The Great Bank Robbery of 2009

Brent Budowsky
May 3, 2009 - DailyChimp

.....

This week America witnessed Black Thursday for workers and families as the Senate defeated a bankruptcy bill that would have protected distressed homeowners and the House passed a bill that encourages and guarantees banks will continue abuses the bill pretends to remedy for a full year.

Politically and financially, Americans will look back on these years, and judge what happens when a Democratic president and Democratic Congress use the government as an instrument of reform, change and problem-solving. To state my conclusion at the outset, I do not believe Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has carried this mantle well and what I see in current policy is little more than a gigantic transfer of wealth from taxpayers to banks, which is being abused and misused by most banks.

It will be a disaster if this becomes the historic, political and financial legacy of Democrats using government to solve problems, and I believe it is essential for Democrats and progressives to join a great debate on the side of workers and families and against the abuses that are front-page news and continue every hour of every day.

It is outrageous that banks take trillions of dollars of taxpayer money for the purpose of lending to Americans while they raise credit card rates, turn fixed rates to variable rates that guarantee huge additional rate increases when the Fed resumes raising its rates, while they raise banks fees, cut customer lines, and increase foreclosures when trillions of dollars were spent for them to do exactly the opposite.

On Black Thursday the Democratic House (many of whose members take enormous sums of money from banks, as do Republicans) passed a bill to allegedly protect consumers that will not take effect for at least a year. This means the House supports continuing every abusive action the bill claims to oppose for one full year, at least, in a stunning triumph for the banking lobby.

It is time to break ranks with an almost universal Washington consensus about how business is done in this town, a consensus that is leading our country to financial disaster.

My "epiphany" came when I glanced at the recent campaign finance report of Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), which shows a stunning lack of support from home-state donors and a deluge of donations from companies doing business with his Senate Banking Committee.

Dodd is a good man in a corrupted system. Both parties profit from this crisis through massive campaign donations. Those who manage troubled institutions profit from it through massive bonuses and compensation.

While Wall Street pay is quickly moving back to bubble levels, the system of speculation for compensation (which creates perpetual bubbles) remains intact. Campaign money still flows like a mighty river in a legalized pay-for-play system that corrupts our financial and political systems alike.

The source of public anger is this: The core policy is fundamentally a multi-trillion-dollar transfer of money from taxpayers to banks, which borrow money from taxpayers at low interest, punish taxpayers by charging them higher interest and pay themselves a king's ransom for doing it.

The president speaks of transparency and accountability, but: Does anybody know exactly how much money the various government agencies have spent rescuing banks that still refuse to lend? Four trillion dollars? Seven trillion? Ten trillion?

What, exactly, have taxpayers received in return? These monies were provided to increase lending, but net lending is down.

When banks receive trillions of dollars to increase lending, they insult the intelligence of taxpayers and the integrity of government by increasing credit card interest rates, increasing bank fees, lowering credit limits, increasing home foreclosures and lowering net lending. Where's the accountability?

Meanwhile, Obama and McCain received huge amounts of money from banks, Wall Street firms, hedge funds and mortgage companies while congressional fundraisers continue ad nauseam.

While money is doled out to banks by Congress, money is doled out to Congress by banks.

It is a direct attack against economic recovery, a direct attack against economic stimulus and a direct attack against economic growth for interest rates to be hiked, credit limits to be cut, bank fees to be raised and lending to be lowered.

Have they no shame?

Taxpayers pay for the bailout, subsidize the lobbying, underwrite the campaign donations. Then they are taxed by banks through fees and rates that work as regressive taxes. They will be taxed again to pay for the deficit. They will be taxed again when the value of their money declines from the inflation these trillions of dollars will inevitably cause.

Does anybody understand exactly what the Federal Reserve money is used for, exactly who received it, exactly what taxpayers receive in return and exactly how much money has been spent?

Where's the transparency?

Can anyone justify the number of senior Treasury jobs that remain unfilled, or the pay-for-play schemes surrounding state pension funds?

Everyone should read the lengthy story in Monday's New York Times about the career of Mr. Geithner. Did he do his job well, or disastrously, at the New York Fed when he failed to regulate the firms while they were causing this crisis?

Mr. Geithner is without doubt a great power-networker, who spent much time at the N.Y. Fed in endless networking events with the financial powerbrokers who were creating the crisis that Geithner was failing to prevent.

Geithner was not reforming the system, protecting the customers or opposing the abuses that endanger our national solvency. He was cultivating the support of financial powerbrokers who were, and remain, his true constituency.

What does it tell credit card CEOs that the president's chief economic adviser falls asleep at a meeting where he should have been defending taxpayers and consumers like a lion?

The Republicans have virtually nothing to offer except hoping the president fails without serious ideas of their own. The Party of No has earned its 21 percent approval rating. But, as a matter of conscience and concern for my party and my country, I must break ranks.

