First post

by JASON | 8:31 AM in |

I've been told the pen is mightier than the sword...this is a test.

The focus of this blog is on global economics: the trends, agendas, & acts of God.

The challenge is to uncover truth - connect the dots. To figure out what has happened, what is happening, and what is going to happen.

Knowledge is power. Multiple heads are better than one so I look forward to input.

Today's jumpstart:

"Hitmen cut off commander Martin Castro's head and left it in an ice cooler in front of the local police station," said a statement issued by the state justice authorities.

His head was left in the town Praxedis with a message from the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel.

The police commander was abducted on Saturday, along with five other police officers and a civilian, only five days after starting his job.

Mexican police and soldiers are battling a wave of drug-related violence across the country, particularly in northern areas bordering the US, with more than 5,300 people killed last year.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/mexico/4299116/Mexico-police-chiefs-head-found-in-ice-box.htm

This drug war has been raging for over two years now. Very little information trickles into the US mainstream press (MSM). The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCOS) have conducted multiple studies and published several white papers describing the threat of this drug war undermining the Mexican government and threatening the security of the US.

Schwarzenegger has built himself a reputation as a world leader on tackling climate change and has imposed some of the most stringent green regulations anywhere in the US since he took office.

However, his state's budget crisis is now so severe that some reports claim the government will run out of money next month - a scenario that prompted Schwarzenegger to write to President-Elect Obama earlier this month, asking him to "Waive or greatly streamline National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) requirements consistent with our statutory proposals to modify the California Environment Quality Act (CEQA) for transportation projects".

Speaking at press conference this week, Schwarzenegger said that the relaxation of the environmental rules was needed to helkp tackle rising unemployment. "It’s about jobs, jobs, jobs," he said. "That's why I've been adamant about easing environmental regulations and other red tape in order to get the infrastructure going, to get infrastructure projects moving as quickly as possible."
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2234282/struggling-schwarzenegger-eyes

California is on the brink of financial collapse. I've been following Cali for over a year now. The published budget shortfall last summer was based on an assumption that tax revenue would only fall 3% in the coming year. Its going to fall a lot more than that. This is the cannary in the coalmine to keep your eye on.

If you link the rapidly declining financial situation in California with the rapidly escalating drug war in Mexico...what do you think that area of the country will look like a year from now???

Lots of talk about change. IMO the only change we will see is the increased velocity in wealth transfer from the middle class to the poor and the elite.


Democratic lawmakers on Thursday unveiled a much-awaited $825bn stimulus package to halt America’s vertiginous economic slide which Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, said was only the “first step” in a process that could take weeks to pass into law.

The bill, which Barack Obama, the incoming president, wants enacted before mid-February when Congress goes into a short recess, comes in $50bn higher than the initial ceiling set by his transition team. But economists said they expect it to climb towards the important psychological threshold of $1,000bn by the time it becomes law.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/957c04c0-e339-11dd-a5cf-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1


…if a man robs a rich man at gunpoint to redistribute some wealth to his starving family - its called armed robbery.

If the government does it - its called a welfare.

People need to work for what they get. Assistance should be an enabler - i.e. training, education, etc.

As for Obama...

Retaking the oath, however, will not answer the multiple questions about Obama's eligibility that have been raised in a long list of lawsuits filed over his election in November.

The lawsuits allege in various ways Obama does not meet the "natural born citizen" clause of the U.S. Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, which reads, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

Some allege his birth took place in Kenya, and his mother was a minor at the time of his birth – too young to confer American citizenship. They argue Obama's father, Barack Obama Sr., was a Kenyan citizen subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time and would have handed down British citizenship.

There also are questions raised about Obama's move to Indonesia when he was a child and his attendance at school there when only Indonesian citizens were allowed and his travel to Pakistan in the '80s when such travel was forbidden to American citizens.

She also raised the issue of the concealment of Obama's records.

"Obama has refused to submit certified copies of any of his original long form 'vault' birth certificates in Hawaii to any public officer or to any Petitioner. Relevant records in Kenya have also been officially restricted," she said. "Obama has sealed all educational records which might reveal his stated citizenship. These include Punahou High School, Occidental College, Columbia University, and Harvard Law School."

Obama has claimed in his autobiography and elsewhere that he was born in Hawaii in 1961 to parents Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Kenyan national, and Stanley Ann Dunham, a minor. But details about which hospital handled the birth and other details provided on the complete birth certificate have been withheld by Obama despite lawsuits and public demands for release.

