23
Jul
HOW MANY BANKS ARE STILL TO FALL? MORE ON THE MORTGAGE WARS
“Our first priority today is the stability of the capital markets, the stability of the system.” Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson
COMMENT FROM FRANK SCOTT
If you had the silly notion that our first priority might be the stability of our environment, or people losing their homes , lacking health care and saddled with a multi trillion dollar warfare state, the above words should set you straight. Capital markets are us, so let’s keep them floating on a sea of speculation and assure that public loss insures capital gain. As long as consumers pay interest, capital can rule without principle. Nice.
ARE U.S. ELECTIONS BEING TAMPERED WITH?
BOSNIA’S MLADIC STILL AT LARGE
STING JOINS PRO-TIBET RECORD ON EVE OF OLYMPICS
I have been in the mortgage war trenches for the past six days but have been trying to keep my eye on important stories. Here are some of them:
BRAD BLOG: ON ELECTION INTEGRITY
GOP Tech Guru Mike Connell ‘High IQ Forrest Gump…At Scene of Every Single Crime’ Say Ohio Attorneys
Whether He’s Pulling the Gun or Not…He’s the Guy Who Made the Gun,’ Allege Buckeye Lawyers About Man Said to Have Been Behind Florida 2000, Ohio 2004, RNC Emails, Congressional Computer Networks & More…
Following last week’s dramatic press conference in Ohio announcing the reopening of a long-standing 2004 Ohio Presidential Election lawsuit based on new information, the attorneys for the plaintiff sat down to discuss their concerns about Republican operative Mike Connell in an exclusive interview. The attorneys who hope to depose both him and Karl Rove, describe him in the interview as a “high IQ Forrest Gump,” said to be “at the scene” of every GOP “crime” from Florida 2000 to Ohio 2004 to the Karl Rove/RNC email flap to creation of the current Congressional computer network and firewall…
OBAMA MORE POPULAR THAN LIEBERMAN AMONG JEWS
AP: BELGRADE, Serbia - And then there was one.
“The surprise capture of former Bosnian leader Radovan Karadzic on U.N. genocide charges has raised expectations that fellow fugitive Gen. Ratko Mladic — Karadzic’s wartime military commander — could soon join him behind bars.
Serbian authorities made a startling disclosure Tuesday in describing the arrest of Karadzic: They basically stumbled across him while searching for Mladic, a far more brazen figure who — up until a few years ago — reportedly made daring forays into downtown Belgrade.
FT: UK and US saw through Karadzic disguise
US and British intelligence helped to trap Radovan Karadzic, the wartime leader of the Bosnian Serbs, in spite of his adoption of an elaborate disguise involving a huge beard, heavy glasses and a job as an alternative medicine practitioner.
IHT: DETAILS ON THE ARREST OF BOSNIAN WAR CRIMINAL
THE ECONOMY
BANK “PROBLEM LIST” IS GROWING
8500 U.S. BANKS: MANY WILL DIE SOON
Cost of Loan Bailout, if Needed, Could Be $25 Billion
David M. Herszenhorn, reporting for The New York Times, writes: “The proposed government rescue of the nation’s two mortgage finance giants will appear on the federal budget as a $25 billion cost to taxpayers, the independent Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday even though officials conceded that there was no way of really knowing what, if anything, a bailout would cost.”
FDR TURNING IN HIS GRAVE?
President Roosevelt must be turning in his grave. The mortgage guarantee institution that was created to help solve America’s depression-era housing crisis seems to have had a central role in instigating a new economic crisis ? and perhaps even a new depression
Sub-prime lender offers ‘golden goodbyes‘
In credit-crunched times, many banks and building societies are not exactly putting out the welcome mat for mortgage customers. But it would now appear that things have become so bad that one lender is offering its home-loan customers “golden goodbyes” worth thousands of pounds to encourage them to take their business elsewhere….”
NAKED CAPITRALISM: SHAM INVESTIGATION
Fed, Comptroller of the Currency Due Diligence Sham for Fannie, Freddie
The political theater continues. The New York Times reports in “Bush Prods Congress, as Financiers Are Inspected,” that the Fed and the OCC are giving Fannie and Freddie the once-over:
Bank examiners from the Federal Reserve and the Comptroller of the Currency are inspecting the books of the nation’s two largest mortgage finance companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as the Bush administration prods Congress to approve a plan that would enable it to inject billions of dollars into the companies.
Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., in a meeting on Monday with reporters and editors of The New York Times, said the Fed and the comptroller’s office began combing the books of the two companies after their declining stock prices caused widespread anxiety in the market. The two companies guarantee or own almost half of the home mortgages in the United States.
There are three simple reasons why this supposed review is certain to be a sham.
First, do you think that it would be acceptable for the examiners to come back and say the GSEs were in trouble, or merely undercapitalized? Never. So the outcome of this exercise is predetermined. The most we might see is some recommendations for improvement and/or mention of some minor problem area, nothing threatening. to make the process look legitimate.
Indeed, Paulson’s own comments confirm that this is a PR effort:
“Ofheo has told us one thing and the markets have told us another,” Mr. Paulson said. “I’d like as much input as possible.”
He added that the examination would “make the markets more comfortable” about the financial health of the companies.
WESTERN MAIL: ‘Horror Movie Economy Ahead Will Struggle to Avoid Recession’ ; Wage Restraint is Vital, Even in the Face of Rising Fuel and Food Costs, Says Think Tank
THE UK is heading for an economic “horror movie” and will struggle to avoid recession next year, according to an influential think tank. Ernst & Young’s Item Club is forecasting GDP growth of 1% next year, inflation to remain above the Government’s target for the next 12 months and a “substantial” increase in unemployment. The group also predicts consumer spending will nearly slow to a standstill in 2009, rising by just 0.2% as households wrestle with rising inflation, lower credit availability and a sharp reversal in the housing market.
THE MEDIA
HOLLYWOOD DEVELOPING DAN RATHER STORY FILM
Google Bests Microsoft as Top Consumer Brand
Google is the “top consumer brand” in Britain, according to a consumer poll commissioned by the Superbrands Council. Google moved up two places from last year’s poll, pushing Microsoft into second place. Google is “the brand that people value at work and in their personal lives.”
Yahoo Names Icahn to Board, Settles Proxy Fight
Yahoo is appointing activist investor Carl Icahn and two members of his slate of directors to the company’s board, settling a proxy battle ahead of its Aug. 1 annual meeting. Icahn had sought to replace the board with his own nominees, seeking to restart talks with Microsoft.
TIME WARNER ON AOL
Time Warner’s struggle to sell AOL is putting more pressure on the media company’s stock price as the advertising slowdown spreads to the Internet and the pool of potential buyers shrinks. According to one investor, AOL has “become yesterday’s story in the Internet world.”
600,000 petition signatures to FOX headquarters in Manhattan
Hip hop star Nas will join members of ColorOfChange.org & MoveOn.org on Wednesday to deliver 620,127 petition signatures demanding that FOX end its pattern of racist attacks against Black Americans including presidential candidate Barack Obama and his wife Michelle. The group will make the delivery at 2:00pm on Wednesday, July 23rd at FOX in Manhattan.
Over the last several weeks, FOX has had a string of incidents that many believe are a veiled attempt to prey on racism and intolerance and cast the Obamas as “outsiders”: an on-screen graphic referred to Mrs. Obama as “Obama’s baby mama,” a pundit “confused” Obama with Osama and then joked they should both be assassinated, and an anchor called a loving fist bump between Barack and Michelle a “terrorist fist jab.” In February, Bill O’Reilly talked about calling a “lynching party” to deal with Michelle.
INDONESIAN DOMESTIC WORKERS SUE CONVICTED TRAFFICKERS IN LONG ISLAND SLAVERY CASE
Central Islip, NY — The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) today filed in federal court a complaint under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), on behalf of Samirah and Enung, two Indonesian survivors of labor trafficking, following the federal criminal hearing on restitution for Varsha and Mahender Sabhnani on July 11. The Long Island-based couple trafficked both women to the U.S. to serve as their domestic workers for 5 and 2-1/2 years, respectively, and a jury found the couple guilty for violating the criminal provisions of the TVPRA last December. The Sabhnanis paid Samirah and Enung each less than $200 per month to cook, clean, and perform numerous other household duties. Both domestic workers suffered from severe physical abuse at the hands of the couple and were not allowed to leave the premises. Samirah and Enung were able to escape the Sabhnani household in 2007 with the assistance of local and federal authorities. Varsha Sabhnani received an 11-year sentence, and Mahender Sabhnani was sentenced to more than 3 years in federal prison.