What is happening is wrong. A whole generation will pay the price for what we do today. The cost will be enormous and incalculable. Both parties owe the next generation far better than either party offers today.

No bank should ever be too big to fail. Instead of taxpayers subsidizing mergers, regulators and legislators should break up any bank so large that its failure endangers the nation as a whole.

It is inexcusable and shameful for even a Democratic House to pass a bill to allegedly combat abuses against citizens, and make that bill effective a full year later, which means all of those abuses will continue for least 12 more months. To call this a consumer protection bill is an abuse of language and a fraud against consumers and voters who do not want these abuses continuing for another year, and supported by Democrats as well as Republicans in Congress for another year.

Banks given trillions of dollars to lend should lend. Those of either party who tolerate these abuses are betraying the largest financial trust ever given to public officials in the history of the nation, the world or any generation.

.....

Brent Budowsky served as Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen, responsible for commerce and intelligence matters, including one of the core drafters of the CIA Identities Law. Served as Legislative Director to Congressman Bill Alexander, then Chief Deputy Whip, House of Representatives. Currently a member of the International Advisory Council of the Intelligence Summit. Left goverment in 1990 for marketing and public affairs business including major corporate entertainment and talent management.

Russia to Build Floating Arctic Nuclear Stations

Environmentalists fear pollution risk as firms try to exploit ocean's untapped oil and gas reserves

John Vidal
May 3, 2009 - The Guardian/UK

.....

Russia is planning a fleet of floating and submersible nuclear power stations to exploit Arctic oil and gas reserves, causing widespread alarm among environmentalists.

A prototype floating nuclear power station being constructed at the SevMash shipyard in Severodvinsk is due to be completed next year. Agreement to build a further four was reached between the Russian state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, and the northern Siberian republic of Yakutiya in February.

The 70-megawatt plants, each of which would consist of two reactors on board giant steel platforms, would provide power to Gazprom, the oil firm which is also Russia's biggest company. It would allow Gazprom to power drills needed to exploit some of the remotest oil and gas fields in the world in the Barents and Kara seas. The self-propelled vessels would store their own waste and fuel and would need to be serviced only once every 12 to 14 years.

In addition, designers are known to have developed submarine nuclear-powered drilling rigs that could allow eight wells to be drilled at a time.

Bellona, a leading Scandinavian environmental watchdog group, yesterday condemned the idea of using nuclear power to open the Arctic to oil, gas and mineral production.

"It is highly risky. The risk of a nuclear accident on a floating power plant is increased. The plants' potential impact on the fragile Arctic environment through emissions of radioactivity and heat remains a major concern. If there is an accident, it would be impossible to handle," said Igor Kudrik, a spokesman.

Environmentalists also fear that if additional radioactive waste is produced, it will be dumped into the sea. Russia has a long record of polluting the Arctic with radioactive waste. Countries including Britain have had to offer Russia billions of dollars to decommission more than 160 nuclear submarines, but at least 12 nuclear reactors are known to have been dumped, along with more than 5,000 containers of solid and liquid nuclear waste, on the northern coast and on the island of Novaya Zemlya.

The US Geological Survey believes the Arctic holds up to 25% of the world's undiscovered oil and gas reserves, leading some experts to call the region the next Saudi Arabia. But sea ice, strong winds and temperatures that can dip to below -50C have made them technologically impossible to exploit.

Russia, Norway, Denmark, Canada and the US have all claimed large areas of the Arctic in the past five years. Russian scientists used a mini-submarine to plant a flag below the North Pole in 2007 and have claimed that a nearby underwater ridge is part of its continental shelf.

Last week, ministers from many Arctic countries heard scientists and former US vice-president and Nobel prize winner Al Gore say that the Arctic could be free of ice in the summer within five years, with drastic consequences for the world's climate and human health.

But many countries bordering the Arctic see climate change as the chance to exploit areas that were once inaccessible and to open trade routes between the Pacific and Atlantic.

According to a new report by the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum, Russia is considering other nuclear plants for power-hungry settlements. "The locations that have been discussed include 33 towns in the Russian far north and far east. Such plants could be also used to supply energy for oil and gas extraction," says the report by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme.

Advisor: ‘US Needs Strikes in to Call off Drone Pak’

May 3, 2009 - Asia News International

.....

The top adviser to the US army chief in Afghanistan, David Kilcullen, has observed that the US drone strikes in Pakistan are creating more enemies than eliminating them, and hence, needed to be "called off."

Responding to a congressman on what the US government should do in Pakistan, he said: "We need to call off the drones."

The Daily Times quoted Kilcullen, as saying that he has no objection to killing "bad guys" in Pakistan.

However, he added that the strikes were creating more enemies than they eliminate.

