TRACI CARL | January 18, 2009 11:15 AM EST
MEXICO CITY — Indiscriminate kidnappings. Nearly daily beheadings. Gangs that mock and kill government agents.
This isn't Iraq or Pakistan. It's Mexico, which the U.S. government and a growing number of experts say is becoming one of the world's biggest security risks.
The prospect that America's southern neighbor could melt into lawlessness provides an unexpected challenge to Barack Obama's new government. In its latest report anticipating possible global security risks, the U.S. Joint Forces Command lumps Mexico and Pakistan together as being at risk of a "rapid and sudden collapse."
"The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels," the command said in the report published Nov. 25.
"How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state."
Retiring CIA chief Michael Hayden told reporters on Friday that that Mexico could rank alongside Iran as a challenge for Obama _ perhaps a greater problem than Iraq.
The U.S. Justice Department said last month that Mexican gangs are the "biggest organized crime threat to the United States." National security adviser Stephen Hadley said last week that the worsening violence threatens Mexico's very democracy.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recently told The New York Times he ordered additional border security plans to be drawn up this summer as kidnappings and killings spilled into the U.S.
The alarm is spreading to the private sector as well. Mexico, Latin America's second biggest economy and the United States' third biggest oil supplier, is one of the top 10 global risks for 2009 identified by the Eurasia Group, a New York-based consulting firm.
Mexico is brushing aside the U.S. concerns, with Interior Secretary Fernando Gomez-Mont saying Wednesday: "It seems inappropriate to me that you would call Mexico a security risk. There are problems in Mexico that are being dealt with, that we can continue to deal with, and that's what we are doing."
Still, Obama faces a dramatic turnaround compared with the last time a new U.S. president moved into the White House. When George W. Bush was elected in 2000, the nation of 110 million had just chosen Vicente Fox as president in its fairest election ever, had ended 71 years of one-party rule and was looking forward to a stable, democratic future.
Fox signaled readiness to take on the drug cartels, but plunged them into a power vacuum by arresting their leaders, and gangs have been battling each other for territory ever since.
Felipe Calderon, who succeeded Fox in 2006, immediately sent troops across the country to try to regain control. But soldiers and police are outgunned and outnumbered, and cartels have responded with unprecedented violence.
Mob murders doubled from 2007, taking more than 5,300 lives last year. The border cities of Juarez and Tijuana wake up each morning to find streets littered with mutilated, often headless bodies. Some victims are dumped outside schools. Most are just wrapped in a cheap blanket and tossed into an empty lot.
Many bodies go unclaimed because relatives are too afraid to come forward. Most killings go unsolved.
Warring cartels still control vast sections of Mexico, despite Calderon's two-year crackdown, and have spawned an all-pervasive culture of violence. No one is immune.
Businesses have closed because they can't afford to pay monthly extortion fees to local thugs. The rich have fled to the U.S. to avoid one of the world's highest kidnapping rates. Many won't leave their homes at night.
The government has launched an intensive housecleaning effort after high-level security officials were accused of being on the take from the Sinaloa cartel. And several soldiers fighting the gangs were kidnapped, beheaded and dumped in southern Mexico last month with the warning: "For every one of mine that you kill, I will kill 10."
But the U.S. government is extremely supportive of the Mexican president, recently handing over $400 million in anti-drug aid. Obama met briefly with Calderon in Washington last week and promised to fight the illegal flow south of U.S. weapons that arm the Mexican cartels.
While fewer Americans are willing to drive across the border for margaritas and handicrafts, visitors are still flocking to other parts of Mexico. And the economy seems harder hit by the global crisis than by the growing violence.
The grim assessments from north of the border got wide play in the Mexican media but came as no surprise to people here. Many said the solution lies in getting the U.S. to give more help and let in more migrant workers who might otherwise turn to the drug trade to make a living.
Otherwise the drug wars will spill ever more heavily into America, said Manuel Infante, an architect. "There is a wave of barbarity that is heading toward the U.S.," he said. "We are an uncomfortable neighbor."
Verse:
John 3:16; Jn 3:16; John 3
Keyword:
Salvation, Jesus, Gospel
With Operators:
AND, OR, NOT, “ â€
Showing posts with label North American Union. Show all posts
Showing posts with label North American Union. Show all posts
Monday, January 26, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Rescue of U.S. banks hints at nationalization
By Edmund L. Andrews
Friday, January 16, 2009
WASHINGTON: Last fall, as Federal Reserve and Treasury Department officials rode to the rescue of one financial institution after another, they took great pains to avoid doing anything that smacked of nationalizing banks.
They may no longer have that luxury. With two of the nation's largest banks buckling under yet another round of huge losses, the incoming administration of Barack Obama and the Federal Reserve are suddenly dealing with banks that are "too big to fail" and yet unable to function as the sinking economy erodes their capital.
Particularly in the case of Citigroup, the losses have become so large that they make it almost mathematically impossible for the government to inject enough capital without taking a majority stake or at least squeezing out existing shareholders.
And the new ground rules laid down by Obama's top economic advisers for the second half of the $700 billion bailout fund, as explained in a letter submitted to Congress on Thursday, call for the government to play an increasing role in the major activities of the banks, from the dividends they pay to shareholders to the amount they can pay executives.
"We are down a path that this country has not seen since Andrew Jackson shut down the Second National Bank of the United States," said Gerard Cassidy, a banking analyst at RBC Capital Markets. "We are going to go back to a time when the government controlled the banking system."
The approximately $138 billion aid package on Thursday for Bank of America — including injections of capital and absorbed losses — as well as a $300 billion package in November for Citigroup both represented displays of financial gymnastics aimed at providing capital without appearing to take commanding equity stakes.
Treasury and Fed officials accomplished that trick by structuring the deals like insurance programs for big bundles of the banks' most toxic assets.
Instead of investing tens of billions of taxpayer dollars in exchange for preferred shares in the banks, which has been the Treasury Department's approach so far with its capital infusions, the government essentially liberated the banks from some of their most threatening assets.
The trouble with the new approach, analysts say, is that it is likely to conceal the amount of risk that taxpayers are taking on. If the government-guaranteed securities turn out to be worthless, the cost of the insurance would be much higher than if the Treasury Department had simply bailed out the banks with cash in the first place.
Christopher Whalen, a managing partner at Institutional Risk Analytics, said the approach also covers up the underlying reality that the government is already essentially the majority shareholder in Citigroup.
"There's nobody else out there to invest in them," Whalen said. "We already own them."
Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, outlined the elements of what could become the Obama administration's new approach to bank rescues in a speech on Monday.
Speaking to the London School of Economics, but addressing American audiences as much as European ones, Bernanke warned that the U.S. government had no choice but to put more money into banks and other financial institutions if it had any hope of reviving the paralyzed credit markets.
Known officially as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, the rescue program has infuriated lawmakers in both parties, who complain that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. has doled out money to banks without demanding accountability in return. Obama and his top economic advisers convinced enough lawmakers that shoring up the banks was essential to preventing a broader financial collapse, and offered written assurances that they would address the lawmakers' biggest complaints.
But Bernanke proposed an array of alternative approaches to dealing with the banks in the months ahead, and all of those options reflected a fundamental shift from the original assumptions of the Bush administration.
Paulson had insisted that the government would be investing only in healthy banks, some of which might take over sicker rivals. The Treasury would invest taxpayer dollars in exchange for preferred shares, which would pay a regular dividend and come with warrants that would allow the government to profit from increases in company stock prices.
By contrast, Bernanke proposed various ways to fence off the troubled assets, from nonperforming loans to mortgage-backed securities that investors had stopped buying at almost any price.
