Smedley Butler on Interventionism

-- Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket. There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism. It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service. I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

China Starts To Make A Power Move Against The U.S. Dollar

In order for our current level of debt-fueled prosperity to continue, the rest of the world must continue to use our dollars to trade with one another and must continue to buy our debt at ridiculously low interest rates.  Of course the number one foreign nation that we depend on to participate in our system is China.  China accounts for more global trade than anyone else on the planet (including the United States), and most of that trade is conducted in U.S. dollars.  This keeps demand for our dollars very high, and it ensures that we can import massive quantities of goods from overseas at very low cost.  As a major exporting nation, China ends up with gigantic piles of our dollars.  They lend many of those dollars back to us at ridiculously low interest rates.  At this point, China owns more of our national debt than any other country does.  But if China was to decide to quit playing our game and started moving away from U.S. dollars and U.S. debt, our economic prosperity could disappear very rapidly.  Demand for the U.S. dollar would fall and prices would go up.  And interest rates on our debt and everything else in our financial system would go up to crippling levels.  So it is absolutely critical to our financial future that China continues to play our game. (Read More....)

How Energy Companies Are ‘Robbing the ‘Hood’

Low-income residents in Oakland and throughout the state likely will face higher energy bills in the years to come, while wealthy residents will see rate cuts.

John Hrabe
The Kardashian family’s spotlight consumes real power. For five seasons, the gated-community of Hidden Hills, Calif., served as the backdrop for the TV show “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” During that time, Hidden Hills consistently topped the list of what Forbesmagazine has called the state’s “most egregious energy hogs.”
In September 2012, every home in Hidden Hills consumed an average of nearly four-and a-half megawatt hours of electricity, according to energy consumption data from the California Public Utilities Commission. That’s 4.3 million watts used to fuel each of the star-powered homes owned by Drake, Britney Spears, the Osbournes, Jessica Simpson, and Sean Penn. For just a single month. You would have to leave a standard light bulb on for more than eight years to match that level of energy use.
About 370 miles north, the average household in Oakland used less energy than that during all of 2012. But Oakland and Hidden Hills aren’t anomalies. There’s a strong correlation between energy use and wealth.
Browse the country’s most expensive zip codes, and you’ll find a list of the state’s biggest energy consumers. Atherton, Hillsborough, Los Altos Hills, Rolling Hills, and Woodside, are all among the state’s biggest energy hogs, while communities like Oakland and Southeast Los Angeles consume the least energy.

Yet, in the coming years, energy bills likely will be going down in Hidden Hills and up in Oakland, thanks to a controversial energy rate restructuring plan that was passed by the legislature and signed by Governor Jerry Brown last year.
This is the story of how that bill passed, why a notorious special-interest junket to Maui is partially to blame, and how the state Senate’s only convicted felon tried to stop his colleagues from “robbing the ‘hood.”

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Not every kilowatt of electricity sold in California costs the same. The CPUC categorizes rates in five different price tiers, based on energy consumption. Some consumers, as a result, pay as much as 233 percent more than others. Pacific Gas & Electric Company customers in Tier 1 pay as little as 12 cents per kilowatt, whereas Tier 4 customers, who use more than 200 percent of the baseline energy consumption, pay 40 cents for the same quantity of electricity.
As heavily regulated and complicated as it may be, energy policy in California traditionally could be reduced to one simple philosophy: The more energy you use, the more you pay.
Is this tiered-pricing fair? Well, that depends on your perspective. For low-income families, it means a relatively fixed price as long as they stay within the energy baseline. The rate structure also encourages energy conservation and provides an incentive to make energy-savings improvements to older, energy-inefficient homes. However, in hot-weather areas of the state, such as the Central Valley, rich and poor alike spend big bucks to run the AC during the middle of summer.
Fair or not, the policy means higher energy bills for hot-weather regions of the state and large commercial users that consume substantial amounts of energy. It also means lower bills for consumers who invest in renewable energy systems that take their homes off the grid.
But that all may come to an end with Assembly Bill 327, which took effect on January 1. Authored by Assemblyman Henry Perea, D-Fresno, the bill promises to produce the biggest change to California’s energy laws since deregulation. The bill grants the California Public Utilities Commission substantial power to rewrite California’s energy policy.
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Asia Imports Huge 80% Of Swiss Gold And Silver Exports In January

by GoldCore

Today’s AM fix was USD 1,313.75, EUR 959.22 and GBP 788.90 per ounce.
Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1,318.75, EUR 959.09 and GBP 791.14 per ounce.

