The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. – Benjamin Franklin
Added: 30.06.2011
More FKN NEWZ:
– FKN NEWZ: Imagination Police Announce New Bogeyman (06/16/2011)
– FKN NEWZ: G8 Love Money & Bombs (May 27, 2011)
– FKN NEWZ: IMF Raped Greece, Ireland, Portugal
– FKN NEWZ: War is Peace – Freedom is Slavery – Ignorance is strength
Books from John Perkins:
Amazon.com:
– Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
Amazon.de:
– Bekenntnisse eines Economic Hit Man: Unterwegs im Dienst der Wirtschaftsmafia
– Weltmacht ohne Skrupel: Die dunkle Seite der Globalisierung – Wie die USA systematisch Entwicklungsländer ausbeuten
– Hoodwinked: An Economic Hit Man Reveals Why the World Financial Markets Imploded–and What We Need to Do to Remake Them
The book “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” by John Perkins is easily one of the most engrossing pieces of non-fiction one can read to learn about the true drivers behind globalization, espionage, corporate cronyism, the emergence of such “artificial” organizations as the World Bank and the IMF, and most importantly, debt “enslavement”, all as seen from an insider’s view.
It explains in simple words why over the past 40 years the developing world paradigm has been exploited as heavily as it has, why the BRIC concept was instrumental as a Red Herring to perpetuating the myth of endless growth, and why credit must always flow no matter what to keep the status quo in power.
For those who have read the book, and for those who are on the fence about reading it, below we present the three part presentation by John Perkins at the 2006 Veterans for Peace National Convention in which he expounds on all the key ideas in his book, and does an extended Q&A covering topics not discussed previously.
We urge everyone to spend at least a few minutes listening to Perkins who gives a unique and non-conflicted expert opinion on the primary force for why the the modern equivalent of enslavement is not by force, but by debt.
Part 1 of 3:
Part 2 of 3:
Part 3 of 3:
And for the truly time-constrained we recommend the following blurb which encapsulates the key elements from the book, and Perkins’ life:
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/20/2011 17:03 -0400
Source: ZeroHedge
John Perkins
JohnPerkins.org
– World Bank’s Zoellick: Hopes Bank Will Have Role In Libya (Dow Jones):
April 26, 2011 – WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- World Bank President Robert Zoellick Thursday said he hopes the institution will have a role rebuilding Libya as it emerges from current unrest.
Zoellick at a panel discussion noted the bank’s early role in the reconstruction of France, Japan and other nations after World War II.
“Reconstruction now means (Ivory Coast), it means southern Sudan, it means Liberia, it means Sri Lanka, I hope it will mean Libya,” Zoellick said.
On Ivory Coast, Zoellick said he hoped that within “a couple weeks” the bank would move forward with “some hundred millions of dollars of emergency support.”
We listen to U.S. spokespeople try to explain why we’re suddenly now entangled in another Middle East war. Many of us find ourselves questioning the official justifications. We are aware that the true causes of our engagement are rarely discussed in the media or by our government.
While many of the rationalizations describe resources, especially oil, as the reasons why we should be in that country, there are also an increasing number of dissenting voices. For the most part, these revolve around Libya’s financial relationship with the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), and multinational corporations.
Exactly as planned by the elitists.
Apr. 17 (Bloomberg) — World Bank President Robert Zoellick said the global economy is “one shock away” from a crisis in food supplies and prices.
Zoellick estimated 44 million people have fallen into poverty due to rising food prices in the past year, and a 10 percent increase in the food price index would send 10 million more people into poverty. The United Nations FAO Food Price index jumped 25 percent last year, the second-steepest increase since at least 1991, and surged to a record in February.
Food price inflation is “the biggest threat today to the world’s poor,” Zoellick said at a press conference following meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. “We are one shock away from a full-blown crisis.”
“For most commodities, stocks are relatively low,” he said. “You have one other weather event in some of these areas and you really take a danger zone and start to push people over the edge.”
Added: 12.03.2011
The world’s most (in)famous hacker group – Anonymous – known for effectively shutting down their hacking nemesis security firm (with clients such as Morgan Stanley and, unfortunately for them, Bank of America)- HBGary, advocating the cause of Wikileaks, and the threat made by one of its members that evidence of fraud by Bank of America will be released on Monday, has just launched communication #1 in its Operation “Empire State Rebellion.”
The goal – engage in “a relentless campaign of non-violent, peaceful, civil disobedience” until Ben Bernanke steps down and the “Primary Dealers within the Federal Reserve banking system be broken up and held accountable for rigging markets and destroying the global economy effective immediately.”
The Anonymous manifesto:
LONDON (Reuters) – World Bank chief Robert Zoellick urged big economies on Friday to modernise the global monetary system to be able to handle multiple major currencies.
In a guest column for the Financial Times, Zoellick said China’s yuan should be given a bigger role within a restructured system, echoing remarks made last week by the head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
Many officials support the idea in principle of the yuan becoming part of the Special Drawing Rights (SDR), a basket of currencies administered by the IMF, but say that is unlikely to happen unless it becomes fully convertible.
“The U.S. dollar will remain the predominant reserve currency (ROFL!), but over time the world economy will need to manage a system of multiple major currencies,” Zoellick wrote ahead of Friday’s meeting in Paris of finance chiefs from the Group of 20 rich and developing nations.
Read moreWorld Bank Chief Calls For Modernised Monetary System
We give Robert Zoellick 4 to 6 weeks before he follows Axel Weber, Kevin Warsh and the COO of one of the bankrupt GSEs (we forget his name) into the sunset. The reason? After breaking ranks with the Criminal Bank Cartel last year and calling for a return to the gold standard, the president of the World Bank has dared to be the first among the institutional elite to point out that the cotton in the emperor’s clothes, were he to be clothed in the first place, would have surged by 100% in less than a year.
According to AP: “World Bank President Robert Zoellick says global food prices have hit “dangerous levels” that could contribute to political instability, push millions of people into poverty and raise the cost of groceries.”
Not to worry. According to Fed VP Christine Cumming who spoke earlier somewhere, rising commodity costs merely indicate “stronger global demand.” Oddly enough, it is this supposed demand for products that has forced 44 million people to enter “extreme poverty”… out of their own volition. We are not sure, but something tells us the Fed’s Cumming has a Ph.D.
The bank says in a new report that global food prices have jumped 29 percent in the past year, and are just 3 percent below the all-time peak hit in 2008. Zoellick says the rising prices have hit people hardest in the developing world because they spend as much as half their income on food.
The World Bank estimates higher prices for corn, wheat and oil have pushed 44 million people into extreme poverty since last June.
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Added: 3. February 2011
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Added: 3. February 2011
“There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.”
– John Adams
Related articles:
– Pakistan Forced To Take Loan From World Bank (Because Of Slow Pace Of Aid Forces)
– Russia and Pakistan: ‘Blocked’ jetstream to blame for freak weather, say scientists
Once your fate depends on the elite mafia you are doomed.
– Max Keiser on Greece: ‘The IMF is a Financial Mafia’:
The International Monetary Fund is that last thing you need. You will lose your sovereignty. It exercises terrorism. You will be raped in such a way, that it will be the worst pain you have ever felt.
Flood survivors in Punjab province jostling for emergency relief yesterday as about 150,000 people were forced to move to higher ground when the swollen Indus River submerged more villages (AP)
Pakistan’s already creaky economy has been pushed to the verge of ruin by the devastating floods of the past month.
With foreign aid only now beginning to trickle in, the impoverished country has been forced to take out further loans while pleading for outstanding ones to be restructured.
Already burdened by heavy debt, the country’s economy has suffered a major setback. Funds will have to be poured into reconstruction efforts while many sectors of the economy, especially agriculture, will suffer losses for up to several months, if not years. So far, the floods have covered a fifth of the country, cost at least 1,600 lives, displaced 4.6 million people, destroyed roads, bridges and schools, damaged power stations and dams, and swamped millions of acres of agricultural land.
About 150,000 Pakistanis were forced to move to higher ground yesterday as water from a freshly swollen Indus River submerged dozens more towns and villages in the south. Officials expect the floods to recede across the country in the next few days as the last river torrents empty into the Arabian Sea. Survivors may find little left when they return home. Already, 600,000 people are in relief camps set up in Sindh during the past month. The floods have affected about one-fifth of Pakistan’s territory; at least six million people have been made homeless, and 20 million affected overall.
A top-level delegation from Pakistan’s Finance Ministry will travel to Washington this week to ask the International Monetary Fund to ease the restrictions imposed on its $11.3bn (£7.3bn) support package. Before the floods, Pakistan was struggling to meet the fund’s requirements. Meeting those conditions now will be impossible.
Some officials estimate that the cost of rebuilding infrastructure could be $15bn, money that Islamabad simply doesn’t have. As of July, Pakistan had a debt of $55.5bn. That figure will jump to $73bn in 2015-16, as debts that were rescheduled after 9/11, in exchange for Pakistan’s co-operation in the “war on terror”, will come back into play.
See also:
A displaced family wades through floodwaters in the Muzaffargarh district of Pakistan’s Punjab province. The lives of 20 million people have been disrupted by the worst floods to hit the country (REUTERS)
The world Bank has offered a $900m (£577m) loan to Pakistan to help with the country’s flood recovery programme.
As aid donations to the beleaguered nation fall short of what is needed, the body said that funds would be diverted from ongoing and planned projects in the country. “We are re-prioritising to make the funds immediately available,” said spokeswoman Mariam Altaf.
With widespread destruction of roads, bridges and other vital infrastructure, experts say that rebuilding could take many years and cost billions to complete. There are concerns that millions of people will need food aid, emergency shelter and medicine for weeks, if not months, to come. While the lives of an estimated 20 million people have been disrupted by the floods, agencies say that food and clean water have only so far been provided to 500,000. Anywhere between 3.5 million to 6 million children are said to be at risk from water-borne diseases.
Read morePakistan Forced To Take Loan From World Bank (Because Of Slow Pace Of Aid Forces)
Richard C. Cook (born October 20, 1946) is a former U.S. federal government analyst, who was instrumental in exposing White House cover-ups regarding the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster of 1986. As a witness to the incident and a participant in the subsequent investigations, Cook provided key document to The New York Times and testified before the Rogers Commission. In 1990, he received the Cavallo Foundation Award for Moral Courage in Business and Government for his testimony. In 2007, his memoirs of the tragedy were published in a book entitled, Challenger Revealed: An Insider’s Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age. (Wikipedia)
Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) was an Austrian philosopher and esotericist and founder of one of the key modern spiritual movements in the West. He is best known for his books and lectures before and after World War I, when he founded the Anthroposophical Society with its present-day headquarters in Dornach, Switzerland. After World War I, Steiner and his work were criticized viciously by right-wing nationalists in Germany, which caused him to give up his residence in Berlin. Among the critics was Adolf Hitler, who attacked him in print as a traitor to Germany for his efforts to promote peace.
The work of prophetic thinkers like Rudolf Steiner makes clear that the history of humanity proceeds through the evolution of consciousness, where changes take place in the psyche of people well in advance of their outward manifestations. Thus an understanding of what is happening before our eyes is never simple, nor can it be taken at face value. Discernment requires a level of knowledge that can only be achieved through study and insight.
But only an approach that penetrates deeply into human nature allows us to see the real inner causes of events. Such causes can be positive or negative, constructive or destructive. It is the genius and dilemma of man that we can choose which influences we serve. As Steiner prophesied almost a century ago, we appear today to be at a pivotal point where how we make such choices can determine the fate of the world.
Read moreRichard C. Cook: 2010 – Humanity’s Choice as Foreseen by Rudolf Steiner
“When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
– Benjamin Franklin
Added: 22. October 2009
Fall Of The Republic documents how an offshore corporate cartel is bankrupting the US economy by design. Leaders are now declaring that world government has arrived and that the dollar will be replaced by a new global currency.
President Obama has brazenly violated Article 1 Section 9 of the US Constitution by seating himself at the head of United Nations’ Security Council, thus becoming the first US president to chair the world body.
A scientific dictatorship is in its final stages of completion, and laws protecting basic human rights are being abolished worldwide; an iron curtain of high-tech tyranny is now descending over the planet.
A worldwide regime controlled by an unelected corporate elite is implementing a planetary carbon tax system that will dominate all human activity and establish a system of neo-feudal slavery.
Read moreFall Of The Republic – The Presidency Of Barack H. Obama (The Full Movie HQ)
World Bank president Robert Zoellick has launched a major campaign secure more funding from rich nations (REUTERS)
The Bank, whose job it is to support low-income countries, has had to hand out so much cash in the wake of the financial crisis that it faces a shortfall in what it can spare for new projects within 12 months.