Bernanke's options included guarantees for bank assets, which was at the heart of the rescue packages for Bank of America and Citigroup. Citigroup received its rescue package in November, but it is expected to report additional losses on Friday that could top $10 billion.
In both of those deals, the U.S. government set up a complicated arrangement that would limit the banks' losses on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of their worst assets.
Citigroup's deal in November covered $300 billion in assets. Citigroup agreed to absorb the first $29 billion in losses. The Treasury agreed to take a second round of losses up to $5 billion, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation agreed to take a third round of losses of up to $10 billion. The Federal Reserve then agreed to lend Citigroup money at low interest rates for the value of the remaining assets.
As a second option, Bernanke and other Fed officials have proposed putting a bank's impaired assets into a separate new "bad bank." The effect would be much the same as providing a federal guarantee: the bank would be able to free itself from the need to set aside reserves for extra losses.
Both the idea of a government "wrap" and a government-backed "bad bank" have the virtue of protecting the bank's common stockholders from being wiped out by the government.
By contrast, the Bush administration's original approach to recapitalizing banks — injecting capital in exchange for preferred shares with warrants to convert to common stock — had the effect of squeezing out the common shares. That was because any losses would have to first wipe out common stockholders before the bank could stop paying dividends on preferred shares.
"One of the problems with TARP has been a result of the government not wanting to own the banks," said Fred Cannon, chief equity strategist at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. "If you get losses, there is less common stock. What we are hopefully moving toward, to the extent that the government guarantees some of the assets, is a structure that protects common shareholders and allows the company to go out and raise common shares through the market."
But a growing number of analysts warned that the approach may be too clever, because it gives policy makers too many ways to conceal true problems at banks and true risks to taxpayers.
"What we have is a weird, shadow nationalization," said Karen Shaw Petrou, managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics, a consulting firm in Washington. "The government does not want to and should not want to own banks. But if they get forced into that situation, they should resolve that situation. Here, what you have is a huge diversified financial services industry with recognized losses and looming losses in every aspect of its operations. There's nothing straightforward about it."
Friday, January 16, 2009
WASHINGTON: Last fall, as Federal Reserve and Treasury Department officials rode to the rescue of one financial institution after another, they took great pains to avoid doing anything that smacked of nationalizing banks.
They may no longer have that luxury. With two of the nation's largest banks buckling under yet another round of huge losses, the incoming administration of Barack Obama and the Federal Reserve are suddenly dealing with banks that are "too big to fail" and yet unable to function as the sinking economy erodes their capital.
Particularly in the case of Citigroup, the losses have become so large that they make it almost mathematically impossible for the government to inject enough capital without taking a majority stake or at least squeezing out existing shareholders.
And the new ground rules laid down by Obama's top economic advisers for the second half of the $700 billion bailout fund, as explained in a letter submitted to Congress on Thursday, call for the government to play an increasing role in the major activities of the banks, from the dividends they pay to shareholders to the amount they can pay executives.
"We are down a path that this country has not seen since Andrew Jackson shut down the Second National Bank of the United States," said Gerard Cassidy, a banking analyst at RBC Capital Markets. "We are going to go back to a time when the government controlled the banking system."
The approximately $138 billion aid package on Thursday for Bank of America — including injections of capital and absorbed losses — as well as a $300 billion package in November for Citigroup both represented displays of financial gymnastics aimed at providing capital without appearing to take commanding equity stakes.
Treasury and Fed officials accomplished that trick by structuring the deals like insurance programs for big bundles of the banks' most toxic assets.
Instead of investing tens of billions of taxpayer dollars in exchange for preferred shares in the banks, which has been the Treasury Department's approach so far with its capital infusions, the government essentially liberated the banks from some of their most threatening assets.
The trouble with the new approach, analysts say, is that it is likely to conceal the amount of risk that taxpayers are taking on. If the government-guaranteed securities turn out to be worthless, the cost of the insurance would be much higher than if the Treasury Department had simply bailed out the banks with cash in the first place.
Christopher Whalen, a managing partner at Institutional Risk Analytics, said the approach also covers up the underlying reality that the government is already essentially the majority shareholder in Citigroup.
"There's nobody else out there to invest in them," Whalen said. "We already own them."
Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, outlined the elements of what could become the Obama administration's new approach to bank rescues in a speech on Monday.
Speaking to the London School of Economics, but addressing American audiences as much as European ones, Bernanke warned that the U.S. government had no choice but to put more money into banks and other financial institutions if it had any hope of reviving the paralyzed credit markets.
Known officially as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, the rescue program has infuriated lawmakers in both parties, who complain that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. has doled out money to banks without demanding accountability in return. Obama and his top economic advisers convinced enough lawmakers that shoring up the banks was essential to preventing a broader financial collapse, and offered written assurances that they would address the lawmakers' biggest complaints.
But Bernanke proposed an array of alternative approaches to dealing with the banks in the months ahead, and all of those options reflected a fundamental shift from the original assumptions of the Bush administration.
Paulson had insisted that the government would be investing only in healthy banks, some of which might take over sicker rivals. The Treasury would invest taxpayer dollars in exchange for preferred shares, which would pay a regular dividend and come with warrants that would allow the government to profit from increases in company stock prices.
By contrast, Bernanke proposed various ways to fence off the troubled assets, from nonperforming loans to mortgage-backed securities that investors had stopped buying at almost any price.
Bernanke's options included guarantees for bank assets, which was at the heart of the rescue packages for Bank of America and Citigroup. Citigroup received its rescue package in November, but it is expected to report additional losses on Friday that could top $10 billion.
In both of those deals, the U.S. government set up a complicated arrangement that would limit the banks' losses on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of their worst assets.
Citigroup's deal in November covered $300 billion in assets. Citigroup agreed to absorb the first $29 billion in losses. The Treasury agreed to take a second round of losses up to $5 billion, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation agreed to take a third round of losses of up to $10 billion. The Federal Reserve then agreed to lend Citigroup money at low interest rates for the value of the remaining assets.
As a second option, Bernanke and other Fed officials have proposed putting a bank's impaired assets into a separate new "bad bank." The effect would be much the same as providing a federal guarantee: the bank would be able to free itself from the need to set aside reserves for extra losses.
Both the idea of a government "wrap" and a government-backed "bad bank" have the virtue of protecting the bank's common stockholders from being wiped out by the government.
By contrast, the Bush administration's original approach to recapitalizing banks — injecting capital in exchange for preferred shares with warrants to convert to common stock — had the effect of squeezing out the common shares. That was because any losses would have to first wipe out common stockholders before the bank could stop paying dividends on preferred shares.
"One of the problems with TARP has been a result of the government not wanting to own the banks," said Fred Cannon, chief equity strategist at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. "If you get losses, there is less common stock. What we are hopefully moving toward, to the extent that the government guarantees some of the assets, is a structure that protects common shareholders and allows the company to go out and raise common shares through the market."
But a growing number of analysts warned that the approach may be too clever, because it gives policy makers too many ways to conceal true problems at banks and true risks to taxpayers.
"What we have is a weird, shadow nationalization," said Karen Shaw Petrou, managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics, a consulting firm in Washington. "The government does not want to and should not want to own banks. But if they get forced into that situation, they should resolve that situation. Here, what you have is a huge diversified financial services industry with recognized losses and looming losses in every aspect of its operations. There's nothing straightforward about it."
Sunday, October 26, 2008
The Standard of Living Bubble (And Why It’s About to Go Pop!)