“Like many domestic workers, Samirah and Enung were vulnerable as immigrants and unaware of the laws that protected them,” said AALDEF Staff Attorney Ivy Suriyopas, who leads the Anti-Trafficking Initiative. “This civil suit gives them the chance finally to assert their rights after years of severe torment, physical abuse, degradation, and exploitation. In addition to restitution from the criminal case, they can seek damages for pain and suffering, other compensatory relief, and punitive damages through a civil action. Such damages are clearly warranted in this case.”
AALDEF’s Anti-Trafficking Initiative provides free legal representation to trafficked women and youth to apply for immigration relief, secure access to human services, and undertake civil litigation. AALDEF’s anti-trafficking efforts also include community education, outreach, and advocacy. The TVPRA provides for immigration relief and private causes of action for survivors of severe forms of trafficking. The federal government estimates that the largest group of trafficking survivors is from Asia and the Pacific Islands .
FROM PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY
Federal agencies under the Bush administration have often subverted their own missions to accommodate the administration’s political agenda. We’ve seen egregious politicization at the Department of Justice, and what could be described as a “war on science” with the suppression of key reports and health information by the EPA and HHS. Now, it appears that this disturbing politicization trend has emerged at the Census Bureau as a “war on data.”
The Census Bureau says that when it conducts the 2010 census, it will not report as married those same-sex couples who in fact are legally married. Last week, we launched a petition urging the Census Bureau to put its mission of collecting and reporting accurate data above the right-wing, anti-gay politics of the Bush administration.
HARPER’S: THE NEWS WE MISSED
A tanker truck on its way to Sugar Land, Texas,
overturned, spilling onto the highway more than 5,000
gallons of what a city spokeswoman described as “healthy,
all-natural molasses,” and after hundreds of formulations,
scientists at Argentina’s Center for Research and
Development in Food Cytotechnology arrived at a prototype
for a juicy, lean hamburger patty by removing the beef fat
and replacing it with a combination of soybean byproducts
and seafood oils. InBev, the Belgian beer company that
makes Stella Artois, completed its purchase of
Anheuser-Busch for $52 billion. “We were betrayed,” said
American brewery employee Dave Liszewski. “The good Lord
was sold out for 30 pieces of silver. We were sold out for
$70 a share.” Potential First Lady Cindy Hensley McCain,
chair of the massive Anheuser-Busch distributor Hensley &
Co., said that she became a licensed pilot because “in
Arizona, the only way to get around the state is by small
private plane.” A toad in Australia ate a three-foot-long
snake, Pope Benedict XVI spoke to a crowd of more than
400,000 people about the evils of materialism, and
“Easterbunny,” a red, methane-covered dwarf planet
orbiting the sun beyond Neptune, was designated as the
third plutoid in our solar system and rechristened
“Makemake.”
STING AND OTHERS SING FOR TIBET
BEIJING (AFP) — Sting, Dave Matthews and a host of other music stars have added their voices to the pro-Tibet movement on a potentially sensitive album for China ahead of the Beijing Olympics, promoters said.
Other artists involved in the project, entitled: “Songs for Tibet”, include Moby, Alanis Morissette, John Mayer and Suzanne Vega, the International Campaign for Tibet said in a press release received here Tuesday.
“This album will focus people’s attention on the importance of Tibet, the gifts of its culture, and the crisis the Tibetan people are facing today,” said one of the album’s organisers, Michael Wohl.
The album is due for global release on iTunes on August 5, three days before the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. It will then be available through other outlets the following week, the statement said.
