JP Morgan Paid $1.9 Billion For Washington Mutual And Now It Wants A $1.4 Billion Tax Refund

JPMorgan Chase is negotiating with the FDIC for a tax refund related to its acquisition of Washington Mutual that could amount to $1.4 billion, The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning.

A little noticed change in tax law was incorporated into the extension of jobless benefits last year. Under the new rules companies can use losses to apply for tax refunds against earnings from the past 5 years--up from just 2 years before the change.

It isn't just JP Morgan that is benefiting from the tax changes. The WSJ reports:

Many other companies have benefited from the 2009 tax-refund law already. According to an analysis of securities filings by The Wall Street Journal, more than 250 companies have so far said they expect to get about $12 billion in federal tax refunds under the law.

That remains a partial list. The Joint Committee on Taxation, a congressional committee, estimated the provision would cost $33 billion in its first year.

The law specifically excluded companies that took TARP from applying for the refund. So how does JP Morgan qualify? It argues that since Washington Mutual never got TARP funds, its past taxes should qualify.

That's a plausible argument. But the deeper problem here is that our tax code shouldn't be used like this. This rewards the worst managed companies with a subsidy while punishing those that didn't see losses in the crisis. It's got bailout written all over it.

Ever-Diminishing Official Numbers Of Auschwitz Dead

9,000,000

Source: Cited by the French documentary, Night and Fog, which has been shown to millions of school students worldwide.

8,000,000

Source: The French War Crime Research Office, Doc. 31, 1945.

7,000,000

Source: Also cited by the French War Crime Research Office.

6,000,000

Source: Cited in the book Auschwitz Doctor by Miklos Nyiszli. It has since been proven that this book is a fraud and the "doctor" was never even at Auschwitz, even though the book is often cited by historians.

5,000,000 to 5,500,000

Source: Cited in 1945 at the trial of Auschwitz commander Rudolf Höss, based on his confession which was written in English, a language he never spoke.

5,000,000

Source: Cited on April 20, 1978 by the French daily, Le Monde. Also cited on January 23, 1995 by the German daily Die Welt. By September 1, 1989, Le Monde reduced the figure to 1,433,000.

4,500,000

Source: In 1945 this figure was cited by another witness at the aforementioned Höss trial.

4,000,000

Source: Cited by a Soviet document of May 6, 1945 and officially acknowledged by the Nuremberg War Crimes trial. This figure was also reported in The New York Times on April 18, 1945, although 50 years later on January 26, 1995, The New York Times and The Washington Post slashed the figure to 1,500,000 citing new findings by the Auschwitz Museum officials. In fact, the figure of 4,000,000 was later repudiated by the Auschwitz museum officials in 1990 but the figure of 1,500,000 victims was not formally announced by Polish President Lech Walesa until five years after the Auschwitz historians had first announced their discovery.

3,500,000

Source: Cited in the 1991 edition of the Dictionary of the French Language and by Claude Lanzmann in 1980 in his introduction to Filip Muller's book, Three Years in an Auschwitz Gas Chamber.

3,000,000

Source: Cited in a forced confession by Rudolf Höss, the Auschwitz commander who said this was the number of those who had died at Auschwitz prior to Dec. 1, 1943. Later cited in the June 7, 1993 issue of Heritage, the most widely read Jewish newspaper in California, even though three years previously the authorities at the Auschwitz museum had scaled down the figure to a minimum of 1,100,000 and a maximum of 1,500,000. (see below).

2,500,000

Source: Cited by Rudolf Vrba (an author of various fraudulent accounts of events he claims to have witnessed at Auschwitz) when he testified on July 16, 1981 for the Israeli government's war crimes trial of former SS official Adolf Eichmann.

2,000,000

Source: Cited by Leon Poliakov (1951) writing in Harvest of Hate; Georges Wellers, writing in 1973 in The Yellow Star at the Time of Vichy; and Lucy Dawidowicz, writing in 1975 in The War Against the Jews.

2,000,000 to 4,000,000

Source: Cited by Yehuda Bauer in 1982 in his book, A History of the Holocaust. However, by 1989 Bauer revised his figure to 1,600,000.

1,600,000

Source: This is a 1989 revision by Yehuda Bauer of his earlier figure in 1982 of 2,000,000 to 4,000,000, Bauer cited this new figure on September 22, 1989 in The Jerusalem Post, at which time he wrote "The larger figures have been dismissed for years, except that it hasn't reached the public yet."

1,500,000

Source: In 1995 this was the number of Auschwitz deaths announced by Polish President Lech Walesa as determined by those at the Auschwitz museum. This number was inscribed on the monument at the Auschwitz camp at that time, thereby "replacing" the earlier 4,000,000 figure that had been formally repudiated (and withdrawn from the monument) five years earlier in 1990. At that time, on July 17, 1990 The Washington Times reprinted a brief article from The London Daily Telegraph citing the "new" figure of 1,500,000 that had been determined by the authorities at the Auschwitz museum. This new figure was reported two years later in a UPI report published in the New York Post on March 26, 1992. On January 26, 1995 both The Washington Post and The New York Times cited this 1,500,000 figure as the new "official" figure (citing the Auschwitz Museum authorities).

1,471,595

Source: This is a 1983 figure cited by Georges Wellers who (as noted previously) had determined, writing in 1973, that some 2,000,000 had died.

1,433,000

Source: This figure was cited on September 1, 1989 by the French daily, Le Monde, which earlier, on April 20, 1978, had cited the figure at 4,000,000.

1,250,000

Source: In the book, The Destruction of the European Jews, by Raul Hilberg (1985).

1,100,000 to 1,500,000

Source: Sources for this estimate are Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum in their 1984 book, Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. This estimate was later also cited by Walter Reich, former director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, writing in The Washington Post on September 8, 1998. The upper figure of 1,500,000 is (the new) "official" figure as now inscribed at Auschwitz, with the earlier figure of 4,000,000 having been removed from the memorial at the site of the former concentration camp.

1,000,000

Source: Jean-Claude Pressac, writing in his 1989 book Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers. This is interesting since he wrote his book to repudiate so-called "Holocaust deniers" who were called that precisely because they had questioned the numbers of those who had died at Auschwitz.

900,000

Source: Reported on August 3, 1990 11, by Aufbau, a Jewish newspaper in New York.

800,000 to 900,000

Source: Reported by Gerald Reitlinger in his book, The Final Solution.

775,000 to 800,000

Source: Jean-Claude Pressac's revised figure, put forth in his 1993 book, The Crematoria of Auschwitz: The Mass Murder's Machinery, scaling down his earlier claim of 1,000,000 dead.

630,000 to 710,000

Source: In 1994 Pressac scaled his figure down somewhat further; this is the figure cited in the German language translation of Pressac's 1993 book originally published in French. Again, this is substantially less than Pressac's 1989 figure of 1,000,000.

135,000 to 140,000

Source: This is an estimate based on documents held by the International Tracing Service of the Red Cross. It is known that International Tracing Service has a complete set of registration documents. This is thought to include a complete set of roll-call data which includes twice daily tallies of those who died. Although the International Tracing Service of the Red Cross has such records, they have never officially published an accurate count of those who died, or even an accurate report as to exactly which documents they hold. However, totals from these records have been obtained by various interested parties.

The estimate of 135,000 is roughly corroborated by the "Auschwitz death books." The death books themselves are wartime German camp records, which were captured by the Soviets towards the end of the war, and hidden in Soviet achieves, until released to the Red Cross in 1989.

The death books consist of 46 volumes which document each death at Auschwitz (each death certificate consists of the deceased person's full name, profession and religion, date and place of birth, pre-Auschwitz residence, parents' names, time of death, and cause of death as determined by a camp physician). The records for the most important years, 1942 and 1943, are almost complete (there are also a few volumes for the year 1941, but none for the year 1944 or January 1945 (when Auschwitz was evacuated)).

The Auschwitz death books contain the death certificates of some 69,000 individuals, of whom about 30,000 were listed as Jews. You may view various eThe above mentioned, ever declining numbers of alleged dead at Auschwitz, are graphically illustrated by the following pictures of plaques from the camp.

The first is the plaque that was on display at the Auschwitz camp from 1948 until 1989 (note the "4 million" victims).

The second is the plaque currently on display at Auschwitz.

