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Cyprus Impending Economic Collapse Has Moscow On Edge

March 30, 2013 in Finance, Headline, Politics, Video Perspective, World News

Recent events in Cyprus have turned into a widespread public protest as politicians decide how to save the small island nations banking system.  People have truned to the streets and have engaged in general strikes to protest this new and rather scary form of austerity. The measures have frozen anyone from withdrawing more than €100 per day, and will result in the freezing of any deposits greater than €130,000.  The nations banks are in trouble, and seeking a  €13billion bailout from the EU,  in turn they will need to seize a percentage of all the money deposited in the banks so that they are able to secure the bailout immediately.

more news on the topic and specifically as it relates to bitcoin finances here : hongpong.com

A People’s Revolt in Cyprus: Richard Wolff on Protests Against EU Plan to Seize Bank Savings

From democracynow.org

The eyes of the financial world are on the small Mediterranean island of Cyprus today. The government of Cyprus has brokered a last-ditch $13 billion bailout deal with European officials to stave off the collapse of its banking sector. Under the deal, all bank deposits above approximately $130,000 will be frozen and used to help pay off the banking sector’s debts. An earlier version of the deal collapsed last week when Cypriots took to the streets to protest paying a tax of up to 10 percent on their life savings. The plan led to mass demonstrations as well as panicked bank withdrawals as Cypriots rushed to protect their savings. “It’s a demonstration of people power in this little corner of the world that’s very impressive, and the basis, I think, for some optimism about opposition,” says Richard Wolff, economics professor emeritus at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and visiting professor at New School University. He is the author of several books including, most recently, “Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism.”
Another report on the topic from –  rt.com

Moscow hopes Cyprus won’t need its help

Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Moscow needs to study the consequences of the Cyprus bailout deal agreed in Brussels, especially for Russia. Meanwhile Vladimir Putin ordered to restructure the € 2.5 billion Cyprus loan issued in 2011.

“We have to figure out what this story turns into in the long run, what the consequences for the international financial and monetary system will be – and thus, for our own interests as well,” Medvedev said in Russia’s first official reaction to the deal agreed over the weekend.

As the EU 10 billion bailout loan has been secured, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, said “the situation looks like no further help [for Cyprus] from the Russian government will be required.”

He added that Moscow will reconsider extending the loan to Cyprus due to be repaid by 2016, after studying the full details of the Brussels package.

On Monday spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said President Putin instructed “the government and the Russian ministry of finance to work with their partners on the issue of restructuring the loan previously issued to Cyprus.” Read the rest of this entry →

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Home Owners Across Nation Sue All Bank Servicers and Their Offshore Havens

May 8, 2012 in Finance, Headline, Occupy, Politics, Update

occupywallst.org

Home Owners Across the Nation Sue All Bank Servicers and Their Offshore Havens;

Spire Law Officially Announces Filing of Landmark Lawsuit Largest International Money Laundering Network in History Formed During Obama Administration;

U.S. Banks’ Theft of Home Owners’ Money Laundered Through Cayman Islands, Isle of Man and Numerous Offshore-Based Affiliates NEW YORK, NY, Apr 23, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — In a lawsuit alleged to involve the largest money laundering network in United States history, Spire Law Group, LLP — on behalf of home owners across the Country — has filed a mass tort action in the Supreme Court of New York, County of Kings.

Home owners across the country have sued every major bank servicer and their subsidiaries — formed in countries known as havens for money laundering such as the Cayman Islands, the Isle of Man, Luxembourg and Malaysia — alleging that while the Obama Administration was publicly encouraging loan modifications for home owners, it was privately ratifying the formation of these shell companies in violation of the United States Patriot Act, and State and Federal law.

The case further alleges that through these obscure foreign companies, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo Bank, Citibank, Citigroup, One West Bank, and numerous other federally chartered banks stole hundreds of millions of dollars of home owners’ money during the last decade and then laundered it through offshore companies. Read the rest of this entry →

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Why We Should Treat Addicts, Not Criminalize and Stigmatize Them

April 13, 2012 in Headline, Politics, World News

alternet.org

Former Latin American presidents explain why the devastating drug war must end now.

What is the best way to deal with drugs? Criminalizing drug users or treating them as patients? Sticking to a strict prohibitionist stance or experimenting with alternative forms of regulation and prevention?

Latin America is talking about drugs like never before. The taboo that has long prevented open debate about drug policies has been broken — thanks to a steadily deteriorating situation on the ground and the courageous stand taken by presidents Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia, Otto Perez Molina of Guatemala and Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica.

The facts speak for themselves. The foundations of the U.S.-led war on drugs — eradication of production, interdiction of traffic, and criminalization of consumption — have not succeeded and never will. When there is established demand for a consumer product, there will be a supply. The only beneficiaries of prohibition are the drug cartels. Read the rest of this entry →

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The Real Jubilee : A Movement For Financial Justice

March 7, 2012 in Finance, Headline, Occupy, Politics, World News

theoccupiedtimes.co.uk

This year the Queen is celebrating her 60th ‘jubilee’ but the original meaning of jubilee had a lot more to do with righting injustice than an extra bank holiday and Brian May on the roof of Buckingham Palace, says Tim Jones of www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk

The word ‘jubilee’ comes from the Jewish scriptures, and describing an ancient event occurring every fifty years. In the jubilee year everyone, remarkably, took a whole year off from working the land – not just one day – living simply off surpluses from previous years. All debts were to be cancelled. All slaves were to be released. All land was to be returned to the original sharing between the Hebrew tribes.

