CIA Agent Captured in Cuba

An employee of a CIA front organization that also funds opposition groups in Venezuela was detained in Cuba last week

by Eva Golinger

An article published in the December 12th edition of the New York Times revealed the detention of a US government contract employee in Havana this past December 5th. The employee, whose name has not yet been disclosed, works for Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), one of the largest US government contractors providing services to the State Department, the Pentagon and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The employee was detained while distributing cellular telephones, computers and other communications equipment to Cuban dissident and counterrevolutionary groups that work to promote the US agenda on the Caribbean island.

U.S. Economy Forecast 2010, The Year of Severe Economic Contraction

Upbeat reports in the financial media, belie the effects of the ongoing credit contraction. Massive injections of central bank liquidity have prevented the collapse of financial markets, but have done nothing to ease the deleveraging of households or stimulate activity the broader economy.

The crisis has stripped $13 trillion in equity from working families who now find their access to credit either cut off or severely curtailed by the same banks that received hefty taxpayer-funded bailouts. The fiscal strangulation of the millions of people who are no longer considered “creditworthy” is progressively weakening demand and spreading pessimism across all income levels. Growing public desperation was the focus of a special weekend report by Bloomberg News:

Review of Financial Markets: The Call from Obama is for more Leverage and more Debt.

Congressional appropriators agreed Tuesday night to give civilian federal employees a 2 percent pay increase — which includes a locality pay increase President Obama didn’t want.

Government workers will get a 1.5 percent nationwide increase in base pay and a 0.5 percent average increase in locality pay. The final agreement goes against the wishes of Obama, who called for a flat 2 percent jump and no locality increase.

Locality pay helps address the gaps between federal pay and private sector wages in high-cost areas of the country. The Federal Salary Council estimates the current private-public gap is about 26 percent, on average. Locality increases mean a federal worker in Cincinnati might get a smaller increase than a worker in Washington, D.C., because of local costs of living. [Why aren’t Social Security recipients and disabled veterans receiving their COLA raises for the next few years as well?]

The Long Decline of the American Economy

The official position on the cause of the current financial downturn is that it was caused by the reckless practices of financial institutions and the failure of regulatory bodies, and it is likely that these were the proximate causes, but they were not the ultimate cause. Americans, unfortunately, are rarely willing to search for ultimate causes or do anything about them when they are found.

In the 1980s, I was living in a suburb of Washington, DC. One evening, a friend and I were walking the streets of Georgetown when we met a group of Japanese taking pictures of a building they had just purchased. They asked us to take some photographs of them in front of it, which we did. A few blocks further along, we observed a group of teenagers drumming on plastic household buckets. The kids were very good drummers, but I pointed out to my friend that after WW2, the youths of the Caribbean altered abandoned oil drums into musical instruments of various ranges and created a new and unique musical genre—steel drums. Later over dinner, my friend and I discussed what appeared to be a serious decline in America’s economic fortunes and culture.

America’s Race to the Bottom

By: Submissions

David Michael Green writes: I sure hope that there is a full and speedy recovery to the massive recession we are all now suffering under.

But, I’ll be honest. I doubt that there will be. Most of the upticks following our latest national downturns have been dismal enough that economists have had to invent a new term for them. The phrase is “jobless recovery”, and the implications are as ugly as they sound.

What it means is that GDP rises, but life remains crappy for real people with real jobs. If they’re lucky enough to have one, that is.

Where does the money from rising GDP go, then? Funny you should ask. It goes exactly where it’s been going for the last three decades. Not to the public, and not to raising the living standards of ordinary folks. But, rather, to the über-class.

My guess is that “The Great Recession” – as some are calling the current disaster (presumably to avoid using the “D” word) – will be followed by what history will record as the “The Tepid and Rather Jobless, Thank You Very Much, Recovery”. If that.

And, more importantly, my guess is that this will be the latest and greatest click yet of what is the most massive ratcheting project of the last three decades, perhaps the most wholesale redistribution of wealth in human history.

Consider the numbers…

The ratio of executive salary to the average paycheck during the mid-twentieth century was about thirty to one. In the last decade it has ranged from three hundred to over five hundred to one.