Note the dramatically reduced number of victims, now only 1.5 million.

A casual reduction in the number of deaths by some 2.5 million.

Deaths at Auschwitz drop by a whopping 2.5 million, but 6,000,000 dead Jewish prisoners, remains the same.

'Muscular' UK Space Agency launched

The new UK Space Agency (UKSA) will take over responsibility for government policy and the key budgets for space, according to ministers.

The agency, which comes into being on 1 April, will also represent Britain on space matters in all negotiations with international partners.

The UKSA's name, logo and remit were announced at a conference in London.

Its establishment should bring more coherence to space policy - something critics say has been missing for years.

In particular, it is hoped an executive agency that can champion British interests abroad will help an already successful space industry to grow still further.

"People in the UK are not aware of just how good Britain is both at space research and in terms of our space industry; [a space agency] is going to make people more aware of that," Lord Drayson, the minister for science and innovation, told BBC News.

"But in practical terms, it's going to make the decision-making by government in all aspects of space policy much more joined up, better co-ordinated - a single point within government which has responsibility for making sure that we get everything in alignment such that the space research we do, the space industry that we're building, fulfils its true potential."

British space policy and budgets have until now been devolved to a partnership of government departments and science funding councils. The UKSA will, step by step, assume control of these partners' monies (about £230m per year) and their management functions.

Ministers want more information on EO and satellite broadband

It will start in the areas related to Britain's membership of the European Space Agency (Esa), where most of the civil space budget is spent.

It will then extend to areas that engage with the EU, which has begun in recent years to develop major space projects of its own, such as the Galileo satellite-navigation system.

In addition to the UKSA announcement, the government says £24m will be put into an International Space Innovation Centre (ISIC) at Harwell in Oxfordshire, the site of a new Esa technical facility. This is in addition to £16m from industry.

Ministers say the ISIC will help establish hubs of excellence in the UK to:

• exploit the data generated by Earth Observation satellites,
• use space data to understand and counter climate change and
• advise on the security and resilience of space systems and services.

The announcements are part of the government's response to a major report produced last month by industry and academia on the future prospects for Britain in space.

The Space Innovation and Growth Strategy (Space-IGS) laid out a path it believed could take the UK from a position where it currently claims 6% of the global market in space products and services to 10%, by 2030, creating 100,000 new hi-tech jobs in the process.

Astronaut Tim Peake on the UK's new space agency

The government says it agrees with most of the Space-IGS recommendations, including developing a National Space Technology Strategy.

One key area of dissent however is the call to double UK spending on Esa programmes over the next decade. The Space-IGS wanted Britain to try to initiate and lead at least three missions between now and 2030.

Ministers say they cannot make such commitments in the current economic climate.

"We will require a compelling business case for each proposal or mission," said Lord Drayson.

The government says it also wants more information from industry on how satellite broadband services could be expanded, and on the feasibility of establishing a UK-based Earth observation (EO) programme.

At the moment, the UK buys Earth imagery acquired by foreign spacecraft. The Space-IGS said there was a case for the UK to have its own EO fleet.

Space-IGS chairman and LogicaCMG CEO Andy Green welcomed the government response to the report.

He conceded ministers would find the Esa funding issue difficult but hoped that as economic conditions improved, the question could be raised again.

"They've been swift, I think they've been serious; they've put a lot of effort into it," he told BBC News.

"But as I've said today, we really have to concentrate on making a reality of this - [it's a] big ambition to go from 6% to 10%, create 100,000 jobs. That will need investment from industry, investment from government; and we'll see how that goes as we go up to the next spending round."

The creation of a space agency is just the latest in a series of initiatives affecting British space interests.

In July last year, Esa finally opened a technical centre in the UK - the only one of the agency's senior members not to have such a showcase facility. It also appointed a British national, Major Tim Peake, to its astronaut corps in May.

Terrorists Could Use Explosives in Breast Implants to Crash Planes, Experts Warn

Plastic surgeons using explosive-laden breast implants in homicide bombers could be a new terror tactic that current airport scanning methods may miss.

Female homicide bombers are being fitted with exploding breast implants which are almost impossible to detect, British spies have reportedly discovered.

The shocking new Al Qaeda tactic involves radical doctors inserting the explosives in women's breasts during plastic surgery — making them "virtually impossible to detect by the usual airport scanning machines."

It is believed the doctors have been trained at some of Britain's leading teaching hospitals before returning to their own countries to perform the surgical procedures.

MI5 has also discovered that extremists are inserting the explosives into the buttocks of some male bombers.

"Women suicide bombers recruited by Al Qaeda are known to have had the explosives inserted in their breasts under techniques similar to breast enhancing surgery," Terrorist expert Joseph Farah claims.

The lethal explosives called PETN are inserted inside plastic shapes during the operation, before the breast is then sewn up.

The discovery of these methods was made after London-educated Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab came close to blowing up an airliner in the U.S. on Christmas Day.

He had stuffed explosives inside his underpants.

Hours after he had failed, Britain's intelligence services began to pick up "chatter" emanating from Pakistan and Yemen that alerted MI5 to the creation of the lethal implants.

A hand-picked team investigated the threat which was described as "one that can circumvent our defense."

Top surgeons have confirmed the feasibility of the explosive implants.

Explosive experts allegedly told MI5 that a sachet containing as little as five ounces of PETN could blow "a considerable hole" in an airline's skin, causing it to crash.

Click here to read more on this story from The Sun.

CHANCELLOR Alistair Darling has delivered his last crucial budget — and plunged the country further into debt.

Government spending won't be cut until next year.

And we can't even drown our sorrows without being hit in the pocket as Darling ups booze prices.

The Sun's panel of experts have delivered scathing verdicts on the Chancellor's Budget.

Business Editor STEVE HAWKES said today's Budget is likely to be Darling's last after his limp performance in the Commons.

Steve said: " He lasted an hour but Alistair Darling sent people to sleep in a dismal Budget that dodged all the big issues.

"And we will all end up paying the consequences.

"Debts are expected to balloon to £1.3TRILLION by 2014 - a staggering sum equivalent to 74 per cent of our total economic output.

"That's like someone on £30,000 a year owing the bank £22,000.

"Yet the Chancellor wants to wait until NEXT YEAR before doing anything about cutting government spending.

"Instead there are more tax hits. Freezing inheritance tax for four more years will raise £2billion alone as more homes cross the £325,000 threshold.

"And pub goers, motorists and cigarette smokers face yet more price hikes.

"The Chancellor tinkered around the edges with some measures to boost small businesses.

"But the necessity to play politics meant substance gave way to gimmicks.

"It is likely to be the last time Alistair Darling steps up to the dispatch box. And what a limp end to his three-year tenure."

'Jobs will go' ... Jane Hamilton

Our Consumer Editor JANE HAMILTON also slammed the Budget for hitting drinkers — especially cider fans.

She said: "Today's announcements have seen drinkers clobbered with a huge TEN PER CENT duty hike on cider, which starts midnight this Sunday.

"Darling's 5.1 per cent booze duty increase sees pints up by two pence, another ten pence slapped on a 75cl bottle of wine and 36 pence on a 70cl bottle of spirits.

"In a triple blow for Britain's pubs, since 2008 tax on wine has soared 25 per cent, spirits cost 20 per cent more and beer prices have increased by an eye-watering 26 per cent.

"With six pubs a day closing around the country, this is terrible new for drinkers and for communities losing their precious locals. Jobs will go as yet more pubs shut.

"Smokers were left spluttering by an immediate one per cent rise on a packet of cigarettes, pushing the price up by 33p since January. And there's another two per cent rise each year every year until 2010.

"The Chancellor boasted the fuel duty rise will be staggered - with penny increases in April, October and a final instalment in January - but it still means you're paying out more even at the pumps.

"The April rise alone will cost motorists an extra 50p every time they fill up. And with petrol set to hit a record £1.20 a litre within weeks, it's additional payouts drivers can ill afford.

Fuel hikes ... Ken Gibson

"Coupled with new cash grabs which kick in April, like the £6 broadband tax, hard-pressed UK consumers will be digging even deeper into their almost-empty pockets. "

Motorists will also upset drivers with yet more fuel rises on the way.

