Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Deck Chairs Again

Bottom 99.99974%,

Eleni sends: Exposing the Giants: The Global Elite 
Phillips identifies the 199 directors of the seventeen global financial Giants and offers short biographies and public information on their individual net wealth. These individuals are closely interconnected through numerous networks of association including the World Economic Forum, the International Monetary Conference, university affiliations, various policy councils, social clubs, and cultural enterprises...
The Giants, Phillips documents, invest in each other but also in many hundreds of investment management firms, many of which are near-Giants. This results in tens of trillions of dollars coordinated in a single vast network of global capital controlled by a very small number of people. ‘Their constant objective is to find enough safe investment opportunities for a return on capital that allows for continued growth. Inadequate capital-placement opportunities lead to dangerous speculative investments, buying up of public assets, and permanent war spending.’...
Phillips identifies two very important global elite policy-planning organizations: the Group of Thirty (which has 32 members) and the extended executive committee of the Trilateral Commission (which has 55 members). These nonprofit corporations, which each have a research and support staff, formulate elite policy and issue instructions for their implementation by the transnational governmental institutions like the G7, G20, IMF, WTO, and World Bank. Elite policies are also implemented following instruction of the relevant agent, including governments, in the context. These agents then do as they are instructed.Thus, these 85 members (because two overlap) of the Group of Thirty and the Trilateral Commission comprise a central group of facilitators of global capitalism, ensuring that‘global capital remains safe, secure, and growing’...

So what is the global elite’s purpose? In a few sentences Phillips characterizes it thus: The elite is largely united in support of the US/NATO military empire that prosecutes a repressive war against resisting groups – typically labeled ‘terrorists’ – around the world. The real purpose of ‘the war on terror’ is defense of transnational globalization, the unimpeded flow of financial capital around the world, dollar hegemony and access to oil; it has nothing to do with repressing terrorism which it generates, perpetuates and finances to provide cover for its real agenda. This is why the United States has a long history of CIA and military interventions around the world ostensibly in defense of ‘national interests’.

​India joins China in arranging mechanisms to import Iranian oil.​ (Iran will provide the ships and the insurance in both cases. If these ships are taken or destroyed, it is completely the loss of Iran. Such acts of war are certainly a consideration for the US military, Israel, etc.) China and India could use all Iran exports.

Turkey and Russia also refuse to sanction Iran. Europe is working on work-arounds, but more importantly, alliances are shifting to re-align with national interests that are not being met by the US.

Iran moved some Scudlike short range missiles into Iraq, spreading out potential targets for US/Israeli airstrikes. Israel says (what others already said) that they might go blow up those missiles in Iraq. (Surely Israeli pilots are free to bomb any country they please. What could possibly stop them?)

Ahead of the Battle Of Idleb, there are negotiations, threats, posturing and last minute arrangements. 
How much of a deal can be made? What terms? Syria will take the province. Where will 100,000 Jihadis and their families go?
HTS and its allies must have some 15-25,000 fighters, the groups aligned with Turkey may have a slightly lower number, some are locals and they are probably less willing to fight. In total the Syrian army is likely to face a force of some 30-45,000 capable and willing fighters.
What these groups currently lack is the supply of weapons and ammunition. In August 2018 not one anti-tank guided missiles was used against the Syrian army. The U.S. officially ended its supplies for the "rebels". The Gulf states have washed their hands over Idelb. It is no longer their fight. Turkey also seems to have stopped weapon supplies. Without constant resupply of anti-tank weapons and especially artillery ammunition the "rebel" groups will soon run out of the basic necessities for waging war...
The current situation can not continue. It is unconscionable to leave the 1-2 million civilians in Syria under the rule of al-Qaeda. HTS is just now arresting hundreds of civilians who want to reconcile with the government. It builds gallows as warning to not talk to the government. It executes those who do and publishes pictures of it.

On American Capitalism. It's working fine. Don't look for reform.
Capitalism isn’t broken; it’s working precisely as it’s supposed to: generating surpluses and giving all of them to a small ownership class. The New Deal and postwar prosperity, which barely lasted until 1980, represent historic outliers—the one significant period in which growth at the top was somewhat constrained and a relatively large share of wealth went to the middle.

Jim Kunstler: The Uncomfortable Hiatus:
Agri-biz style farming, based on oil-and-gas plus bank loans is a ruinous practice, and will not continue in any case. Can we make choices and policies to promote a return to smaller scale farming with intelligent methods rather than just brute industrial force plus debt? If we don’t, a lot of people will starve to death. By the way, here is the useful work for a large number of citizens currently regarded as unemployable for one reason or another.
Pervasive racketeering rules because we allow it to, especially in education and medicine. Both are self-destructing under the weight of their own money-grubbing schemes. Both are destined to be severely downscaled. A lot of colleges will go out of business. Most college loans will never be paid back (and the derivatives based on them will blow up). We need millions of small farmers more than we need millions of communications majors with a public relations minor. It may be too late for a single-payer medical system. A collapsing oil-based industrial economy means a lack of capital, and fiscal hocus-pocus is just another form of racketeering. Medicine will have to get smaller and less complex and that means local clinic-based health care. Lots of careers there, and that is where things are going, so get ready.

​How the CIA Undermined Civil Rights; Operation Chaos, and Gloria Steinem, after assassinating Martin Luther King, nuclear families and communities.
Look at the photograph. What is different about those two women? How many differences?

Senator Mark Warner: "Congress will have to set social media regulations."

GOOGLE won't be talking to the Senate, just now...
The Senate Intelligence Committee wanted to hear from Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, or his boss Larry Page, the chief executive of Google’s parent firm, Alphabet.
Barring a dramatic, last-minute change of plan, the BBC understands neither will attend. It would mark the first time a technology firm has refused to comply with the wishes of Congress since the far-reaching inquiries into misinformation and meddling began in the wake of the 2016 election.
Google had instead hoped to send Kent Walker, one of its top lawyers. The offer was abruptly shut down by the committee. Its vice chairman, the Democratic Senator Mark Warner, said an empty chair would be left out to represent Google’s non-appearance.

Bill sends a compact dietary compendium about what is wrong with the "Fat Hypothesis". Mainly, it's unfounded, wrong and leads to counterproductive actions, that are good for some entrenched business interests. [Note: Trans-Fats, like Crisco, do not occur in nature and are anti-life.]
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2018/07/03/why-saturated-fat-cannot-raise-cholesterol-levels-ldl-levels/
https://www.sott.net/article/395033-Former-longtime-editor-of-JAMA-Its-not-the-fat-that-makes-us-unhealthy
"Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, is not a cause of obesity, heart disease, or any other chronic disease of civilization."
"Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating, and not sedentary behavior."
"Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter, any more than it causes a child to grow taller."
"Expending more energy than we consume does not lead to long-term weight loss; it leads to hunger."
"Fattening and obesity are caused by an imbalance - a disequilibrium - in the hormonal regulation of adipose tissue and fat metabolism. Fat synthesis and storage exceed the mobilization of fat from the adipose tissue and its subsequent oxidation. We become leaner when the hormonal regulation of the fat tissue reverses this balance."
"Insulin is the primary regulator of fat storage. When insulin levels are elevated - either chronically or after a meal - we accumulate fat in our fat tissue. When insulin levels fall, we release fat from our fat tissue and use it for fuel."
​Carbo-American​

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