This Can't Be Happening!

It was just as recently as a year ago that the authorities in politics, business and academe were stating boldly and confidently that the nation’s economy was on the mend, and that there was no chance of a backslide into recession again.

Take Lakshman Achuthan and Anirvan Banerji who are, respectively, co-founder and chief operating officer and co-founder and chief research officer of ECRI, the Economic Cycle Research Institute.

“The good news is that the much-feared double-dip recession is not going to happen,” they said on CNN on Oct. 28, last year. “After completing an exhaustive review of key drivers of the business cycle, ranging from credit to inventories and measures of labor market conditions, we can forecast with confidence that the economy will avoid a double dip.”

“We will not have a double-dip recession at all,” said Warren Buffett, the multi-billionaire investor called, by his fans, the Oracle of Omaha, back on September 13, 2010. “I see business coming back almost across the board,” he told an assembled group of bankers.

And of course, there was Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, who actually acts on his presumed wisdom, saying, on June 8, 2010, “”There seems to be a good bit of momentum in consumer spending and investment,” he said at the time. “My best guess is we’ll have a continued recovery [but] it won’t feel terrific.”

Even a Vistage Survey of CEOs, conducted release last Oct. 4, showed the confidence index respondents, all top executives at public companies, saying there was “no evidence” for a double dip back into recession in the nation’s economic future.

So much for expert opinion.
Job loss record of current and previous recessions

Cupar, Scotland–This county town of Fife, is not exactly a news hot spot. Probably the last big story here was the landing of Italian balloonist Vincenzo Lunardi nearby in 1785 at the end of a 43-mile flight from Edinburgh.

However the small town’s sleepy Sheriff court is about to host a key legal case involving a US student from New York and two anti Israeli protestors who have been charged with racism.

For the information of US readers, in Scotland the Sheriff isn’t some John Wayne figure with the star on his chest, but is rather the bewigged judge presiding over the local court.

This case centers on an incident at nearby St. Andrews University, where two students are facing racially aggravated conduct charges after allegedly making comments and gestures critical of the State of Israel
and its flag.

Press reports are already in danger of prejudging the case, with headlines such as the one reading “St. Andrews University students in court to face anti-Semitism charges” that ran in the local daily, The Courier.

According to one of the charged students, Paul Donnachie, “Whilst in the room at the student residences of an individual who I considered a friend, Chanan Reitblat, I placed my hands down the front of my
jeans and onto an Israeli flag which belonged to him, accompanied by comments to the effect that Israel is a terrorist state, and is guilty of many civilian deaths.”

He continued, “The action was not malicious. However, it sparked a great deal of political debate amongst our group of friends within our Hall of Residence, whereby the nature of the State of Israel was
discussed.”
The Cupar Sheriff's Court will decide if protesting Israel's military is 'anti-Semitic'

Amid all the nonsense and gobbledegook that has been written about banking industry and about the economic slump during the last four years of the global financial crisis, New York Times reporter Gretchen Morgenson has stood out both for the clarity of her analysis, and for her willingness to go after the guilty parties in the political and especially the banking system, naming names and calling it as she sees it.

So it was kind of disappointing–even shocking–to read her latest article reporting on a new “study” by Peterson Institute for International Economics Senior Fellow Joseph Gagnon, warning about the nation’s growing debt crisis.

The Peterson Institute, founded by Wall Street tycoon Peter Peterson, has long been gunning for the Social Security and Medicare systems, which he, and the rest of the Wall Street gang, see as unfairly competing with Wall Street for the assets of the public, and as destructive of the “free market.”

Peterson’s basic schtick is that the two critical support systems for the elderly and infirm are going to bankrupt the country as they pay out benefits that exceed what retirees paid into the system, and that the solution is to cut back on those benefits, increase the taxes collected, or better, to privatize both systems.

Given Peterson’s and his institute’s long-standing agenda to gut Social Security and Medicare, it’s not surprising that Gagnon, as a fellow there, would say the solution to the nation’s growing debt is to either raise taxes or cut those two hugely successful, critically important and broadly popular social programs.