Our Motoring Editor KEN GIBSON said: "The Chancellor's decision to phase in fuel duty rises may avoid total misery for drivers of a 3p a litre increase on April 1st but motorists are still being clobbered by the Government.

"The 1p increase on April 1st will still mean 50p a tank and £2.12 a month for a family with two cars. And by next January that will have risen to an extra £1.50 a tank and an extra £37.50 a year on the fuel bill for the average motorist.

"The fuel tax rise will eventually be worth an extra £100million plus to the Government, who already screw a staggering £45BILLION a year from motorists on taxes.

"And with experts predicting that the price of a gallon will hit a record 120p per litre within weeks, any relief for motorists will be short lived.

"Motorists remain the Government's favourite whipping boy, the average price of fuel has risen by 27 per cent in the last 12 months, that 's an extra £264 a year for the average driver.

"And the Government is already raking in millions from motorists with VAT on new cars going back to 17 per cent in January, and is set for a further windfall with a new Showroom Tax due on April 1st that will be a one off tax based on C02 emissions of new cars.

"That tax will mean buyers of new cars in the top polluting band of M (255 g/km of C02 and over) paying an extra £515 on top of the current £435 VEX tax for a total payment of £950.

"But even large family cars like a two litre petrol version of the Vauxhall Zafira people carrier will have to fork out an extra £325 as the annual charge goes up to £750.

"The reality is the new showroom tax will hit hard buyers on premium cars, cars like Bentley, Aston Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover that are made in this country, which will hit sales and could affect jobs.

"There was one bright spot for motorists. The Chancellor is to give authorities £100million to repair pot holes on local roads, but as the road's are in a disgrace so this will only scratch the surface.

"The reality is that the Chancellor and the Government are once again hitting the motorist in the pocket."

Lehman Brothers: Warehouse for junk loans

Click this link ...... http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=10958

Ron Paul Vs Tiny Tim Geithner-You Got Us In A Bigger Mess

Click this link ..... http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=10959

The Story of Cap & Trade

Click this link ...... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA6FSy6EKrM&feature=player_embedded

A TERRIBLE MISTAKE:

The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Experiments.

On November 28, 1953, U.S. Army biochemist Dr. Frank Olson crashed through a hotel window in New York City and fell over 150 feet to the sidewalk below where he died. The New York City Police Department, U.S. Army, and CIA, for whom he also secretly worked, reported Olson’s death as a suicide. In 1975, a Presidential-appointed commission inadvertently released information publicly that revealed that, days before his death, the CIA had surreptitiously dosed Olson with LSD. The CIA admitted that it had given the drug to Olson, but refused to reveal any details of the so-called “experiment”, or about what Olson’s work for the CIA involved. The American media briefly examined the perplexing mysteries surrounding Olson’s “suicide”, but soon lost interest. Twenty-years later, further investigation into Olson’s death revealed that there was ample reason to believe that he had been murdered. The Olson case grew even more mysterious and strange after the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office convened a grand jury inquiry into the odd death. Critical witnesses died strangely only days and weeks before they were to be questioned by prosecutors; government officials refused to speak and those that did suddenly developed severe memory problems; crucial documents were destroyed and lost; and investigators were intimidated and threatened.

Who killed Frank Olson and why? Why did the U.S. government actively work for over 50 years to conceal and cover up the facts surrounding Olson’s death? What were the bizarre connections between Olson’s death and Lee Harvey Oswald, foreign drug traffickers, and deadly government-sponsored assassins and undercover agents? What was the horrible experiment conducted by the U.S. government that cost Olson his life? What was Frank Olson’s self-admitted “terrible mistake”?

Today, following over ten years of investigation, the shocking truth about Olson’s work and murder is revealed by H.P. Albarelli Jr. in his remarkable and stunning book, A TERRIBLE MISTAKE: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Experiments (October 2009, TrineDay Publishers, ISBN-10: 0977795373, Hardcover, 864 pages.).

Breaking News From the Department of the Really Weird

Here are two reports from the Department of the Really Weird.

Initially, a series of experiments showed that measurements an observer makes can influence events that have already happened in the past.

One experiment, reported by the Science Journal in 2007, confirmed that flipping a switch could retroactively change a result that had happened before the switch was flipped:

Even weirder still, the choice to allow the waves to recombine or not can be made even after the photon passes the fork where it should have split--or not.

Equally weird, the Journal Nature reports:

A team of scientists has succeeded in putting an object large enough to be visible to the naked eye into a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving.

***
Through a phenomenon known as 'superposition' a particle can be moving and stationary at the same time — at least until an outside force acts on it. Then it instantly chooses one of the two contradictory positions.

But although the rules of quantum mechanics seem to apply at small scales, nobody has seen evidence of them on a large scale, where outside influences can more easily destroy fragile quantum states. "No one has shown to date that if you take a big object, with trillions of atoms in it, that quantum mechanics applies to its motion," Cleland says.

There is no obvious reason why the rules of quantum mechanics shouldn't apply to large objects.

Note: Science and Nature are two of the most reputable mainstream science journals.

Folger's To Close KC Coffee Plant

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The J.M. Smucker Company announced Wednesday it will close its Kansas City Folger's Coffee plant in the summer of 2012.The Kansas City plant is located at 701 Broadway St. and has been a downtown fixture for years. The Kansas City plant has 179 employees and the announcement was made at 8 a.m. to the employees at the plant.The company issued a release that said it will complete $190 million in restructuring, including the Memphis, Tenn., and Ste. Marie, Quebec, fruit spread plants and the Sherman, Tex. coffee plant. All of the coffee operations will be moved to a single facility in New Orleans."We are confident that this strategic decision is important for the long-term growth of the company," Tim Smucker, chairman of the board and co-executive officer, said. "However, it was difficult given the effect on employees, their employees, their families, and the communities related to the impacted facilities. We appreciate the contributions of our employees and are committed to treating them with fairness and respeect as we transition these facilities over the next couple years."The company said it is investing $70 million in its New Orleans coffee facility.

High court gives last-minute stay to condemned Texan

Watch an exclusive interview with Henry Skinner's wife on tonight's Larry King Live, 9 p.m. ET

Washington (CNN) -- The Supreme Court granted a temporary stay of execution late Wednesday for a condemned Texas inmate who is requesting DNA testing of evidence in his case.

The order was handed down less than an hour before Henry "Hank" Skinner, 47, was scheduled to be executed by injection for the New Year's Eve 1993 killings of his live-in girlfriend and her two sons.

The Supreme Court granted the temporary stay while it considers whether to take up Skinner's broader appeal. It was not immediately clear when the court might consider the case, but there was no indication a decision would be made before Thursday.

Skinner's attorneys maintain that DNA testing of the evidence could establish his innocence and determine the real killer.

"This action suggests that the court believes there are important issues that require closer examination," defense attorney Robert Owen said of the temporary stay. "We remain hopeful that the court will agree to hear Mr. Skinner's case and ultimately allow him the chance to prove his innocence through DNA testing."

Skinner heard the news while he was eating what was to be his last meal, according to Michelle Lyons, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

He expressed relief and surprise, saying, "I had made up my mind I was going to die" and "I feel like I really won today," according to Lyons.

Skinner said he is "eager to get the DNA testing so I can prove my innocence and get the hell out of here," according to Lyons.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has received more than 8,000 letters from Skinner's advocates urging a stay, according to the Innocence Project and Change.org, whose members and supporters have sent the letters through their Web sites.

State Sen. Rodney Ellis and state Rep. Elliott Naishtat were among those who have called for a reprieve.

"It has come to my attention that there are numerous problems with Mr. Skinner's case that raise serious questions regarding the fairness of his trial and whether or not he is guilty," Ellis wrote in a letter to Perry on Tuesday.

Word about the case has spread as far as France, where demonstrations were planned Wednesday at the U.S. Embassy in Paris by supporters of Skinner's French wife, Sandrine Ageorges.

Since Skinner's conviction in 1995, he "has tirelessly pursued access to the untested physical evidence," according to court documents filed with the Supreme Court in February.

That evidence includes vaginal swabs and fingernail clippings from Skinner's then-girlfriend Twila Busby, hairs found in her hand and two knives found at the scene, along with a dish towel and a windbreaker jacket, according to the filing.

