And be sure to hear one of the best love songs the best love song ever recorded... G.I. Joe and Lillie
Former CBS News president Richard Salant (1961 - 64 and 1966 - 79) explained the major media's role: "Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have." ...and to this very day most Americans haven't noticed they're being brained washed! ~ N. Hooben
Friday, December 20, 2013
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Barbara Walters and the messiah (small 'm' intentional)
Years ago I had a lot of respect for Barbara Walters but that soon turned sour when during a television interview with then first lady Hillary Clinton (during Bill Clinton's 1st term), she caught (or rather I caught it and Walters overlooked it) Hillary in a boldface lie and let it ride. The interview continued and with every question posed by Walters I kept hoping she would come back to inform the viewers of the truth. That never happened! Before the interview was over it wasn't difficult to comprehend that Walters had taken sides with the far-left anti-American zealot. I didn't exactly avoid Walters over the continuing years, I wanted to assure myself that any ill feelings toward her were legitimate. She certainly didn't alter my opinion in any of her broadcasts, in fact I wondered why the entire country gave this woman two minutes of their time; everything about her was fake as fake could be. Then I realized that most viewers rarely pay any attention to the words used by celebrity interviewers such as Barbara Walters. The viewers are like spectators at a Hollywood event. Ask them two seconds afterwards what was said and you generally get answers like, "Wasn't she just beautiful."
So now we have the famous interviewer switching seats and becoming the interviewee. Piers Morgan asks the questions (regarding Obama)...Barbara gives her heartfelt answers. "We thought he was going to be the next Messiah." She said, "We... We thought he was going to be the next Messiah." and that means one hell of a lot of believers (aka voters).
It is written in Exodus 20, 2-17 "You shall have no other gods before me." and amplified in the first of the Ten Commandments, "I am the LORD your God: you shall not have strange Gods before me."
But Walters doesn't believe none of it, rather she believes in the strange god now living in the White House.
Did you ever wonder why the country is going to hell? Its because people like Barbara Walters promotes the idea. I have no legitmate reason to ever pay this woman any attention in future broadcasts when she expresses her belief in demigods as she does here: (see video ↓) ~ Norman E. Hooben
Sunday, December 15, 2013
What is 'Common Core' ?
I've been attending new math tutoring classes at the library so I can better help the kids I watch with their homework. I plan to share a video on Facebook every time I learn something that I feel will be beneficial to share with parents.
Posted by Melissa Strzala on Monday, February 1, 2016
Recommended Reading...
10. Reading, writing, arithmetic and research through the American educational system, mosques and student centers (now 1,500) should be sprinkled with dislike of Jews, evangelical Christians and democracy. There are currently 300 exclusively Muslim schools in the U.S. which teach loyalty to the Quran, not the U.S. Constitution. In January of 2002, Saudi Arabia’s Embassyin Washington mailed 4,500 packets of the Quran and videos promoting Islam to America’s high schools – free of charge. Saudi Arabia would not allow the U.S. to reciprocate.
This ↓ is what happens to people who are educated under "COMMON CORE"
_________________________________________________________________
Just in case you haven't seen a true-life example of Common Core...
This ↓ is it !!!
The student was downgraded for failing to estimate...
If you think this is alright for your child, you're part of the problem!
Public Sector Banking ...can we at least look at the possibilities?
The following article was published in the Asia Times OnLine in March 0f 2012 and I've been hanging on to it since. Ellen Brown, the author, writes extensively about banking and monetary issues and is, in my estimation, the most knowledgeable in that area of expertise whereas my limited knowledge doesn't extend much beyond managerial accounting and ECO 102. I did however enter a comment on the Asia Times page, so I thought I might as well reproduce it here and let the rest of you readers form your own opinion:
Black sheep of finance
By Ellen Brown
The common perception is that government bureaucrats are bad businessmen. To determine whether government-owned banks are assets or liabilities, then, we need to look farther afield.
When we remove our myopic US blinders, it turns out that globally, not only are publicly owned banks quite common but that countries with strong public banking sectors generally have strong, stable economies.
According to an Inter-American Development Bank paper presented in 2005, the percentage of state ownership in the banking industry globally by the mid-nineties was over 40%. [2] The BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India, and China - contain nearly three billion of the world’s seven billion people, or 40% of the global population. The BRICs all make heavy use of public sector banks, which compose about 75% of the banks in India, 69% or more in China, 45% in Brazil, and 60% in Russia.
The BRICs have been the main locus of world economic growth in the last decade. China Daily reports, "Between 2000 and 2010, BRIC's GDP grew by an incredible 92.7%, compared to a global GDP growth of just 32%, with industrialized economies having a very modest 15.5%."
All the leading banks in the BRIC half of the globe are state-owned. [3] In fact the largest banks globally are state-owned, including:
The two largest banks by market capitalization (ICBC and China Construction
Bank);
The largest bank by deposits (Japan Post Bank);
The largest bank by assets (Royal Bank of Scotland, now nationalized);
The world's largest development bank (BNDES in Brazil). [4]
A May 2010 article in The Economist noted that the strong and stable publicly owned banks of India, China and Brazil helped those countries weather the banking crisis afflicting most of the rest of the world in the last few years. [5] According to Professor Kurt von Mettenheim of the Sao Paulo Business School of Brazil:
In a 2010 research paper summarized on VoxEU.org, economists Svetlana Andrianova, et al, wrote that the post-2008 nationalization of a number of very large banks, including the Royal Bank of Scotland, "offers an opportune moment to reduce the political power of bankers and to carry out much needed financial reforms." [7] But "there are concerns that governments may be unable to run nationalized banks efficiently."
Not to worry, say the authors:
Focusing on the financing of real businesses and economic growth seems to be the secret of the BRICs, which are leading the world in economic development today. But the BRIC phenomenon is more than just a growth trend identified by an economist. It is now an international organization, an alliance of countries representing the common interests and goals of its members.
The first BRIC meeting, held in 2008, was called a triumph for Russian leader Vladimir Putin's policy of promoting multilateral arrangements that would challenge the United States' concept of a unipolar world. [8] The BRIC countries had their first official summit and became a formal organization in Yekaterinburg, Russia, in 2009. They met in Brazil in 2010 and in China in 2011, and they will meet in India in 2012. In 2010, at China's invitation, South Africa joined the group, making it "BRICS" and adding a strategic presence on the African continent.
The BRICS seek more voice in the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. They are even discussing their own multicultural bank to fund projects within their own nations, in direct competition with the IMF. They oppose the dollar as global reserve currency.
After the Yekaterinburg summit, they called for a new global reserve currency, one that was diversified, stable and predictable; and they have the clout to get it. [9] According to Liam Halligan, writing in The UK's Telegraph:
The BRICS will have to be negotiated with, and the first step to forming a working relationship is to understand how their economies work.
(Written for the Public Banking in America Conference April 27-28th, Philadelphia.)
Notes:
1. See here.
2. See here.
3. See here.
4. See here for bank rankings.
5. See here.
6. See here.
7. See here.
8. See here.
9. See here.
10. See here.
I'm still optimistic about the idea of a government owned bank... either federal or state owned. But I would entertain the idea that the current banking system pay interest to the United States Treasury as well as for the cost of producing the currency. The concept comes close to making the Treasury Dept. a government owned bank...think about it.Occasionally Ellen sends me her most recent articles and on occasion I'll re-post them here. Just a few days ago I posted Which Is Riskier, a Public Bank or a Wall Street Bank? which received some attention but we don't get much feedback...at least not at this end. I believe the subject matter needs to be studied by our illustrious leaders but that would be asking too much...they might even have to task their brains for once. ~ by Norman E. Hooben
Black sheep of finance
By Ellen Brown
Once the black sheep of high finance, government owned banks can reassure depositors about the safety of their savings and can help maintain a focus on productive investment in a world in which effective financial regulation remains more of an aspiration than a reality. - Centre for Economic Policy Research, VoxEU.org (January 2010). [1]Public sector banking is a concept that is relatively unknown in the United States. Only one state - North Dakota - owns its own bank. North Dakota is also the only state to escape the credit crisis of 2008, sporting a budget surplus every year since; but skeptics write this off to coincidence or other factors.
The common perception is that government bureaucrats are bad businessmen. To determine whether government-owned banks are assets or liabilities, then, we need to look farther afield.
When we remove our myopic US blinders, it turns out that globally, not only are publicly owned banks quite common but that countries with strong public banking sectors generally have strong, stable economies.
According to an Inter-American Development Bank paper presented in 2005, the percentage of state ownership in the banking industry globally by the mid-nineties was over 40%. [2] The BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India, and China - contain nearly three billion of the world’s seven billion people, or 40% of the global population. The BRICs all make heavy use of public sector banks, which compose about 75% of the banks in India, 69% or more in China, 45% in Brazil, and 60% in Russia.
The BRICs have been the main locus of world economic growth in the last decade. China Daily reports, "Between 2000 and 2010, BRIC's GDP grew by an incredible 92.7%, compared to a global GDP growth of just 32%, with industrialized economies having a very modest 15.5%."
