federal Reserve and the European financial elite. These agents were lent massive sums of money through the banking apparatuses backed by the newly formed Federal Reserve. They then took over their respective sectors of society. For example, Rockefeller took the Pharmacological/Medical/Education and also Oil sector, while Carnegie took over the Steel and Railroads, J.P. Morgan served as a financial agent etc. etc.

All of these men became exceedingly wealthy because they were financed agents who built the mega corporations of today. It is these corporations that had an unfair advantage because they were specially trained, and groomed by the international elite for the sole purpose of building up all of America, with the long term plan of turning it back over to the globalists at a later date.

The bankers utilize the “Boom and Bust Cycle” of the economy to first “Boom”, or build up large corporations through influxes of capital that then creates large, businesses, property, inventions, and institutions. The bankers can then “Bust” the economy by drying up the lending credit suddenly to these reliant businesses and institutions. This sudden collapse in capital is called a “Depression” it is an orchestrated event planned by the central bank to purposely collapse companies into bankruptcy. Once bankrupt the bank can then buy up the company assets pennies on the dollar funneling these new assets to the share holders of the banks.

This “Boom and Bust” cycle is the verbatim tactic that our founding fathers warned us time and time again having seen this happen in European nations. They hated the bankers and fought tooth and nail to keep a central bank out of our country knowing their money is the moral ruin to everything America stood for.

One hundred years later we have forgot history and the bankers have utilized this system to create, crash then buy up resources and the wealth of nation in every country on the planet. This financial boom and bust is the mechanism of control they have used to enslave countries world wide in debt and are now bringing about their international global system called the New World Order. A banking order controlled by organizations such as the IMF, UN, and World Bank.

The Corporations

“I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” -Thomas Jefferson
 

The companies that have been built up by the lending power of the central banks are controlled and sustained through bank capital and the drive of the share holders whose only motive is profit. This creates an amoral environment where everybody from the CEO down to the mail-room clerk are chasing dollar signs at every turn. Their only concern is how they can make more profit.

They do this by a variety of ways, they will cheapen the quality of their product, they will identify populations with low standards of living and human rights to exploit for little to no wages, they will also lobby government to create laws and regulations that favor them and harm their competition.

Through this process, of receiving unfair financial lending advantage, reducing ethics with in the institution, and creating fascist partnerships with government, corporations that place money first almost always inevitable become so corrupt that they begin to create even more and more devious ways to assure the take over and monopolization of their host countries competition. They soon grow so large they begin to covet the resources and wealth of neighboring nations, which put’s them in a new strata of power called the multinational corporation.

It is much harder to employee these tactics on an international scale because without the protection of the target countries government, the unethical and dirty dealings almost always lead to war.

The people will never go to war for a corporation. The vast majority of people wish to live in peace and harmony with their neighbors, but corporations have insatiable need for control, power and money and have to find more and more dubious ways to push their corporation into other countries to keep the feeding cycle going.

This is where companies can then hire think tanks to devise devious, far reaching plans that allow them eventual access to the resources of other countries as well as their own when they come up against obstacles towards their agenda.

Think Tanks

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” – Samuel Adams
 

Think tanks are made up of individuals who have been long time agents of the system. They are usually made up of very smart people who have bounced back and forth between corporate and government structures gaining reputation, influence and command over the intricacies of corporate, banking and government institutions.

Whether it be military, intelligence, financial, social, political or international needs a corporation can hire a wide variety of think tanks to create plans that utilize the various sectors of societal institutions to further the agenda of their client. Both governments and corporations hire these companies for large sums of money for the sole purpose of creating facilitating plans to push their agenda forward.

Now that America is a fascist state, it is very, very difficult to determine where the corporate objectives end and the governmental objectives begin, often times they are one in the same. The think tanks are able to utilize assets of both institutions by pulling together military, intelligence and corporate teams to formulate plans to access resources and strategic objects that are beneficial for the corporation, the government and also the banks.

This partnership is very dangerous for the general public and society at large and is often wrought with corruption and shadowy dealings that must be hidden through the cloud of top secrecy and clandestine operations. Tactics of extortion, racketeering, money laundering, assassination and other criminal activity are almost always considered in the think tank atmosphere. There are expensive ways and moral ways to gain access to resources or their are covert ways often touted as much cheaper but are ethically bankrupt and criminal to gain the desired access.

The more covert means always need cooperation and cover by the government through national security and official channels. The think tank will then utilize their influence and lobby and produce policy that impacts political parties towards their “prescribed” resolutions.