The richest four hundred Americans were worth an average of about $13 million each in the middle of the century, using today’s dollars. Now they average over $260 million each.

The top taxpayers in America now pay the same proportion of their income in taxes as those earning less than $75,000 per year. Those taxes on the wealthy went from being more than half of their income fifty years ago to about a sixth today.

In the past three decades, the income of the richest Americans quadrupled, while the income of the lowest ninety percent actually fell. Today, the median wage is lower than it was in the 1970s, even though productivity has grown by nearly fifty percent.

All told, from the 1930s through the 1970s, America produced the biggest and richest middle class in human history. But then many of us made the mistake – as I did – of assuming that this had become, based on a solid society compact, the default status quo for the foreseeable future.

In fact, it was instead an aberration. And it was contingent.

It was an aberration because we are now speedily returning (if we haven’t already arrived) to the days prior to the New Deal, when the rich had everything and the middle class was small and insecure. And it was contingent because the good old days depended on a combination of elite satiation and/or a strong progressive defense of an equitable economic order.

But both have disappeared in the Age of Reagan. Today, there are seemingly no bounds conceivable to what the already astonishingly wealthy will do in order to further magnify their holdings. No suffering of the struggling middle class – let alone impoverished brown people inconveniently sitting on top of desirable resources somewhere abroad – represents the slightest impediment to a greed which long ago ceased to have any passing relationship with utility. We are simply talking here about sociopaths – people who cannot fathom a reason to alter their predatory behavior under any circumstances, even when the lives of millions are at stake, and even when another pile of millions of dollars in their investment portfolio does nothing to improve their condition because they are already so rich to begin with.

Okay, well, that’s not exactly a new thing. Unless, say, you’re a geologist and you happen to think that human beings are a new thing. But what is new is that the other possible protection against the gutting of the middle and working classes – that is, the existence of a progressive bulwark against greed – has all but disappeared. At the level of elites, this has transpired because the Democratic Party has simply joined the GOP in becoming a corporate tool, serving the interests of Goldman Sachs and a few others, with near complete disregard for the public interest. At the mass level, Americans have embraced their own petite bourgeois form of greed, and have become stupider and Republicaner with each passing year.

The result is that the aberration is ending, albeit slowly and somewhat fitfully, and the country is returning to its natural state, where outrageous disparities of wealth are common. So common, in fact, that no serious political movement exists to redress ths injustice. So common that the wealthy go to churches where Jesus the proto-socialist who talked about camels and needles has been morphed instead into the First Coming of Ayn Rand. So common that a guy can run for president incessantly repeating the word “change”, invoking the greatest moral struggles of history, and come to office during a time of multiple crises for a deeply stressed American public, only to turn out to be just another Wall Street hack, busy diverting the remaining chunks of the commonwealth to the plutocracy.

It’s not exactly a mystery how we ended up here, although there’s more obfuscation on this question than there are hypocritical sinners at a GOP family values convention. And that’s a lot. Every American government since Reagan has essentially been consumed with the task of denuding the middle and working classes of their paltry share of the national pie, in order to deliver those dollars into the hands of wealthy political benefactors. This includes Democrats as well as Precambrians. Indeed, probably the president least tenacious in pursuing this project, of the five we’ve been blessed with these last three decades, was George H. W. Bush. That really tells you something, right there, doesn’t it?

Afghanistan Solution Withdraw All Foreign Troops

Malalai Joya’s book

By: Mike_Whitney

Malalai Joya: “Afghans Are Fed Up With the U.S. Occupation and the Corrupt, Mafia-state of Hamid Karzai ” Book Review

It’s too bad Barack Obama didn’t consult with Malalai Joya before giving his Nobel acceptance speech on Thursday. The ex-Afghan Parliamentarian could have helped the president to see that the ongoing US occupation is damaging to both American and Afghan interests.

U.S. Economy Looking Very Sick Indeed

 

By: Gerard_Jackson

 

No matter how the administration’s friends and media lapdogs try to paint it the US economy is still in rotten shape. In fact, the situation is far worse than most people realise. Manufacturing surveys suggest a slow though steady recovery. I don’t buy it, at least not yet. These surveys also report that the situation for unfilled orders is deteriorating, which means that orders for capital goods in the form of machinery is falling. Industrial production for October to October was down  7.1 per cent. Although it’s true that industrial production from May to October is up by 2.5 per cent it is still below its 2002 level.

// //

 

However, as I have pointed out so many times before, manufacturing is the real indicator, and it is down 8 per cent for the year October to October, though it picked up in July it fell again in October. Spending on equipment went positive in July and August before it too turned negative again. There is certainly no sign of a robust recovery here. A genuine recovery should be marked by an increase in the demand for business loans. The following chart shows a steep fall in loans with no upturn in sight.

Some commentators are complaining that the banks are refusing to lend to business. Others have pointed out — rightly in my opinion — that the demand by business for loans is extremely weak. This is only to be expected given the bleak prospects for profits. What ‘profits’ there are appear to be coming from cost-cutting, which means that revenue and sales haven’t picked up. The credit situation has led to the conclusion that consumer spending is being strangled and that this is preventing a recovery. How many times must this be said: consumer spending is only about a third of total economic activity. In addition, it is business spending that needs to be revived, not consumer spending. Those who argue otherwise overlook the fact that ultimately business is the true source of all consumer spending. Their view of the importance of consumer spending could only hold in a two-stage economy. Over 70 years ago it was pointed out:

The larger number of payments is not from consumers to producers, but is made between producers and producers, and tends to cancel out in any computation of net incomer of net product value. “In fact, income produced or net product is roughly only about one-third of gross income.” [Italics added]. What is cost for one producer is in part income for some other producer, but part of that income the latter has to pay out in costs to other producers in another stage of the productive process (for intermediate products, raw materials, supplies, etc.), and so on. All that is necessary in order that equilibrium be maintained is that consumers’ incomes equal the cost of producing consumers’ goods; the total of producers’ payments necessarily exceeds that of consumers’ incomes. (C. A. Phillips, T. F. McManus and R. W. Nelson, Banking and the Business Cycle, Macmillan and Company 1937, p. 71).

The grim unemployment figures are a stark reflection of the dismal state of the economy. Moreover, they also reveal that the duration of unemployment has lengthened and is now the longest since WWII, indicating that the necessary economic adjustments have yet to be made.

In a desperate attempt to reverse the recession Bernanke let loose with the money supply, more than doubling the monetary base from September 2008 to November 2009 while driving the fed’s funds rate down to zero. And still production languishes and the real unemployment rate rises. It seems that someone forgot to tell Bernanke that firms are not going to borrow and hire if there are no prospects of making a profit. And they will most certainly exercise considerable caution in the present political climate where they have to face a situation in which an administration seems completely incapable of grasping even the most basic economic facts and principles.

The chart below uses the Austrian* definition of the money supply. We can see that AMS peaked last June and has since declined while at the same time the monetary base accelerated. As the banking system is the major source of money it is clear from the figures that bank deposits have not been expanding. What we have instead is a massive increase in the reserves of depository institutions which now pose an immense inflationary threat to the US economy. In the meantime, the AMS figure suggest an inadvertent ‘monetary tightening’ that will have a detrimental impact on economic activity. The fall in capital orders could be an unwelcome sign of this event. We shall see soon enough.

It’s time the meaning of recovery was properly understood. It does not merely mean a return to full employment but a situation where an economy is on a sustained path of capital accumulation. In other words, economic growth. Obama’s economic policies are in fact anti-growth. His borrowing, spending, taxing, energy and regulatory proposals are a vicious recipe for economic decline, a situation where full employment could only be maintained at an ever lower real wage rate. Attempts to offset this destructive path with a loose monetary policy will only result in accelerating inflation.

Those who blindly support this economic nonsense are no better than Charles Fourier who believed that under socialism the oceans would turn to lemonade.