Gold fell $11.80 or 0.89% yesterday to $1,310.20/oz. Silver dropped $0.52 or 2.37% at $21.44/oz.

Gold and Silver Cross Currency Rates – (Bloomberg)

Gold is marginally higher in London as investors continue to digest the recent weaker U.S. data and continuing ultra loose monetary policies. Gold futures dropped 0.8% yesterday as minutes from the last meeting of the U.S. Federal Reserve suggested that the Fed will not scale back plans to reduce their monthly multi billion dollar bond purchases.

More data overnight confirms that gold is flowing from west to east and from the western banking system into strong store of wealth hands in Asia. This includes Asian investors and store of wealth buyers and indeed Asian central banks including the People’s Bank of China.

Asia accounted for more than 80% of Swiss gold and silver bullion coin and bar exports in January, the Swiss Federal Customs Administration said today in an e-mailed report covered by Bloomberg.

Interestingly, as suspected most of the bullion exported to Asia from Switzerland came from London.

As holdings in gold-backed funds that are mostly listed in the U.S. and Europe declined, lower prices led to demand from Asia in a further sign of bullion flowing from the west to east. While the majority of the demand is from Asia itself, there is a percentage of the flow that is of western investors seeking to own gold outside the banking system, in what they perceive to be safer jurisdictions in allocated gold accounts Hong Kong and Singapore.

Hong Kong was the top destination of Swiss bullion exports at 44% on a value basis, with India at 14%, the Bern-based customs agency said in its first breakdown of the gold trade data since 1980.

Singapore accounted for 8.6% of exports, the United Arab Emirates 7.9% and China 6.3%, according to Bloomberg.

Switzerland imported 4.32 billion Swiss francs ($4.87 billion) of gold and silver bullion from the U.K., or 60% of total inbound shipments, according to the report. The U.S. was second at 4.9%, Italy at 3.8%, Germany at 2.8% and Thailand at 2.5%, the data showed.

Webinar: Gerald Celente On Strategies For Protecting Your Wealth In 2014 And BeyondJoin Gerald Celente on this broadcast today as he examines the opportunities in 2014 and in the coming uncertain years.

Gerald Celente needs little introduction: Founder of The Trends Research Institute in 1980, Gerald Celente is a pioneer trend strategist. He is author of the national bestseller Trends 2000 and Trend Tracking (Warner Books) and publisher of the internationally circulated Trends Journal newsletter.

Celente’s Trends Research Institute has been featured on Oprah Winfrey amongst hundreds of media interviews and credited with forecasting many major geopolitical and economic trends.

These include the “Panic of ’08,” the collapse of the Soviet Union, the dot-com bust, the 1997 Asian currency crisis, the 1987 world stock market crash, increased terrorism against America, “Crusades 2000,” and the quagmire in Iraq … before war began and the last two recessions.
This webinar is scheduled for today, February 20, 2014, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM GMT and will be moderated by Mark O’Byrne, Head of Research at GoldCore.

The New Fascism: Terms and Conditions

Let’s talk about those pesky terms and conditions.
Last month, I had a chance to talk with John McAfee, the founder of the popular McAfee computer security programs.
We talked about how people usually don’t read the terms and conditions of the smartphone applications that they download onto their phones.
But McAfee did read the terms and conditions of the Bank of America smartphone application, and what he saw was pretty shocking.

