Another question, from Robert Reich

https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/posts/1015215835157679


Why has President Obama been willing to spend so much political capital on the Trans Pacific Partnership? I have a guess. It begins with Michael Froman, the United States Trade Representative who’s been in charge of this debacle. Froman went to Harvard Law School with Obama, but that’s not the only important connection. In the Clinton Administration, Froman was chief of staff to Bob Rubin when Rubin was Secretary of the Treasury.

. . . .

Not incidentally, Froman was the person who first introduced Obama to Rubin.




Now, what was I saying back in November 2008? I'll save you all the trouble of digging through the archives. I have it on speed dial.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x7922946#7922951

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/08/mark-kirk-sam-mahler_n_7538456.html

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-13/writings-wall-texas-pulls-1-billion-gold-ny-fed-makes-it-non-confiscatable

The lack of faith in central bank trustworthiness is spreading. First Germany, then Holland, and Austria, and now - as we noted was possible previously - Texas has enacted a Bill to repatriate $1 billion of gold from The NY Fed's vaults to a newly established state gold bullion depository..."People have this image of Texas as big and powerful … so for a lot of people, this is exactly where they would want to go with their gold," and the Bill includes a section to prevent forced seizure from the Federal Government.

From 2011:



And now, after we noted the possibility previously, as The Epoch Times reports, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill into law on Friday, June 12, that will allow Texas to build a gold and silver bullion depository. In addition, Texas will repatriate $1 billion worth of bullion from the Federal Reserve in New York to the new facility once completed.



There are precisely two important reasons. One involves distrust in the current storage system. The second threatens the paper money system as a whole.



So far most of the attention has focused on the part of the depository and the big institutions. However, the bill also includes a provision to prevent seizure, which is important for private parties who want to avoid another 1933 style confiscation of their bullion by Federal authorities.



Official Statement from Governor Abbott:



* * *

Is this the first step down a road to secession? Notably, they'll need that gold to establish their own country once they win the potentially imminent war with the US military which starts on Monday (Jade Helm).

* * *

This implicit subordination of The Fed's gold sends a more ominous signal of rising fears of confiscation and leaves us wondering just how long before every state (and or country) decides to follow Texas' lead?

http://www.greekcrisis.net/2015/06/greece-has-nothing-to-lose-by-saying-no.html

So here we are. Alexis Tsipras has been told to take it or leave it. What should he do?

The Greek prime minister does not face elections until January 2019. Any course of action he decides on now would have to bear fruit in three years or less.

First, contrast the two extreme scenarios: accept the creditors’ final offer or leave the eurozone. By accepting the offer, he would have to agree to a fiscal adjustment of 1.7 per cent of gross domestic product within six months.

My colleague Martin Sandbu calculated how an adjustment of such scale would affect the Greek growth rate. I have now extended that calculation to incorporate the entire four-year fiscal adjustment programme, as demanded by the creditors. Based on the same assumptions he makes about how fiscal policy and GDP interact, a two-way process, I come to a figure of a cumulative hit on the level of GDP of 12.6 per cent over four years. The Greek debt-to-GDP ratio would start approaching 200 per cent.

My conclusion is that the acceptance of the troika’s programme would constitute a dual suicide — for the Greek economy, and for the political career of the Greek prime minister.

http://robertreich.org/post/121534364320

How can it be that the largest pending trade deal in history – a deal backed both by a Democratic president and Republican leaders in Congress – is nearly dead? The Trans Pacific Partnership may yet squeak through Congress but its near-death experience offers an important lesson.

It’s not that labor unions have regained political power (union membership continues to dwindle and large corporations have more clout in Washington than ever) or that the President is especially weak (no president can pull off a major deal like this if the public isn’t behind him).

The biggest lesson is most Americans no longer support free trade.

It used to be an article of faith that trade was good for America. Economic theory told us so: Trade allows nations to specialize in what they do best, thereby fueling growth. And growth, we were told, is good for everyone. But such arguments are less persuasive in this era of staggering inequality. For decades almost all the gains from growth have been going to a small sliver of Americans at the top – while most peoples’ wages have stagnated, adjusted for inflation.