JOE DUNPHY ON THE MORTGAGE MELTDOWN
Futures Magazine carries an alarming interview with economist Walter ‘John’ Williams, who does such things as the shadow economic report. Williams said the fed is trying to deal with the crisis by trying to:
“do whatever they can do to keep the banking system solvent. If Bernanke had not done what he did in terms of setting up these funding facilities, we would likely have seen a failure of the banking system similar to what was seen in the 1930’s with the resulting collapse of the broad money supply and a deflationary Great Depression….He is still working on it, it is not solvent yet….. Now they have not been formally creating any new money yet. What they have been doing by setting up this Term Auction Facility (TAF) li lending good liquidity (Treasuries) and taking collateral of mortgaged-backed securities regardless of the ratings. …. The cost of what they are doing to save the system is inflation.
(Futures Magazine, July 2008, p. 87 ff.)”How much steam is left in the system?
Williams notes: The Fed has a balance sheet and they hold roughly 800 billion dollars in assets, which is the underlying collateral for the currency in circulation. That used to be largely Treasury securities; the dollar now is being backed by mortgaged-backed securities.
My Translation: In other words, changing high quality paper for lower quality paper. So even money market funds will feel the pressure, IMO.The effect could be in the range of 15 percent to 30 percent. Welcome to one of the last steps on the downward spiral. I don’t think the Japanese and Chinese holding all those Treasuries are going to wait until the Fed is done passing the cheaper paper. Check, please!
NACA SHOULD LEAD THE WAY
Deborah Emin write:
I was serious in my last email to you yesterday that NACA should replace the mortgage industry. First of all, they have the system down and have people in place who know the neighborhoods. Second, what they do works. Third, their methodology will help to end the kind of big business capitalism that has ruined this economy and whose ripple effects are felt worldwide.
It is really fascinating to see what the world can be like through the lens of what NACA does to neighborhoods and what financial institutions do to neighborhoods.
What if NACA had been allowed to help restore New Orleans? What would we be looking at today?
It is as someone from San Francisco said the other day about the environmental movement. He said that it was crazy for each of us to have to take it upon ourselves to find the right products that will cause us individually to do no harm. Rather, and this is my contention, we need organizations like NACA to set up an agenda for how to handle the situation and then let the magic of that nonmarket and noneconomic ideologoue set the system up. It was crazy, for example, to let someone like Alan Greenspan to continue to head the Fed when he was heavily invested in the things he was pushing and not so heavily invested in the things he could pooh-pooh and disrupt.
Right now we have a bunch of capitalists still trying to find the next big thing to invest in because that is all they know. God protect us but they are pushing things like coal and nuclear power.
What we need are not people looking to make a profit but looking to make things work and to help the people hurt so badly by this rampant greed.
When we accept that this greed factor has to be excised from the fix we need, then we will be on the road to recovery.
Take a look at the book Bad Samaritans as well as Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine. Of course, your film too, IN DEBT WE TRUST should be in everyone’s library as well.
There is no time like the present to use what we have that is good and for the people rather than for profit and make the real changes we need.
I can’t I much more tonight, folks. I have been on five day marathon. Its ll PM and the Ballroom at the Capital Hilton is still packed with people seeking counseling and help to avoid foreclosures. What a massive problem. It was humbling to see so many people in search of help and so many offering it. To be Continued.
Comments to Dissector@mediachannel.org
COMMENT FROM FRANK SCOTT
“Our first priority today is the stability of the capital markets, the stability of the system.” Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson
If you had the silly notion that our first priority might be the stability of our environment, or people losing their homes , lacking health care and saddled with a multi trillion dollar warfare state, the above words should set you straight. Capital markets are us, so let’s keep them floating on a sea of speculation and assure that public loss insures capital gain. As long as consumers pay interest, capital can rule without principle. Nice.
I have been in the mortgage war trenches for the past six days but have been trying to keep my eye on important stories. Here are some of them:
BRAD BLOG: ON ELECTION INTEGRITY
GOP Tech Guru Mike Connell ‘High IQ Forrest Gump…At Scene of Every Single Crime’ Say Ohio Attorneys
Whether He’s Pulling the Gun or Not…He’s the Guy Who Made the Gun,’ Allege Buckeye Lawyers About Man Said to Have Been Behind Florida 2000, Ohio 2004, RNC Emails, Congressional Computer Networks & More…
Following last week’s dramatic press conference in Ohio announcing the reopening of a long-standing 2004 Ohio Presidential Election lawsuit based on new information, the attorneys for the plaintiff sat down to discuss their concerns about Republican operative Mike Connell in an exclusive interview. The attorneys who hope to depose both him and Karl Rove, describe him in the interview as a “high IQ Forrest Gump,” said to be “at the scene” of every GOP “crime” from Florida 2000 to Ohio 2004 to the Karl Rove/RNC email flap to creation of the current Congressional computer network and firewall…
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6206
OBAMA MORE POPULAR THAN LIEBERMAN AMING JEWS
AP: ELGRADE, Serbia - And then there was one.