All the leading banks in the BRIC half of the globe are state-owned. [3] In fact the largest banks globally are state-owned, including:
A May 2010 article in The Economist noted that the strong and stable publicly owned banks of India, China and Brazil helped those countries weather the banking crisis afflicting most of the rest of the world in the last few years. [5] According to Professor Kurt von Mettenheim of the Sao Paulo Business School of Brazil:
Government banks provided counter cyclical credit and policy options to counter the effects of the recent financial crisis, while realizing competitive advantage over private and foreign banks. Greater client confidence and official deposits reinforced liability base and lending capacity. The credit policies of BRIC government banks help explain why these countries experienced shorter and milder economic downturns during 2007-2008. [6]Surprising findings
In a 2010 research paper summarized on VoxEU.org, economists Svetlana Andrianova, et al, wrote that the post-2008 nationalization of a number of very large banks, including the Royal Bank of Scotland, "offers an opportune moment to reduce the political power of bankers and to carry out much needed financial reforms." [7] But "there are concerns that governments may be unable to run nationalized banks efficiently."
Not to worry, say the authors:
Follow-on research we have carried out (Andrianova et al, 2009) ... shows that government ownership of banks has, if anything, been robustly associated with higher long run growth rates.Expanding on this theme in their research paper, the authors write:
Using data from a large number of countries for 1995-2007, we find that, other things equal, countries with high degrees of government ownership of banking have grown faster than countries with little government ownership of banks. We show that this finding is robust to a battery of econometric tests.
While many countries in continental Europe, including Germany and France, have had a fair amount of experience with government-owned banks, the UK and the USA have found themselves in unfamiliar territory.But that is not what the data of these researchers showed:
It is therefore perhaps not surprising that there is deeply ingrained hostility in these countries towards the notion that governments can run banks effectively. ... Hostility towards government-owned banks reflects the hypothesis ... that these banks are established by politicians who use them to shore up their power by instructing them to lend to political supporters and government-owned enterprises. In return, politicians receive votes and other favours.
This hypothesis also postulates that politically motivated banks make bad lending decisions, resulting in non-performing loans, financial fragility and slower growth.
[W]e have found that ... countries with government-owned banks have, on average, grown faster than countries with no or little government ownership of banks. ... This is, of course, a surprising result, especially in light of the widespread belief - typically supported by anecdotal evidence - that " ... bureaucrats are generally bad bankers" ...What accounts for their surprising findings? The authors provide a novel explanation:
We suggest that politicians may actually prefer banks not to be in the public sector. ... Conditions of weak corporate governance in banks provide fertile ground for quick enrichment for both bankers and politicians - at the expense ultimately of the taxpayer. In such circumstances politicians can offer bankers a system of weak regulation in exchange for party political contributions, positions on the boards of banks or lucrative consultancies.The BRICs as a global power
Activities that are more likely to provide both sides with quick returns are the more speculative ones, especially if they are sufficiently opaque as not to be well understood by the shareholders such as complex derivatives trading.
Government-owned banks, on the other hand, have less freedom to engage in speculative strategies that result in quick enrichment for bank insiders and politicians. Moreover, politicians tend to be held accountable for wrongdoings or bad management in the public sector but are typically only indirectly blamed, if at all, for the misdemeanors of private banks. It is the shareholders who are expected to prevent these but lack of transparency and weak governance stops them from doing so in practice.
On the other hand, when it comes to banks that are in the public sector, democratic accountability of politicians is more likely to discourage them from engaging in speculation. In such banks, top managers are more likely to be compelled to focus on the more mundane job of financing real businesses and economic growth.
Focusing on the financing of real businesses and economic growth seems to be the secret of the BRICs, which are leading the world in economic development today. But the BRIC phenomenon is more than just a growth trend identified by an economist. It is now an international organization, an alliance of countries representing the common interests and goals of its members.
The first BRIC meeting, held in 2008, was called a triumph for Russian leader Vladimir Putin's policy of promoting multilateral arrangements that would challenge the United States' concept of a unipolar world. [8] The BRIC countries had their first official summit and became a formal organization in Yekaterinburg, Russia, in 2009. They met in Brazil in 2010 and in China in 2011, and they will meet in India in 2012. In 2010, at China's invitation, South Africa joined the group, making it "BRICS" and adding a strategic presence on the African continent.
The BRICS seek more voice in the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. They are even discussing their own multicultural bank to fund projects within their own nations, in direct competition with the IMF. They oppose the dollar as global reserve currency.
After the Yekaterinburg summit, they called for a new global reserve currency, one that was diversified, stable and predictable; and they have the clout to get it. [9] According to Liam Halligan, writing in The UK's Telegraph:
The BRICs account for ... around three-quarters of total currency reserves. They have few serious fiscal issues and all are net external creditors. [10]Western financial interests have long fought to maintain the dollar as global reserve currency, but they are losing that battle, despite economic and military coercion. Russia, China and India are now nuclear powers.
The BRICS will have to be negotiated with, and the first step to forming a working relationship is to understand how their economies work.
(Written for the Public Banking in America Conference April 27-28th, Philadelphia.)
Notes:
1. See here.
2. See here.
3. See here.
4. See here for bank rankings.
5. See here.
6. See here.
7. See here.
8. See here.
9. See here.
10. See here.
 |
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