Skinner has never denied being in the home when Busby and her sons -- Elwin Caler, 22, and Randy Busby, 20, -- were killed. However, he maintains he was incapacitated because of the "extreme quantities of alcohol and codeine" that he had consumed earlier that evening, according to the documents.

Prosecutors maintain forensic evidence gathered at the scene and witness statements point to Skinner. A female friend of Skinner's who lived four blocks away testified at Skinner's trial that he walked to her trailer and told her that he may have kicked Twila Busby to death, although evidence did not show she had been kicked. The neighbor has since recanted parts of her testimony.

Authorities followed a blood trail from the crime scene to the female friend's trailer and found Skinner in the closet, authorities said. He was "wearing heavily blood-stained jeans and socks and bearing a gash on the palm of his right hand," according to the Texas attorney general's summary of the case.

In addition, authorities said cuts on Skinner's hand came from the knife used to stab the men. Skinner said he cut it on glass. Some DNA testing was done, which implicated Skinner, but not on the items he now wants tested.

"DNA testing showed that blood on the shirt Skinner was wearing at the time of his arrest was Twila's blood, and blood on Skinner's jeans was a mixture of blood from Elwin and Twila," authorities said.

However, Owen wrote in the Supreme Court filing, "the victims' injuries show that whoever murdered them must have possessed considerable strength, balance and coordination."

Twila Busby was strangled so forcefully that her larynx and the hyoid bone in her throat were broken. She then was struck with an axe or pick handle 14 times, hard enough to drive fragments of her "unusually thick skull" into her brain, the court documents said.

"While attacking Ms. Busby, the perpetrator had to contend with the presence of her 6-foot-6-inch, 225-pound son, Elwin Caler, who blood spatter analysis showed was in the immediate vicinity of his mother as she was being beaten," the court filing said.

"Somehow, the murderer was able to change weapons and stab Caler several times before he could fend off the attack or flee." Randy Busby was then stabbed to death in the bedroom the two brothers shared, the documents said.

Evidence presented at trial suggested that Twila Busby's uncle, Robert Donnell -- who is now dead -- could have been the killer. At a New Year's Eve party she attended for a short time on the last night of her life, Donnell stalked her, making crude sexual remarks, according to trial testimony. A friend who drove her home from the party testified she was "fidgety and worried" and that Donnell was no longer at the party when he returned.

"The defense presented evidence that Donnell was a hot-tempered ex-con who had sexually molested a girl, grabbed a pregnant woman by the throat and kept a knife in his car," according to Owen's letter to Perry.

An expert testified at trial that Skinner would have been too intoxicated to commit the crimes, and a review of the evidence suggests that Skinner might have been even more intoxicated than initially thought, Owen writes.

Media outlets in Texas have been supportive of a reprieve for Skinner.

"Before sending a man to die, we need to be absolutely sure of his guilt," the Houston Chronicle wrote in an editorial Friday.

Skinner's wife, Ageorges, told Radio France Internationale in a Tuesday interview that she began writing to Skinner in 1996 and they began visiting in 2000.

"I'm convinced of his innocence not because I love him and he's my husband, I'm convinced of his innocence ... [because] there is scientific forensic evidence to prove that he was not even in a state to stand up at the time of the crime let alone murder three people that he loved," Ageorges told CNN's "Larry King Live" on Wednesday night after the stay had been granted. "There is absolutely no motive."

Ageorges also said she finds it "mind-boggling that evidence preserved from the crime scene 15 years later -- including the murder weapon, a rape kit, nail clippings from one of the victims, a male jacket that doesn't fit his size at all with sweat, hair, DNA -- to this day is not tested."

Recently, questions have swirled in Texas regarding the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham for a fire that killed his three daughters.

On March 19, Perry issued a posthumous pardon to the family of Timothy Cole, who was serving a 25-year sentence for aggravated sexual assault when he died in prison from an asthma attack. After his death, DNA tests established his innocence, and another man confessed to the crime.

Treasurys Sink After Poor Sale

NEW YORK—Treasury prices fell hard after a poor five-year auction that escalated concerns about the government's ability to sell its massive amounts of debt.

Worries about supply picked up this week after the government's $44 billion two-year auction on Tuesday attracted less demand than anticipated. The five year sale was messier, sending Treasury prices tumbling. Demand at the auctions may have been impacted by less buying from Japan as its fiscal year-end approaches. Nonetheless, the poor results put investors on edge given the huge amounts of debt the government is likely to continue to issue to fund its budget deficit.

Investors were reminded of the huge amounts of debt the government will need to continue to sell after President Barack Obama signed into law a $940 billion health-care overhaul bill on Tuesday, which will necessitate even more borrowing by the government.

"We're going to continue to see massive amounts of supply in Treasury-land," said Brian Edmonds, head of interest rates at Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. in New York.

Also driving government bond prices lower was selling from investors looking for higher yields in the current low-interest rate environment. Market participants have taken to heart Federal Reserve reassurances that interest rates will remain low for a while, shedding Treasury securities and heading into higher yielding securities in an effort to get better returns.

Corporate issuance has been robust lately. On Wednesday at least $20 billion was expected to be sold in the U.S. and Europe, including an offering from California of 30-year bonds that could yield above 7%, much higher than the 4.709% rate on the 30-year Treasury.

In afternoon trading, the two-year note was off by 5/32 to yield 1.099% and the 10-year note was down by 1 8/32 to yield 3.831%. The 30-year was down by 1 30/32 to yield 4.719%.

Miller Tabak chief economic strategist Dan Greenhaus noted that the 10-year Treasury yield has solidly pushed through the 3.77% level that the market was watching quite closely.

Treasury prices Wednesday were being knocked lower as well by a move in the interest-rates swaps market that highlighted concerns about supply. In that market, investors exchange fixed-interest payments for floating payments. Spreads, the rate premium of swap rates over Treasury yields, tightened more Wednesday, with the 10-year swaps spread pushing deeper into negative territory after falling there Tuesday for the first time, and the seven-year spread turning negative.

The move in swaps implies investors see more risk in holding triple-A-rated 10-year Treasury notes than in swapping rate payments with private counterparties. Spreads have tightened as Treasury supply remains robust and because more corporate issuance has resulted in greater hedging needs in the market. In afternoon trading, the 10-year swap spread was at -9.25 basis points after tightening to -2.5 basis points Tuesday afternoon. The seven-year was at -1 basis point.

"You get this snowball effect," said Larry Milstein, head of government trading at R.W. Pressprich & Co. "It's all of these things working together, and everybody going out the door at the same time. Then you hit certain levels and it feeds on itself."

Auction results showed that the government had to pay up to find homes for the new five-year notes. They were sold to yield 2.605%, higher than the 2.569% yield just before the 1 p.m. EDT auction deadline. The sale was more than two times oversubscribed by investors, with a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.55. That was below the average 2.74 bid to cover ratio from the past four five-year auctions.

The indirect bid, considered a proxy for demand from foreign buyers including central banks, came in at 40%, compared with 40.3% in February and 53% in January. The direct bid, a category of bids from nonprimary dealers, banks, money managers and depository institutions that have direct accounts to submit bids to the Treasury auctions, was 11%, compared to 12.8% in February and 7.4% in January.

It was an "ugly auction," said Ward McCarthy, managing director of the fixed-income division at Jefferies & Co. "You're starting to see a bit of a Treasury market protest. There's a very legitimate concern that Washington is pushing the envelope too far in terms of the U.S.'s ability to carry all this debt."

Results follow a weaker-than-expected two-year auction on Tuesday and come ahead of the government's final note sale of the week Thursday, a $32 billion sale of seven-year notes.

Mr. Milstein said sometimes two poor auctions are a good backdrop for the third sale of the week. The seven-year Treasury was also lagging other maturities late Wednesday as investors attempted to cheapen up the issue before the sale. The risk, though, remains that the seven-year auction could also be weak.

Meanwhile, agency mortgages got hit Wednesday by a combination of weaker Treasurys performance and stronger swaps spreads. This led to better selling in the lower coupons, which led to widening of risk premiums by three basis points to 131 basis points over comparable Treasury yields.

—Prabha Natarajan contributed to this article.

U.S. Is Riskier Than Euro Zone; So Says CDS Market

NEW YORK -- Something troubling has occurred in the market for default protection on the debt of the world's biggest borrower.