McAfee told me that, by agreeing to the terms and conditions for the Bank of America application, “You give the Bank of America application, which is the remote banking application, the permission to turn on your phone and make phone calls at your expense and without telling you, to turn on your camera and microphone without telling you at any time, and to transmit pictures and sound files.”
While you may not exactly be signing away your life to Bank of America, you’re giving the big bank a great deal of access to your private life whenever it wants. That’s pretty scary.
And Bank of America isn’t the only big bank or corporation using terms and conditions to barge in on your private life.
Fellow big bank Capital One sent out a new contract update with new terms and conditions to its credit card holders.
And as the Los Angeles Times puts it, the bank, “makes clear it can drop by any time it pleases.”
The new terms and conditions specify that the bank, “may contact you in any manner we choose” including emails, calls, texts, and faxes.
Ok, that’s not terrible.
But then comes the part when Capital One says it might make “personal visits” which can be “at your home and at your place of employment.”
So, say you’re a Capital One credit card holder, and you forget to make a monthly payment. According to the terms and conditions that you just agreed to, Capital One can come to your office and harass you to make that payment. And if you’ve left work for the day, bank representatives could come to your home.
And if you’re lucky enough to avoid a “personal visit” from Capital One, the bank may still call you at all hours of the night, without revealing its identity.
That’s because the new terms and conditions also state that the bank, “may modify or suppress caller ID and similar services and identify ourselves on these services in any manner we choose.”
Many people might interpret this to mean that Capital One can trick you into thinking you’re getting a call from your doctor’s office or your mother-in-law, and it’s all perfectly legal.
The invasive nature of Bank of America‘s and Capital One’s terms and conditions are another example of how corporations have run amok in America, with very little to stop them.
But they’re also symptoms of a larger problem: fascism in the 21st century.
Historically when we talk about fascism we think about Mussolini and his replacement of the elected parliament with corporate representatives.
After all, he invented the word “fascism” to describe the merger of corporate and state interests.
And today when we talk about fascism, we talk about how corporations are buying off politicians in Washington, and taking control of our democracy.
But what about fascism that doesn’t even involve governments, except to enforce contracts?
We’re witnessing a new era of fascism, where corporations are creating intrusive and over-bearing terms and conditions that customers click to agree to without even reading.
As a result, corporations in America have acquired king-like power, while we’re the poor serfs that must abide by their every rule or else.
But enough is enough.
It’s time for us all to start saying “wait a minute.”
We need to have a national conversation, and establish clear guidelines on what corporations can and can’t do in those never-ending lists of terms and conditions.
And we need to put those guidelines into law, so Bank of America can’t spy on you in the bedroom, and Capital One can’t come running into your workplace.
Sometimes big government is needed to help Americans take back their lives, and this is definitely one of those times.
Thom Hartmann is a Project Censored Award-winning New York Times best-selling author, and host of a nationally syndicated daily progressive talk program on the Air America Radio Network, live noon-3 PM ET.

Silver Has More Potential Than Gold – Mike Maloney

New York McDonald’s fires 8-year worker after she donates food to firefighters

 

A McDonald’s restaurant in New York fired a worker after 8 years because she “opened a whole bee’s nest” by buying food for firefighters after they put out a house fire, she said this week.
Heather Levia, 23, told WIVB that she was working as a manager when the group of firefighters came in and ordered 23 breakfast sandwiches after fighting the blaze. It was a cold day so Levia covered the $83 cost of the meals herself.
“Just because I appreciate everything they do,” she said.
When more firefighters came in and ordered $70 worth of food, Levia wanted to cover those meals too. But she is a single mother with twins who is working two jobs to put herself through nursing school.
So, she called her boss, thinking he might pay for the meals because he often gives food to police officers.
After her boss said no, she called corporate and was told no again. Eventually, Levia and her coworkers came up with enough cash to cover the meals themselves.
The firefighters later contacted the store management when they learned that the meals had been paid for by employees. That’s when Levia’s boss accused her of opening “a whole bee’s nest,” she said.
The store fired Levia during her next shift for swearing at a superior, which she denied.
“I did say this is ‘freaking’ ridiculous. But it was not implied to anybody,” she explained to WIVB.
McDonald’s restaurant owner Tom Meyers told the station that he would not talk about the dismissal “[o]ut of respect for Ms. Levia and her privacy.”
“The Meyers Organization has always valued the employees who serve our customers every day. We likewise continue to be an ardent supporter of our police and fire departments, along with other first responders. They are always welcome in our restaurants, and we will continue to support them in the future,” Meyers said in a statement.
“We are aware that certain allegations have been made concerning the reasons for Heather Levia’s termination,” he added. “Out of respect for Ms. Levia and her privacy, it would not be appropriate to comment in detail on the reasons she is no longer employed by our organization. Still, it should be pointed out that the allegations are absolutely not true. We would never penalize an employee for showing appropriate gratitude for the work of our firefighters.”
As for Levia, she expected to spend the next few weeks looking for a job. She has already received several offers.
Watch the video below from WIVB, broadcast Feb. 18, 2014.