ADVERTISEMENT
The surprise capture of former Bosnian leader Radovan Karadzic on U.N. genocide charges has raised expectations that fellow fugitive Gen. Ratko Mladic — Karadzic’s wartime military commander — could soon join him behind bars.
Serbian authorities made a startling disclosure Tuesday in describing the arrest of Karadzic: They basically stumbled across him while searching for Mladic, a far more brazen figure who — up until a few years ago — reportedly made daring forays into downtown Belgrade.
UK and US saw through Karadzic disguise
Neil MacDonald in Belgrade
07/22/08 16:31:00
US and British intelligence helped to trap Radovan Karadzic, the wartime
leader of the Bosnian Serbs, in spite of his adoption of an elaborate
disguise involving a huge beard, heavy glasses and a job as an alternative
medicine practitioner.
IHT: DETAILS ON THE ARREST OF BOSNIAN WAR CRIMINAL
BANK “PROBLEM LIST” IS GROWING
8500 U.S. BANKS: MANY WILL DIE SOON
Cost of Loan Bailout, if Needed, Could Be $25 Billion
David M. Herszenhorn, reporting for The New York Times, writes: “The proposed government rescue of the nation’s two mortgage finance giants will appear on the federal budget as a $25 billion cost to taxpayers, the independent Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday even though officials conceded that there was no way of really knowing what, if anything, a bailout would cost.”
they gave ordinary americans a home and then the roof fell in
President Roosevelt must be turning in his grave. The mortgage guarantee institution that was created to help solve America’s depression-era housing crisis seems to have had a central role in instigating a new economic crisis ? and perhaps even a new depression
mortgage lending figures / credit crunch
Sub-prime lender offers ‘golden goodbyes’Rupert Jones The Guardian, Wednesday
July 23, 2008
Article history
In credit-crunched times, many banks and building societies are not exactly
putting out the welcome mat for mortgage customers. But it would now appear
that things have become so bad that one lender is offering its home-loan
customers “golden goodbyes” worth thousands of pounds to encourage them to take
their business elsewhere.
Edeus, a specialist mortgage lender, revealed yesterday that it was offering
some of its customers an 8% discount on what they owed if they cashed in their
mortgage early, because it wants to get the loans off its books. It is also
waiving any penalties that lock borrowers into their deals, and the exit fee of
about £150 they would usually have to pay to leave.
About 400 customers have been offered discounts of between 2% and 8% to test
demand. But if the scheme proves popular, the firm says it will consider
extending it to thousands of others.
A discount of 8% would add up to a saving of £16,000 for someone with a £200,000
mortgage. Put another way, someone who owed Edeus £200,000 on their home loan
would only have to pay back £184,000.’
NACKED CAPITRALISM: SHAM INVESTIGATION
Fed, Comptroller of the Currency Due Diligence Sham for Fannie, Freddie
The political theater continues. The New York Times reports in “Bush Prods Congress, as Financiers Are Inspected,” that the Fed and the OCC are giving Fannie and Freddie the once-over:
Bank examiners from the Federal Reserve and the Comptroller of the Currency are inspecting the books of the nation’s two largest mortgage finance companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as the Bush administration prods Congress to approve a plan that would enable it to inject billions of dollars into the companies.
Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., in a meeting on Monday with reporters and editors of The New York Times, said the Fed and the comptroller’s office began combing the books of the two companies after their declining stock prices caused widespread anxiety in the market. The two companies guarantee or own almost half of the home mortgages in the United States.
There are three simple reasons why this supposed review is certain to be a sham.