As the folks at Standard Poor's Valuation and Risk Strategies division noted in a research note Monday, the difference between the spread on U.S. sovereign credit default swaps and an equivalent benchmark for AAA-rated euro-zone sovereigns flipped into positive territory March 12. As U.S. CDS spreads expanded to their widest levels in two years, that cross-region gap blew out to 5.7 basis points last Friday before narrowing to 4.7 Tuesday.

Wider CDS spreads indicate that sellers of insurance against a particular issuer's default are charging more for it. In effect, the positive U.S.-versus-euro zone spread means investors think the risk of a U.S. default--however remote--is greater than that on euro-denominated sovereign debt.

So much for the view that low inflation and loose monetary policy make for a rosier debt outlook for Treasurys than for the debt of crisis-hit euro-zone sovereigns.

"We've seen CDS on U.S. Treasurys break with euro CDS before, but never to the degree we have here," said Michael Thompson, head of research for S&P's

Valuation and Risk Strategies group. "If we sit on this precipice for a time, I think a lot of market participants would see this as a bit of a shot across the bow, a bit of a wakeup" for anyone who's complacent about U.S. debt.

Wouldn't it also challenge U.S. Treasurys' status as the so-called "risk free" benchmark? S&P didn't go there. But the report did say the trend "reflects increasing market anxiety surrounding the U.S.'s credit quality." In other words, a fiscal deficit worth 10% of gross domestic product--in the absence of a clear plan to reduce it -- matters.

My first instinct was to dismiss the trend as an anomaly fueled by the technical quirks of an illiquid sovereign CDS market, where a conflicting array of investment strategies can confuse price signals. Some market participants use CDS contracts to hedge existing positions in underlying bonds, others sell default insurance as an alternative exposure to those bonds, while still more seek to extract arbitrage profits from playing between the two.

What's more, the AAA euro-zone benchmark doesn't reflect bets on a single sovereign's debt but rather a basket of the region's six remaining AAA-rated countries: Germany, France, Austria, Finland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Disentangling its message on default risk could be messy. And what, after all, can a current-day contract on a future Treasurys default tell U.S. when a U.S. breach on its financial obligations is virtually inconceivable? [The government would pay for its debt with inflation long before opting for the blunt instrument of default.]

Yet, notes Mr. Thompson, "there is real money changing hands there [in CDS markets]. And if there is real money changing hands, there has to be real value ... The market is expressing some valuable information."

Short-term moves of a basis point or two can be attributed to technical factors, but such a lasting shift in the two regions' CDS relationship "is not technical," Mr. Thompson said. "I certainly wouldn't ignore it."

Thompson's team also noted that the deterioration in U.S. default swaps meant that S&P's "market-derived signal" dropped to 'aa+,' its lowest level in two years. The historical series for that indicator is based on an established correlation with actual S&P ratings.

There's no indication that S&P's separate ratings division is about to downgrade the U.S. 's vital 'AAA' rating. But over time, ratings analysts cannot stay blind to market signals like this one. As its weighs the stimulus needs of a still-fragile U.S. economy against future risks to debt servicing costs, the U.S. government can't ignore market signals either.

by Michael Casey,

a special writer with Dow Jones Newswires, writes a regular column about currencies and fixed-income markets. Previously he was Newswires' Buenos Aires bureau chief and before that, assistant managing editor for the U.S. economy, Treasurys and foreign-exchange group in New York.

The REAL reason Google is leaving China

Via chinadaily.com.cn:

Google’s withdrawal is not a purely commercial act. The incident has from the beginning been implicated in Washington’s political games with China.

[...]

Given that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have no access to the Chinese Internet market, the White House believes that Google alone cannot play a large role in China as it did in Georgia and Iran.

[...]

Google’s accusations against China are completely groundless. The company has so far failed to submit any convincing evidence of the Chinese government-aided hacker attacks on its search engine.

The article goes on to point out how hypocritical Google is being considering they routinely share user information with governments around the world and also help them censor search results.

The bottom line is Google never gained popularity in China so they pulled out. This move was encouraged by the Obama regime because they realized the CIA would not be able to conspire with Google to manipulate the Chinese public – as done in countries like Georgia and Iran.

The CIA version of the story is at Business Week.

African American goes on Anti Semitic rant during council meeting

Click this link ...... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6Qbu9V5Wdg

Who is the British Dog? By Gilad Atzmon

Israeli officials and politicians sharply criticized the intention of the UK government to expel an ‘unnamed’ Israeli ‘diplomat’ in response to its passports being used in the Dubai assassination of Hamas Freedom Fighter Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

MK Aryeh Eldad (Israel National Union) doesn’t show much respect to the Brits whom he compares to dogs: "I think [the] British are behaving hypocritically and I don't want to offend dogs on this issue, since some dogs are utterly loyal," Eldad told Sky News.

MK Michael Ben-Ari took it one step further. "The British may be dogs, but they are not loyal to us, but rather to an anti-Semitic system..”

Both Israeli Parliament members Eldad and Ben-Ari seem to agree that Britons are dogs, yet they are somehow annoyed by their dogs’ disloyalty to the Jewish state. One may wonder why do the Israelis expect their ‘British dogs’ to be loyal. The answer is simple. Because British politicians have been very ‘loyal’ and for more than a while.

For years, the Labour government was maintained financially by Zionist fundraisers led by Lord Levy. In return the Labour Government launched an illegal Israeli war (Iraq). It supported Israeli barbarism all the way through, including Tony Blair’s shameful support of Israeli crimes in Lebanon (2006). Tony Blair is "A true friend of the State of Israel," affirmed the then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

But it may also be possible that Ben-Ari and Eldad do not refer to the Britons in general. They may not even refer to the Labour party. They may just refer to a very specific person, who, for some reason, failed to comply with the strict demand for obedience.

As my readers know, for a while I've insisted that some serious measures must be taken to verify and scrutinise David Miliband’s ties with Israel. Foreign Secretary Miliband is listed on an official Israeli Propaganda site as an Israeli Hasbara author. The same Miliband was until very recently investing an enormous effort into changing British Universal Jurisdiction just to make it easy for Israeli war criminals to make it to Oxford Street early on Boxing Day. Just a few weeks before the IDF launched its genocidal attempt against the people of Gaza, the same Miliband visited Sderot to ‘show solidarity’ with the Israeli people. Here is what he had to say "It's very important that countries like mine and others show their solidarity with the people of Sderot.” This idiotic statement made by a senior loyal minister was obviously interpreted by the Israelis as a green light to reduce Gaza into a pile of rubble.

David Miliband who has been very loyal to Israel may start to feel the heat. He had to drop a political trophy. In accordance with Labour spin culture he expelled an ‘unnamed’ Israeli diplomat. Miliband may have managed to fool Ben-Ari and Eldad but he wouldn’t fool me. Being a progressive interventionist, Miliband is still loyal to the darkest ideology around namely Zionism.

Britons better grasp that Israel was using no less than 15 forged British passports. The Israelis were obviously confident that they could get away with it. With a listed Hasbara author running the foreign office and half of the shadow ministers being members of the ‘Conservative Friends of Israel’, the Mossad had a good reason to believe that Britain’s politics is in its pockets.

If Miliband wants to convince us that he is loyal to this kingdom and its citizens, he may as well name the ‘unnamed’ diplomat he just decided to expel. He better also provide us with the list of Sayanim (collaborators) within British Home Office, those who made this forgery possible.

UPDATE

Do not read too much into Miliband action. A new Mossad boy is already on his way to London

"Israel to send replacement for diplomat expelled by Britain over passport affair", Ynet says

Ynet reports: Another Israeli senior official added: "We have no explanation for the step taken by Britain, with the exception of internal political power struggles within the Labor party ahead of the upcoming elections. We were not presented with details proving Israel's involvement in forging the passports…yet for the sake of continuing our ties, it would be proper to keep a low profile. It's clear to us that British and Israeli intelligence agencies will continue to cooperate."

Un exode qui ne serait qu’un mythe - An exodus which was merely a myth

Click for larger image

From http://hebdo.ahram.org.eg/arab/ahram/2007/4/18/voy2.htm

An exodus which was merely a myth

On the site of an ancient fortress, in northern Sinai, archaeologists of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) has announced that it had found some pumice stones, evidence of the terrible disaster and the first known tsunami in history. The volcanic rocks projected in the Sinai during the eruption, 3500 years ago, the volcano Cycladic of Thera, confirm stories Pharaohs.