Karen De Coster
Taki’s Magazine
October 26, 2008
Our representatives in Washington, alongside the easy-credit Federal Reserve and its Wise Leader, “Helicopter Ben,” have essentially subsidized a rash of misguided investments and profligate spending-sprees by consumers who’ve bought into the illusion of endless prosperity. Everyone knows about the Housing Bubble. Well, get ready for the even bigger Standard of Living Bubble, whose bursting is now upon us.
Because real wages have not been rising, the growth in consumer spending could only have been financed through borrowed money. Debt, which allows consumers to have cash on hand that hasn’t been earned or saved, has given Boobis Americanus the ability to live beyond his means, at least for a little while. And a great many have taken up this “pay later” lifestyle, accumulating a great many houses, cars, and other things.
A favored form of debt for funding extraneous purchases has been the home equity line. During the housing bubble, homes became virtual ATMs. Whereas home equity was once used for purposes of improving the home for the long-term, it became a source of quick cash for reckless buyers eager to turn their home into an instant showplace. First there’s the actual house, then comes the Martha Stewartization, followed by the furniture, the landscaping, the lighting, the additions, the appliances, and on and on.
The government’s mantra since the days of the New Deal has been the “right to own a home.” In the modern version of “the American Dream,” a starter home is treated as a humiliation, as everyone has the right to own a great, big home in an esteemed neighborhood, and preferably one of new construction and with all the bells and whistles. The term “being house poor” used to be a negative connotation. During the bubble it became a bragging right.
Even worse, home equity has been funding the purchase of everyday consumer durables, especially those items that tend to be discretionary in nature. Home equity has funded the kind of purchases that should be funded from earned, saved monies. A perpetually (and rising) line of credit induces consumers to “bite” at the availability of easy money at low rates, and thus they take the cash and spend their way to a perceived prosperity.
For the average person, “things” have become identical to wealth. They equate the accumulation of “stuff” with “being loaded.” Accordingly, everybody has been well-heeled in these bubble times. The availability of debt at bargain rates and the glory of immediate accumulation due to debt quickly erodes the values and common sense of people.
Some of the more pompous—and truly false—signs of prosperity can be seen within the automobile bubble. With the onset of the have-pulse-will-loan credit market, auto consumers have been bypassing common sense for a bloated sense of reality. Everyone deserves the biggest, the best, and the most custom vehicle they could dream up—and one’s income shouldn’t mater. People with mediocre wages purchased Escalades, Lexus SUVs, and other luxury-type vehicles, with many of these cars costing far more than the purchasers earned in a year. Additionally, the roads are now littered with brand new cars that have expensive aftermarket wheel sets, tires, boom-boom stereo systems, and gaudy-but-costly custom trim. In fact, stock, solid-transportation vehicles are no longer sufficient for the spoiled masses enjoying an overdrawn standard of living. Debt has funded the majority of these extravagant purchases, yet we call it “prosperity.”
Auto consumers have not been compelled to pay market rates for their cars because they lease perpetually at discounted rates or get ultra-incentives from automakers desperate to keep the assembly lines moving with the UAW gang breathing down their necks. Leases have been a financial disaster for the auto companies, but the wild impulses of buyers, fueled by below-market interest rates, propped up that racket long enough so that Lexus and Mercedes dealers were popping up in wholly middle-class neighborhoods. Both Chrysler and General Motors have discontinued or cut back their unworkable lease programs. Additionally, buyers have not been required to put substantial down payments on new vehicle purchases. Cars have come on the cheap, with pushed-down interest rates, no down payments, and terms extending the payment plan to six or seven years.
Accordingly, with the housing market imploding and the entire banking system resting on wilted stilts, Americans are left with a devalued dollar, escalating costs of living, a massive federal bailout of Wall Street’s derelict financial management, and the nationalization of some of the country’s largest banks. The standard-of-living squeeze has made its way to Main Street, slowing down the spend-o-rama of the middle class, as retail sales numbers are starting to hit the skids.
The bursting of this bubble and its unwinding could result in some unpleasant withdrawal symptoms. People—especially younger folks—who have been reared on the splendiferous way of life that debt offers, will be resistant to changes which will require lower time preferences (longer term views) and more careful planning in terms of shuffling around priorities. As Main Street endures a stifling credit crunch; inflation; increasing interest rates; scores of home foreclosures; cut-off of home equity lines; a job market squeeze; soaring federal, state, and local taxes; and the inability to manipulate low-interest credit cards to cover shoddy financial decisions, there will be restlessness amongst the masses, especially from those people who have never had to live within their bona fide financial means.
Some of this anxiety has been witnessed already, as lenders who are taking back homes in foreclosure have been dealt some vile vengeance from bitter homeowners who take to vandalizing their homes before they vacate the premises. This problem is said to be present in almost half of all foreclosure cases nationwide. The response from lenders has been to take the most economical path and actually pay the vacating ex-homeowner to refrain from leaving behind a trail of destruction as leaves his property.
The worst part of the contraction will clobber Main Street with a shortage of the consumer credit that became an addiction for so many individuals. The price we pay will be oodles of socialistic legislation aimed at containing the fallout in order to further sustain the fictitious prosperity a bit longer. Central planners act on the notion that the unhappy reality of hitting bottom can be delayed indefinitely. Thus the cycle of fiction will be lengthened, turning a headache into a migraine, and perhaps even worse.
The central planners in Washington, along with the Federal Reserve, planned and fueled an unsustainable standard of living across the country, from the neighborhoods of McMansions to the ghettos. The impending bust will affect us all, regardless of whether or not we partook in any of those easy-credit orgies sponsored by our leaders in Washington.
Taki’s Magazine
October 26, 2008
Our representatives in Washington, alongside the easy-credit Federal Reserve and its Wise Leader, “Helicopter Ben,” have essentially subsidized a rash of misguided investments and profligate spending-sprees by consumers who’ve bought into the illusion of endless prosperity. Everyone knows about the Housing Bubble. Well, get ready for the even bigger Standard of Living Bubble, whose bursting is now upon us.
Because real wages have not been rising, the growth in consumer spending could only have been financed through borrowed money. Debt, which allows consumers to have cash on hand that hasn’t been earned or saved, has given Boobis Americanus the ability to live beyond his means, at least for a little while. And a great many have taken up this “pay later” lifestyle, accumulating a great many houses, cars, and other things.
A favored form of debt for funding extraneous purchases has been the home equity line. During the housing bubble, homes became virtual ATMs. Whereas home equity was once used for purposes of improving the home for the long-term, it became a source of quick cash for reckless buyers eager to turn their home into an instant showplace. First there’s the actual house, then comes the Martha Stewartization, followed by the furniture, the landscaping, the lighting, the additions, the appliances, and on and on.
The government’s mantra since the days of the New Deal has been the “right to own a home.” In the modern version of “the American Dream,” a starter home is treated as a humiliation, as everyone has the right to own a great, big home in an esteemed neighborhood, and preferably one of new construction and with all the bells and whistles. The term “being house poor” used to be a negative connotation. During the bubble it became a bragging right.
Even worse, home equity has been funding the purchase of everyday consumer durables, especially those items that tend to be discretionary in nature. Home equity has funded the kind of purchases that should be funded from earned, saved monies. A perpetually (and rising) line of credit induces consumers to “bite” at the availability of easy money at low rates, and thus they take the cash and spend their way to a perceived prosperity.
For the average person, “things” have become identical to wealth. They equate the accumulation of “stuff” with “being loaded.” Accordingly, everybody has been well-heeled in these bubble times. The availability of debt at bargain rates and the glory of immediate accumulation due to debt quickly erodes the values and common sense of people.
Some of the more pompous—and truly false—signs of prosperity can be seen within the automobile bubble. With the onset of the have-pulse-will-loan credit market, auto consumers have been bypassing common sense for a bloated sense of reality. Everyone deserves the biggest, the best, and the most custom vehicle they could dream up—and one’s income shouldn’t mater. People with mediocre wages purchased Escalades, Lexus SUVs, and other luxury-type vehicles, with many of these cars costing far more than the purchasers earned in a year. Additionally, the roads are now littered with brand new cars that have expensive aftermarket wheel sets, tires, boom-boom stereo systems, and gaudy-but-costly custom trim. In fact, stock, solid-transportation vehicles are no longer sufficient for the spoiled masses enjoying an overdrawn standard of living. Debt has funded the majority of these extravagant purchases, yet we call it “prosperity.”
Auto consumers have not been compelled to pay market rates for their cars because they lease perpetually at discounted rates or get ultra-incentives from automakers desperate to keep the assembly lines moving with the UAW gang breathing down their necks. Leases have been a financial disaster for the auto companies, but the wild impulses of buyers, fueled by below-market interest rates, propped up that racket long enough so that Lexus and Mercedes dealers were popping up in wholly middle-class neighborhoods. Both Chrysler and General Motors have discontinued or cut back their unworkable lease programs. Additionally, buyers have not been required to put substantial down payments on new vehicle purchases. Cars have come on the cheap, with pushed-down interest rates, no down payments, and terms extending the payment plan to six or seven years.
Accordingly, with the housing market imploding and the entire banking system resting on wilted stilts, Americans are left with a devalued dollar, escalating costs of living, a massive federal bailout of Wall Street’s derelict financial management, and the nationalization of some of the country’s largest banks. The standard-of-living squeeze has made its way to Main Street, slowing down the spend-o-rama of the middle class, as retail sales numbers are starting to hit the skids.
The bursting of this bubble and its unwinding could result in some unpleasant withdrawal symptoms. People—especially younger folks—who have been reared on the splendiferous way of life that debt offers, will be resistant to changes which will require lower time preferences (longer term views) and more careful planning in terms of shuffling around priorities. As Main Street endures a stifling credit crunch; inflation; increasing interest rates; scores of home foreclosures; cut-off of home equity lines; a job market squeeze; soaring federal, state, and local taxes; and the inability to manipulate low-interest credit cards to cover shoddy financial decisions, there will be restlessness amongst the masses, especially from those people who have never had to live within their bona fide financial means.
Some of this anxiety has been witnessed already, as lenders who are taking back homes in foreclosure have been dealt some vile vengeance from bitter homeowners who take to vandalizing their homes before they vacate the premises. This problem is said to be present in almost half of all foreclosure cases nationwide. The response from lenders has been to take the most economical path and actually pay the vacating ex-homeowner to refrain from leaving behind a trail of destruction as leaves his property.
The worst part of the contraction will clobber Main Street with a shortage of the consumer credit that became an addiction for so many individuals. The price we pay will be oodles of socialistic legislation aimed at containing the fallout in order to further sustain the fictitious prosperity a bit longer. Central planners act on the notion that the unhappy reality of hitting bottom can be delayed indefinitely. Thus the cycle of fiction will be lengthened, turning a headache into a migraine, and perhaps even worse.
The central planners in Washington, along with the Federal Reserve, planned and fueled an unsustainable standard of living across the country, from the neighborhoods of McMansions to the ghettos. The impending bust will affect us all, regardless of whether or not we partook in any of those easy-credit orgies sponsored by our leaders in Washington.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Biden to Supporters: "Gird Your Loins", For the Next President "It's Like Cleaning Augean Stables"
October 20, 2008 7:35 AM
ABC News' Matthew Jaffe Reports: Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., on Sunday guaranteed that if elected, Sen. Barack Obama., D-Ill., will be tested by an international crisis within his first six months in power and he will need supporters to stand by him as he makes tough, and possibly unpopular, decisions.
"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."
"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."
Not only will the next administration have to deal with foreign affairs issues, Biden warned, but also with the current economic crisis.
"Gird your loins," Biden told the crowd. "We're gonna win with your help, God willing, we're gonna win, but this is not gonna be an easy ride. This president, the next president, is gonna be left with the most significant task. It's like cleaning the Augean stables, man. This is more than just, this is more than – think about it, literally, think about it – this is more than just a capital crisis, this is more than just markets. This is a systemic problem we have with this economy."
The Delaware lawmaker managed to rake in an estimated $1 million total from his two money hauls at the downtown Sheraton, the same hotel where four years ago Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., clinched the Democratic nomination. Despite warning about the difficulties the next administration will face, Biden said the Democratic ticket is equipped to meet the challenges head on.
"I've forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues know, so I'm not being falsely humble with you. I think I can be value added, but this guy has it," the Senate Foreign Relations chairman said of Obama. "This guy has it. But he's gonna need your help. Because I promise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going, 'Oh my God, why are they there in the polls? Why is the polling so down? Why is this thing so tough?' We're gonna have to make some incredibly tough decisions in the first two years. So I'm asking you now, I'm asking you now, be prepared to stick with us. Remember the faith you had at this point because you're going to have to reinforce us."
"There are gonna be a lot of you who want to go, 'Whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don't know about that decision'," Biden continued. "Because if you think the decision is sound when they're made, which I believe you will when they're made, they're not likely to be as popular as they are sound. Because if they're popular, they're probably not sound."
Biden emphasized that the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border is of particular concern, with Osama bin Laden "alive and well" and Pakistan "bristling with nuclear weapons."
"You literally can see what these kids are up against, our kids in that region," Biden said in recalling when his helicopter was forced down due to a snowstorm there. "The place is crawling with al Qaeda. And it's real."
"We do not have the military capacity, nor have we ever, quite frankly, in the last 20 years, to dictate outcomes," he cautioned. "It's so much more important than that. It's so much more complicated than that. And Barack gets it."
After speaking for just over a quarter of an hour, Biden noticed the media presence in the back of the small ballroom.
"I probably shouldn't have said all this because it dawned on me that the press is here," he joked.
"All kidding aside, these guys have left us in a God-awful place," he then said of the Bush regime, promptly wrapping up his remarks. "We have the ability to straighten it out. It's gonna take a little bit of time, so I ask you to stay with us. Stay with us."
ABC News' Matthew Jaffe Reports: Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., on Sunday guaranteed that if elected, Sen. Barack Obama., D-Ill., will be tested by an international crisis within his first six months in power and he will need supporters to stand by him as he makes tough, and possibly unpopular, decisions.
"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."
"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."
Not only will the next administration have to deal with foreign affairs issues, Biden warned, but also with the current economic crisis.
"Gird your loins," Biden told the crowd. "We're gonna win with your help, God willing, we're gonna win, but this is not gonna be an easy ride. This president, the next president, is gonna be left with the most significant task. It's like cleaning the Augean stables, man. This is more than just, this is more than – think about it, literally, think about it – this is more than just a capital crisis, this is more than just markets. This is a systemic problem we have with this economy."
The Delaware lawmaker managed to rake in an estimated $1 million total from his two money hauls at the downtown Sheraton, the same hotel where four years ago Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., clinched the Democratic nomination. Despite warning about the difficulties the next administration will face, Biden said the Democratic ticket is equipped to meet the challenges head on.
"I've forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues know, so I'm not being falsely humble with you. I think I can be value added, but this guy has it," the Senate Foreign Relations chairman said of Obama. "This guy has it. But he's gonna need your help. Because I promise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going, 'Oh my God, why are they there in the polls? Why is the polling so down? Why is this thing so tough?' We're gonna have to make some incredibly tough decisions in the first two years. So I'm asking you now, I'm asking you now, be prepared to stick with us. Remember the faith you had at this point because you're going to have to reinforce us."