Jubilees were instituted in order to restore a sense of equilibrium into the economy. People working on the land got in debt when harvests failed. To feed their families they borrowed from their neighbours – supposedly without being charged interest, though many found ways to get round this law. As debts accumulated and families became unable to pay, they had to sell off their land to their creditors. Rent was charged on the sold land, so as creditors got richer, the debtors got poorer – and their debts were only likely to increase. As David Graeber sets out in his book Debt: The first 5,000 years, farmers often became stuck in debt and even had to sell their children into debt slavery. Read the rest of this entry →

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Free Trade or Democracy, Can’t Have Both

March 4, 2012 in Editorial, Finance, Headline, Politics, World News

by: Dave Johnson, Campaign for America’s Future | Op-Ed

Recent stories about the conditions of Apple’s contractors in China have opened many people’s eyes about where our jobs, factories, industries and economy have been going, and why. The stories exposed that workers live 6-to-12-to-a-room in dormitories, get rousted at midnight to work surprise 12-hour shifts, get paid very little, use toxic chemicals, suffer extreme pollution of the environment, etc. Is this “trade?” Or is it something else?

Is This “Trade?”

“Trade” means to exchange, to buy and sell, you buy from me and I buy from you. I have something you want and you have something I want, and we exchange. We both end up better off than where we started. Read the rest of this entry →

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Taking Down the Tents – Occupy

March 4, 2012 in Headline, Occupy, Politics, World News

By Phil Edwards

All sides seem to agree that the Occupy London Stock Exchange protesters are leaving undefeated. The cathedral authorities stress that although ‘tents and camping equipment’ have been removed from the vicinity of St Paul’s, ‘ideas and protests’ are still welcome. One protester described the eviction as ‘an opportunity for us to move sideways and be innovative and creative’.

But in London, as elsewhere, as the campers have had to move sideways, Occupy will have to find another way forward. It isn’t the kind of protest in which an achievable goal is linked to a symbolic nuisance, so that when the authorities see reason everyone can go home. Its demands have been much bigger, and they’ve been backed by the continuing physical presence of people obstinately taking up space. In this respect it’s much more like the Greenham Common peace camps, or Brian Haw’s one-man encampment in Parliament Square, than a traditional demonstration or sit-in. Their current position recalls the experiences of the Situationist International, a group the Occupy movement has often been compared to, not least by Adbusters, which issued the original call to occupy Wall Street last July. Read the rest of this entry →

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Occupy 2.0: the convergence of streets and networks

February 23, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Headline, Occupy, Politics, World News

Giorgio Griziotti, Dario Lovaglio, and Tiziana Terranova

To the extent to which we are not witnessing a clash between two capitalisms but a process of reconfiguration realized through the hegemony of finance, information and circulation, the only way to change the current situation is through the autonomous organization of the multitude’s living labour in the streets and on the net.

About one year ago, the world attention turned to the nascent powers of expression and action of networked multitudes first in the Wikileaks battle and, subsequently, in the Arab revolutions and the social movements 15M and Occupy. After this revelatory year, dense with threats and promises from a completely new global movement, global governance – painfully aware of the great threat that such autonomous horizontal communication poses to its control – is vigorously attacking digital freedoms.

It is in this context that the (possibly already foiled) attempts to pass the Stop Piracy Online Act (SOPA), the Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the effective shutdown of Megaupload are taking place. Read the rest of this entry →

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Private Prison Corporation Offers Cash In Exchange For State Prisons

February 17, 2012 in Finance, Headline, Politics

As state governments wrestle with massive budget shortfalls, a Wall Street giant is offering a solution: cash in exchange for state property. Prisons, to be exact.

Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest operator of for-profit prisons, has sent letters recently to 48 states offering to buy up their prisons as a remedy for “challenging corrections budgets.” In exchange, the company is asking for a 20-year management contract,

plus they want an assurance that the prison would remain at least 90 percent full,

according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Huffington Post.

The move reflects a significant shift in strategy for the private prison industry, which until now has expanded by building prisons of its own or managing state-controlled prisons. It also represents an unprecedented bid for more control of state prison systems.

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The Economics of Incarceration

February 6, 2012 in Finance, Headline, Politics, Video Perspective

James Nachtwey / VII

By Nile Bowie  BLN Contributing Writer  –  from blacklistednews.com

For anyone paying attention, there is no shortage of issues that fundamentally challenge the underpinning moral infrastructure of American society and the values it claims to uphold. Under the conceptual illusion of liberty, few things are more sobering than the amount of Americans who will spend the rest of their lives in an isolated correctional facility – ostensibly, being corrected. The United States of America has long held the highest incarceration rate in the world, far surpassing any other nation. For every 100,000 Americans, 743 citizens sit behind bars. Presently, the prison population in America consists of more than six million people, a number exceeding the amount of prisoners held in the gulags of the former Soviet Union at any point in its history.

While miserable statistics illustrate some measure of the ongoing ethical calamity occurring in the detainment centers inside the land of the free, only a partial picture of the broader situation is painted. While the country faces an unprecedented economic and financial crisis, business is booming in other fields – namely, the private prison industry. Like any other business, these institutions are run for the purpose of turning a profit. State and federal prisons are contracted out to private companies who are paid a fixed amount to house each prisoner per day. Their profits result from spending the minimum amount of state or federal funds on each inmate, only to pocket the remaining capital. For the corrections conglomerates of America, prosperity depends on housing the maximum numbers of inmates for the longest potential time – as inexpensively as possible.

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