Economists point to overall benefits from expanded trade. All of us gain access to cheaper goods and services. But in recent years the biggest gains from trade have gone to investors and executives, while the burdens have fallen disproportionately on those in the middle and below who have lost good-paying jobs. So even though everyone gains from trade, the biggest winners are at the top. And as the top keeps moving higher compared to most of the rest of us, the vast majority feels relatively worse off....

...The American economy looks increasingly arbitrary, as CEOs of big firms now rake in 300 times more than the wages of average workers, while two-thirds of Americans live paycheck to paycheck...If the American economy continues to create a few big winners and many who feel like losers by comparison, opposition to free trade won’t be the only casualty.

Losers are likely to find many other ways to say “no deal.”

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/imf-confirms-it-will-support-ukraine-whether-it-defaults-or-not/ri7981

The IMF has now made it official: it will go on lending to Ukraine regardless of whether or not it defaults on its private Western debt. The IMF’s statement, made in the form of an open letter published on its website (full text below) makes the fact clear. The key words in the letter are:


The idea seems to be that, as Ukraine is due to pay £23 billion to its Western creditors over the next four years, defaulting on this debt will plug the $15 billion hole in the funding the IMF is providing Ukraine, which it has identified. That this is a blatantly political decision showing a willingness to lend to a country that is bankrupt, hardly needs saying. What the IMF is in effect doing, since it is not willing to increase the amount it is lending, is fund Ukraine at the expense of its creditors. It is a significant — and dubious — departure from IMF practice. However the political pressure from the Western powers that control the IMF for it to continue its support for Ukraine has overridden all other considerations.

For the IMF this is a high-stakes gamble. It is known that back in 2010 all the non-Western representatives on the IMF’s board, as well as the Swiss representative, vigorously opposed the planned bailout of Greece, seeing it as a blatantly political attempt to rescue the euro by piling debt on Greece which it could never repay. On that occasion the decision was rammed through by the Western majority, only for the criticism of the non-Western representatives to be proved true later.

It is likely that something very similar is going to happen now. The IMF board is due to meet in July and it is likely the decision will be rammed through then, probably once more against the opposition of the non-Western representatives.

Unless the creditors now buckle, which is possible, it is likely that there will also be a flood of litigation challenging this decision in various national and international courts around the world. Although some of the debt might be subject to Ukrainian law, recent decisions in the U.S. courts concerning Argentina call into question whether a moratorium of the sort that is being proposed is internationally enforceable. It is not difficult to see how the IMF could find itself a party to some of this litigation, which could prove embarrassing.

In theory this decision does not concern Ukraine’s liability to Russia, which as public debt remains payable, irrespective of the moratorium. The next interest installment due on that debt — of £75 million — is due for payment on 20th June 2015. If the Ukrainians default on that payment there will be more legal action, this time from Russia, which could call into question the IMF program, since IMF rules expressly prohibit support to a state that defaults on its public debt.


As for the IMF, if Ukraine’s bailout fails then there will be more criticism of the IMF leadership at a time when the non-Western powers are busy setting up their own alternative institutions. Suffice to say that in that case it is unlikely the IMF would be able to justify yet another Ukrainian bailout.

OFFICIAL COMMUNIQUE AT LINK

While Kiev declares that it would not repay Russia's $3 billion loan or even seize Russia's assets in Ukraine, such moves may deal a heavy blow to the very foundations of international law, US economist Michael Hudson warned. Regardless of the speculations that the forthcoming Ukrainian default will be just "technical," not an "official" one, Michael Hudson, a research professor of economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, insists that the euphemism of "technical" default bears no relation to reality — "a default is a default," the economist states.

"A default is a default. The attempted euphemism of 'technical' default came up with regard to the Greek debt in 2012 at the G8 meetings. Geithner and Obama lobbied the IMF and ECB shamelessly to bail out Greece, simply so that it could pay bondholders, because US banks had issued credit default insurance (CDS) against Greek bonds and were on the hook for a big loss if a default occurred," Michael Hudson said in an interview with an American military analyst, the author of the leading blog covering the Ukraine crisis who writes under the alias "The Saker."

According to the economist, the Ukrainian government cannot reject its financial obligations to Russia, since credit defaults can be initiated only if a debt restructuring is approved by "a governmental authority and a sufficient number of holders of such obligation to bind all holders," according to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA).