Morgenson is too smart not to know better, and yet not once in her article did she look outside of Gagnon’s narrow definition of the problem at the real cause of the national debt: the country’s outlandish military budget and a decade of unfunded wars, which have been piling up debt at a rate of some $150 billion a year (and that’s just the principal!).
Real cause of the deficit: the Pentagon, not "Entitlements"

In his latest speeches on the Middle East, President Obama, both at the State Department and at the G8 meeting in France, has pledged billions of dollars in economic aid to Middle Eastern countries, drawing a direct connection between the unrest and demonstrations that brought down the dictators in Tunisia and Egypt, and the joblessness and hopelessness felt by the young people in those two countries.

His adviser on international economics, David Lipton, has been more specific, saying that, “We believe that these two pillars go hand in hand. Without economic modernization, it will be hard for governments trying to democratize to show people that democracy delivers.”

Unemployment in Egypt among young men and women is about 30%. In Tunisia, it is over 40%. The White House claims that with figures like that, the future for democracy in those countries is tenuous.

But wait a minute. What about the US? Unemployment and underemployment here is still up around 20% overall, and it is much higher among young people. Black youth unemployment fell so far in 2011 to an official rate of 44% from 50% last year (because so many young workers just gave up trying to find work)! Among Latino youth, the official unemployment rate is stuck at around 30%. Overall, youth unemployment, according to the official Labor Department figures, is 20%, but remember, the official rate does not count those who are working part time who want full-time work, and does not count those who have given up looking for work. Among young people, it may be that many who work part-time (those who live at home or who are in school or college) actually are not looking for full-time work, so that upward adjustment may not be as great as for older workers, but at the same time, there are certainly more young people who give up looking for jobs than is the case with older workers who have families to support. In any event, it is clear that all these youth unemployment figures are actually too low by a significant amount.

If the official rate of unemployment for all Americans of 9% is actually less than half of the actual rate of 20%, then even if we took a conservative estimate, simply eliminating the adjustment of those working part-time who want full-time work from the youth unemployment figure, and just keeping the adjustment for those who have dropped out of the labor force (stopped looking for work) because it is fruitless, we would still see actual unemployment figures for young people in the US at staggering Egypt-like levels: 30% for all young people, 45% for young Latinos, and as high as 66% for black youth!

So why is the president so concerned about providing economic support to boost jobs in countries like Tunisia and Egypt, in order to “support democracy,” while in here in the US, he has basically thrown in the towel on job creation efforts, and is just talking about cutting the deficit–a Republican theme?
Youth unemployment: Big US concern in the Middle East, but at home, who cares?

The U.S. government won convictions against 23,506 drug traffickers nationwide during 2010, sending 96 percent of the offenders to prison, according to U.S. Sentencing Commission statistics.

Yet one of the biggest entities busted by the feds for involvement in drug trafficking last year received just a wrist-slap deal from federal prosecutors with nobody getting prison time.

During 2010, the U.S. government also won convictions against 806 persons involved in smaller-time drug-related money laundering, sending nearly 77 percent of those offenders to prison.

Yet when it came to a case involving billions of dollars in illegal drug profits, the federal government gave the same unusual wrist-slap to the same entity caught giving greed-blinded assistance to Mexican drug cartels by laundering billions of dollars in illegal profits for them.

So, what is this entity that federal prosecutors found worthy of big breaks for its laundering of billions of dollars, and for its blatant facilitating or tons of smuggled cocaine?

Meet Wachovia – once the nation’s sixth largest bank by assets and now a part of Wells Fargo Bank… a too-big-to-fail bank that for the feds is apparently too-big-to jail.

Wachovia's Slogan: "Uncommon wisdom"

Our cat died two days ago.

Soren, a little female, orange and white with a long tail and soft but fairly short fur, was a spirited, willful, and very intelligent creature. She could be incredibly affectionate and also could turn on you, scratching or biting when bothered–and sometimes, with a nip on the foot or the hand, just for no reason at all except that she got bored with rubbing against it. (Last year, when I went to visit a dermatologist for a check-up for the first time, she looked at my hands and said, “You have a kitten don’t you?” I had to reply, “Um, well, a four-year-old cat, actually.”)