The cataclysm of Thera, the current Santorini in the Aegean Sea, has been presented through innumerable writings as having preceded or caused the ten plagues of Egypt explained, or a punishment reserved for Levites revolted against Moses. "This discovery is not provided proof of the exodus, archaeology does not confirm this, and it is a myth," said Zahi Hawas, secretary general of the CSA. That the explosion of the volcano occurred, resulting in the decline of the Minoan civilization, Crete. A massive tidal wave would have resulted in the death of 35000 people on the coast south of the Mediterranean and in ashes villages in Egypt, Palestine and the Arabian peninsula. For Zahi Hawas, "if the exodus has occurred, what we do not know, it can not be at this time, but two centuries later, under Ramses II. However, the presence of ash and volcanic rocks on the site of the ancient fortress of Tharo to Tell Hebwa, confirms, in his view, ancient inscriptions referring to the expulsion of the Hyksos, enemies of the Egyptians. Texts suggest, in fact , natural disasters occurred during the era of the Hyksos, a military caste came from the east, and their exodus before the start of the New Kingdom, carried out shortly by the eruption of the Thera volcano. For example, several stories relating to this war show up on a stele of the temple of Karnak Séti I do, in a description of the route of Horus in a text under Thoutmotsis III or on a papyrus on the war waged by King Ahmos.

The skeletons hyksos

The team also discovered in the Sinai desert the ruins of a fort with four rectangular towers, which date from the eighteenth pharaonic dynasty. This fortress is now considered the oldest structure on the military line of defense, also known as Route Horus. But there was not the slightest proof of the story of the Old Testament, the story of Moses and the Jews, and their exodus from Egypt and their wandering in the wilderness. Two female skeletons, pottery and jewelry were recovered. Those remains were members of the civilization hyksos, an enemy of the people of the ancient Egyptians.

The researchers argue that this discovery is particularly interesting because of the volcanic rocks found on the site of the excavations. They believe that these are traces left by the eruption of Santorini volcano, more than 15 centuries before Christ. Santorini is a small archipelago of volcanic islands in the Aegean Sea, south-east of mainland Greece. This volcano would then have killed more than 35000 people and wiped out the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete.

The intersection of war

Showing the foundations of the fort of the XVIIIth dynasty, the oldest ever found in this line of defense, known as the road of Horus, Mohamad Abdel-Maqsoud, the leader of excavations and the director of the central administration of Egyptian antiquities, said that it is testimony to the fierceness of the fighting. "It is here that was established the first large lock of the empire against the conquerors from the east, as the Hyksos," he says, whereas today the Suez Canal is only 5 km. But the basis for subsequent attacks in the Pharaonic empire in the direction of Palestine, with the establishment of a chain composed of a dozen strongholds until what is now known as the Gaza Strip.

This story may have inspired the biblical story of the exodus, according to some scholars. "They can say what they want, I detailed, did not hesitate to say Hawas. I am an archaeologist and my job is to tell the truth. If the truth disturbed, it's not my problem. " The story of the exodus is celebrated as a crucial moment in the creation of the Jewish people. According to the Old Testament, Moses was the son of a Jewish slave who had abandoned on the Nile in a wicker basket to protect the Pharaoh's persecution. Rescued from the waters by the Pharaoh's daughter and raised in the court, he will discover the secret of its origins and, with God's help, will free his people. But archaeologists working in the region have never managed to substantiate the biblical narrative, as to the presence of the Jews in Egypt, there is only one archaeological discovery may confirm it. Many books have been written on the subject, but the debate is for the most part remained quiet in order not to offend believers.

"Without historical evidence, we are forced to say that some things are never arrived: it is the job of an archaeologist," Hawas. The site is a two-hour drive from Cairo, after the bridge Mubarak, in the northern Sinai, in a region called East Qantara. For nearly a decade, archaeologists returning Egyptian soil with the help of surrounding towns daily to try to unearth remnants of the past. This desolate landscape, which is the monotony broken only by a few electrical towers, has generated enthusiasm because it confirms stories told in hieroglyphics or going back to antiquity. The archaeological remains dating in fact more or less at the time, according to the Bible, the Jews fled Egypt and then spent forty years wandering in the wilderness in search of the Promised Land. "The exodus is a myth," said Hawas front of a wall built during the period known as the New Kingdom.

Watchdog: Obama Foreclosure Program Is Likely To Be A Failure

The Obama administration's signature foreclosure-prevention program is likely to be a failure and has not done enough to help struggling homeowners who owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth, according to a scathing new report by a government watchdog. And the program may even be pushing these homeowners further underwater.

The average homeowner may owe their lender as much as two-and-a-half times more than the home is worth, the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program states in its new report examining the administration's year-old $75 billion Home Affordable Modification Program, citing November data from Fannie Mae.

Yet the program doesn't address this problem of negative equity -- commonly referred to as being "underwater" -- according to the report. The administration's effort has been touted as a way to stem the rising tide of foreclosures by reducing monthly payments for up to four million troubled borrowers.

But one essential method of helping underwater homeowners -- principal reductions -- has not been addressed by the program. Mortgage servicers forgave principal on less than two percent of HAMP trial loans, the report notes. But before HAMP, 10 percent of servicer-sponsored mortgage modifications forgave principal, according to the report. Servicers are incentivized to lower monthly payments by getting cash for every sustainable mortgage modification.

"HAMP allows principal reduction, but it is not typically implemented in practice," the report states.

This data had never been publicly disclosed prior to Tuesday.

About a quarter of all homeowners with a mortgage are currently underwater, according to real estate research firm First American CoreLogic. The watchdog report notes that underwater homeowners represent about half of all foreclosures.

The lack of principal reductions, which the report notes is the "primary method of quickly addressing negative equity," may lead to homeowners walking away from their mortgages. Strategically defaulting on a mortgage -- being able to afford the mortgage, yet voluntarily choosing to default -- "usually occurs when the home's value is substantially lower than the mortgage value," the report notes.

"Although relatively common in commercial real estate, it has been widely reported that homeowners may be increasingly more likely to strategically default on their homes," according to the report. "Given the amount of negative equity in the mortgages under trial modifications, strategic default may become a factor in HAMP re-defaults, as borrowers decide that it makes more economic sense for them to walk away from their mortgages, and rent at a lower cost, rather than continue to make higher payments that may never result in them obtaining equity in their mortgage."

A recent report by state attorneys general and state bank supervisors noted that more than 70 percent of mortgage modifications result in an increase in the principal amount owed.

"The evidence is irrefutable. Negative equity is the most important predictor of default," said noted mortgage bond analyst Laurie Goodman of Amherst Securities before a Congressional panel in December.

Paul Leonard, the Center for Responsible Lending's California office director, said that he wasn't surprised by the new Treasury Department data, noting that many of the mortgage modifications are occurring in markets that have experienced steep declines in house prices.

However, because the average HAMP homeowner is underwater it will inevitably lead to "higher than both expected and desired re-default rates," he said. Homeowners deeply underwater are "more like long-term renters than normal equity-appreciating homeowners," he said.

"It supports the case for principal reductions, particularly in markets that have experienced deep price declines," said Leonard.

According to available data, not only is the average homeowner in the Obama administration's primary foreclosure-prevention program currently underwater, but is also very likely to end up being pushed further underwater by the administration's efforts.

"While the focus of the program remains affordability, Treasury continues to study ideas that will enhance, albeit modestly, program outcomes for...underwater borrowers," Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability Herbert M. Allison, Jr. wrote in a March 22 letter in response to SIGTARP's report.

The administration recently announced a $1.5 billion pilot program for the five states that have had the biggest declines in home prices to encourage state officials to experiment with various proposals to reduce the foreclosure rate. Those states are free to implement widespread principal cuts.

Florida political leaders consider state bank: 2% mortgages, 6% credit cards, no state debt costs

Even though this idea is obviously cost-effective with just a few moments’ consideration of the facts, even though the idea of creating money and credit for the public good rather than for bank profit has a rich history of support from many of America’s brightest minds, and even though this is the “secret” to the state with the lowest unemployment in the nation along with a record budget surplus (it’s North Dakota, one of only two solvent states today), the idea of a state-owned bank creating its own credit is a new idea for many Americans.