In April 2015, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov signaled clearly that Russia is the sole final holder of Ukraine's bonds and does not plan to restructure the $3 billion debt. Moscow bought Ukraine's $3-billion Eurobond in December 2013, just before the infamous Euromaidan coup, as a part of a bailout program aimed at bolstering the country's fading economy. Professor Hudson stressed that if the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were to state that the Kremlin's $3 billion loan is not official, "this would rewrite international law and mean that loans from Sovereign Wealth funds of any nation (OPEC, Norway, China, etc.) have no international protection." Furthermore, such a move would have shattered the world's debt markets "along New Cold War lines," "with financial warfare replacing military warfare," the economist underscored, adding that the world is not ready for this.

On the other hand, Professor Hudson denounced the decision of Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada to seize Russia's assets in Ukraine as a "radical step" that it is "beyond civil law."

"If Ukraine did this while still receiving IMF, US and Canadian lending, its creditors could be held as responsible," he remarked.

Meanwhile, it seems that the Western financial aid to Ukraine still goes into a "black hole," due to the country's high corruption and lack of transparency. It is highly doubtful though that Washington or Brussels will simply print money and lend it to President Petro Poroshenko endlessly.

"The 'West' is not in the charity business. Its firms do not want to lose money, and the EU Constitution bans the European Central Bank and European taxpayers from financing foreign governments," the economist emphasized.

The present Ukrainian kleptocracy "is not a very safe umbrella" to various economic transactions with the West. Although Western magnates such as George Soros hope to acquire Ukraine's lands and infrastructure via sponsor privatization selloffs, there is still a possibility that future Ukrainian governments may repudiate financial transactions and back out of deals made under "the junta" in the same way "that the Allies cancelled Germany's internal debts in 1947/48 in the currency reform — on the logic that most debts were owed to former Nazis," the professor noted. "Even Ukraine's debt to the IMF and other international agencies may be rejected as "odious debts" that financed a government at war against its own population," Mr. Hudson elaborated.

In his interview to The Saker, Professor Hudson underscored that the US interventionism and deep involvement in domestic affairs of other countries will eventually do a disservice to Washington. "US foreign policy is simply "Do what we say, privatize and sell to US buyers, and permit them to avoid paying taxes by transfer pricing and financialization gimmicks, or we will destroy you like we did Libya, Iraq, Syria et al," the professor pointed out, stressing that such an approach will prompt foreign countries to unify into a resistance and to create a viable alternative to American financial hegemony. The US' selfishness and "the-winner-takes-all" approach is self-defeating, the economist remarked.

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/business/20150614/1023351827.html#ixzz3d7y2arcJ

author of "The Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt"

Monday, June 15, 2015, is the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. In his book, Magna Carta, J.C. Holt, professor of medieval history, University of Cambridge, notes that three of the chapters of this ancient document still stand on the English Stature Book and that so much of what survives of the Great Charter is “concerned with individual liberty,” which “is a reflexion of the quality of the original act of 1215.”

In the 17th century Sir Edward Coke used the Great Charter of the Liberties to establish the supremacy of Parliament, the representative of the people, as the origin of law. A number of legal scholars have made the irrelevant point that the Magna Carter protected rights of the Church, nobles, and free men who were not enserfed, a small percentage of the population in the early 13th century. We hear the same about the US Constitution--it was something the rich did for themselves. I have no sympathy for debunking human achievements that, in the end, gave ordinary people liberty. At Runnymede in 1215 no one but the armed barons had the power and audacity to make King John submit to law. The rule of law, not the rule of the sovereign or of the executive branch in Washington acceded to by a cowardly and corrupt Congress and Supreme Court, is a human achievement that grew out of the Magna Carta over the centuries, with ups and downs of course.

Blackstone’s Commentaries in 1759 fed into the American Revolution and gave us the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

The Geneva Conventions extended the rule of law to the international arena.

Beginning with the Clinton Administration and rapidly accelerating with the
George W. Bush and Obama regimes and Tony Blair in England, the US and UK governments have run roughshod over their accountability to law.

Both the US and UK in the 21st century have gone to numerous wars illegally under the Nuremberg Standard established by the US and UK following Germany’s defeat in WWII and used to execute Germans for war crimes. The US and UK claim that unlike Germany they are immune to the very international law that they themselves established in order to punish the defeated Germans. Washington and London can bomb and murder at will, but not Germany.