"There are gonna be a lot of you who want to go, 'Whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don't know about that decision'," Biden continued. "Because if you think the decision is sound when they're made, which I believe you will when they're made, they're not likely to be as popular as they are sound. Because if they're popular, they're probably not sound."
Biden emphasized that the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border is of particular concern, with Osama bin Laden "alive and well" and Pakistan "bristling with nuclear weapons."
"You literally can see what these kids are up against, our kids in that region," Biden said in recalling when his helicopter was forced down due to a snowstorm there. "The place is crawling with al Qaeda. And it's real."
"We do not have the military capacity, nor have we ever, quite frankly, in the last 20 years, to dictate outcomes," he cautioned. "It's so much more important than that. It's so much more complicated than that. And Barack gets it."
After speaking for just over a quarter of an hour, Biden noticed the media presence in the back of the small ballroom.
"I probably shouldn't have said all this because it dawned on me that the press is here," he joked.
"All kidding aside, these guys have left us in a God-awful place," he then said of the Bush regime, promptly wrapping up his remarks. "We have the ability to straighten it out. It's gonna take a little bit of time, so I ask you to stay with us. Stay with us."
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Toward a new North America
Margret Kopala
The Ottawa Citizen
Saturday, August 23, 2008
The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) is dead. Long live the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America.
After NAFTA, the SPP has been the most significant development in North American integration, so its imminent death and potential resurrection seem strangely out of step. Yet this is the only conclusion possible reading "The Future of North America: Replacing a Bad Neighbour Policy," which appears in the July/August edition of Foreign Affairs.
Published by the prestigious American Council on Foreign Relations, it is the latest in a series of articles and books written by Robert A. Pastor. The intellectual father of what former U.S. ambassador Paul Celucci has indicated will in 10 to 15 years be a "union in everything but name ..." says North American integration has stalled and that last April's summit meeting between the leaders of Mexico, the U.S. and Canada was probably the last hurrah for the SPP.
"The strategy of acting on technical issues in an incremental, bureaucratic way, and of keeping the issues away from public view, has generated more suspicion than accomplishments." Following his inauguration and discussions with his two closest neighbours, "(t)he new president will probably discard the SPP."
The European Union became a reality in 1993. Inevitably, someone would fashion a template and provide the road map to achieving something similar in North America. That someone would be a well-connected Harvard political scientist who served in various postings in Latin America and whose response to the peso crisis of 1994 was Towards a North American Community: Lessons from the Old World for the New. NAFTA, Robert Pastor argued in this 2001 publication, lacked the institutional mechanisms to address such serious crises. But before anyone could read it, 9/11 intervened.
Languishing in the devastation of 9/11, the template needed resuscitation. Fortuitously, heightened security needs would be its life saver. The Canadian Council of Chief Executives, the Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales and the Council on Foreign Relations combined forces to create the necessary task force.
Under the co-chairmanships of John P. Manley, Pedro Aspe and William F. Weld, with Thomas P. d'Aquino, Andres Rozental and Robert A. Pastor as vice-chairs, the task force produced "Creating a North American Community," whose recommendations drew heavily on Pastor's book. They included the "establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community" with a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter as well as the development of a customs union, common market, investment fund, energy strategy, a set of regulatory standards, and an advisory council, to name a few. Absent was Pastor's recommendation for the creation of a common currency he called the "amero."
Barely two months earlier in March of 2005, the SPP, anticipating many of these themes, had been announced at the Three Amigos summit in Waco, Texas. By 2007 and 2008, the Three Amigos were met by organized anti-continentalization forces. With CNN's Lou Dobbs leading the charge, their anti-NAFTA incantations reached even into the Democratic nomination race.
Now, replete with instructions for America's incoming president, Pastor is fighting back. Dismantling trade and investment barriers, NAFTA succeeded in what it was designed to do, he argues in The Future of North America. U.S. trade with Canada and Mexico has tripled from $341 billion in 1993 to more than $1 trillion in 2007. Inward direct investment quintupled and, in Mexico, increased tenfold between 1990 and 2005. "North America, not Europe, is now the largest free-trade area in the world in terms of gross product."
But rather than build on the success of NAFTA, the last eight years were reduced to a North American game of Scrabble with new acronyms purporting to be initiatives while growth in trade has diminished, wait times at the border have lengthened and public opinion toward integration has deteriorated "in part because the U.S. failed to comply with NAFTA on issues ... like trucking (in Mexico) and softwood lumber (in Canada)."
Instead of refighting the NAFTA debate, the new president should lay the foundation for a new North America. He can do this, Pastor says, by negotiating a customs union, by creating a North American Commission and a North American investment fund, among other initiatives.
Margret Kopala's column on western perspectives appears every other week.
The Ottawa Citizen
Saturday, August 23, 2008
The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) is dead. Long live the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America.
After NAFTA, the SPP has been the most significant development in North American integration, so its imminent death and potential resurrection seem strangely out of step. Yet this is the only conclusion possible reading "The Future of North America: Replacing a Bad Neighbour Policy," which appears in the July/August edition of Foreign Affairs.
Published by the prestigious American Council on Foreign Relations, it is the latest in a series of articles and books written by Robert A. Pastor. The intellectual father of what former U.S. ambassador Paul Celucci has indicated will in 10 to 15 years be a "union in everything but name ..." says North American integration has stalled and that last April's summit meeting between the leaders of Mexico, the U.S. and Canada was probably the last hurrah for the SPP.
"The strategy of acting on technical issues in an incremental, bureaucratic way, and of keeping the issues away from public view, has generated more suspicion than accomplishments." Following his inauguration and discussions with his two closest neighbours, "(t)he new president will probably discard the SPP."
The European Union became a reality in 1993. Inevitably, someone would fashion a template and provide the road map to achieving something similar in North America. That someone would be a well-connected Harvard political scientist who served in various postings in Latin America and whose response to the peso crisis of 1994 was Towards a North American Community: Lessons from the Old World for the New. NAFTA, Robert Pastor argued in this 2001 publication, lacked the institutional mechanisms to address such serious crises. But before anyone could read it, 9/11 intervened.
Languishing in the devastation of 9/11, the template needed resuscitation. Fortuitously, heightened security needs would be its life saver. The Canadian Council of Chief Executives, the Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales and the Council on Foreign Relations combined forces to create the necessary task force.
Under the co-chairmanships of John P. Manley, Pedro Aspe and William F. Weld, with Thomas P. d'Aquino, Andres Rozental and Robert A. Pastor as vice-chairs, the task force produced "Creating a North American Community," whose recommendations drew heavily on Pastor's book. They included the "establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community" with a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter as well as the development of a customs union, common market, investment fund, energy strategy, a set of regulatory standards, and an advisory council, to name a few. Absent was Pastor's recommendation for the creation of a common currency he called the "amero."
Barely two months earlier in March of 2005, the SPP, anticipating many of these themes, had been announced at the Three Amigos summit in Waco, Texas. By 2007 and 2008, the Three Amigos were met by organized anti-continentalization forces. With CNN's Lou Dobbs leading the charge, their anti-NAFTA incantations reached even into the Democratic nomination race.
Now, replete with instructions for America's incoming president, Pastor is fighting back. Dismantling trade and investment barriers, NAFTA succeeded in what it was designed to do, he argues in The Future of North America. U.S. trade with Canada and Mexico has tripled from $341 billion in 1993 to more than $1 trillion in 2007. Inward direct investment quintupled and, in Mexico, increased tenfold between 1990 and 2005. "North America, not Europe, is now the largest free-trade area in the world in terms of gross product."