Soren: 2005-2011

We’ve had other cats over the years, most of which lived to be 17 or 18 succumbing to some disease of old age, whether kidney failure or cancer. Soren, who was seemingly completely healthy and just five years old, died in her sleep on a comfortable chair she favored at night.

John Fleming is a 58-year-old African American born and raised in Philadelphia who served in the Army from 1969 to 1972 maintaining nuclear weapons in silos in Germany.

It was 10:45 AM on Friday outside Courtroom 1006 in Philadelphia’s Criminal Justice Center. Fleming had been “caught with an illegal substance.” Instead of taking his chances in the regular court system in Philadelphia, he had volunteered to participate in Philadelphia’s Veterans Court.

He was pacing in the hall. He had been told to be there at 10 AM for court that would not begin until 11 AM. Earlier there had been some kind of misunderstanding and he had to come back. He was impatient.

When Municipal Court Judge Patrick Dugan arrived at a little after 11 AM, as he does every Friday, he opened the court by explaining that Veterans Court was a completely voluntary court and that those in attendance could at any time choose to leave the program and take their chances in the regular court system.

Municipal Court Judge Patrick Dugan, left, and PA Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery

Dugan, a man in his early fifties with a ready smile and a no-nonsense demeanor, called Fleming as the first case of old business.

Fleming walked from the gallery through a swinging gate to stand between the court’s full-time district attorney and its public defender. He stood there facing the judge wearing a white Houston Astros shirt. Fleming had intentionally worn the Astros shirt to tweak the judge, who is very public about being an enthusiastic Philadelphia sports fan. Dugan is famous for putting on his re-election flyer that he “Prefers cheesesteak wiz witout” and he “HATES the Dallas Cowboys.” Fleming had worn a Lakers shirt to his last court hearing. The shirt provoked a few minutes of good-natured, mock-hostile back-and-forth wise-cracking. Then, the judge turned to Fleming’s case.

Forty-seven governments on the Untied Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) will discuss and decide, beginning at its May 30th session, what to do about an unusually candid and truthful report in the world of international politics.

The Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka was delivered to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on March 31 concerning both alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the last phases of the 26-year old civil war that ended May 19, 2009, and the consequences for approximately 300,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) and, by extension, for the 2.7 million Sri Lankan Tamils, who were the losers in the war. Some 13% of the Sri Lanka’s 21 million people are Tamil.

After receiving the report, which calls for investigations into these allegations, Ban Ki-moon stated that he did not have the power alone but that one of three UN bodies could request such action by either the General Assembly or the Security Council or the Human Rights Council.

The panel—chairman Marzuki Darusman (Indonesia), Steven Ratner (US), and Yasmin Sooka (South Africa)—was commissioned by the Secretary General, June 22, 2010, after Sri Lanka’s government had failed to rehabilitate or reconcile with the Tamils affected by the brutal war. According to the panel’s finding, the war caused up to 40,000 civilian deaths in its last eight months. Also killed were several thousand government soldiers and combatants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The Panel began its work in September 2010 but had to conduct its research outside Sri Lanka as the government refused this United Nations body permission to enter its country. The Panel could interview many eye witnesses, however, who were eventually released from military camps after months of detention—in many cases after paying bribes—or who were able to escape the war zone towards the end on boats provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Several ICRC workers and other humanitarian employees were killed by government military shelling.

Three days after President Barack Obama visited Ground Zero in New York City on May 5th with his message of “justice being done” with the slaying of terrorist Osama bin Laden, disturbing news broke about this administration’s blocking of a quest for justice in the infamous May 1970 killing of four Kent State students.

Those four students fell in a barrage of gunfire on May 4, 1970 by Ohio National Guardsmen who opened fire during a peaceful protest against the Vietnam War on Kent State’s campus. That lethal fusillade of 67 shots during a 13-second period also wounded nine others, some seriously.

That blocking action by Obama officials includes an apparent unwillingness to investigate new evidence providing damning insights about that shooting orgy forty years ago, which heightened criticism about U.S. foreign policy in Vietnam and about the abuse of domestic political dissidents.

The inaction on this case comes as opposition grows to Obama’s escalation of the unpopular war in Afghanistan and its expansion into Pakistan.