*There are some differences among Austrians as to what ought to be included in a definition of the money supply. I try adhere to Walter Boyd’s view who in his open letter to Prime Minister Pitt in 1801 defined money in the following terms:

By the words ‘Means of Circulation’, ‘Circulating Medium’, and ‘Currency’, which are used almost as synonymous terms in this letter, I understand always ready money, whether consisting of Bank Notes or specie, in contradistinction to Bills of Exchange, Navy Bills, Exchequer Bills, or any other negotiable paper, which form no part of the circulating medium, as I have always understood that term. The latter is the Circulator; the former are merely objects of circulation. (Walter Boyd, A Letter to the Right Honourable William Pitt on the Influence of the Stoppage of Issues in Specie at the Bank of England, on the Prices of Provisions, and other Commodities, 2nd edition, T. Gillet, London, 1801, p. 2).

In simple terms, money is the medium of exchange. Nevertheless, difficulties do arise. Are savings deposits money? This presents the problem of double-counting. If I take $10,000 in cash and deposit it in my savings account it cannot be seriously I argued that I have now expanded the money supply by $10,000. It therefore follows that if the bank lends out that $10,000 the money supply still remains unchanged. We now deduce that credit transactions do not alter the money supply. Whether we include savings deposits in our definition depends on whether or not it involves double-counting.

By Gerard Jackson

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on How to Tackle Climate Change: “We Must Go From Capitalism to Socialism”

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on How to Tackle Climate Change: “We Must Go From Capitalism to Socialism”.

Venezuela purchases foods where the government decides to (colombian farmers driven to bankruptcy by Uribe´s erratic politics)

Caracas, Dec 08 ABN.- Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez stated during his address at the Mercosur Summit in Uruguay that Venezuela is making effective its right of purchasing foods where the Government decides to.

President Chavez said the statement in reply to Colombia’s vice president Francisco Santos who during his address accused Venezuela of having an “economic embargo” against his country.

Regarding the freezing of the commercial relations, Chavez stated “It is not an illegal action. We are making effective our right of acquiring foods where we decide to.”

“They accuse us of violating human rights because we knocked down illegal border crossings,” said Chavez, and he reaffirmed that Colombia’s Government accusations against Venezuela are part of an escalade of aggressions against our country.

Chavez reaffirmed that the US military bases in Colombia pose a threat to Venezuela and the overall South, “and we will continue rejecting this action.”

He stressed that these bases will be settled in order to start espionage processes against the region.

“Colombia opened its territory to the United States military forces and they attack those who denounce that,” Chavez added.

Colombia’s vice president Francisco Santos addressed Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez at the Mercosur Summit so as to denounce that his country is victim of an “economic aggression” as a result of an unilateral decision taken bu Venezuela.

Concerning the US-Colombia military accord, Santos affirmed that his country has no intention of bringing into conflicts.

Mercosur condemns coup and does not recognize the “elections in Honduras

Caracas, Dec 08. ABN.- Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela reiterated their most vigorous condemnation against the coup in Honduras and consider unacceptable the serious violations to Human Rights in that Central American country, reads a communique of the 38th Summit of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), taking place in Montevideo, Uruguay.

“In the face of the no restitution of Manuel Zelaya in the post to which he was democratically elected, we do not acknowledge at all the election process organized by the de facto government, taking place in a unconstitutional climate, which represent a hard strike against the democratic values of Latin America and the Caribbean,” the communique reads.

The President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Hugo Chavez made a call to the dignity and the truth to the attendants in the Summit, especially to the Government of Mexico, regarding the coup in Honduras and the illegal elections held in that Central American country.

“Poor of those governments that start to beat around the bush to make up the biggest brutality occurred in a brother country,” Chavez said.

“Were there elections in Honduras’ For God’s sake! Tell me, which elections’ (…) I make a call to the Government of Mexico to reflect on it. We cannot accept that,” Chavez stated.

In this regard, the Venezuelan President added that a new and real electoral process must be carried out in Honduras.

Likewise, the President of Argentina Cristina Fernandez ratified that the “elections” held by the putschists in Honduras are illegal, antidemocratic and unconstitutional.