First, do you think that it would be acceptable for the examiners to come back and say the GSEs were in trouble, or merely undercapitalized? Never. So the outcome of this exercise is predetermined. The most we might see is some recommendations for improvement and/or mention of some minor problem area, nothing threatening. to make the process look legitimate.
Indeed, Paulson’s own comments confirm that this is a PR effort:
“Ofheo has told us one thing and the markets have told us another,” Mr. Paulson said. “I’d like as much input as possible.”
He added that the examination would “make the markets more comfortable” about the financial health of the companies.
WESTERN MAIL: ‘Horror Movie Economy Ahead Will Struggle to Avoid Recession’ ; Wage Restraint is Vital, Even in the Face of Rising Fuel and Food Costs, Says Think Tank
THE UK is heading for an economic “horror movie” and will struggle to avoid recession next year, according to an influential think tank. Ernst & Young’s Item Club is forecasting GDP growth of 1% next year, inflation to remain above the Government’s target for the next 12 months and a “substantial” increase in unemployment. The group also predicts consumer spending will nearly slow to a standstill in 2009, rising by just 0.2% as households wrestle with rising inflation, lower credit availability and a sharp reversal in the housing market.
HOLLYWOOD DEVELOPING DAN RATHER STORY FILM
Google Bests Microsoft as Top Consumer Brand
Google is the “top consumer brand” in Britain, according to a consumer poll commissioned by the Superbrands Council. Google moved up two places from last year’s poll, pushing Microsoft into second place. Google is “the brand that people value at work and in their personal lives.”
Yahoo Names Icahn to Board, Settles Proxy Fight
Yahoo is appointing activist investor Carl Icahn and two members of his slate of directors to the company’s board, settling a proxy battle ahead of its Aug. 1 annual meeting. Icahn had sought to replace the board with his own nominees, seeking to restart talks with Microsoft.
Time Warner’s struggle to sell AOL is putting more pressure on the media company’s stock price as the advertising slowdown spreads to the Internet and the pool of potential buyers shrinks. According to one investor, AOL has “become yesterday’s story in the Internet world.”
600,000 petition signatures to FOX headquarters in Manhattan
Hip hop star Nas will join members of ColorOfChange.org & MoveOn.org on Wednesday to deliver 620,127 petition signatures demanding that FOX end its pattern of racist attacks against Black Americans including presidential candidate Barack Obama and his wife Michelle. The group will make the delivery at 2:00pm on Wednesday, July 23rd at FOX in Manhattan.
Over the last several weeks, FOX has had a string of incidents that many believe are a veiled attempt to prey on racism and intolerance and cast the Obamas as “outsiders”: an on-screen graphic referred to Mrs. Obama as “Obama’s baby mama,” a pundit “confused” Obama with Osama and then joked they should both be assassinated, and an anchor called a loving fist bump between Barack and Michelle a “terrorist fist jab.” In February, Bill O’Reilly talked about calling a “lynching party” to deal with Michelle.
INDONESIAN DOMESTIC WORKERS SUE CONVICTED TRAFFICKERS
IN LONG ISLAND SLAVERY CASE
Central Islip, NY — The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) today filed in federal court a complaint under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), on behalf of Samirah and Enung, two Indonesian survivors of labor trafficking, following the federal criminal hearing on restitution for Varsha and Mahender Sabhnani on July 11. The Long Island-based couple trafficked both women to the U.S. to serve as their domestic workers for 5 and 2-1/2 years, respectively, and a jury found the couple guilty for violating the criminal provisions of the TVPRA last December. The Sabhnanis paid Samirah and Enung each less than $200 per month to cook, clean, and perform numerous other household duties. Both domestic workers suffered from severe physical abuse at the hands of the couple and were not allowed to leave the premises. Samirah and Enung were able to escape the Sabhnani household in 2007 with the assistance of local and federal authorities. Varsha Sabhnani received an 11-year sentence, and Mahender Sabhnani was sentenced to more than 3 years in federal prison.