“By the middle of next year we will face serious constraints,” said its president Robert Zoellick, as he launched a major campaign to persuade rich nations to pour more money into the Washington-based institution.
He conceded that such a task was likely to be extremely difficult, given the difficulties facing countries in the wake of the developed world’s biggest recession since the Second World War.
Read moreZoellick: World Bank could ‘run out of money’ within 12 months
– Iran Replaces The US Dollar With The Euro
– HSBC bids farewell to US dollar supremacy
– Putin says US dollar issuance ‘uncontrolled’, calls for diversified reserves
– Hedge Funds’ ATM Moves From Tokyo to Washington
World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick attends a news conference in Beijing (REUTERS)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – World Bank President Robert Zoellick said the United States should not take the dollar’s status as the world’s key reserve currency for granted because other options are emerging.
In excerpts released on Sunday from a speech that he is to deliver on Monday, Zoellick said global economic forces were shifting and it was time now to prepare for the fact that growth will come from multiple sources.
“The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar’s place as the world’s predominant reserve currency,” he said. “Looking forward, there will increasingly be other options.”
Zoellick said that a meeting of Group of 20 rich and developing countries in Pittsburgh on Thursday and Friday had made “a good start” toward increased global cooperation but they will have accept global monitoring of their activities.
Read moreWorld Bank: ‘Don’t take dollar’s place for granted’
Pedestrians walk past the abandoned San Martin grain silos in San Salvador, on July 22, 2008. Photographer: Alejandra Parra/Bloomberg News
Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) — Inside and out, the rusted towers of El Salvador’s biggest grain silo show how the World Bank helped push developing countries into the global food crisis.
Inside, the silo, which once held thousands of tons of beans and cereals, is now empty. It was abandoned in 1991, after the bank told Salvadoran leaders to privatize grain storage, import staples such as corn and rice, and export crops including cocoa, coffee and palm oil.
Outside, where Rosa Maria Chavez’s food stand is propped against a tower wall, price increases for basic grains this year whittled business down to 16 customers a day from 80.
“It’s a monument to the mess we are in now,” says Chavez, 63.
About 40 million people joined the ranks of the undernourished this year, bringing the estimate of the world’s hungry to 963 million of its 6.8 billion people, the Rome-based United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said yesterday. The growth didn’t come just from natural causes.
Read moreWorld Bank’s Wrong Advice Left Silos Empty in Poor Countries
Hungarian Forint notes of differing denominations sit on display in Budapest on Nov. 19, 2008. Photographer: Balint Porneczi/Bloomberg News
Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) — The slowing global economy is halting the spread of monetary union into eastern Europe and may lead to another year of losses for the Polish zloty, Hungarian forint and Czech koruna.
The zloty fell 21 percent against the euro from a record high in July as Poland headed for its biggest economic slowdown in almost a decade, while Hungary turned to the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and European Union for a bailout as the forint weakened 15 percent. Koruna volatility almost tripled as it depreciated 12 percent. The two-year mandatory trial period before adopting the euro allows swings of no more than 15 percent.
Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic joined the European Union in 2004, committing to enter the 10 trillion-euro ($12.7 trillion) economy of countries sharing a single currency. The dream faded since July as the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression drove investors from emerging markets. Now, New York-based Morgan Stanley and UBS AG in Zurich predict more foreign exchange losses in eastern Europe.
Read moreEuro Dreams Shattered for Poles, Hungarians, Czechs as Currencies Plummet
Hunger now afflicts almost a billion people in 60 countries … and kills 25,000 a day. A special report by Rob Edwards to explain the background to our Christmas appeal
A SILENT tsunami of hunger is engulfing the world, afflicting nearly a billion people in 60 countries and killing 25,000 men, women and children every day. The global food crisis, triggered by high prices, shortages and bad weather, is deepening as the world’s economy moves into recession. Millions more people are now facing poverty, starvation, disease and death.
The World Bank is predicting that 967 million people will now go hungry in 2008, 44 million more than in 2007. That means that almost one in every six people on the planet is not getting enough food to stay healthy.
Children’s growth is being stunted, immune systems are being destroyed and fatal diseases like diarrhoea, measles and malaria are spreading.
“This is a tragic loss of human and economic potential”, says a report from the World Bank.
Irreparable damage is being done to the health, life and prospects of hundreds of millions of people, it warns. “This is not only a crisis now, but a time bomb for the future.”
The World Bank also estimates that 2008 has pushed 100 million more people into serious poverty, making it more difficult for them to afford life’s essentials. Some 2.3 billion people worldwide have to manage on less than the equivalent of £1.35 a day.
Unsustainable practices cost the global fishing industry $50 billion every year, and have wasted some $2 trillion in the last three decades, says a joint report from the World Bank and United Nations.
The numbers might not seem like much when compared to the ongoing economic crisis or the cost of deforestation — $1.5 trillion lost from Wall Street in weeks, between $2 trillion and $5 trillion of forests cut down annually.
But the losses, calculated in terms of declining productivity, are a troubling warning sign. Despite better equipment, larger fleets and ever-growing markets, the industry is catching the same amount of fish now as it did 30 years ago.
The reason: oceanic fish populations have been decimated. Some researchers say that the world will run out of wild seafood within 40 years. There will still be farm-raised fish – which now account for 50 percent of all fish production – but the $80 billion global fishing industry, which employs some 200 million people, will be as depleted as North Atlantic cod.
DON’T CRY FOR ME ARGENTINA SAVE YOUR TEARS FOR YOURSELF – While bankers do control the issuance of credit, they cannot control themselves. Bankers are the fatal flaw in their deviously opaque system that has substituted credit for money and debt for savings. The bankers have spread their credit-based system across the world by catering to basic human needs and ambition and greed; and while human needs can be satisfied, ambition and greed cannot-and the bankers’ least of all.
I have a bad feeling about what’s about to happen. The Great Depression is the closest that comes to mind. I, like most, was not alive during the 1930s when it happened. Nonetheless, what once was feared in private is now being discussed in public. It’s going to be bad. It’s going to make high school seem like fun.
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA THE NEXT ARGENTINA
This Time is Different: A Panoramic View of Eight Centuries of Financial Crises by University of Maryland‘s Carmen Reinhart and Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff makes for perfect reading when flying between the US and Argentina.
There is perhaps no better analysis than Reinhart and Rogoff’s on the history of sovereign defaults; and, as such, Reinhart and Rogoff’s paper was ideal reading material when traveling between the US and Argentina , for the sovereign defaults that happened in the past to Argentina will soon be happening to the US .
LONDON (AFP) – Biofuels have caused world food prices to increase by 75 percent, according to the findings of an unpublished World Bank report published in The Guardian newspaper on Friday.
The daily said the report was finished in April but was not published to avoid embarrassing the US government, which has claimed plant-derived fuels have pushed up prices by only three percent.
Biofuels, which supporters claim are a “greener” alternative to using fossil fuel and cut greenhouse gas emissions, and rising food prices will be on the agenda when G8 leaders meet in Japan next week for their annual summit.
The report’s author, a senior World Bank economist, assessed that contrary to claims by US President George W. Bush, increased demand from India and China has not been the cause of rising food prices.
“Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases,” the report said.
Droughts in Australia have also not had a significant impact, it added. Instead, European and US drives for greater use of biofuels has had the biggest effect.
Related articles:
– The Price Of Food: 2007 – 2008
– Floods may boost world food prices for years
– Philippines: Food Shortage Looms – Arroyo Adviser
The European Union has mooted using biofuels for up to 10 percent of all transport fuels by 2020 as part of an increase in use of renewable energy.
Related articles:
– A human rights crime in Gaza by Jimmy Carter
– Israeli siege leads to soaring anemia in Gaza newborns
GAZA CITY, Jul 2 (IPS) – Gaza is being forced to pump 77 tonnes of untreated or partially treated sewage out to sea daily due to the Israeli blockade of the coastal territory. The fear is that some of this is creeping back into drinking water.
“The health of Gaza’s 1.5 million people is at risk,” Mahmoud Daher, from the UN World Health Organisation (WHO) told IPS following a report released by WHO after it carried out a number of tests on Gaza’s contaminated water.
On the ground Israel’s closure has translated into a lack of fuel, electricity and spare parts needed to operate wastewater and sewerage treatment plants. Consequently Gaza’s water and sanitation systems are near complete collapse as the power required to run treatment and desalination plants, pump water to homes, and pump sewage away from populated areas is only available on a very limited basis.
Following Hamas’ takeover in Gaza last year, after it won legislative elections in 2006, Israel designated the densely populated strip of 360 square kilometres hostile territory and sealed off the borders, enforcing an embargo which is supported by the international community.
Since then the Jewish state has allowed only a trickle of humanitarian goods into Gaza, and only after intense international pressure and intervention. Besides drastically reducing fuel and electricity supplies, Israel has also barred import of most vital technical parts, which humanitarian organisations argue are necessary if Gaza’s basic infrastructure is to operate.
In order to assess the degree of sewage contamination WHO took seawater samples from 13 risky areas in the five governorates of the Gaza Strip. Two microbiological tests were carried out to examine the presence of human and animal faeces.
The results revealed that three areas in Gaza and one area in the Rafah governorate (30.8 percent) are polluted with human faeces (Faecal Coliform) and animal faeces (Faecal Streptococcus), and three areas in Gaza city (23.1 percent) are polluted with animal faeces.
The danger is that this contaminated sea water is leaking into Gaza’s underground water aqueduct following a two-year drought. The drought has meant that the 160 million cubic metres of water extracted every year from Gaza’s underground water supply is not being replenished as the strip received only an annual average of 85 million cubic metres of rain over the last couple of years.
(NaturalNews) The fate of the nation’s water supply is under debate as hearings in the House and Senate begin on the Water Restoration Act of 2007. Opponents claim this Act threatens to greatly expand the Federal Government’s roll in water management. This Act would define waters of the U.S. as “all interstate and intrastate waters and their tributaries, including lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams) mudflats, sand flats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, natural ponds, and all impoundments of the foregoing”. In other words, this bill will give the federal government total control of the most basic of all commodities necessary to life on this earth.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers currently have authority over all waters considered navigable in the U.S. The Code of Federal Regulations 33 CFR 329.4 defines navigable waters as “those waters that are subject to the ebb and flow of the tide and/or presently used, or have been used in the past, or may be susceptible for use to transport interstate or foreign commerce.”
The Water Restoration Act, a bipartisan bill lead/sponsored by Congressman Oberstar, is an amendment to the Federal Water Pollution Act, commonly known as the Clean Water Act. Since major amendments were enacted in 1977, the Clean Water Act protected all of the nation’s waters as Congress intended, until 2003, when the Bush administration gave in to pressure form corporate polluters and redefined the meaning of water. This happened through a bureaucratic device called a ‘guidance’, whereby the EPA instructed federal environmental law enforcers to back off from holding many polluters accountable.
Proponents of the Clean Water Restoration Act see it as restoring what was Congress’s original intent, that the Clean Water Act protect all of the nation’s waters. They see water quality and quantity issues as needing examination this spring, and believe now is the time for getting legislation to protect the water supply in order with the passage of this Act. They see the Act as offering needed protection from water pollution, from terrorists, and being in the interests of national security.
Is water a basic human right or a commodity?
Related article: UN rejects water as basic human right
Actually this should cause a global outrage and a revolution. – The Infinite Unknown
Under the Public Trust doctrine, the government is prohibited from converting something such as water to the status of a commodity. Water is considered a basic human right that must remain in the public trust, meaning that it is so important to our survival that it should never be reclassified as a commodity. Many believe that the Water Restoration Act lays the foundation for removing water from the Public Trust and facilitating it to fall under the ownership and control of corporations as a commodity. This is similar to how seeds have fallen into corporate control when they were once viewed as part of the Public Trust under the assumption that all people have a right to seeds with which to grow food for themselves.
Commodity owning corporations can now sue the government if it acts in any way to prevent them from making profits they believe they are entitled to. This ability to sue for impaired profit making can be the result of environmental regulations, of Federal laws which may prevent the corporations from hiring illegal workers, or issues of eminent domain in which an individual’s land stands in the way of corporate earnings, and the courts have not acted to protect the interests of the corporation.
All the corporation has to do to supersede federal law is claim ‘trade illegal’ provisions of NAFTA and CAFTA. Federal laws and regulations are then put aside, along with property rights. CAFTA goes a long way in establishing the privatization of water supplies, including in-land navigated waters and the right to use and access the water supplies.
Federal control over all water may lead to its privatization
If the federal government is unable to gain total control of all water from whatever source, it is highly unlikely that water can be taken from the status of Public Trust and changed to that of commodity. If in fact the Water Restoration Act allows for the complete control of the federal government over all water in the country, as it opponents claim, water can loose its status as part of the Public Trust, and become a commodity available for corporate ownership.
The Water Restoration Act federalizes all inland and coastal waters from any source. This Act is needed to set the stage for the corporate privatization guaranteed under CAFTA, and would effectively convert the entire water supply from any source into the status of a commodity.
Read moreWater Restoration Act May Lead to Privatization of Water Supply
The 2008 Bilderberg Meeting is now in full swing at the Westfields Marriott in Chantilly, Virginia, USA but you wouldn’t know it from the media blackout of this event by virtually all mainstream media outlets in the United States. Each year, Bilderberg hosts some of the most powerful people in North America and Europe where these individuals set and shape policies for the world. The 2008 Bilderberg Meeting is slated to run from June 5th through June 8th. Since 1954, Bilderberg has met in secrecy primarily thanks to the intentional lack of media attention paid to it. One would think that an event where over 100 of the most high profile and powerful people from North America and Europe are meeting would receive a great deal of mainstream media attention, but there is virtually none. As a result of the media blackout, only independent journalists and alternative researchers have been covering this event on a year to year basis. Due to a greater amount of attention being paid to this event, a press release on the Bilderberg Meeting was issued from a group that identified themselves as the American Friends of Bilderberg. The press release provides spin on how wonderful Bilderberg is and even provides a contact number that can be used to obtain a list of attendees. The Logan Act states that it is illegal for those holding public office in the United States to attend secret meetings like Bilderberg where policy is set. Regardless, that has not stopped people like Rick Perry from attending the 2007 Bilderberg Meeting as the sitting Texas governor. Jim Tucker, who has covered the Bilderberg meeting for over 30 years, has accurately made future predictions based upon information he has received from moles within Bilderberg. There is no doubt that policy is set at this meeting and quite frankly if you think that some of the most powerful people in the world are getting together just for laughs, you are sorely mistaken.
Below is taken directly from the press release on the Bilderberg Meeting issued by the American Friends of Bilderberg which provides positive spin for the Bilderberg Meeting.
A catastrophic water shortage could prove an even bigger threat to mankind this century than soaring food prices and the relentless exhaustion of energy reserves, according to a panel of global experts at the Goldman Sachs “Top Five Risks” conference.
The melting of Himalayan glaciers threatens the water supply to the world’s rivers
Nicholas (Lord) Stern, author of the Government’s Stern Review on the economics of climate change, warned that underground aquifers could run dry at the same time as melting glaciers play havoc with fresh supplies of usable water.
“The glaciers on the Himalayas are retreating, and they are the sponge that holds the water back in the rainy season. We’re facing the risk of extreme run-off, with water running straight into the Bay of Bengal and taking a lot of topsoil with it,” he said.
“A few hundred square miles of the Himalayas are the source for all the major rivers of Asia – the Ganges, the Yellow River, the Yangtze – where 3bn people live. That’s almost half the world’s population,” he said.
Lord Stern, the World Bank’s former chief economist, said governments had been slow to accept the awful truth that usable water is running out. Fresh rainfall is not enough to refill the underground water tables.
“Water is not a renewable resource. People have been mining it without restraint because it has not been priced properly,” he said.
Water sector outperformance relative to the S&P 500
Farming makes up 70pc of global water demand. Fresh water for irrigation is never returned to underground basins. Most is lost through leaks and evaporation.
A Goldman Sachs report said water was the “petroleum for the next century”, offering huge rewards for investors who know how to play the infrastructure boom. The US alone needs up to $1,000bn (£500bn) in new piping and waste water plants by 2020.
Pledges of almost three billion dollars of emergency aid were made at a food price crisis summit on Wednesday but UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned up to 20 billion dollars a year would be needed to avoid disaster.
“We simply cannot afford to fail,” the UN secretary general said at the food security summit. “Hundreds of millions of people expect no less.”
The extra resources that might be as required will cost between 15 billion and 20 billion dollars (10-13 billion euros) a year, Ban told a news conference.
New funding totalling some 2.7 billion dollars was announced on the second day of the summit in Rome, where Ban has already demanded a 50 percent increase in food production by 2030.
The UN World Food Programme announced 1.2 billion dollars in new food aid to help “the tens of millions of people … hardest hit by the crisis.”
Read moreBillions pledged at food summit, but more needed UN chief says