Often times it is the government or corporation that comes to the think tank saying we want to invade here or secure our corporation here, the think tank provides both the plan to create a facilitating event which is carried out covertly through sabotage campaigns, or false flag attacks, or stage bombings and then when the crisis reaches a climax it will lend it’s credibility and solution towards dealing with the crisis they created. This is called “Problem, Reaction, Solution”. They simply create the problem, the reaction is the politicians and public demand action and then they turn around and offer the solution of sending in their corporations or military towards resolution. A resolution that just so happens to give them full access strategically, militarily, and politically to a targeted nation.

A successful mission will given them the desired result every-time, enriching multinational corporations, banks and governments alike as they split up the loot and resources of taking over countries and conquering. A program as old as time itself.

Government comes into play to provide PR and official cover for these programs. Obviously war and invading nations is nasty business and the government has to be on board, that is why you always see politicians defaulting to the think tanks who write the policies as specialists and advisers on such things.

Government

“Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” – George Washington

The government is an institution charged with securing the liberties and security of their population. That is the sole reason for them to exist and is always formed through a unified agreement of the people towards this end.

The Declaration of the United States is a beautiful word picture of why governments are formed, who forms and empowers them which is the people, and when it is appropriate to disband them in favor of a new government body. The only proper way and time to disband a government is when it becomes so corrupt that it encroaches on the liberties, wealth and prosperity of the people. At that point the people have every right to nullify and succeed from corrupt government. Seeing it was them who formed the state they too can end the state.

Self-defense is a natural right of man, government is instituted to aid this natural right, but sometimes governments become so out of touch with the original charter they begin to infringe on the rights of the people to point of distress and ruin with in society. When this happens it no longer serves the interest of the people and must be opposed and resisted by force if necessary, why, because again self-defense of life and  the liberties of the people is a universal law that trumps all institutional agendas including government.

The people, if they through apathy allow government to get out of control, have a natural right to defend themselves against their own government that seeks their ruin. Nothing is more destructive than wicked government. Government, once taken over by politicians, corporate agents and banking controllers, history shows will act in the most dehumanizing, repulsive and tyrannical way possible. Instead of fulfilling their oath to the Constitution, they side with agents of the fascist system as it is taken over lock stock and barrel by the banking elite.

Why the government is such a powerful vehicle towards tyranny and oppression is because it has the power to tax the people to pay it’s debt to the banks i.e. IRS, it also is in control of standing armies which can be easily directed through manufactured crisis events either in the homeland or abroad wreaking havoc on society, and it also provides political and official cover for corporate and globalist agendas, agendas that are a determent to the people.

Tyrannical government has murdered, enslaved, imprisoned and bankrupted countless millions over the eons of human history. To allow it to get out of control is to invite destruction and destitution on a society.

Solutions

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” – John Adams

The solution to these things is morality. Our founders were quite clear that without an ethical, knowledgeable moral, and well informed population these institutions would most certainly gain control.

If you as a philosophical libertarian equate freedom and liberty with living excessive lifestyles you are totally off base. These things have nothing to do with liberty, the moral resolve of our founders who many of them lost it all in the revolution is about understanding. They understood that defending life is paramount to anything we can do on this planet. Those who refuse to defend life, seeing that it is scared and worthy of protection have no concept of what it means to walk in the principles our forefathers bequeathed us. It is they who have sold themselves to these systems and jeopardize everything our country is founded on.

We have identified the “Cycle of Tyranny” it is driven by money, but equally so it is driven by those who have lost sight of the sacred principles enshrined in our Constitution, these men and women who put money and power over the moral, foundational Principles of Liberty are our enemies and must be treated and prosecuted as such.

World Bank Corruption Deceit and Greed

Note: This video was not part of the below article.

By James Turnage

Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to John Taylor in 1816:  “And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”

The World Bank was constructed to lend money to the developing countries of the world.  It was designed to help put an end to world poverty.  A whistleblower by the name of Karen Hudes, former Chief Council for the World Bank for 12 years, claims the organization is filled with corruption, deceit, and greed.

Ms. Hudes says that the World Bank, in collusion with major banking institutions all over the world, is funneling the money to unscrupulous individuals, as well as to the executives of the bank itself.   The bulk of funds never reaches the people for which it is intended.