But rather than build on the success of NAFTA, the last eight years were reduced to a North American game of Scrabble with new acronyms purporting to be initiatives while growth in trade has diminished, wait times at the border have lengthened and public opinion toward integration has deteriorated "in part because the U.S. failed to comply with NAFTA on issues ... like trucking (in Mexico) and softwood lumber (in Canada)."
Instead of refighting the NAFTA debate, the new president should lay the foundation for a new North America. He can do this, Pastor says, by negotiating a customs union, by creating a North American Commission and a North American investment fund, among other initiatives.
Margret Kopala's column on western perspectives appears every other week.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
European Union Appeals To Kentucky To Stop Executions
POSTED: 7:00 pm EDT April 26, 2008
UPDATED: 7:27 pm EDT April 26, 2008
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Union has appealed to Kentucky's governor to commute the execution of a man convicted of killing a police officer.
The EU protested a decision a week ago by the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the continued use of lethal injection as a means for carrying out the death penalty.
The EU also restated its opposition to capital punishment.
It was the second such direct EU appeal in less than a year.
The union also called on Texas' governor to impose a moratorium on capital punishment.
The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for American states to end a seven-month pause in executions by approving the most widely used method of lethal injection.
UPDATED: 7:27 pm EDT April 26, 2008
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Union has appealed to Kentucky's governor to commute the execution of a man convicted of killing a police officer.
The EU protested a decision a week ago by the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the continued use of lethal injection as a means for carrying out the death penalty.
The EU also restated its opposition to capital punishment.
It was the second such direct EU appeal in less than a year.
The union also called on Texas' governor to impose a moratorium on capital punishment.
The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for American states to end a seven-month pause in executions by approving the most widely used method of lethal injection.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
McCain: Foot Soldier in New World Order
April 15, 2008 10:00 AM EST
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Since the stinging defeat of the McCain-Kennedy comprehensive amnesty bill, Senator McCain has begrudgingly paid lip service on the campaign trail to Americans concerned about illegal immigration. Chanting his new mantra that he gets it and we must secure the borders first, he has avoided discussing his plans for amnesty. His dubious promises on border security have clearly been intended to manipulate conservative voters, the same voters he treats with obvious disdain and condescension. Mocking Ronald Reagan's conservatism, McCain has even declared himself a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution, a reference surely prompting our fortieth president to turn over in his grave!
McCain's World Affairs speech must rightfully be considered his coming out speech in which he unflinchingly revealed his true globalist nature and his mission as a foot soldier in the New World Order. Thanks to his arrogance, which likely propelled him to openly disclose his One World vision, we have been given a chance to reconsider McCain as the Republican nominee and possible President of the United States. We can only hope that his words will be his undoing.
McCain boldly declared, We have to strengthen our global alliances as the core of a new global compact -- a League of Democracies¦.. and we must also lead by¦ creating the new international institutions necessary to advance the peace and freedoms we cherish. [1] The obvious question is haven't we had enough of the massively corrupt United Nations and other international institutions trampling on U.S. sovereignty, interfering in American policy, and draining the life-blood from our country? What has the U.N. accomplished in its 60-year existence other than the largest theft in world history with the oil-for-food program and turning its back on the Darfur, Rwandan and other genocides? With moral leadership, why can't the U.S. be an upstanding citizen of our world without becoming ensnared in new international treaties that would forever alter the guardian of our republic, the Constitution?
Even more frightening is what McCain has in store for America right here at home. As president, McCain will be in a position to fulfill his directives for dissolving America's sovereignty. With globalization, our hemisphere has grown closer, more integrated, and more interdependent¦.. Americans north and south share a common geography and a common destiny. The countries of Latin America are the natural partners of the United States, and our northern neighbor Canada¦. Relations with our southern neighbors must be governed by mutual respect, not by an imperial impulse or by anti-American demagoguery. The promise of North, Central, and South American life is too great for that. I believe the Americas can and must be the model for a new 21st century relationship between North and South. Ours can be the first completely democratic hemisphere, where trade is free across all borders, where the rule of law and the power of free markets advance the security and prosperity of all. [1]
Common destiny? Are we to accept Senator McCain's 21st century utopian desire to join the U.S. with our neighbor to the south, Mexico, one of the most corrupt, crime-ridden and lawless nations on the planet? [2,3] While we may share a common border, we absolutely do not share a common culture, nor do we share a common destiny.
Make no mistake. If granted the power of the presidency, McCain will strive to dismantle the sovereignty of the United States of America. This unashamed and unabashed defender of NAFTA [4] will follow in the footsteps of previous administrations to further the integration of the U.S., Canada and Mexico under the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) into a homogenized North American hemisphere, complete with a North American Parliament and court system. This plan is being openly promoted by many such as former U.S. Congressman David Bonior [5-7], former Mexican President Vicente Fox [8], academics [9-12], and numerous think-tanks [9, 13, 14].
The end results will be the wiping out of national borders and our self-determination, and ultimately the subordination of our precious Constitution, the guarantor of our liberties, to a North American superstate similar to the European Union (EU). Ask the Brits or French how they like being voiceless citizens of the EU, ruled by unelected bureaucrats, their national heritage and history drowned out by a sea of third world immigrants, and having the Reform Treaty, [15] a.k.a., the EU Constitution, shoved down their collective throats without national referenda . Will we allow the same to happen here under a President McCain?
More than a million American heroes have lost their lives to keep America free. They surely did not die for a North American Union!
In McCain's 25-year tenure in the United States House and Senate, he has shown little or no respect for the Constitutional rights and freedoms of Americans. Instead, he has teamed up with America-hating globalists like George Soros to squash our first amendment right to free speech via McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform [16], and attempted to destroy our second amendment rights through the McCain-Lieberman Gun Show Control bill [17]. Neither has McCain shown any commitment to preserve American sovereignty or to protect American taxpayers. Instead, he continues to be a proponent of amnesty for illegal aliens, going so far as to enlist to his campaign Juan Hernandez, former Mexican government cabinet member and amnesty and open borders advocate, for the purpose of carrying McCain's message to the Hispanic population as his Hispanic Outreach Director [18]. While trumpeting fiscal conservatism and earmark reform, McCain has remained mute on the budget-busting price tag for amnesty, projected to be at least $2.6 trillion for entitlement, health care and other programs required to support 12 million illegal aliens [19]. Can you say endless tax increases? Meanwhile, border security has been barely a blip on the radar screen of this self-appointed national security expert, despite repeated Mexican military incursions onto U.S. soil, virtually unchecked human trafficking and drug smuggling, and escalating violence and kidnappings of his own Arizona constituents along our border with Mexico.
Since the SPP was launched in 2005 by President Bush, President Fox of Mexico and Prime Minister Martin of Canada [20], McCain, together with Senators on both sides of the aisle, has sponsored multiple pieces of amnesty and border legislation [21]. Had these bills passed, a little-known provision would have initiated binational health care infrastructure and health insurance with Mexico. A second provision would have mandated the securing of Mexico's southern border, not ours, thus implementing a common North American security perimeter, a critical goal outlined in the Council on Foreign Relations task force report, Building a North American Community [9]. Following the failure of this provision to be made law, the Merida Initiative, a $1.4 billion aid package to Mexico rumored to include the securing of Mexico's southern border, was announced by President Bush but has not received Congressional approval to date [22].