Kilcullen said that the drone strikes, which were "highly unpopular", gave rise to a feeling of anger that unites the population with the Taliban and could lead to "loss of Pakistani government control over its own population".

He said that insurgents used the drone strikes to stir up anti-Western and anti-government sentiment.

Another problem, Kilcullen noted, was "using robots from the air looks both cowardly and weak".

The Right Goes Insane

Evil overlords to flaccid clowns in the blink of Jesus' eye. Adorable!

Mark Morford
May 1, 2009 - The San Francisco Chronicle

.....

This much we know: Hand evil a big, sticky gob of power, and it quickly becomes a feral monster, dangerous and cruel and willing to sell its own shriveled heart and the heart of its very remorseful mother for a shot at everlasting infamy, even more power and maybe some fresh, raw kitten blood, intravenously, just for the hell of it.
Oh, but take that same vile leviathan and suddenly strip away all its power and influence and capacity for wickedness, and watch it deflate like a wheezing circus tent, quickly turning into a trembling caricature of its former self, a tiny, elfin thing small enough to fit into a shoebox of panic and pathos and residual Godspit.

Behold, this delightful rule in full effect with the once portentous, now pitiable Republican party. Watch in wonder as gaff follows gaff, astonishing pronouncement follows childish meltdown, ludicrous statement leads into pure comedy of errors followed by moderate 40-year veterans of the party splitting for bluer, less abusive pastures. What a scene.

There is much good news to be found in the ongoing GOP implosion; their obsession with Ôwedge issues' like abortion and gay marriage, along with hilarious claims of socialism and fascism are proving to be the absolute best news for the nation as a whole. Because as the GOP wallows in juvenile spectacle, Obama and the Dems are leaping headlong into one of the most ambitious, invigorating, nation-altering agendas in American history.

Of course, it ain't all flowers and candy. This much unfettered movement for any party, left or right, can also be just insanely dangerous, could theoretically result in a blowback for the Dems exactly as destructive and apocalyptic as the horrendous Bush Era proved to be for the once-temperate Repubs.

Is it already heading that way? Will it happen? Not a chance.

But before we see why, let us enjoy a bit of the comedy. Because really, who could've guessed that, for example, former drug addict and all around bulbous, cigar-chomping radio jackal Rush Limbaugh would turn into the most influential conservative in the country, more powerful than, say, the GOP's own chairman, Michael Steele, who was recently found kneeling to kiss Rush's fat, sweaty ring?

Ah, but even Rush can't match the genuine lump of crazy that is the latest bearded lady to step onstage at the Fox News freakshow, Glenn Beck, a truly insane hunk of weirdness who's fun to watch not for any attempt at genuine insight or O'Reilly-esque pseudo-intelligence, but because of how he endears himself to viewers by acting exactly like your crazy uncle Ernie, the one who eats Miracle Whip straight from the jar and hears voices in his armpits and stares just a bit too long at any 10-year-old within range. Weep on, Glenn!

But weep not for Miss California, who's happy as a Prozac clam to take on the title as the new face of Republican hetero marriage. Isn't she lovely? A skinny, fake-breasted blonde mouthful of air who does exactly as she's told and never questions her scary Bible and doesn't really like sex and you want to stick that thing where? Ewww! She's perfect.

What, too trifling? I understand.

Let's get serious. Let's talk about the economy. Let's take a look at the Republican's counter-proposal to Obama's stunning, comprehensive $3.5 trillion budget.

Did you see it? Their little blue pamphlet, all 18 pages of it, which contained not a single dollar figure and was filled with bizarre little diagrams and wacky clip art circa 1988, and looked like it was photocopied at a 24-hour Kinko's by a very stoned senator's aide, because it was? When the "Republican Road to Recovery" was passed around, reporters actually laughed out loud, thought it must be some sort of gag written by the guys over at The Onion. It wasn't.

Speaking of serious, what of those 17 Republican congressmen who seriously proposed a resolution to rename the Democratic Party the "Democratic Socialist Party?" So cute! Of course, the name they really wanted, "The Boogerbrained Party of Doodylicking Stupidheads," was nixed after they all rode their skateboards to John Boehner's' house and played Resident Evil V until their eyes bled and Boehner's mom made them some sugar cookies and they totally forgot.

But for sheer freakshow fun, nothing tops Fox News furiously masturbating itself raw over the biggest imitation news story it could possibly invent this year: the Great Tea Bag Uproar of 2009, featuring a few thousand very confused taxpayers protesting, well, they weren't exactly sure what, waving tea bags in the air and threatening to secede and then talking hotly about "teabagging" the president. Delightful.

The list, as they say, goes on. Witness every utterance of Michele Bachmann, see the new GOP promotional video featuring a burning Pentagon and Obama touching Hugo Chavez, or tremble in fear at a special Fox News report on how the Super Devil is currently terrorizing Christian children with adulterous marmalade. I am so not kidding.