Ms. Hudes, a lawyer herself, witnessed securities fraud.  Full disclosure of 180 billion dollars-worth of bonds was never made to investors.  It was her job to ensure financial statements for investors were accurate.  She followed the corporate ladder, and reported her findings to the audit committee.  When she received no response, she took her information to the U.S. Treasury Department.  Once again, she was ignored.  When she went to the United States Congress, Senator Richard Luger, Republican from Indiana, sent three letters to the World Bank, asking them not to fire her.  The promptly fired her.

She says that it became obvious to her that Congress had no knowledge of the World Bank’s operations.  Three additional Congressmen asked the General Accounting Office, the GAO, to investigate.

Ms. Hudes claimed the money was ‘going everywhere,’ because when anyone reported the misappropriation of funds, they were fired.  She cited one instance when 900 million dollars was supposed to go to the poor in the Philippines, and instead it was diverted to a man by the name of “Lucio Tonn,” who was behind on his loan payments.  The Philippine National Bank, which never received the money, eventually went bankrupt, and a 500 million dollar bailout ensued.

She says she was attempting to unveil a massive cover-up, that went all the way to Congress, and included 188 ministers of finance around the world.  She claims the result of all the corruption will be a currency war.

Ms. Hudes says there are several World Bank whistleblowers, including the United Kingdom, Mexico, India, and Ethiopia, and that they are all reporting the same information.  The institution is corrupt from top to bottom.

She was asked by Abby Martin of ‘RT’ if she had gone to the financial publications.  Ms. Hudes said she had, but she discovered they were owned by one major conglomerate, which includes nearly all the financial institutions in the world.  She stated that the aim of the Banking community is to control the people of the world and their finances.

She told of the ‘Federal Institute of Technology, in Zurich, Switzerland, where three mathematicians looked at corporate data from 43,000 trans-national companies.  Through complicated maneuvers, they increased their financial power 10 fold, and own 40 percent of the assets of all companies traded on the financial markets of the world, and 60 percent of the earnings yearly.  In many countries, the money being printed has no value.

Ms. Martin said these institutions are obviously laundering money, and hiding much of it in ‘offshore’ accounts.  There is no oversight for most of the institutions, including the World Bank, and that they control geopolitics by controlling many of the world’s governments.

Ms. Hudes said that during the 2012 presidential election, she went to CBS news with information regarding Robert Zellig.  Zellig was the man who would have headed Mitt Romney’s transition team.  He was allegedly part of the Bank’s corrupted management.  CBS declined, saying that “the American people don’t need to know.”  She said that in this way, they were also controlling voters.

When Ms. Martin asked her for names, Hudes said that they were the owners of institutions such as ‘Goldman-Sachs,’ and the ‘Bank of America.’  She further stated that they were all one enormous financial entity, dominating the economic future of the world.

Ms. Martin asked why she hasn’t been singled out, as were Edward Snowden or Bradley Manning.  Ms. Hudes said it may be because all the whistleblowers are working together.  She is surprised that Snowden has received so much attention, because the media is controlled by the government.  The mainstream media is not trusted by the American people, which was shown in a survey.  70 percent of the country said they did not believe what was reported in the news.

The World Bank was created at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, along with three other institutions, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The World Bank and the IMF are both based in Washington DC, and work closely with each other.

Traditionally, the World Bank has been headed by a citizen of the United States, while the IMF has been led by a European citizen.

The World Bank has two primary divisions.  The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) has 188 member countries, while the International Development Association (IDA) has 172 members.  Each member state of IBRD should be also a member of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and only members of IBRD are allowed to join other institutions within the Bank (such as IDA).

The World Bank requires sovereign immunity from countries it deals with.   Sovereign immunity waives a holder from all legal liability for their actions. It is proposed that this immunity from responsibility is a “shield which The World Bank wants to resort to, for escaping accountability and security by the people.”  As the United States has veto power, it can prevent the World Bank from taking action against its interests.

With no accountability, it’s easy for the World Bank to be filled with corruption, deceit, and greed.

Wall Street’s Invisible Men

Being a Wall Street "letterhead hire" — one of many high-profile former politicians who are offered lucrative advisory roles at leading banks and private equity firms, primarily for the purpose of lending their names to the firm's stationery — is nice work if you can get it. These politicians may not even have any private-sector business experience, but they still earn millions of dollars for nebulous consulting jobs that, presumably, involve exploiting connections established in their previous positions of power and playing a lot of golf.

Vernon Jordan, the Clinton adviser and trained lawyer who is now a senior executive at Lazard Frères, was a model example of a letterhead hire. Evan Bayh, the former Democratic senator who took a cushy position at Apollo Global Management, is a more recent vintage. (From the other side of the aisle, there's former VP Dan Quayle, now parked comfortably at Cerberus Global Investments.)