In this presidential race, there is no lesser of the evils. We are being presented with a triple threat and each choice is equally dangerous. Yet, Congressional gridlock seems more probable with a Democrat as President, while Republicans in Congress would likely roll over for John McCain. Regardless, a McCain Presidency would be an unmitigated disaster for our country. With no hope for the top of the ticket, Americans must carefully choose Senators and Congressmen who will have the courage to stop the next President from advancing a dangerous agenda.
Knowing McCain's dark history, his desire for power, and his vision for the destruction of America he so boldly revealed, will patriotic Americans make this devout foot soldier in the New World Order the next Commander-In-Chief? If McCain swears to uphold the Constitution of the United States in his oath of office with his hand upon the Bible, will his words be nothing more than bald-faced lies?
Â
Since the stinging defeat of the McCain-Kennedy comprehensive amnesty bill, Senator McCain has begrudgingly paid lip service on the campaign trail to Americans concerned about illegal immigration. Chanting his new mantra that he gets it and we must secure the borders first, he has avoided discussing his plans for amnesty. His dubious promises on border security have clearly been intended to manipulate conservative voters, the same voters he treats with obvious disdain and condescension. Mocking Ronald Reagan's conservatism, McCain has even declared himself a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution, a reference surely prompting our fortieth president to turn over in his grave!
McCain's World Affairs speech must rightfully be considered his coming out speech in which he unflinchingly revealed his true globalist nature and his mission as a foot soldier in the New World Order. Thanks to his arrogance, which likely propelled him to openly disclose his One World vision, we have been given a chance to reconsider McCain as the Republican nominee and possible President of the United States. We can only hope that his words will be his undoing.
McCain boldly declared, We have to strengthen our global alliances as the core of a new global compact -- a League of Democracies¦.. and we must also lead by¦ creating the new international institutions necessary to advance the peace and freedoms we cherish. [1] The obvious question is haven't we had enough of the massively corrupt United Nations and other international institutions trampling on U.S. sovereignty, interfering in American policy, and draining the life-blood from our country? What has the U.N. accomplished in its 60-year existence other than the largest theft in world history with the oil-for-food program and turning its back on the Darfur, Rwandan and other genocides? With moral leadership, why can't the U.S. be an upstanding citizen of our world without becoming ensnared in new international treaties that would forever alter the guardian of our republic, the Constitution?
Even more frightening is what McCain has in store for America right here at home. As president, McCain will be in a position to fulfill his directives for dissolving America's sovereignty. With globalization, our hemisphere has grown closer, more integrated, and more interdependent¦.. Americans north and south share a common geography and a common destiny. The countries of Latin America are the natural partners of the United States, and our northern neighbor Canada¦. Relations with our southern neighbors must be governed by mutual respect, not by an imperial impulse or by anti-American demagoguery. The promise of North, Central, and South American life is too great for that. I believe the Americas can and must be the model for a new 21st century relationship between North and South. Ours can be the first completely democratic hemisphere, where trade is free across all borders, where the rule of law and the power of free markets advance the security and prosperity of all. [1]
Common destiny? Are we to accept Senator McCain's 21st century utopian desire to join the U.S. with our neighbor to the south, Mexico, one of the most corrupt, crime-ridden and lawless nations on the planet? [2,3] While we may share a common border, we absolutely do not share a common culture, nor do we share a common destiny.
Make no mistake. If granted the power of the presidency, McCain will strive to dismantle the sovereignty of the United States of America. This unashamed and unabashed defender of NAFTA [4] will follow in the footsteps of previous administrations to further the integration of the U.S., Canada and Mexico under the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) into a homogenized North American hemisphere, complete with a North American Parliament and court system. This plan is being openly promoted by many such as former U.S. Congressman David Bonior [5-7], former Mexican President Vicente Fox [8], academics [9-12], and numerous think-tanks [9, 13, 14].
The end results will be the wiping out of national borders and our self-determination, and ultimately the subordination of our precious Constitution, the guarantor of our liberties, to a North American superstate similar to the European Union (EU). Ask the Brits or French how they like being voiceless citizens of the EU, ruled by unelected bureaucrats, their national heritage and history drowned out by a sea of third world immigrants, and having the Reform Treaty, [15] a.k.a., the EU Constitution, shoved down their collective throats without national referenda . Will we allow the same to happen here under a President McCain?
More than a million American heroes have lost their lives to keep America free. They surely did not die for a North American Union!
In McCain's 25-year tenure in the United States House and Senate, he has shown little or no respect for the Constitutional rights and freedoms of Americans. Instead, he has teamed up with America-hating globalists like George Soros to squash our first amendment right to free speech via McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform [16], and attempted to destroy our second amendment rights through the McCain-Lieberman Gun Show Control bill [17]. Neither has McCain shown any commitment to preserve American sovereignty or to protect American taxpayers. Instead, he continues to be a proponent of amnesty for illegal aliens, going so far as to enlist to his campaign Juan Hernandez, former Mexican government cabinet member and amnesty and open borders advocate, for the purpose of carrying McCain's message to the Hispanic population as his Hispanic Outreach Director [18]. While trumpeting fiscal conservatism and earmark reform, McCain has remained mute on the budget-busting price tag for amnesty, projected to be at least $2.6 trillion for entitlement, health care and other programs required to support 12 million illegal aliens [19]. Can you say endless tax increases? Meanwhile, border security has been barely a blip on the radar screen of this self-appointed national security expert, despite repeated Mexican military incursions onto U.S. soil, virtually unchecked human trafficking and drug smuggling, and escalating violence and kidnappings of his own Arizona constituents along our border with Mexico.
Since the SPP was launched in 2005 by President Bush, President Fox of Mexico and Prime Minister Martin of Canada [20], McCain, together with Senators on both sides of the aisle, has sponsored multiple pieces of amnesty and border legislation [21]. Had these bills passed, a little-known provision would have initiated binational health care infrastructure and health insurance with Mexico. A second provision would have mandated the securing of Mexico's southern border, not ours, thus implementing a common North American security perimeter, a critical goal outlined in the Council on Foreign Relations task force report, Building a North American Community [9]. Following the failure of this provision to be made law, the Merida Initiative, a $1.4 billion aid package to Mexico rumored to include the securing of Mexico's southern border, was announced by President Bush but has not received Congressional approval to date [22].
In this presidential race, there is no lesser of the evils. We are being presented with a triple threat and each choice is equally dangerous. Yet, Congressional gridlock seems more probable with a Democrat as President, while Republicans in Congress would likely roll over for John McCain. Regardless, a McCain Presidency would be an unmitigated disaster for our country. With no hope for the top of the ticket, Americans must carefully choose Senators and Congressmen who will have the courage to stop the next President from advancing a dangerous agenda.
Knowing McCain's dark history, his desire for power, and his vision for the destruction of America he so boldly revealed, will patriotic Americans make this devout foot soldier in the New World Order the next Commander-In-Chief? If McCain swears to uphold the Constitution of the United States in his oath of office with his hand upon the Bible, will his words be nothing more than bald-faced lies?
Saturday, April 12, 2008
North American Union: It's the real deal
PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM
Phyllis Schlafly uses promoters own words to argue for existence of merger plans
Posted: April 11, 2008
1:00 am Eastern
By Phyllis Schlafly
Ever since former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton proclaimed that she and her husband were the victims of a "vast right-wing conspiracy," "conspiracy" has been the hot word used to ridicule your opponents.
When President George W. Bush wanted to avoid answering questions about whether the Security and Prosperity Partnership is the prelude to a North American Union connected by a three-country superhighway, he accused SPP critics of believing in a conspiracy.