The biggest question was why, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists as his campaign has stated, Obama hasn't simply ordered it made available to settle the rumors.

The governor's office in Hawaii said there is a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin: Does the certificate on file with the Department of Health indicate a Hawaii birth or was it generated after the Obama family registered a Kenyan birth in Hawaii?
http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=86729

(Lafayette Hill, PA – 01/20/09) - Philip J. Berg, Esquire, the Attorney who filed suit against Barack H. Obama challenging Senator Obama’s lack of “qualifications” to serve as President of the United States and his case, Berg vs. Obama, in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals is still pending as well as two [2] other cases regarding the question as to whether Obama is constitutionally qualified to be President.

Berg stated, “It is a Sad Day for America as Obama is ‘not qualified’ to be President pursuant to ‘our’ United States Constitution. Today, unfortunately, a ‘Usurper,’ Obama, takes the oath of office as President and every law he signs and appointment he makes will be void. It is regretful that Obama has permitted this to happen as he knows he is ‘not natural born’ and this is the greatest ‘Hoax’ ever placed upon the citizens of the United States of America in 230 years.”
http://www.obamacrimes.com

Now that Obama is President I think it is highly doubtbul that this will ever come to an honest conclusion. The SEC dropped its insider trading investigation into George W. Bush's trading of Harken Energy Corp two weeks after George W became President. The President, like the government, cannot be sued. Congress would have to go after Obama and that isn't likely.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush_insider_trading_allegations

If you are interested....a little more on Bush. He's actually a distant relative of mine - not that I want to claim him...

http://www.realchange.org/bushjr.htm

Here's the closer for today - the agenda behind the Government (central bank), Wall Street, World Banks, etc. orchestrated financial meltdown with all its shenanigans and manipulation…

As the new U.S. administration prepares to take office amid grave financial and international crises, it may seem counterintuitive to argue that the very unsettled nature of the international system generates a unique opportunity for creative diplomacy.

That opportunity involves a seeming contradiction. On one level, the financial collapse represents a major blow to the standing of the United States. While American political judgments have often proved controversial, the American prescription for a world financial order has generally been unchallenged. Now disillusionment with the United States’ management of it is widespread.

At the same time, the magnitude of the debacle makes it impossible for the rest of the world to shelter any longer behind American predominance or American failings.

Every country will have to reassess its own contribution to the prevailing crisis. Each will seek to make itself independent, to the greatest possible degree, of the conditions that produced the collapse; at the same time, each will be obliged to face the reality that its dilemmas can be mastered only by common action.

Even the most affluent countries will confront shrinking resources. Each will have to redefine its national priorities. An international order will emerge if a system of compatible priorities comes into being. It will fragment disastrously if the various priorities cannot be reconciled.

In the end, the political and economic systems can be harmonized in only one of two ways: by creating an international political regulatory system with the same reach as that of the economic world; or by shrinking the economic units to a size manageable by existing political structures, which is likely to lead to a new mercantilism, perhaps of regional units.

A new Bretton Woods-kind of global agreement is by far the preferable outcome. America's role in this enterprise will be decisive. Paradoxically, American influence will be great in proportion to the modesty in our conduct; we need to modify the righteousness that has characterized too many American attitudes, especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The extraordinary impact of the president-elect on the imagination of humanity is an important element in shaping a new world order. But it defines an opportunity, not a policy.

The ultimate challenge is to shape the common concern of most countries and all major ones regarding the economic crisis, together with a common fear of jihadist terrorism, into a common strategy reinforced by the realization that the new issues like proliferation, energy and climate change permit no national or regional solution.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/12/opinion/edkissinger.php

The key is the last paragraph with the specific word "shape".

Meaning of Shape: To form or create; especially, to mold or make into a particular form; to give proper form or figure to.

Now let's examine the tools used to form, mold, or create - economic crisis & common fear of jihadist terrorism.

What is the goals or agenda these tools are utilized for?

In the end, the political and economic systems can be harmonized in only one of two ways: by creating an international political regulatory system with the same reach as that of the economic world; or by shrinking the economic units to a size manageable by existing political structures, which is likely to lead to a new mercantilism, perhaps of regional units.

A new Bretton Woods-kind of global agreement is by far the preferable outcome.

...shaping a new world order.



enough of a deep dive today.

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