Florida candidate for Governor, economist Farid Khavari, explains that a state-owned bank should replace for-profit banks to provide substantial public benefits while profiting the state. Two percent mortgages would reduce interest payments by 85%, saving $88,000 per every $100,000 borrowed. The bank would pay 5% interest on deposits, charge 6% interest on credit cards, and 3-4% on commercial and vehicle loans.

State-owned banks could operate under existing international credit-creation standards issued by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) of an 8% capital requirement. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has similar minimal capital requirements, called Tier 1 leverage, currently set at 4% or the ability to lend $25 for every $1 of capital. This is the so-called "stress test" leverage ratio. Prominent economists and critics argue that the stress test was designed by the banks, and in no way any signal of correction from management that caused our economic crisis.

Bruno Barreiro, County Commissioner for Miami-Dade County, is also proposing a government-managed bank at the county level.

One of the immediate benefits of a state-owned bank is ending interest payments on existing debt. If California created its own bank, they could issue 0% credit to themselves to buy existing debt and save $5 billion every year that they pay in interest. To put that number in perspective, California has 20,000 laid-off teachers. All could be rehired at $70,000/year and California would still have $3.4 billion of their saved money left-over. Retiring the national debt would be different, but just as easy; saving Americans $450 billion every year in interest costs.

While American working families are transferring record amounts of their money to banks under our existing monetary system, the question is not whether there are superior models of banking available, but how long it will take the American public to force their bank-captured political “leaders” to serve the public rather than bankster bonuses.

The below 2-minute video from Mr. Khavari’s campaign for governor walks you through the benefits of a state-owned bank. The links in this article provide history and national monetary reform solutions.

As always, please share this article with all who say they are responsible citizens in government and economics. It is impossible for them to argue their competence if they do not understand one of the very few TRILLION DOLLAR annual issues of policy. I promise that the links in this article will educate you in a way completely within your ability to proudly learn.

If you appreciate my work, please subscribe by clicking under the article title (it’s free). Please feel free to use my archive of work to help build a brighter future.

Healthcare Intervention: The Bigger Picture

The prospect and reality of Obamacare have woken up many people to the need to stop the socialization of medical care in America. It will produce here what it has produced everywhere: stagnation, overutilization, rationing, and the sacrifice of individual well-being in the name of collective justice.

This is the result not only of every experiment in socialized medicine but of every experiment in socialism generally. The reasons were spelled out by Mises in 1922. He explained that, without property and market prices, economic rationality disappears. The result is unworkable, chaotic, and impoverishing.

Medical socialism is but one variety of a larger problem. But it is one that is particularly devastating to people, because it affects their capacity for staying healthy and alive. By robbing individuals of their rights to exchange and choose, Mises wrote, state-run medical systems are comparable to those run by the army or by prisons, which are not centers of health but of disease and disaster.

What was Mises responding to? The nascent systems of universal medical care already in place in Germany. In the United States, it has taken much longer, but consider that the first national conference calling for universal health and social insurance came about during the 1910s. This followed the monopolization of the medical profession by the American Medical Association ten years earlier.

In other words, it has taken more than 100 years for the push toward total control to get this far. And consider that even now, even under Obamacare, nothing like total socialism in medical services is really being considered an option. What is really happening are continuing efforts to patch up a failed system that has been cobbled together for more than a century.

The fact is that 29 percent of all American adults already depend on the government to provide their healthcare. And Uncle Sam provides healthcare for more than three-quarters of those over 65, whether they realize it or not, as the famous town-hall exchange between Republican Congressman Bob Inglis and one of his constituents in South Carolina illustrates. "Keep your government hands off my Medicare," demanded the man who couldn't be convinced that Medicare was already a government program.

In all the debate over this legislation, this longer-term perspective is being lost. We need to grasp the political dynamic under which this legislation is being passed. It seeks to address genuine problems that were generated by the present system, which mixed private enterprise with a ghastly regulatory apparatus of government subsidies, licenses and controls, patents and monopolies, consumption controls, outright welfare, and fascistic impositions on every sector.

The current system cries out for fixing. And how does the state propose to fix it? Never through more freedom, never by rolling back the real problem. Instead, it proposes more power. This has been the systematic trajectory during every presidential administration for many decades.

One of the worst problems concerns the wedge that the state drove between the payer and the healthcare provider. Businesses became the wedge. When? During World War II wage controls. Businesses scrambled to find ways to pay their employees without running afoul of the law. They turned to providing medical care. This is no different from how banks offered toasters to depositors when interest rates were controlled in the 1970s. It is the market desperately trying to get around a problem created by the state. But once this happens, if the controls are not repealed, the escape hatch becomes the norm. And this is precisely what happened.

This is how the seeds of the current legislation were sown — not after Obama's election or during Clinton's term or even during Johnson's presidency but all the way back 65 years ago during wartime, with intervention that hardly anyone objected to because of the national emergency.

"The health of American children, like their education, should be recognized as a definite public responsibility," President Harry Truman told Congress on November 19, 1945, just after the war and only seven months into his presidency. "The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health," was a part of Truman's proposed Economic Bill of Rights. Another was the "right to adequate protection from the economic fears of ... sickness."

Truman proposed in that speech that a national health-insurance fund be created and run by the federal government. Even the American Medical Association (AMA) called the bill "socialized medicine" and said that those in the Truman White House were "followers of the Moscow party line."

Despite support from the large labor unions, Truman was forced to abandon his attempted government healthcare takeover. But like most bad ideas hatched in Washington, parts of Truman's proposal lived on to resurface as legislation two decades later. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare into law at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum and reminded onlookers that Medicare "all started really with the man from Independence."

There is no greater example of why it is morally incumbent on everyone to oppose all forms of government intervention in all times. That includes, especially, wars that socialize the economy. Even seemingly small interventions can become huge and terrible decades later, even after those who imposed the measure are long dead. This is also why Mises and his best students were so intransigent in arguing against any and all government intervention.

There is another factor that hardly anyone mentions. How is all of this free government medical service going to be paid for? If the government were going to tax everyone, it could never work. The citizens wouldn't stand for it over the long term. The national debt is already beyond belief. Where are the resources to pay for this glorious utopia of perfect health equality?

It seems like an inauspicious place to look, but we must look to the marble palace on Constitution Avenue: the Federal Reserve. Here is the institution that runs the moneymaking machines that guarantee all the debt and that will create the phony money to pay for these insane dreams of universal happiness. Without the Fed, I can promise you, no one in Washington would be in a position to promise such absurdities.

If you think about it, then, the real problem is not that politicians dream impossible dreams. They've been doing that for a hundred years, a thousand years, and even back to the ancient world. The real problem is structural and institutional: it is the central bank that leads politicians to imagine that their visions can be achieved. It is the central bank that unhinges them -- at our expense.

In some ways, then, a worsening system of medical provision is only the beginning of the downside of universal health insurance. The unseen costs include inflation down the line, worsening business cycles, and, quite possibility, the final destruction of the dollar and the wiping out of all private wealth.

Yes, the problem is serious. But protests and partisan politics only go so far. Ultimately the solution comes from intellectual understanding of the broader issues, which go well beyond the details of this particular legislation. We must understand the dynamic of intervention and the role of fiat money and the central bank in funding the whole process.

Another book we need to reread is by Henry Hazlitt. It is called Time Will Run Back. It tells the story of a despot who inherits a decrepit, burned out, totalitarian society, and he is inspired to rethink the logic of the system. With the aid of some reading, he and his aides systematically unravel the interventions. The same logic that led the state to ramp up its control led it to retreat and allowed freedom to flower.

I believe this is in our future. But we can't have that future without the right intellectual resources. This is why I'm so grateful to the Mises Institute, the source for nearly every important book on socialism, regulation, central banking, and intervention. The Mises Institute is the intellectual source for an enlightened future.

We can follow the headlines and despair or we can support the source of light and have hope. Please join the Mises Institute in our work of bringing that light to a new generation. As Mises said, ideas are more powerful than armies and certainly more powerful than the meddling legislative bodies and huckster politicians that manipulate them.

This mess can be rolled back, and freedom can triumph. But it is up to us to make it happen.