By definition, conspiracies are usually secret. There's nothing secret about right-wingers organizing to criticize the Clintons and their goals, and there's nothing secret about plans to morph the United States into a North American Union.
The elites, however, must be feeling the heat. Following the Hudson Institute's helpful suggestion to change the name of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, the fourth annual SPP meeting to be held in New Orleans on April 21 will now be called the North American Leaders Summit, and the promoters of the TransTexas Corridor are trying to change its name to "regional loop."
To see what the elites are planning, you don't have peek through keyholes or plant a spy under the table. Just read their published reports.
(Column continues below)
The words most frequently used to describe their goals are "economic integration," "labor mobility," "free movement of goods, services and people across open borders," and "harmonization" of regulations.
The Council on Foreign Relations published a major report May 17, 2005, only two months after the Security and Prosperity Partnership was announced by President Bush, then-Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas, on March 23, 2005. The Council on Foreign Relations document explaining SPP's goals and methodology was posted on the U.S. State Department website, thereby confirming its authenticity.
The report explains that the three SPP amigos at Waco "committed their governments" to "Building a North American Community" by 2010 with a common "outer security perimeter," "the extension of full labor mobility to Mexico," allowing Mexican trucks "unlimited access," "totalization" of illegal immigrants into the U.S. Social Security system, and "a permanent tribunal for North American dispute resolution."
The prestigious Center for Strategic & International Studies published a report in 2007 called "North American Future 2025 Project." It advocates "economic integration," the "free flow of people across national borders" and "policies that integrate governments."
The CSIS report even calls for "harmonizing legislation" on intellectual property rights with other countries. That's a direct attack on our U.S. patent system, which is the key to U.S. leadership in inventions and innovation.
The Hudson Institute published a 35-page white paper in 2007 called "Negotiating North America: The Security and Prosperity Partnership." It states that SPP is the vehicle "for economic integration" with Mexico and Canada and even "combines an agenda with a political commitment."
The white paper explains that SPP's "design" is for the executive branch to exercise full "authority" to "enforce and execute" whatever is decided by a three-nation agreement of "civil service professionals" as though it were "law." That means evading treaty ratification and even congressional legislation and oversight.
Don't forget the importance of the Wall Street Journal and its longtime, very influential editorial-page editor, the late Robert Bartley. When Mexico's Fox called for NAFTA to evolve into something like the European Union, Bartley wrote: "There is one voice north of the Rio Grande that supports his vision. To wit, this newspaper."
In his book "Post-Capitalist Society," influential business writer Peter F. Drucker wrote, "The economic integration of the three countries into one region is proceeding so fast that it will make little difference whether the marriage is sanctified legally or not."
When Larry King asked Fox about plans for a "Latin America united with one currency," Fox answered in the affirmative. He said that one currency was part of the "vision" of the Free Trade Area of the Americas that Bush agreed to in the Declaration of Quebec City in 2001.
So now we know why the Bush administration won't build a fence to interfere with "labor mobility" across open borders. Now we know why Bush won't pardon former Border Patrol agents Ignatio Ramos and Jose Compean, while winking at the prosecutor's deal to give immunity to a professional drug smuggler.
Now we know why Bush thumbed his nose at the overwhelming congressional votes (411-3 in the House and 75-23 in the Senate) to exclude Mexican trucks from U.S. roads. Now we know why Bush has been more persistent in pursuing "totalization" to put illegal immigrants into Social Security than to promote his proposal to privatize a small part of Social Security for U.S. citizens.
This is no conspiracy. It's all part of the "economic integration" of the North American countries that's been openly talked about for years.
Phyllis Schlafly uses promoters own words to argue for existence of merger plans
Posted: April 11, 2008
1:00 am Eastern
By Phyllis Schlafly
Ever since former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton proclaimed that she and her husband were the victims of a "vast right-wing conspiracy," "conspiracy" has been the hot word used to ridicule your opponents.
When President George W. Bush wanted to avoid answering questions about whether the Security and Prosperity Partnership is the prelude to a North American Union connected by a three-country superhighway, he accused SPP critics of believing in a conspiracy.
By definition, conspiracies are usually secret. There's nothing secret about right-wingers organizing to criticize the Clintons and their goals, and there's nothing secret about plans to morph the United States into a North American Union.
The elites, however, must be feeling the heat. Following the Hudson Institute's helpful suggestion to change the name of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, the fourth annual SPP meeting to be held in New Orleans on April 21 will now be called the North American Leaders Summit, and the promoters of the TransTexas Corridor are trying to change its name to "regional loop."
To see what the elites are planning, you don't have peek through keyholes or plant a spy under the table. Just read their published reports.
(Column continues below)
The words most frequently used to describe their goals are "economic integration," "labor mobility," "free movement of goods, services and people across open borders," and "harmonization" of regulations.
The Council on Foreign Relations published a major report May 17, 2005, only two months after the Security and Prosperity Partnership was announced by President Bush, then-Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas, on March 23, 2005. The Council on Foreign Relations document explaining SPP's goals and methodology was posted on the U.S. State Department website, thereby confirming its authenticity.
The report explains that the three SPP amigos at Waco "committed their governments" to "Building a North American Community" by 2010 with a common "outer security perimeter," "the extension of full labor mobility to Mexico," allowing Mexican trucks "unlimited access," "totalization" of illegal immigrants into the U.S. Social Security system, and "a permanent tribunal for North American dispute resolution."
The prestigious Center for Strategic & International Studies published a report in 2007 called "North American Future 2025 Project." It advocates "economic integration," the "free flow of people across national borders" and "policies that integrate governments."
The CSIS report even calls for "harmonizing legislation" on intellectual property rights with other countries. That's a direct attack on our U.S. patent system, which is the key to U.S. leadership in inventions and innovation.
The Hudson Institute published a 35-page white paper in 2007 called "Negotiating North America: The Security and Prosperity Partnership." It states that SPP is the vehicle "for economic integration" with Mexico and Canada and even "combines an agenda with a political commitment."
The white paper explains that SPP's "design" is for the executive branch to exercise full "authority" to "enforce and execute" whatever is decided by a three-nation agreement of "civil service professionals" as though it were "law." That means evading treaty ratification and even congressional legislation and oversight.
Don't forget the importance of the Wall Street Journal and its longtime, very influential editorial-page editor, the late Robert Bartley. When Mexico's Fox called for NAFTA to evolve into something like the European Union, Bartley wrote: "There is one voice north of the Rio Grande that supports his vision. To wit, this newspaper."
In his book "Post-Capitalist Society," influential business writer Peter F. Drucker wrote, "The economic integration of the three countries into one region is proceeding so fast that it will make little difference whether the marriage is sanctified legally or not."
When Larry King asked Fox about plans for a "Latin America united with one currency," Fox answered in the affirmative. He said that one currency was part of the "vision" of the Free Trade Area of the Americas that Bush agreed to in the Declaration of Quebec City in 2001.
So now we know why the Bush administration won't build a fence to interfere with "labor mobility" across open borders. Now we know why Bush won't pardon former Border Patrol agents Ignatio Ramos and Jose Compean, while winking at the prosecutor's deal to give immunity to a professional drug smuggler.
Now we know why Bush thumbed his nose at the overwhelming congressional votes (411-3 in the House and 75-23 in the Senate) to exclude Mexican trucks from U.S. roads. Now we know why Bush has been more persistent in pursuing "totalization" to put illegal immigrants into Social Security than to promote his proposal to privatize a small part of Social Security for U.S. citizens.
This is no conspiracy. It's all part of the "economic integration" of the North American countries that's been openly talked about for years.
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