Ongoing U.S drone attacks inside Pakistan, seen by Pakistan as a violation of its sovereignty, have provoked outrage throughout that country. The country’s parliament recently passed a resolution calling for an end of drone attacks and a “review of the country’s relationship with the U.S.” The U.S., according to CNN’s Pakistan bureau, unleashed at least four drone attacks since the raid that killed bin Laden. It was just one of two dozen such attacks inside Pakistan this year alone.

One of those students injured during the Kent State shooting, Alan Canfora, met with U.S. Justice Department officials last Fall requesting a new federal investigation based on an analysis of an audio tape conducted early last year which revealed what two forensic audio experts say is a military-style order to open fire on student protesters.

Ohio Guardsmen firing live ammunition at peaceful, unarmed Kent State U. student demonstrators and killing four, in 1970

Beware of Americans…Bearing Gifts
 

By Shaukat Qadir
 

I am sure everyone knows this but merely to ensure we are on the same grid, a policy has one or more aims to be achieved in a specified period and spells out how the said aims will be achieved. While I have no intention of fleshing out a policy in this article, I will merely seek to emphasise the need for one and suggest what it should be aiming at. Pakistan has been without any policy since Ayub Khan’s decline in 1964!

Let us start by looking at what every ordinary citizen of any country, including Pakistan, wants. First and foremost is security: Not just security of life and limb or security from neighbouring enemies, but also food security, water security, job security, economic security, energy security etc. The list is long, and he/she wants to live in peace, so as to have the right to ‘pursue happiness’.

If this is all what we need, do we have any of these? Quite right, we have none! Why not? Because, apart from the rampant corruption at all levels of those in authority, we are engaged in a war that is sapping all our resources! Make no mistake, this is our war; the ‘enemy within’ poses an existential threat, greater than any external power does.

But why did this war begin? Why did the once loyal Mehsud, Afridi, and Mohmand turn against us?

If we hark back in time, in 2001, the Pakistani Pashtun and all Afghans were celebrating US intervention in Afghanistan. It would liberate them from Taliban oppression. Within a year, American arrogance, their suspicion of all Afghans, their utter disregard for local customs and culture, could result in only one thing: Another Afghan freedom struggle from an oppressive foreign force. The US called it a resurgence of the Taliban and al Qaeda! In time it did become that, because the US converted a legitimate struggle for freedom from an army of occupation into ‘Taliban linked to al Qaeda.’

To return to my question — as they did when Afghans sought their freedom from the Soviet occupation, the Pakistani Pashtuns bordering Afghanistan, girded their loins to assist their Afghan brethren. This time, Pakistan did not want them to. And in 2004, we decided to kill the most outspoken of those Pashtuns, a wazir called Nek Muhammad.

His murder was the watershed. We had a rebellion on our hands because we were preventing our tribal Pashtun from assisting their Afghan brethren in their freedom struggle against an army of occupation: The Americans, of course. So all Pakistan suddenly became American, kafirs, legitimate targets for religious fanatics to kill, and we are more vulnerable and accessible for them to target. So we are faced with an existentialist threat and we die. This was the first gift we got from the US.

Without tracing all the history, where do we stand today as far as the US is concerned? Anybody, who is anybody in the US, is baying for our blood. We are traitors to them and branded American-kafirs by our enemy within. Obama now tells us that when the Navy SEALs came to get Osama, they were “in sufficient numbers and prepared to retaliate to any response by the police or Pakistan’s security forces”.

They also gifted us Raymond Davis, hundreds of him. When we agreed to give him back, it was on the condition that all other Raymonds also leave. The CIA has not forgiven us and recent drone attacks are again killing more civilians than militants. If the Raymonds can no longer stoke unrest in Pakistan, the drones can!

As far as the promised financial aid is concerned, we receive a mere trickle, each time with another threat of severance if we fail to obey our Lords and Masters in DC. Even the Coalition Support Fund (CSF), intended to compensate a small portion of the expense incurred by the military in this war that has been forced on us by the US and Musharaf’s capitulation, is long overdue by well over a billion dollars.

The US has its own litany of complaints but we have ours. Isn’t it time to file for divorce?

Morning after in the courtyard of the Osama Bin-Ladin compound, following the US SEAL raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan