There are some big lawsuits already underway, and more coming, against the big banks, including the Federal Reserve. These may bring out into public scrutiny some of the shennanigans that have been going on in the banking system.
Written Commentary:
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/willie/2008/1216.html
Audio Interview
http://www.contraryinvestorscafe.com/broadcast.php?media=169
But it all makes you wonder whether Our Masters will really let these lawsuits come to fruition.
Keep your eyes and mind open,
Michael Childress
Showing posts with label Federal Reserve Bank. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Federal Reserve Bank. Show all posts
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
The Late Great USA by Jerome R. Corsi - Excerpts
The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada. Jerome R. Corsi. 2007. ISBN 978-0-079045-14-1
EXCERPTS
The argument made in The Late Great USA is that policy makers in the three nations and multinational corporations have placed the United States, Mexico, and Canada on a fast track to merge together economically and politically.
Our national sovereignty is in danger of being compromised in favor of an emerging regional government, designed of the elite, by the elite, and for the elite, who are working to achieve global ambitions in the pursuit of wealth and power for themselves
On December 18, 1951, “the Six” – a group of European nations consisting of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands – signed the Treaty of Paris, formally establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). Then, on March 25, 1957, the Six signed the Treaty of Rome establishing the European Economic Community (EED), commonly referred to in the United Kingdom as the European Common Market. From here, a series of incremental steps can be traced that moved a European common market into a European regional government. Once Europe started taking steps toward economic unity, political unity followed.
The Treaty of the European Union, signed in Maastricht, the Netherlands, on February 7, 1992, formed a full-fledged regional government … On January 1, 2002, the euro was introduced and the traditional national currencies of the participating EU countries were phased out. Today, some 70 to 80 percent of the laws passed in Europe involve nothing more than rubber stamping regulations already written by nameless “working group” bureaucrats in Brussels, Luxembourg. Virtually gone is the ability of the European countries to set their own policy direction and the ultimate arbiter of justice is he European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, not the highest national court in each country.
This book will demonstrate that disturbing parallels exist between the stealth process that resulted in the EU, and the incremental actions being taken by the governments of the United States, Mexico, and Canada to unite our nations into an emerging regional configuration.
North America has its own version of the ECSC in NAFTA and in the SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership), put into place by an informal agreement between Mexico, Canada, and the United States in 2005. A North American Union is even advocated by America’s own Jean Monnet – Professor Robert Pastor, who has proposed a North American currency call the “amero”, and who has played a significant role in a number of meetings and conferences, closed to the public, between top American, Canadian, and Mexican officials.
In March 2005, the [Council on Foreign Relations] task force issued its first report, a chairmen’s summary entitled “Creating a North American Community.
… the CFR task force suggested that the borders between the United States and Mexico and between the United States and Canada be largely opened in the pursuit of regional economic prosperity. The task force clearly pushed for a North American common market: “We focus our recommendations on the creation of a single economic space that expands the economic opportunities of a security zone that protects the region from external threats while facilitating the legitimate passage of goods, people, and capital.” Open borders with Mexico and Canada would allow “migration” of “North Americans” (the citizens of the United States, Mexico, and Canada) relatively free passage across North American borders, provided the travelers presented the proper “North American” documents. The task force supported their North American focus with the following three specific recommendations:
• To adopt a common North American external tariff by “harmonizing” tariffs to the lowest possible rate between Mexico, Canada, and the United States.
• To develop a North American Border Pass with biometric identifiers to expedite passage through customs, immigration, and airport security throughout North America.
• To establish a North American Investment Fund to stimulate infrastructure development in Mexico.
The goal was to transform NAFTA into a European Union-type customs union.
To implement the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), the three [national] leaders decided that bureaucrats from the three nations would create “working groups” tasked with “integrating” and “harmonizing” the administrative law and regulatory structures of the three nations in a broad range of public policy areas. “Working groups” is a term commonly used in the European Union to describe the bureaucratic entities that run the EU from behind closed doors in Brussels and Luxembourg. Working groups were constituted at the Waco summit [2005] to put in motion the creation of a continental set of administrative rules and regulations the bureaucrats in the three nations would use to set continental public policy within the legal structure of their three countries, a feat to be achieved by “memoranda of understanding”, not laws or treaties.
This Security and Prosperity Partnership of North American (SPP) was never submitted to Congress for debate and decision. There was no law passed by Congress, no law signed by the president, and no treated ratified by the Senate.
The CFR Independent Task force on the Future of North America [2005] repeated the earlier statement of the CFR Chairman’s Statement that 2010 was an important date: “The Task Force’s central recommendation is the establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community, the boundaries of which would be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimenter.
Like [Jean Monnet], [Robert] Pastor rejects traditional notions of American sovereignty. In a 2004 article in CFR’s Foreign Affairs entitle “North America’s Second Decade,” Pastor argued that the United States would gain by ceding U.S. national sovereignty. “Countries are benefited,” he wrote, “when they change these [national sovereignty] policies, and evidence suggests that North Americans are ready for a new relationship that renders this old definition of sovereignty obsolete.”
In his 2001 book Toward a North American Community, Pastor never used the phrase “North American Union,” but he devoted an entire chapter to asking: “Is a North American Community Feasible? Can Sovereignty Be Transcended?” Here Pastor argued that trilateral thinking is “contrary to habit, but essential.” Carefully, Pastor follows the lead of Jean Monnet, who learned to suppress any reference to his desire to create a “European union” … What is needed, he concluded, to establish this community “is the nurturing of a regional identity and small steps that would help the peoples of the three countries understand the need for deeper integration.
Pastor has also argued that we should expand the NAFTA visa program into a North American passport, an idea SPP advanced as biometric “trusted traveler” border passes. He recommended the formation of a single North American Customs and Immigration Force, an idea the CFR task force report in May 2005 advanced as developing a North American security perimeter.
… on October 7, 2004 Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate (S. 2491) that authorized the president “to negotiate the creation of a North American Investment Fund that was distinct from the North American Development fund. The move did not escape Pastor’s attention. He called S. 2491 “a far-reaching bill that incorporates lessons from Europe and proposes to channel funds from all three governments toward infrastructure and education in Mexico.” He was pleased to see his pet project introduced to Congress, especially since a conservative Republican Party senator from a state adjoining Mexico introduced the bill. The language of Cornyn’s bill was so close to Pastor’s own writings that many suspected Pastor had worked directly with Senator Cornyn in developing the proposed legislation.
Among Pastor’s key recommendations is that we establish the amero. The amero is a regional currency designed to replace the U.S. dollar, the Canadian dollar, and the Mexican peso, much as the euro has replaced the currencies of the participating European Union nations.
In a 1999 paper entitled, “The Case for the Amero: The Economics and Politics of a North American Monetary Union,” [Herbert] Grubel explained his plans for creating the amero. He took pains to argue that the innovation would not necessarily erode national sovereignty … Grubel proposed, as an example, a plan to convert to the amero in 2010 … Ironically, this coincides with the Council on Foreign Relations task force’s report “building a North American Community,” which suggests that same date as a target for putting in place the basic institutions required for a new regional government. At the same time, Grubel proposed a North American central bank that would replace the national central banks of the three countries and a board of governors that would be chosen the economic importance and the population of the three countries.
Pastor openly acknowledges that the idea of abandoning the dollar will be unpopular in the United States. He also understands that the United States economy dominates the North American market and, as such, the United States has less to gain by abandoning the dollar to a new currency that would incorporate Canada and Mexico in a monetary union. Still, Pastor argues that in the long run the concept is “fair” in that the introduction of the amero “does not alter the relative power equation in North America, but it provides space for our neighbors to participate in decision making. Pastor compares “the essence of the idea” with how Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D Roosevelt envisioned international organizations that allowed decision-making space for all participating nations on an equal basis, regardless of their relative strength or size. For this reason, Pastor urged readers not to dismiss the idea, but to consider that “in the long term, the amero is in the best interests of all three countries.”
The arguments to implement the amero gain strength as the dollar continues to weaken. With our large trade and federal budget deficits, a fiscal crisis is building for the dollar.
The winners in free trade have been multinational corporations, who already operate across countries to such an extent that they view borders as anachronistic, if not an impediment to their business expansion and profit potential.
The introduction of the amero would entail the same loss of sovereignty that the introduction of the euro has caused in Europe. Today, the central banks of the European Union countries using the euro are no longer in control of their own national destinies.
A move to the amero as a unitary North American currency would entail a similar move to a North American Central Bank, which would have similar supremacy over the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve.
Multinational corporations feel they have the right to set the rules, since their economic activity produces the wealth and employment individual nation-states rely upon for taxation and revenue. Without multinational corporations, the United States, Canada, and Mexico would become economic basket cases. Or so leaders of such companies claim.
The North American Competitiveness Council, a public group consisting of businesspeople and formed under the SPP, has been created to allow multinational corporations to advise the three governments on the future progress and direction of SPP. These big business-influenced working groups are hard at work attempting to integrate North America.
Chapter 11 of the NAFTA agreement allows a private NAFTA foreign investor to sue the U.S. government if the investor believes a state or federal law damages the investor’s NAFTA business. Under Chapter 11, NAFTA established a tribunal that may conduct a trial to decide the case according to the legal principals established by either the World Bank’s International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes or the UN’s Commission for International Trade Law. If the decision is adverse to the United States, the NAFTA tribunal can impose its decision as final, trumping U.S. law, even as decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
As the SPP advances, will the U.S. Bill of Rights be among the laws that have to be “integrated” and “harmonized” with Mexico’s and Canada’s?
Robert Pastor has repeatedly argued for the creation of a North American Union “Permanent Tribual on Trade and Investment.” He understands that a “permanent court would permit the accumulation of precedent and lay the groundwork for North American business law.
If a NAFTA Chapter 11 tribunal can overturn even Supreme Court decisions, we have already entered the era where a regional judicial structure created under a trade law has power over the highest court in the land. The movement toward a North American Union begins with the economy, moves to the courts, and ends with political union.
Mexico has placed the SPP within the office of the secretaria de economia and created an extensive website for the Alianza Para La Securidad Y La Prosperidad de America del Norte (ASPAN). The Mexican website describes ASPAN as “a permanent trilateral process to create a major integration of North America.”
While the SPP has worked to ease border restrictions by implementing trusted traveler and trusted trader programs, the Bush administration through the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has supported plans in the state of Texas to build a huge NAFTA superhighway, four football fields wide, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Texas, to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minnesota. The moment the Texas Legislature suggested imposing a two-year moratorium on the construction of TTC-35 parallel to Interstate 35, the chief counsel for FHWA sent a letter to the executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) threatening a loss of federal highway funds should the legislature move ahead.
Construction began on the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) following the reelection of Governor [Rick] Perry in November 2006. In a four-way race in which a plurality of the vote was sufficient to win, Perry was reelected with less than 40 percent of the vote. All three of his opponents campaigned against the Trans-Texas Corridor. Despite receiving less than a majority vote, Perry has been determined to proceed with the TTC-35 project. Plans to build TTC-35 are fully disclosed on www.keeptexasmoving.org, and official Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) website.
Texas will make use of the recent Supreme Court case Kelo v. City of New London (545 U.S. 469 [2005]). In this case, the Supreme Court decided that eminent domain could be used to seize private property from U.S. citizens even though the purpose of the land seizure was to benefit a private corporation. The Supreme Court case said nothing that would imply the private corporation involved would have to be a U.S. corporation, which allows the Spanish-owned group backing the TTC to operate.
The Council of Kansas City voted on May 18,2006, to name the Mexican customs facility the “Kansas City Customs Port,” despite the fact that it is actually a Mexican possession, staffed by Mexican government customs officials. The $3 million facility will be paid for by Kansas City taxpayers, not by the Mexican government.
CANAMEX is a proposed NAFTA superhighway that would extend from Edmonton, in Alberta, Canada, to Mexico City. The route would connect Salt Lake City and Las Vegas on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. On the eastern slope, a superhighway called “Camino Real” would connect Billings, Montaa; Cheyenne, Wyoming; Denver, Colorado; and El Paso, Texas. Both routes would connect in Canada, extending to Fairbanks, Alaska, and in Mexico where they would terminate at Mexico City. In 1995, CANAMEX Corridor (www.canamex.org) was founded as a trade organization. The FHWA identifies CANAMEX and the Camino Real routes as High Priority Corridors under federal highway law.
In order to solidify its economic superiority over North America, Red China is working to restructure the North American transportation infrastructure. To that end, they are investing heavily in developing deep water ports in Mexico in order to bring an unprecedented volume of containers into the United States along the emerging NAFTA super corridor. Hutchison Ports Holdings (HPH), a wholly owned subsidiary of China’s giant Hutchison Whampoa Limited (HWL), is investing millions to expand the deep water ports on Mexico’s Pacific coast at Lazaro Cardenas and Manzanillo. Now Hutchison Ports is pledging millions more to develop Punta Colonet, a desolate Mexican Bay in Baja California. Mexico plans over the next seven years to dredge and convert Punta Colonet into a ten- to twenty-berth-deep water port capable of processing some six million standard Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs).
The Port Authority of San Antonio has been working actively with the Chinese to open and develop the Mexican coast to more Chinese shipments. In April 2006, officials of the Port Authority of San Antonio traveled to China with representatives of the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio, the Port of Lazaro Cardenas, and Hutchison Port Holdings to develop the Mexican ports … The Free Trade Alliance San Antonio is self-described as a “public-private” organization created in 1994 to lead the development of San Antonio as a competitive “inland port and international trade center.
In a letter included in the 2006 Financial Report of the United States Government, David M. Walker, the Comptroller General of the United States, clarified the $53 trillion negative net worth; “This translates to a current burden of about $170,000 per American or approximately $440,000 per American household.”
The United States currently has totalization agreements with twenty-one countries. The agreements allow workers to combine earnings from foreign countries with earnings in the United States to qualify for Social Security benefits. The agreement with Mexico would allow a Mexican worker to quality for Social Security benefits after only six quarters (eighteen months) of employment in the United States. A U.S. worker typically needs forty calendar quarters (120 months) to receive U.S. Social Security benefits. The agreement reveals the Bush administration’s determination to incorporate illegal workers from Mexico into the U.S. economy. Furthermore, keeping the U.S.-Mexico Totalization Agreement from the public suggests the Bush administration has something to hide.
QUOTATIONS
Robert L. Bartley
Reformist Mexican President Vincente Fox raises eyebrows with his suggestion that over a decade or two NAFTA should evolve into something like the European Union, with open borders for not only goods and investment but also people. He can rest assured that there is one voice north of the Rio Grande that supports his vision. To wit, this newspaper [Wall Street Journal].
Robert N. Gardner
In short the case-by-case approach can produce some remarkable concessions of “sovereignty” that could not be achieved on an across-the-board basis
Herbert G. Grubel
[in 1999] On the day the North American Monetary Union is created – perhaps on January 1, 2010 – Canada, the United States and Mexico will replace their national currencies with the amero.
Jean Monnet
The sovereign nations of the past could no longer solve the problems of the present; they cannot ensure their own progress or control their own future. And the [European] Community is only a stage on the way to the organized world of tomorrow.
Thomas A. Shannon
What we are doing in North America today is consolidating democratic states, integrating them economically but then providing a security overlay and a level of cooperation and dialogue that will strengthen the economic institutions, strengthen our ability to protect and promote our prosperity, and enhance our ability to create the opportunity that people can … take advantage of.
EXCERPTS
The argument made in The Late Great USA is that policy makers in the three nations and multinational corporations have placed the United States, Mexico, and Canada on a fast track to merge together economically and politically.
Our national sovereignty is in danger of being compromised in favor of an emerging regional government, designed of the elite, by the elite, and for the elite, who are working to achieve global ambitions in the pursuit of wealth and power for themselves
On December 18, 1951, “the Six” – a group of European nations consisting of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands – signed the Treaty of Paris, formally establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). Then, on March 25, 1957, the Six signed the Treaty of Rome establishing the European Economic Community (EED), commonly referred to in the United Kingdom as the European Common Market. From here, a series of incremental steps can be traced that moved a European common market into a European regional government. Once Europe started taking steps toward economic unity, political unity followed.
The Treaty of the European Union, signed in Maastricht, the Netherlands, on February 7, 1992, formed a full-fledged regional government … On January 1, 2002, the euro was introduced and the traditional national currencies of the participating EU countries were phased out. Today, some 70 to 80 percent of the laws passed in Europe involve nothing more than rubber stamping regulations already written by nameless “working group” bureaucrats in Brussels, Luxembourg. Virtually gone is the ability of the European countries to set their own policy direction and the ultimate arbiter of justice is he European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, not the highest national court in each country.
This book will demonstrate that disturbing parallels exist between the stealth process that resulted in the EU, and the incremental actions being taken by the governments of the United States, Mexico, and Canada to unite our nations into an emerging regional configuration.
North America has its own version of the ECSC in NAFTA and in the SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership), put into place by an informal agreement between Mexico, Canada, and the United States in 2005. A North American Union is even advocated by America’s own Jean Monnet – Professor Robert Pastor, who has proposed a North American currency call the “amero”, and who has played a significant role in a number of meetings and conferences, closed to the public, between top American, Canadian, and Mexican officials.
In March 2005, the [Council on Foreign Relations] task force issued its first report, a chairmen’s summary entitled “Creating a North American Community.
… the CFR task force suggested that the borders between the United States and Mexico and between the United States and Canada be largely opened in the pursuit of regional economic prosperity. The task force clearly pushed for a North American common market: “We focus our recommendations on the creation of a single economic space that expands the economic opportunities of a security zone that protects the region from external threats while facilitating the legitimate passage of goods, people, and capital.” Open borders with Mexico and Canada would allow “migration” of “North Americans” (the citizens of the United States, Mexico, and Canada) relatively free passage across North American borders, provided the travelers presented the proper “North American” documents. The task force supported their North American focus with the following three specific recommendations:
• To adopt a common North American external tariff by “harmonizing” tariffs to the lowest possible rate between Mexico, Canada, and the United States.
• To develop a North American Border Pass with biometric identifiers to expedite passage through customs, immigration, and airport security throughout North America.
• To establish a North American Investment Fund to stimulate infrastructure development in Mexico.
The goal was to transform NAFTA into a European Union-type customs union.
To implement the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), the three [national] leaders decided that bureaucrats from the three nations would create “working groups” tasked with “integrating” and “harmonizing” the administrative law and regulatory structures of the three nations in a broad range of public policy areas. “Working groups” is a term commonly used in the European Union to describe the bureaucratic entities that run the EU from behind closed doors in Brussels and Luxembourg. Working groups were constituted at the Waco summit [2005] to put in motion the creation of a continental set of administrative rules and regulations the bureaucrats in the three nations would use to set continental public policy within the legal structure of their three countries, a feat to be achieved by “memoranda of understanding”, not laws or treaties.
This Security and Prosperity Partnership of North American (SPP) was never submitted to Congress for debate and decision. There was no law passed by Congress, no law signed by the president, and no treated ratified by the Senate.
The CFR Independent Task force on the Future of North America [2005] repeated the earlier statement of the CFR Chairman’s Statement that 2010 was an important date: “The Task Force’s central recommendation is the establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community, the boundaries of which would be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimenter.
Like [Jean Monnet], [Robert] Pastor rejects traditional notions of American sovereignty. In a 2004 article in CFR’s Foreign Affairs entitle “North America’s Second Decade,” Pastor argued that the United States would gain by ceding U.S. national sovereignty. “Countries are benefited,” he wrote, “when they change these [national sovereignty] policies, and evidence suggests that North Americans are ready for a new relationship that renders this old definition of sovereignty obsolete.”
In his 2001 book Toward a North American Community, Pastor never used the phrase “North American Union,” but he devoted an entire chapter to asking: “Is a North American Community Feasible? Can Sovereignty Be Transcended?” Here Pastor argued that trilateral thinking is “contrary to habit, but essential.” Carefully, Pastor follows the lead of Jean Monnet, who learned to suppress any reference to his desire to create a “European union” … What is needed, he concluded, to establish this community “is the nurturing of a regional identity and small steps that would help the peoples of the three countries understand the need for deeper integration.
Pastor has also argued that we should expand the NAFTA visa program into a North American passport, an idea SPP advanced as biometric “trusted traveler” border passes. He recommended the formation of a single North American Customs and Immigration Force, an idea the CFR task force report in May 2005 advanced as developing a North American security perimeter.
… on October 7, 2004 Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate (S. 2491) that authorized the president “to negotiate the creation of a North American Investment Fund that was distinct from the North American Development fund. The move did not escape Pastor’s attention. He called S. 2491 “a far-reaching bill that incorporates lessons from Europe and proposes to channel funds from all three governments toward infrastructure and education in Mexico.” He was pleased to see his pet project introduced to Congress, especially since a conservative Republican Party senator from a state adjoining Mexico introduced the bill. The language of Cornyn’s bill was so close to Pastor’s own writings that many suspected Pastor had worked directly with Senator Cornyn in developing the proposed legislation.
Among Pastor’s key recommendations is that we establish the amero. The amero is a regional currency designed to replace the U.S. dollar, the Canadian dollar, and the Mexican peso, much as the euro has replaced the currencies of the participating European Union nations.
In a 1999 paper entitled, “The Case for the Amero: The Economics and Politics of a North American Monetary Union,” [Herbert] Grubel explained his plans for creating the amero. He took pains to argue that the innovation would not necessarily erode national sovereignty … Grubel proposed, as an example, a plan to convert to the amero in 2010 … Ironically, this coincides with the Council on Foreign Relations task force’s report “building a North American Community,” which suggests that same date as a target for putting in place the basic institutions required for a new regional government. At the same time, Grubel proposed a North American central bank that would replace the national central banks of the three countries and a board of governors that would be chosen the economic importance and the population of the three countries.
Pastor openly acknowledges that the idea of abandoning the dollar will be unpopular in the United States. He also understands that the United States economy dominates the North American market and, as such, the United States has less to gain by abandoning the dollar to a new currency that would incorporate Canada and Mexico in a monetary union. Still, Pastor argues that in the long run the concept is “fair” in that the introduction of the amero “does not alter the relative power equation in North America, but it provides space for our neighbors to participate in decision making. Pastor compares “the essence of the idea” with how Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D Roosevelt envisioned international organizations that allowed decision-making space for all participating nations on an equal basis, regardless of their relative strength or size. For this reason, Pastor urged readers not to dismiss the idea, but to consider that “in the long term, the amero is in the best interests of all three countries.”
The arguments to implement the amero gain strength as the dollar continues to weaken. With our large trade and federal budget deficits, a fiscal crisis is building for the dollar.
The winners in free trade have been multinational corporations, who already operate across countries to such an extent that they view borders as anachronistic, if not an impediment to their business expansion and profit potential.
The introduction of the amero would entail the same loss of sovereignty that the introduction of the euro has caused in Europe. Today, the central banks of the European Union countries using the euro are no longer in control of their own national destinies.
A move to the amero as a unitary North American currency would entail a similar move to a North American Central Bank, which would have similar supremacy over the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve.
Multinational corporations feel they have the right to set the rules, since their economic activity produces the wealth and employment individual nation-states rely upon for taxation and revenue. Without multinational corporations, the United States, Canada, and Mexico would become economic basket cases. Or so leaders of such companies claim.
The North American Competitiveness Council, a public group consisting of businesspeople and formed under the SPP, has been created to allow multinational corporations to advise the three governments on the future progress and direction of SPP. These big business-influenced working groups are hard at work attempting to integrate North America.
Chapter 11 of the NAFTA agreement allows a private NAFTA foreign investor to sue the U.S. government if the investor believes a state or federal law damages the investor’s NAFTA business. Under Chapter 11, NAFTA established a tribunal that may conduct a trial to decide the case according to the legal principals established by either the World Bank’s International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes or the UN’s Commission for International Trade Law. If the decision is adverse to the United States, the NAFTA tribunal can impose its decision as final, trumping U.S. law, even as decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
As the SPP advances, will the U.S. Bill of Rights be among the laws that have to be “integrated” and “harmonized” with Mexico’s and Canada’s?
Robert Pastor has repeatedly argued for the creation of a North American Union “Permanent Tribual on Trade and Investment.” He understands that a “permanent court would permit the accumulation of precedent and lay the groundwork for North American business law.
If a NAFTA Chapter 11 tribunal can overturn even Supreme Court decisions, we have already entered the era where a regional judicial structure created under a trade law has power over the highest court in the land. The movement toward a North American Union begins with the economy, moves to the courts, and ends with political union.
Mexico has placed the SPP within the office of the secretaria de economia and created an extensive website for the Alianza Para La Securidad Y La Prosperidad de America del Norte (ASPAN). The Mexican website describes ASPAN as “a permanent trilateral process to create a major integration of North America.”
While the SPP has worked to ease border restrictions by implementing trusted traveler and trusted trader programs, the Bush administration through the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has supported plans in the state of Texas to build a huge NAFTA superhighway, four football fields wide, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Texas, to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minnesota. The moment the Texas Legislature suggested imposing a two-year moratorium on the construction of TTC-35 parallel to Interstate 35, the chief counsel for FHWA sent a letter to the executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) threatening a loss of federal highway funds should the legislature move ahead.
Construction began on the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) following the reelection of Governor [Rick] Perry in November 2006. In a four-way race in which a plurality of the vote was sufficient to win, Perry was reelected with less than 40 percent of the vote. All three of his opponents campaigned against the Trans-Texas Corridor. Despite receiving less than a majority vote, Perry has been determined to proceed with the TTC-35 project. Plans to build TTC-35 are fully disclosed on www.keeptexasmoving.org, and official Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) website.
Texas will make use of the recent Supreme Court case Kelo v. City of New London (545 U.S. 469 [2005]). In this case, the Supreme Court decided that eminent domain could be used to seize private property from U.S. citizens even though the purpose of the land seizure was to benefit a private corporation. The Supreme Court case said nothing that would imply the private corporation involved would have to be a U.S. corporation, which allows the Spanish-owned group backing the TTC to operate.
The Council of Kansas City voted on May 18,2006, to name the Mexican customs facility the “Kansas City Customs Port,” despite the fact that it is actually a Mexican possession, staffed by Mexican government customs officials. The $3 million facility will be paid for by Kansas City taxpayers, not by the Mexican government.
CANAMEX is a proposed NAFTA superhighway that would extend from Edmonton, in Alberta, Canada, to Mexico City. The route would connect Salt Lake City and Las Vegas on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. On the eastern slope, a superhighway called “Camino Real” would connect Billings, Montaa; Cheyenne, Wyoming; Denver, Colorado; and El Paso, Texas. Both routes would connect in Canada, extending to Fairbanks, Alaska, and in Mexico where they would terminate at Mexico City. In 1995, CANAMEX Corridor (www.canamex.org) was founded as a trade organization. The FHWA identifies CANAMEX and the Camino Real routes as High Priority Corridors under federal highway law.
In order to solidify its economic superiority over North America, Red China is working to restructure the North American transportation infrastructure. To that end, they are investing heavily in developing deep water ports in Mexico in order to bring an unprecedented volume of containers into the United States along the emerging NAFTA super corridor. Hutchison Ports Holdings (HPH), a wholly owned subsidiary of China’s giant Hutchison Whampoa Limited (HWL), is investing millions to expand the deep water ports on Mexico’s Pacific coast at Lazaro Cardenas and Manzanillo. Now Hutchison Ports is pledging millions more to develop Punta Colonet, a desolate Mexican Bay in Baja California. Mexico plans over the next seven years to dredge and convert Punta Colonet into a ten- to twenty-berth-deep water port capable of processing some six million standard Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs).
The Port Authority of San Antonio has been working actively with the Chinese to open and develop the Mexican coast to more Chinese shipments. In April 2006, officials of the Port Authority of San Antonio traveled to China with representatives of the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio, the Port of Lazaro Cardenas, and Hutchison Port Holdings to develop the Mexican ports … The Free Trade Alliance San Antonio is self-described as a “public-private” organization created in 1994 to lead the development of San Antonio as a competitive “inland port and international trade center.
In a letter included in the 2006 Financial Report of the United States Government, David M. Walker, the Comptroller General of the United States, clarified the $53 trillion negative net worth; “This translates to a current burden of about $170,000 per American or approximately $440,000 per American household.”
The United States currently has totalization agreements with twenty-one countries. The agreements allow workers to combine earnings from foreign countries with earnings in the United States to qualify for Social Security benefits. The agreement with Mexico would allow a Mexican worker to quality for Social Security benefits after only six quarters (eighteen months) of employment in the United States. A U.S. worker typically needs forty calendar quarters (120 months) to receive U.S. Social Security benefits. The agreement reveals the Bush administration’s determination to incorporate illegal workers from Mexico into the U.S. economy. Furthermore, keeping the U.S.-Mexico Totalization Agreement from the public suggests the Bush administration has something to hide.
QUOTATIONS
Robert L. Bartley
Reformist Mexican President Vincente Fox raises eyebrows with his suggestion that over a decade or two NAFTA should evolve into something like the European Union, with open borders for not only goods and investment but also people. He can rest assured that there is one voice north of the Rio Grande that supports his vision. To wit, this newspaper [Wall Street Journal].
Robert N. Gardner
In short the case-by-case approach can produce some remarkable concessions of “sovereignty” that could not be achieved on an across-the-board basis
Herbert G. Grubel
[in 1999] On the day the North American Monetary Union is created – perhaps on January 1, 2010 – Canada, the United States and Mexico will replace their national currencies with the amero.
Jean Monnet
The sovereign nations of the past could no longer solve the problems of the present; they cannot ensure their own progress or control their own future. And the [European] Community is only a stage on the way to the organized world of tomorrow.
Thomas A. Shannon
What we are doing in North America today is consolidating democratic states, integrating them economically but then providing a security overlay and a level of cooperation and dialogue that will strengthen the economic institutions, strengthen our ability to protect and promote our prosperity, and enhance our ability to create the opportunity that people can … take advantage of.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
How to Fix the US Financial System - Deepcaster
Here is a long commentary with ideas on how to fix the US financial system, which, as every reasonably intelligent person knows, is now falling over the precipice:
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/deepcaster/2008/1126.html
Actually, there is probably no way that Our Masters would ever let go of their controls over all us peons - and unfortunately that means that a serious war is very likely to be their last resort.
Keep your eyes and mind open,
Michael Childress
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/deepcaster/2008/1126.html
Actually, there is probably no way that Our Masters would ever let go of their controls over all us peons - and unfortunately that means that a serious war is very likely to be their last resort.
Keep your eyes and mind open,
Michael Childress
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Engdahl's Take on the Big Bailout
Who are all the players involved in the Big Bank Bailout to be voted again, today, 1 October 2008? Are there ANY with no vested interests? Probably not. Here's some background:
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/engdahl/2008/1001.html
Keep your eyes and mind open,
Michael Childress
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/engdahl/2008/1001.html
Keep your eyes and mind open,
Michael Childress
Thursday, September 18, 2008
What's Going on with A.I.G. Bailout?
There has been a considerable uproar over the Federal Reserve Banks $85 billion load to A.I.G., in return for a 79.9% equity stake. Some commentators have complained that the Fed had no government authority to conduct this transaction – that Congress or the Treasury or some regulators should have given approval. This simply demonstrates the ignorance of both the American public and the media. The Federal Reserve Bank is NOT a government agency in any form, but instead is a privately-owned consortium of twelve regional banks, each of which is in turned owned by a number of private domestic and foreign banks. No approval is therefore needed.
As for the implications and ramifications of this and other recent Fed activities, please consider the following informative commentaries:
Christopher Laird
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/laird/2008/0917.html
Darryl Schoon
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/schoon/2008/0917.html
Keep your eyes and mind open.
Michael Childress
As for the implications and ramifications of this and other recent Fed activities, please consider the following informative commentaries:
Christopher Laird
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/laird/2008/0917.html
Darryl Schoon
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/schoon/2008/0917.html
Keep your eyes and mind open.
Michael Childress
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Surging Economy/Dollar - Political Operation?
It is very interesting to watch the resurgence of the US dollar and decline in commodity prices, especially oil and gold. If the economies in the US and the world are not doing so well, then why is the dollar doing so well lately? Shouldn't prices continue to increase for everything as inflation, the current account deficit, and government debt deteriorate?
Well, there is an explanation, if you are inclined to heed political conspiracy notions.
First of all, recall that about this time in 2006, just before the national elections (mostly for House of Representatives, but also some Senators), Goldman-Sachs conducted a major and ill-publicized manipulation of oil prices to effectively eliminate oil and energy as an issue in those elections [leaving other issues such as the "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan on the forefront]. How?
Simple. Goldman-Sachs produces a commodity prices index widely used by various investment entities as a guideline for investing in different commodity markets. Historically, this index included unleaded gasoline futures prices as about 8% of the total commodity index. This means that to follow the index allocations, all the investment operations needed to invest about 8% of their assets in unleaded gasoline operations or futures contracts. In August/September of 2006, gasoline and oil prices were high and getting higher. To combat this trend temporarily, but long enough to effectively remove this trend as an election issue, Goldman-Sachs unannounced previously [except to privileged insiders, who made vast fortunes on the advanced warning] changed the unleaded gasoline proportion to about 2%. This meant that all the investment houses then had to SELL about 75% of their investments, including gasoline futures, to re-align themselves with the index and knocking the feet out from under the gasoline and oil markets. For a while, that is, because after the elections, oil prices resumed their climbs. And when oil prices declined, the visibility of energy issues greatly decreased as an election issue - which meant that it was not really addressed by any of the candidates.
Okay, another contentious elections looms now in September 2008. This time around, the US dollar has mysteriously increased substantially in strength relative to other currencies and commodities, especially oil and gold. Since the market fundamentals have not changed at all, why is there this big bounce? Well, perhaps this is a repeat of the 2006 market manipulation, but this time for the dollar. To my knowledge G-S has not made any overt manipulations of its various indices. However, the political advantages of eliminating the strength or weakness of the dollar as a campaign issue for the forthcoming elections in November cannot be over-emphasized. Except for the wars, the only real issues apparent in the national media are essentially personalities. And since neither party has advocated a significant change in military operations anywhere, the only issues the public will witness, aside from fixed factors of race and gender, is essentially who will do the best job of bitch-slapping the opposition.
How could G-S manipulate the markets? Very simple indeed. Recall that the US Treasury Secretary is Mr. Paulson, former President and Chairman of Goldman-Sachs; in effect, Goldman-Sachs IS the Treasury Department, just like J.P. Morgan IS the Federal Reserve Bank. Together, these corporate/goverment (no difference any more, is there?) bureaucrats constitute the Working Group on Markets, commonly referred to as the Plunge Protection Team by knowledgeable commentators. It has been estimated that this Team, in cooperation/collaboration with the vast financial resources and acumen of G-S and Morgan, have about $1 Trillion in assets with which they can invest in futures, options, and contracts as they see fit. This is more than enough to guide any markets anywhere in the world in any fashion they see fit. So by buying a chunk of dollar call options or long futures, they can effectively increase the demand for dollars world-wide, and increase its value with respect to all other currencies and to anything that dollars are used to buy, such as oil and gold. Note that this can be effected even while the total US money supply is reported increasing at about 14-15% annually!
WHY would they want to do this? Currently G-S, Morgan, and cronies are making vast fortunes on the credit they extend to essentially everyone in the world, but especially the U.S. government. Just to cite ONE operation, consider that Congress has just passed the latest annual increase in the federal debt ceiling by the usual $800 billion - indicating clearly that despite the publicized deficits, the REAL increase in debt is that $800 billion. This money, or actually the credit line extended, is created out of thin air by the Federal Reserve Bank, but interest is still collected as if it were real money. Who in the world would want to give up this enormous cash cow?
Well, as long as no questions are raised about the system, nothing will change - until, of course, the whole system collapses when the government can no longer even pay interest payments on the current $9+ trillion dollar debt. So the Powers-That-Be conduct periodic market manipulations to ensure that during the election season things seem to be doing pretty well, with a stronger dollar and lower commodity prices (in 2008), or with lower oil prices (in 2006). Out of sight and out of mind for the electorate. And since it is a given that no contender would have been allowed to become a candidate if there was the slightest chance of any REAL change in the system, the whole scheme is preserved in tact.
Keep this in mind during this election. What are the real issues here? What were they a few months ago, when oil was over $140 and the exchange rate for dollars to ANY other currency were pretty much lowest on record? What does it tell you about the level of enlightenment in the American populace when the only real issues are race, gender, age ["experience"?], and "morality [??]"?
Keep your eyes and your mind open.
Mike Childress
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
William Engdahl's Financial Tsunami Essays #4
What are “New Finance”, “Credit Swaps”, “Securitization”, “SIVs”, and all the other financial alchemies brought into existence by Wall Street since the mid 90s? Here is a history and commentary. Ignorance of these new financial engines of “prosperity” will cost you plenty in the next few years. Be forewarned.
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/engdahl/2008/0208.html
Keep your eyes and mind open.
Mike Childress
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/engdahl/2008/0208.html
Keep your eyes and mind open.
Mike Childress
Monday, June 30, 2008
Who Actually Owns the Federal Reserve Bank?
A best guess is at the following article:
http://www.financialsense.com/Market/kirby/2008/0630.html
Keep your eyes and mind open.
Mike Childress
http://www.financialsense.com/Market/kirby/2008/0630.html
Keep your eyes and mind open.
Mike Childress
Sunday, June 29, 2008
William Engdahl's Financial Tsunami Essays #3
What is Alan Greenspan’s REAL legacy as chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank? Here is a summary of his actions and speeches beginning in 1987 – see if you can find any correspondence between the two.
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/engdahl/2008/0123.html
Keep your eyes and mind open.
Mike Childress
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/engdahl/2008/0123.html
Keep your eyes and mind open.
Mike Childress
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