Letterhead hires enjoy a fairly carefree existence. Often, they're sent around the world as emissaries for their employer, tasked with giving speeches and schmoozing clients, and occasionally asked to pull out their Rolodexes to nudge a well-placed contact on some deal or regulatory issue. The job title given to a letterhead hire is often "senior adviser," and while the post can be more involved than being a board member, it's less taxing than being a day-to-day manager. Letterhead hires typically have no direct reports, no live deals, and rarely interact with the rank-and-file. (I once told a junior J.P. Morgan Chase banker that I'd seen his "co-worker" Tony Blair, the former British PM turned J.P. Morgan adviser, on TV. His response — "Tony Blair works here?!" — tells most of the story.)

Bill Cohan's profle of Bob Rubin is a fascinating look at one of the most notable letterhead hires in recent Wall Street history, and a window into what such an eminence grisé actually does to earn his paycheck.

Unlike many letterhead hires, Rubin was no financial neophyte when he came to Citigroup in 1999. He spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs and was regarded as a crème-de-la-crème banker when he left to become Bill Clinton's Treasury secretary. But when Sandy Weill lured him back to banking after his turn in the public sector was over, the overture came with the promise that he'd carry much less water than he did at Goldman. Cohan writes:

Weill courted Rubin relentlessly for five weeks and promised that Rubin would join him and Reed in a three-person office of the chairman. Rubin's responsibilities would be to craft Citigroup's management and strategic decisions. He would have no direct reports. "Bob has the best job in the company: no line responsibility, but he will be a full partner," Reed said in announcing Rubin's role. Rubin would also receive $15 million a year and unlimited use of the company's fleet of corporate jets.

That level of cushiness, and an explicit reprieve from day-to-day responsibility, separates a letterhead hire from an ordinary revolving-door case. And unlike those who move freely from Washington to Wall Street and back again, letterhead hires usually stick. Where, after all, can they earn more for doing less?

The incentive for firms to hire people like Rubin in the twilight of their careers is clear: In exchange for a corner office, an assistant or two, and a few million dollars a year, they get access to a respected public figure's network and credibility. In Rubin's specific case, his government connections and unbelievable pedigree (CFR! Bilderberg! The Harvard Corporation!) made it a no-brainer.

That Rubin's post-politics turn at Citigroup was hardly a net positive is a familiar narrative, around which Cohan provides some new details. Rubin reportedly pushed the firm into risky mortgage-backed securities, failed to lobby his Washington contacts for help when Citi's stock price plummeted during the crisis, and got distracted by his relationship with Iris Mack, a Harvard-educated Ph.D. whom he met in a South Beach grocery store and romanced at the Ritz-Carlton.

As Cohan puts it in his devastating kicker: "Nobody's perfect. But for $126 million [the amount of Rubin's total haul at the bank], they ought to show up."

You can argue that Wall Street's tradition of letterhead hires is a compassionate rite of old age, a sort of one-percenter's social compact: you, respected Washington elder, give us twenty hours a week and your gravitas, and we'll ease your journey into the sunset. And in 1999, when Bob Rubin joined a Citigroup whose adjusted stock price was hovering around $220 a share, the bargain made sense on both sides.

But at $30 a share, the calculus changes. It's unlikely Vikram Pandit would offer a Bob Rubin of today the same deal Sandy Weill did in 1999, no matter how gilded the guy's C.V. was. Today, banks are cutting billions of dollars in costs, shuffling underproducing employees out the door by the thousands, and abiding by a strict "eat what you kill" ethos in every area of their business. And in that context, giving a $15 million salary and the corporate jet to a guy who may not even show up when needed hardly seems prudent, even if he can make national news by falling into a pool.

Vatican Inc.

Pope Benedict's resignation shocked the Catholic Church and left the Vatican in disarray. His successor will face many challenges, from recurrent sexual scandals to concerns about financial impropriety at the Vatican's own bank.

In 2011, we investigated allegations that bank had been involved in money laundering and examined Pope Benedict's plans for cleaning up the secretive system. But with many of the reforms having fallen short and the Vatican's finances still under a cloud, the next pope will have to introduce new rules to clean up the financial system.

At the heart of the Vatican, the sovereign papal state at the heart of Rome, is the Vatican's own bank, the Institute of Religious Works (IOR).

Until now the IOR has operated with few of the regulations that govern the activities of banks in the wider world, with sometimes disturbing results.