Both governments illegally and unconstitutionally (the UK Constitution is unwritten) spy on their citizens, and the Bush and Obama executive branches, have eviscerated, with the complicity of Congress and the federal courts, the entirely of the US Constitution except for the Second Amendment, which is protected by the strong lobby of the National Rifle Association. If the gun control “progressives” have their way, nothing will be left of the US Constitution.

Washington and its European satellites have subordinated law to a political and economic hegemonic agenda. Just as under the heyday of colonialism when the West looted the non-white world, today the West loots its own. Greece is being looted as was Ireland, and Italy and Spain will not escape looting unless they renege on their debts and leave the EU.

Western capitalism is a looting mechanism. It loots labor. It loots the environment, and with the transpacific and transatlantic “partnerships” it will loot the sovereign law of countries. For example, France’s laws against GMOs become “restraints on trade” and subjects France to punitive law suits by Monsanto. If France doesn’t pay Monsanto the damages Monsanto claims, France is subject to punitive sanctions like Washington applies to Russia when Russia doesn’t do what Washington wants. A new slave existence is being created in front of our eyes as law ceases to be a shield of peoples and becomes a weapon in the hands of government. Eight hundred years of reform is being overturned as Washington and its vassals invade, bomb, and overthrow governments that are out of step with Washington’s agenda. Formerly self-sufficient agricultural communities are becoming wage slaves for international agribusiness corporations. Everywhere privilege is rising above law and justice is being lost. The concentration of wealth and power is reminiscent of the aristocratic era and of Rome under the Caesars. The demise of the rule of law has stripped ordinary people of security and dignity. Peoples of the world must protect themselves by acting in defense of the Great Charter’s principle that governments are accountable to law. Governments unaccountable to law are tyrannies whatever they might call themselves, no matter how exceptional and indispensable they declare themselves to be.

Monday in Westminster in London, the International Tribunal for Natural Justice is forming. If my understanding of this work of Humanitad is correct, we have a cause for hope. Perhaps the Tribunal will try the criminals of our time, almost all of which are “leaders” of Western governments, on the Internet with juries and prosecutors so that populations everywhere can witness the evil that every Western government represents. Once the West is perceived as the evil force that it is, it will have to reform and again embrace Edward Coke’s vision of the Great Charter or become an unimportant backwater while the rest of the world goes on to better things. The world is saved once the world ceases to bow down to the American Caesar.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42130.htm

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/06/13/lock-your-taps-spigot-milpitas-thieves-stealing-water-like-its-liquid-gold/

Police are warning for businesses and residents to start locking up their taps. California’s drought has gotten so bad, people are stealing water.

Thieves busted the locks on the spigots at a popular Asian shopping center on Barber Lane in Milpitas, just to get their hands on what has become liquid gold...

Police say the thieves waited until the businesses were closed and returned in the middle of the night to steal their water — and lots of it. Witnesses saw 3 or 4 water bandits prying open the small boxes that house the spigots. Then they filled up large containers with hundreds of gallons of water. The businesses discovered the theft after the property owner noticed a much higher water bill and told them...

What is the probability that the world experiences a global financial crisis similar in magnitude to the 2008 crisis within the next five years?

25% CHANCE 44% RESPONSE
50% CHANCE 23% RESPONSE
0% CHANCE 13% RESPONSE
75% CHANCE 13% RESPONSE
100% CHANCE 7% RESPONSE


Poll results are as of 8:30 a.m. EDT Wednesday with 1,309 total respondents.

PROVING OPTIMISM IS NOT DEAD

HILLARY TAKES A STAND....ON TOP OF LABOR

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/14/hillary-clinton-urges-obama-to-listen-to-democrats-on-trade-deal/

Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday urged President Obama to listen to congressional Democrats – particular the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi – and make changes to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that reflect their concerns about protecting American jobs and wages.

In her first detailed comments on the trade deal since the House of Representatives refused on Friday to allow Mr. Obama to negotiate it freely, Mrs. Clinton laid out a far more calibrated position on the deal than many Democrats and Republicans have taken. She declined to take sides on the Friday vote itself but instead allied herself with Democratic critics of the deal — without actually opposing it....