Ah, but we must acknowledge the potential downside. Because it wasn't that long ago that the Dems were much like the Repubs are now, the meek, humiliated party of desperation and pathos, begging for scraps from the freakishly empowered GOP of 1998. Remember?

Of course, you might (rightly) understate that the current Obamafied agenda is just slightly different than the toxic plan the GOP vomited up under Bush back then, which was perhaps the most abusive, insular, self-serving hunk of political devastation in our short history, and therefore the GOP fully deserved to go from all-consuming, unstoppable force to adorable punch line in the blink of a Kansas creationist's eye.

But that's not really the key difference. No, this time the Dems just so happen to be blessed beyond human comprehension with something very unique indeed, a true golden ticket, a magic death-ray force field of intellectual virtuosity even they don't seem to fully comprehend or know how to keep up with. They have Barack Obama himself.

Truly, the man outpaces and outshines even his own party. At nearly every turn, Obama often seems to be merely tolerating the whole two-party system, the whole D.C. dance he's forced to waltz, all of it merely a distraction to getting things done. It's as though he's an entirely new political mechanism, and the Dems just happen to be lucky enough to be the party that's most aligned with it. Meanwhile, it's all apparently driving the opposition party -- quite literally -- insane.

And really, isn't that just that the most delightful thing to watch?

Mission to Break up Pacific Island of Rubbish Twice the Size of Texas

Frank Pope
May 2, 2009 - The Times/UK

.....

A high-seas mission departs from San Francisco next month to map and explore a sinister and shifting 21st-century continent: one twice the size of Texas and created from six million tonnes of discarded plastic.
Scientists and conservationists on the expedition will begin attempts to retrieve and recycle a monument to throwaway living in the middle of the North Pacific.

The toxic soup of refuse was discovered in 1997 when Charles Moore, an oceanographer, decided to travel through the centre of the North Pacific gyre (a vortex or circular ocean current). Navigators usually avoid oceanic gyres because persistent high-pressure systems — also known as the doldrums — lack the winds and currents to benefit sailors.

Mr Moore found bottle caps, plastic bags and polystyrene floating with tiny plastic chips. Worn down by sunlight and waves, discarded plastic disintegrates into smaller pieces. Suspended under the surface, these tiny fragments are invisible to ships and satellites trying to map the plastic continent, but in subsequent trawls Mr Moore discovered that the chips outnumbered plankton by six to one.

The damage caused by these tiny fragments is more insidious than strangulation, entrapment and choking by larger plastic refuse. The fragments act as sponges for heavy metals and pollutants until mistaken for food by small fish. The toxins then become more concentrated as they move up the food chain through larger fish, birds and marine mammals.

"You can buy certified organic farm produce, but no fishmonger on earth can sell you a certified organic wild-caught fish. This is our legacy," said Mr Moore.

Because of their tiny size and the scale of the problem, he believes that nothing can be solved at sea. "Trying to clean up the Pacific gyre would bankrupt any country and kill wildlife in the nets as it went."

In June the 151ft brigantine Kaisei (Japanese for Planet Ocean) will unfurl its sails in San Francisco to try to prove Mr Moore wrong. Project Kaisei's flagship will be joined by a decommissioned fishing trawler armed with specialised nets.

"The trick is collecting the plastic while minimising the catch of sea life. We can't catch the tiny pieces. But the net benefit of getting the rest out is very likely to be better than leaving it in," says Doug Woodring, the leader of the project.

With a crew of 30, the expedition, supported by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Brita, the water company, will use unmanned aircraft and robotic surface explorers to map the extent and depth of the plastic continent while collecting 40 tonnes of the refuse for trial recycling.

"We have a few technologies that can turn thin plastics into diesel fuel. Other technologies are much more hardcore, to deal with the hard plastics," says Mr Woodring, who hopes to run his vessels on the recycled fuel.

Plastics bags, food wrappers and containers are the second and third most common items in marine debris around the world, according to the Ocean Conservancy, which is based in Washington. The proportion of tiny fragments, known as mermaid's tears, are less easily quantified.

The UN's environmental programme estimates that 18,000 pieces of plastic have ended up in every square kilometre of the sea, totalling more than 100 million tonnes. The North Pacific gyre — officially called the northern subtropical convergence zone — is thought to contain the biggest concentration. Ideal conditions for shifting slicks of plastic also exist in the South Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the North and South Atlantic, but no research vessel has investigated those areas. If this exploratory mission is successful, a bigger fleet will depart in 2010.

Mr Woodring admits that Project Kaisei has limitations. "We won't be able to clean up the entire ocean. The solution really lies on land. We have to treat plastics in a totally different way, and stop them ever reaching the ocean."