“Like many domestic workers, Samirah and Enung were vulnerable as immigrants and unaware of the laws that protected them,” said AALDEF Staff Attorney Ivy Suriyopas, who leads the Anti-Trafficking Initiative. “This civil suit gives them the chance finally to assert their rights after years of severe torment, physical abuse, degradation, and exploitation. In addition to restitution from the criminal case, they can seek damages for pain and suffering, other compensatory relief, and punitive damages through a civil action. Such damages are clearly warranted in this case.”
AALDEF’s Anti-Trafficking Initiative provides free legal representation to trafficked women and youth to apply for immigration relief, secure access to human services, and undertake civil litigation. AALDEF’s anti-trafficking efforts also include community education, outreach, and advocacy. The TVPRA provides for immigration relief and private causes of action for survivors of severe forms of trafficking. The federal government estimates that the largest group of trafficking survivors is from Asia and the Pacific Islands .
FROM PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY
Federal agencies under the Bush administration have often subverted their own missions to accommodate the administration’s political agenda. We’ve seen egregious politicization at the Department of Justice, and what could be described as a “war on science” with the suppression of key reports and health information by the EPA and HHS. Now, it appears that this disturbing politicization trend has emerged at the Census Bureau as a “war on data.”
The Census Bureau says that when it conducts the 2010 census, it will not report as married those same-sex couples who in fact are legally married. Last week, we launched a petition urging the Census Bureau to put its mission of collecting and reporting accurate data above the right-wing, anti-gay politics of the Bush administration.
A tanker truck on its way to Sugar Land, Texas,
overturned, spilling onto the highway more than 5,000
gallons of what a city spokeswoman described as “healthy,
all-natural molasses,” and after hundreds of formulations,
scientists at Argentina’s Center for Research and
Development in Food Cytotechnology arrived at a prototype
for a juicy, lean hamburger patty by removing the beef fat
and replacing it with a combination of soybean byproducts
and seafood oils. InBev, the Belgian beer company that
makes Stella Artois, completed its purchase of
Anheuser-Busch for $52 billion. “We were betrayed,” said
American brewery employee Dave Liszewski. “The good Lord
was sold out for 30 pieces of silver. We were sold out for
$70 a share.” Potential First Lady Cindy Hensley McCain,
chair of the massive Anheuser-Busch distributor Hensley &
Co., said that she became a licensed pilot because “in
Arizona, the only way to get around the state is by small
private plane.” A toad in Australia ate a three-foot-long
snake, Pope Benedict XVI spoke to a crowd of more than
400,000 people about the evils of materialism, and
“Easterbunny,” a red, methane-covered dwarf planet
orbiting the sun beyond Neptune, was designated as the
third plutoid in our solar system and rechristened
“Makemake.”
STING AND OTHERS SING FOR TIBET
BEIJING (AFP) — Sting, Dave Matthews and a host of other music stars have added their voices to the pro-Tibet movement on a potentially sensitive album for China ahead of the Beijing Olympics, promoters said.
Other artists involved in the project, entitled: “Songs for Tibet”, include Moby, Alanis Morissette, John Mayer and Suzanne Vega, the International Campaign for Tibet said in a press release received here Tuesday.
“This album will focus people’s attention on the importance of Tibet, the gifts of its culture, and the crisis the Tibetan people are facing today,” said one of the album’s organisers, Michael Wohl.
The album is due for global release on iTunes on August 5, three days before the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. It will then be available through other outlets the following week, the statement said.
JOE DUNPHY ON THE MORTGAGE MELTDOWN
Futures Magazine carries an alarming interview with economist Walter ‘John’ Williams, who does such things as the shadow economic report. Williams said the fed is trying to deal with the crisis by trying to:
“do whatever they can do to keep the banking system solvent. If Bernanke had not done what he did in terms of setting up these funding facilities, we would likely have seen a failure of the banking system similar to what was seen in the 1930’s with the resulting collapse of the broad money supply and a deflationary Great Depression….He is still working on it, it is not solvent yet….. Now they have not been formally creating any new money yet. What they have been doing by setting up this Term Auction Facility (TAF) li lending good liquidity (Treasuries) and taking collateral of mortgaged-backed securities regardless of the ratings. …. The cost of what they are doing to save the system is inflation.
(Futures Magazine, July 2008, p. 87 ff.)”How much steam is left in the system?