TRIANGULATION--THIRD WAY, ALL THE WAY, ALL THE TIME

DON'T THINK I COULD STAND ANY MORE OF THAT

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/14/us-eu-china-exclusive-idUSKBN0OU0H820150614

China will pledge a multi-billion dollar investment in Europe's new infrastructure fund at a summit on June 29 in Brussels, according to a draft communique seen by Reuters - Beijing's latest round of chequebook diplomacy to win greater influence. While the exact amount is still to be decided, the pledge will mark the latest step in China's efforts to shape global economic governance at the expense of the United States, and follows major EU governments' decision to join the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in defiance of Washington. It is expected to come with a request for return investment in China's westward infrastructure drive - the "One Belt, One Road" initiative - constructing major energy and communications links across Central, West and South Asia to as far as Greece.

"China announced that it would make (X amount) available for co-financing strategic investment of common interest across the EU," the draft final statement says, adding that agreements will be finalised at another meeting in September. An EU diplomat said the Chinese contribution was likely to be "in the billions". EU and Chinese officials have told Reuters that Chinese banks are looking mainly at telecoms and technology projects. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, who will attend the summit in Brussels, will agree with EU leaders that the 315 billion euro ($354.94 billion) fund will "create opportunities for China to invest in the EU, in particular in infrastructure and innovation sectors". If sealed, the deal will be a success for European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who faced scepticism last year when he proposed the European Fund for Strategic Investment (EFSI), because EU governments are putting in little seed money. France, Germany, Italy and Poland have each announced they will contribute 8 billion euros, while Spain and Luxembourg have pledged smaller contributions.

The bloc is relying mainly on private investors and development banks to fund projects selected from an initial list of almost 2,000 submitted by the 28 member states, from airports to flood defenses, that are together worth 1.3 trillion euros. A big Chinese investment might raise questions about governance of the fund, which is so far strictly a European institution. An EU diplomat said it was not known whether China would seek representation commensurate with its stake.

The decision to invite China into an EU fund could cause some friction with Washington, which is wary of Beijing's rising influence and upset that Europe rebuffed its calls to stay out of the AIIB. China is already testing the United States' dominance in Latin America, offering the region $250 billion in investment over the next decade, while Chinese companies have poured money into Africa to guarantee commodity supplies in exchange for building new roads, hospitals and rail lines. The United States and human rights groups complain that China and its firms are wielding influence partly through corruption and turning a blind eye to labor and environmental standards and human rights. Similar criticisms were long leveled at Western multinationals in developing countries.

READ IT AND WEEP

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/06/hillary-clintons-campaign-rollout-speech-the-s-s-clinton-sails-from-roosevelt-island-in-new-york-harbor.html#comment-2457578

In both my work and my volunteer roles I am often called on to wordsmith .... to help someone figure out a catchy way to say something in the hopes of motivating people.

It used to be fun ... a sort of intellectual challenge, a game.

But now I realize all I'm doing is helping liberals be ineffectual at best and dishonest at worst. The reason that wordsmithing is required is that they - by them I mean our Liberal orgs working down on the ground (in my case very ground floor labor and community groups) - they can't/won't say what we actually need because it's too radical.

Because they won't say what we really need - which IS equality and freedom from want and fear - which means at the least things like nationalized energy, health care, education, telecommunications - because they won't say these "radical" "communist" things they are reduced to trying to tweak paltry scraps into looking like warm clothes ... just like the Democrats in fact!

So no more. They will have to manage without me. I will have to find a more honest mind-game to entertain myself.

Really excellent article. Really worth reading. Thanks!

PUSH IS COMING TO SHOVE...DO THE TROIKA HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THEY ARE DOING?

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/06/greek-talks-collapse-default-looms.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29


DO THEY CARE?

WONK HEAVEN

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/06/the-operational-issues-of-a-grexit-part-two-organizational-capacity-capital-controls-and-bootstrapping-a-new-monetary-system.html

The banks and elites want to be where they can benefit to obtain the most money.

or any of that human stuff.

They are seeing their Paper Profits going up in smoke, now....panic will set in in 5...4...3...

Try this: Dow Jones Industrial Average


It is "link" https://www.google.com/search?q=djia+today&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 "/link"