In the 1980s it became involved in an infamous fraud scandal the Banco Ambrosiano affair which made global headlines when its chief, Roberrto Calvi, was found hanging from a bridge in London, a murder that has never been solved.

More recently Italian state prosecutors have been investigating allegations of money laundering at the IOR, freezing some accounts, seizing funds and putting its president under formal scrutiny.

Filmmakers Alessandro Righi and Emanuele Piano have been examining this latest chapter in the history of a 

notoriously secretive organisation.

All Wars Are Bankers' Wars

By Michael Rivero

I know many people have a great deal of difficulty comprehending just how many wars are started for no other purpose than to force private central banks onto nations, so let me share a few examples, so that you understand why the US Government is mired in so many wars against so many foreign nations. There is ample precedent for this. Transcript here

Iceland: "Let Banks Go Bankrupt"

Iceland Experienced Strong Economic Recovery After Complete Financial Collapse In 2008

Iceland’s President Olafur Ragnar GRIMMSON was interviewed over the weekend (26./27.01.2013) at the World Economic Forum in Davos on why Iceland has enjoyed such a strong recovery after it’s complete financial collapse in 2008, while the rest of the Western world struggles with a recovery that has no clothes.

Grimsson gave a famous reply to the financial MSM reporter, stating that Iceland’s recovery was due to the following primary reason:

„… We were wise enough not to follow the traditional prevailing orthodoxies of the Western financial world in the last 30 years. We introduced currency controls, we let the banks fail, we provided support for the poor, and we didn’t introduce austerity measures like you’re seeing here in Europe. …“

When asked whether Iceland’s policy of letting the banks fail would have worked in the rest of Europe, Grimsson replied:

„… Why are the banks considered to be the holy churches of the modern economy? Why are private banks not like airlines and tele-communication companies and allowed to go bankrupt if they have been run in an irresponsible way? The theory that you have to bail-out banks is a theory that you allow bankers enjoy for their own profit their success, and then let ordinary people bear their failure through taxes and austerity. 
People in enlightened democracies are not going to accept that in the long 

Secret Nationwide Occupy Monitoring

Courtesy Of "Justice Online"

FBI documents just obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) pursuant to the PCJF’s Freedom of Information Act demands reveal that from its inception, the FBI treated the Occupy movement as a potential criminal and terrorist threat even though the agency acknowledges in documents that organizers explicitly called for peaceful protest and did “not condone the use of violence” at occupy protests.

The PCJF has obtained heavily redacted documents showing that FBI offices and agents around the country were in high gear conducting surveillance against the movement even as early as August 2011, a month prior to the establishment of the OWS encampment in Zuccotti Park and other Occupy actions around the country. 

“This production, which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI’s surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protestors organizing with the Occupy movement,” stated Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF).  “These documents show that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are treating protests against the corporate and banking structure of America as potential criminal and terrorist activity.  These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America.”

“The documents are heavily redacted, and it is clear from the production that the FBI is withholding far more material. We are filing an appeal challenging this response and demanding full disclosure to the public of the records of this operation,” stated Heather Benno, staff attorney with the PCJF.