Williams notes: The Fed has a balance sheet and they hold roughly 800 billion dollars in assets, which is the underlying collateral for the currency in circulation. That used to be largely Treasury securities; the dollar now is being backed by mortgaged-backed securities.
My Translation: In other words, changing high quality paper for lower quality paper. So even money market funds will feel the pressure, IMO.The effect could be in the range of 15 percent to 30 percent. Welcome to one of the last steps on the downward spiral. I don’t think the Japanese and Chinese holding all those Treasuries are going to wait until the Fed is done passing the cheaper paper. Check, please!
NACA SHOULD LEAD THE WAY
Deborah Emin write:
I was serious in my last email to you yesterday that NACA should replace the mortgage industry. First of all, they have the system down and have people in place who know the neighborhoods. Second, what they do works. Third, their methodology will help to end the kind of big business capitalism that has ruined this economy and whose ripple effects are felt worldwide.
It is really fascinating to see what the world can be like through the lens of what NACA does to neighborhoods and what financial institutions do to neighborhoods.
What if NACA had been allowed to help restore New Orleans? What would we be looking at today?
It is as someone from San Francisco said the other day about the environmental movement. He said that it was crazy for each of us to have to take it upon ourselves to find the right products that will cause us individually to do no harm. Rather, and this is my contention, we need organizations like NACA to set up an agenda for how to handle the situation and then let the magic of that nonmarket and noneconomic ideologoue set the system up. It was crazy, for example, to let someone like Alan Greenspan to continue to head the Fed when he was heavily invested in the things he was pushing and not so heavily invested in the things he could pooh-pooh and disrupt.
Right now we have a bunch of capitalists still trying to find the next big thing to invest in because that is all they know. God protect us but they are pushing things like coal and nuclear power.
What we need are not people looking to make a profit but looking to make things work and to help the people hurt so badly by this rampant greed.
When we accept that this greed factor has to be excised from the fix we need, then we will be on the road to recovery.
Take a look at the book Bad Samaritans as well as Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine. Of course, your film too, IN DEBT WE TRUST should be in everyone’s library as well.
There is no time like the present to use what we have that is good and for the people rather than for profit and make the real changes we need.
I can’t I much more tonight, folks. I have been on five day marathon. Its ll PM and there are still lines of homowners circling around the ballroom at the Hotel here. If the counselors see them all, they will be up until 5 AM. Many are willing to do it. That’s commitment.
UPDATE: WEDNESDAY MORNING— More Homeowners started lining up at 3 AM. The lines are growing again, and the operation is supposed to be shutting down at noon. The hotel is freaking out….I am not sure what will happen when people are told that there is a cut-off. The Washington Post which is ACROSS THE STREET has still not noticed the lines or covered the event as news. Unbelievable!
There were cameras here yesterday from a documentary unit connected with Barbara Kopple, Unavision, AlJazeera English, Iran’s Press TV, Real News, The NewsHour on PBS, CNBC and some others. Yesterday, in a Senator’s office, a TV crew from a CBS affiliate came out of an inside office into the reception area packed with angry homeowners and walked right out, camera in tow. The reporter didn’t even have the curiosity to ask what is going on. The New York Times, AP, USA TODAY, The Boston Globe, Reuters, AFP et.al. are IGNORING the story even as reports on a proposed government bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac get the headlines. The voice of the victims of the subprime/scubcrime scan are still to be found only in “human interest” features.
USA TODAY did do a front page story on how the stress related the economic crunch has led to an increase in visits to shrinks. Somehow I doubt that the folks packing this event have the money or the inclination to to go to for therapy. –
Right now as of 9 AM, police are arriving outside the hotel as the crowds continue to grow. If that gets on the wire and police radio, you know the coverage will escalate. How sick! Looks like local churches may provide a venue for continued counseling…..This is still an unfolding story, but not yet quite BREAKING NEWS. After all, Paris Hilton is not at this Hilton and there is no violence yet!
Sick.
Your comments and stories welcome.
Write Dissector@mediachannel.org
Remember how they ignored segregation as Jim Crow sat on the political border of Washington D.C.? Then some kids got on buses and went South. These were my first real life heroes, the Freedom Riders. A few young people with a lot of nerve.
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:56 pm