This ran on Mises.org

The New Strategy of the Fake Left Media

Yesterday I caught parts of the Thom Hartmann and Randi Rhodes radio shows on 1450 AM Charlottesville. As usual they agree on everything - but I listened to a little of each show as I ran my errands around town. What information of value did I gain from my time spent? Nothing.

Thom Hartmann's show consisted of fanning the embers of a racial war-fire, hoping the resulting flames with a little help from the news media would go in the direction of his fake enemy - the "right wing whackos" AKA "Teabaggers" whoever they are. My guess is that the "Teabaggers" are the same as Rush Limbaugh's "Libs" since you can never actually identify one. They always pop up at the perfect moment when a suitable punching bag, or scapegoat, is needed.

Thom read some inflammatory text about whitey beating a black man - then let the flood of calls on the issue pour in. As far as I am concerned, being out of work, I'm hoping a black man calls from one of the places I applied to so I can go to work. A dis-proportionate amount of time was spent on this subject, as the self-proclaimed Israel-firster (Thom said within the last 30 days on his show that he is a Zionist by definition) - as he ignored the expansion of war, the recent attacks on freedom of speech by Cass Sunstein, he ignored that Obombya has extended the USA Patriot Act, that Obombya is ignoring torture, that there is no Habeus Corpus anymore, that the Bill of Rights doesn't matter and on and on.

You see, Thom Hartmann's job is to fan the rage of the masses - hopefully you - and make hay because of remarks yelled during a "protest" - while never mentioning who yelled the "N-word" while the Healthcare thing was going on. With Sarah Palin the spokemodel for the Tea Party movment and Glenn Beck making up a phony 9-12 movement (they were the ones doing the yelling I've heard) - how can't people see that this thing is probably a set-up? After all - if it DIDN'T happen the fake "progressive" media wouldn't have anything else to yell at their fake enemies "the Teabaggers" about since their agenda is exactly the same.

Their agenda is more proxy war for Israel - starring your kids. More radiation at the airports awaiting your kids - and the pedophiles that always come with pictures of naked kids.

Randi Rhodes - see above - exactly the same crap. Talking over the wise callers who mentioned that you can't blame everyone in a mob for the act of one person anyway - agent provocateur or not. Nope - she never thought about that either!

It's divide and conquer - the right keeps people mad at their fake enemies with the abortion thing - which I haven't heard whether or not the liar-in Chief has signed as he promised. ( If he does it will be his first promise kept.) The left keeps the liar-in-chief in office by painting opposition to his war, debt, death, dictatorship, shredding-of-the-bill-of-rights-while-Constitutional-scholar, ignoring of torture, lack of prosecution for war crimes etc... - by painting people angry about these things as "rascists." I'm not buying it.

After all if the country was really full of rascists what would account for reality? Obama was elected! The demographics don't agree with these people!

So don't waste your time on these clowns - unless you call them to expose their phony agendas.

Did The Exodus Really Happen?

Click this link ...... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsOF_o4BvJQ&feature=related

You can polish a turd up real nice, but it’ll never be anything other than a turd.

Following the passage of the US Senate’s version of the heathcare bill, many Democrats, progressives and liberals have predictably fallen into a conciliatory stupor. Gone are the sharp criticisms of Obama’s handling of the illegal wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Ethiopia. Neglected are official validations for torture and extraordinary rendition, illegal wire-tapping, targeted-assassinations, legal obstruction, and the oppression of minorities. Forgotten is the public rancour that followed the passage of the bankers’ bailout, as well as the second classist assault which was branded as “economic stimulus”. Ignored is the underlying reality that almost everything that passes through the American political system is corrupt, undemocratic, inhumane, and classist. Many of the same naive-but-well-meaning “humanists” who are excited over the passage of the bill voted for Obama, and some of them still cling to the fantasy of Hope & Change™. But this is a shallow fantasy. I generally think a healthy fantasy life is a good thing, but when your fantasies are accessories to oppression and murder, I draw the line. And that’s exactly what’s happening here: A fantasy view of the “American political reality” is trying to pass itself off as noble and pragmatic. The passage of the bill is, according to this ilk, a monumental step in the right direction. I couldn’t disagree more.

The first illusion I’d like to challenge involves Obama’s claim the bill came from the “bottom-up”. For anyone who knows anything at all about the history that led to the document that will probably be signed by the president, it will be obvious that the president was outright lying. During the Middle Ages if anyone called the monarch a liar they could face execution or torture. Today, I claim that calling president Obama a liar is an act of integrity. To present this bill as having been drafted from the bottom-up is not only disingenuous, it’s perjury. Obama has shown a consistent trend of catering to special interests and blocking the type of “bottom-up” agitation he’s branding this bill as exemplifying:

A memo obtained by the Huffington Post confirms that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly agreed to precisely the sort of wide-ranging deal that both parties have been denying over the past week. The memo, which according to a knowledgeable health care lobbyist was prepared by a person directly involved in the negotiations, lists exactly what the White House gave up, and what it got in return.” – (Huffington Post)

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I’m a strong supporter of universal health insurance, and a fan of the Obama administration. But I’m appalled by the deal the White House has made with the pharmaceutical industry’s lobbying arm to buy their support.

Last week, after being reported in the Los Angeles Times, the White House confirmed it has promised Big Pharma that any healthcare legislation will bar the government from using its huge purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices. That’s basically the same deal George W. Bush struck in getting the Medicare drug benefit, and it’s proven a bonanza for the drug industry. A continuation will be an even larger bonanza, given all the boomers who will be enrolling in Medicare over the next decade. And it will be a gold mine if the deal extends to Medicaid, which will be expanded under most versions of the healthcare bills now emerging from Congress, and to any public option that might be included. (We don’t know how far the deal extends beyond Medicare because its details haven’t been made public.) – (Salon)

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On Monday, Ed Shultz interviewed New York Times Washington reporter David Kirkpatrick on his MSNBC TV show, and Kirkpatrick confirmed the existence of the deal. Shultz quoted Chip Kahn, chief lobbyist for the for-profit hospital industry on Kahn’s confidence that the White House would honor the no public option deal, and Kirkpatrick responded: “That’s a lobbyist for the hospital industry and he’s talking about the hospital industry’s specific deal with the White House and the Senate Finance Committee and, yeah, I think the hospital industry’s got a deal here. There really were only two deals, meaning quid pro quo handshake deals on both sides, one with the hospitals and the other with the drug industry. And I think what you’re interested in is that in the background of these deals was the presumption, shared on behalf of the lobbyists on the one side and the White House on the other, that the public option was not going to be in the final product.” – (Huffington Post)

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• In the end, what decided the bill’s passage was pressure brought to bear by the White House, acting on behalf of the most powerful sections of the financial elite. There has always been a stark difference between the public appeal made by the Obama administration, accompanied by phony populist attacks on the insurance companies, and the fundamental strategic aims guiding the health care overhaul, which were worked out by Washington think tanks behind the backs of the American people.

• When polled, “nearly three-quarters of physicians supported some form of a public option, either alone or in combination with private insurance options[.]“

• Only 27 percent support a private-only reform that would provide subsidies for low-income individuals to purchase private insurance.”

• As research I published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed, a single-payer reform could save about $400 billion annually by shrinking health care bureaucracy — enough to cover the uninsured and to provide first dollar coverage for all Americans. A single-payer system would also include effective cost-containment mechanisms like bulk purchasing and global budgeting. As a result, everyone would be covered with no net increase in U.S. health spending. But these savings aren’t available unless we go all the way to single payer.

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So the suggestion that this bill represents the interests of those at the “bottom” is completely specious. Obama wheels and deals. He doesn’t represent the interests of the American people. If you doubt that, consider the American public’s response in anticipation of the bill’s debate last week: fury and outrage.

Roll Call reports that the congressional switchboard has been overwhelmed with telephone calls for four consecutive days, since conservative Talk Radio host Rush Limbaugh encouraged to call their congressmen and protest Obamacare. “Calls to the House numbered close to 100,000 an hour, creating a bottleneck in a phone system only meant to handle 50,000 calls an hour. The chamber has been similarly overloaded for four consecutive days, beginning on Tuesday when radio host Rush Limbaugh told viewers to call the Capitol switchboard phone number,” Roll Call said. – (Washington Examiner)