• As early as August 19, 2011, the FBI in New York was meeting with the New York Stock Exchange to discuss the Occupy Wall Street protests that wouldn’t start for another month. By September, prior to the start of the OWS, the FBI was notifying businesses that they might be the focus of an OWS protest.
• The FBI’s Indianapolis division released a “Potential Criminal Activity Alert” on September 15, 2011, even though they acknowledged that no specific protest date had been scheduled in Indiana. The documents show that the Indianapolis division of the FBI was coordinating with “All Indiana State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies,” as well as the “Indiana Intelligence Fusion Center,” the FBI “Directorate of Intelligence” and other national FBI coordinating mechanisms.
• Documents show the spying abuses of the FBI’s “Campus Liaison Program” in which the FBI in Albany and the Syracuse Joint Terrorism Task Force disseminated information to “sixteen (16) different campus police officials,” and then “six (6) additional campus police officials.”  Campus officials were in contact with the FBI for information on OWS.  A representative of the State University of New York at Oswego contacted the FBI for information on the OWS protests and reported to the FBI on the SUNY-Oswego Occupy encampment made up of students and professors.
• Documents released show coordination between the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and corporate America. They include a report by the Domestic Security Alliance Council (DSAC), described by the federal government as “a strategic partnership between the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the private sector,” discussing the OWS protests at the West Coast ports to “raise awareness concerning this type of criminal activity.” The DSAC report shows the nature of secret collaboration between American intelligence agencies and their corporate clients - the document contains a “handling notice” that the information is “meant for use primarily within the corporate security community. Such messages shall not be released in either written or oral form to the media, the general public or other personnel…” (The DSAC document was also obtained by the Northern California ACLU which has sought local FBI surveillance files.)
• Naval Criminal Investigative Services (NCIS) reported to the DSAC on the relationship between OWS and organized labor for the port actions. The NCIS  describes itself as “an elite worldwide federal law enforcement organization” whose “mission is to investigate and defeat criminal, terrorist, and foreign intelligence threats to the United States Navy and Marine Corps ashore, afloat and in cyberspace.” The NCIS also assists with the transport of Guantanamo prisoners.
• DSAC issued several tips to its corporate clients on “civil unrest” which it defines as ranging from “small, organized rallies to large-scale demonstrations and rioting.” It advised to dress conservatively, avoid political discussions and “avoid all large gatherings related to civil issues. Even seemingly peaceful rallies can spur violent activity or be met with resistance by security forces. Bystanders may be arrested or harmed by security forces using water cannons, tear gas or other measures to control crowds.”
• The FBI in Anchorage reported from a Joint Terrorism Task Force meeting of November 3, 2011, about Occupy activities in Anchorage.
• A port Facility Security Officer in Anchorage coordinated with the FBI to attend the meeting of protestors and gain intelligence on the planning of the port actions. He was advised to request the presence of an Anchorage Police Department official to also attend the event. The FBI Special Agent told the undercover private operative that he would notify the Joint Terrorism Task Force and that he would provide a point of contact at the Anchorage Police Department.
• The Jacksonville, Florida FBI prepared a Domestic Terrorism briefing on the “spread of the Occupy Wall Street Movement” in October 2011. The intelligence meeting discussed Occupy venues identifying “Daytona, Gainesville and Ocala Resident Agency territories as portions …where some of the highest unemployment rates in Florida continue to exist.”
• The Tampa, Florida FBI “Domestic Terrorism” liaison participated with the Tampa Police Department’s monthly intelligence meeting in which Occupy Lakeland, Occupy Polk County and Occupy St. Petersburg were discussed. They reported on an individual “leading the Occupy Tampa” and plans for travel to Gainesville for a protest planning meeting, as well as on Veterans for Peace plans to protest at MacDill Air Force Base.
• The Federal Reserve in Richmond appears to have had personnel surveilling OWS planning. They were in contact with the FBI in Richmond to “pass on information regarding the movement known as occupy Wall Street.” There were repeated communications “to pass on updates of the events and decisions made during the small rallies and the following information received from the Capital Police Intelligence Unit through JTTF (Joint Terrorism Task Force).”
• The Virginia FBI was collecting intelligence on the OWS movement for dissemination to the Virginia Fusion Center and other Intelligence divisions.
• The Milwaukee division of the FBI was coordinating with the Ashwaubenon Public Safety division in Green Bay Wisconsin regarding Occupy.
• The Memphis FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force met to discuss “domestic terrorism” threats, including, “Aryan Nations, Occupy Wall Street, and Anonymous.”
• The Birmingham, AL division of the FBI sent communications to HAZMAT teams regarding the Occupy Wall Street movement.
• The Jackson, Mississippi division of the FBI attended a meeting of the Bank Security Group in Biloxi, MS with multiple private banks and the Biloxi Police Department, in which they discussed an announced protest for “National Bad Bank Sit-In-Day” on December 7, 2011.
• The Denver, CO FBI and its Bank Fraud Working Group met and were briefed on Occupy Wall Street in November 2011. Members of the Working Group include private financial institutions and local area law enforcement.
• Jackson, MS Joint Terrorism Task Force issued a “Counterterrorism Preparedness” alert. This heavily redacted document includes the description, “To document…the Occupy Wall Street Movement.”

You can read the FBI - OWS documents below where we have uploaded them in searchable format for public viewing.

The PCJF filed Freedom of Information Act demands with multiple federal law enforcement agencies in the fall of 2011 as the Occupy crackdown began. The FBI initially attempted to limit its search to only one limited record keeping index. Recognizing this as a common tactic used by the FBI to conduct an inadequate search, the PCJF pressed forward demanding searches be performed of the FBI headquarters as well as FBI field offices nationwide.  

The PCJF will continue to push for public disclosure of the government’s spy files and will release documents as they are obtained.

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