Wall Street Crash Of 1929: 80 Years Ago 10/24/29

(People outside Stock Exchange Building in NYC, 1929, witness the beginning of the crash).

Eighty years ago, on October 24, 1929, a Thursday (later named Black Thursday) was the beginning of what would later be called the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The people in the U.S. had been encouraged to invest in the stock market, under the belief that by investing on Wall Street, they would get rich. The truth is that the people who ran Wall Street simply kept inflating the values of stock to defraud the public and get more people to give their money to Wall Street. It's like they had a race horse worth $100.00, but they kept selling shares to more people for $10 each, and pretty soon people all over the country claimed that they owned $10 worth of a certain race horse. Eventually there was $1.0 million invested in the horse, but the horse was only worth $100.00.

Finally, people caught on to the con and began to try to get their money out of Wall Street. The word spread, panic ensued, and the entire con collapsed, taking down with it the entire economy of the U.S. and eventually of the entire world.

There is certainly a good argument that the criminals on Wall Street who defrauded the public in 1929 created the conditions of widespread poverty, despair and conflict that eventually led to World War II, and the deaths of 100 million people. There are consequences to the organized crime and theft of Wall Street. Millions of people die because of what Wall Street does best: defraud people and steal money.

There were some laws passed after the 1929 crash, to control and regulate the banks (some people called them the Banksters, like the Gangsters), to control and regulate Wall Street, to try to stop them from pulling these cons again. But many of those laws were eliminated under the regime of Ronald Reagan, and many of them were eliminated under the regime of that great Republican Bill Clinton. And because the laws were eliminated, the criminals on Wall Street went back and did the exact same thing again: stole money from almost everyone in the entire world. So now we have widespread despair, suffering, conflict, hunger, war, unemployment, homelessness. Will we have another world war? Will 100 million more people have to die because of the criminals on Wall Street? Why won't our politicians, like the attorney general, stop these people, put them in prison, seize their assets, and stop this disaster.

(Fascism arose during the 1930s. Many argue it was the result of the conditions imposed after World War I. But there is a good argument that it arose because of the depression in Germany caused by the con men from the U.S. Wall Street stealing everyone's money. Would World War II Have Occurred If Wall Street Had Not Stolen The World's Money And Created An International Depression That Left Millions Homeless, Hungry, And Angry? Would Al Queda exist if the Western countries didn't keep stealing all the oil from, and oppressing and impoverishing the Muslim countries?)

Money doesn't disappear. Somebody takes it. The guy with the race horse, for example. He may declare bankruptcy and auction off the horse, all the investors get cents on the dollar. But that $1.0 million that he originally raised -- he put it into his own pocket. The money didn't disappear. It just was taken from average people and stolen by the con man. The same is true for the tech stock con in the late 1990s. Some guy opened a business which had sales of $100,000, but they did phony projections that they would have sales of $100 Million within 5 years, and sold stock based on those silly projections. Who sold the stock? Wall Street did. Who created the projections? Wall Street advisers. Who got the money? Wall Street takes a percentage, the business owner gets most of it. Then one day somebody realizes the business has no sales, or sales have not increased, people want their money back, business files for bankruptcy. Same result.

(Breadlines.)

Real estate: here's how it works. The higher the interest rate, the lower the sales price of homes. People's ability to buy a home is measured by the monthly payment. If interest is 5%/year, say $500 per $100,000 of loan, a person can borrow $300,000 and pay $1500/month. So if interest is dropped to 2.5%/year, they can borrow $600,000, and still just pay $1500/month. So Greenspan artificially held down the interest rates so the price of real estate skyrocketed. People who owned homes didn't notice so much that their paychecks were otherwise frozen, they were losing medical and pension and job security.

The banks loved it, the Wall Street banks, because they got to make jumbo loans to gas station attendants because everybody bought a half-million dollar home. Then Wall Street made phony packages of the loans and sold off fractional interests (like selling off a piece of a race horse), raised a ton more money than the loans were worth, and eventually the whole thing collapsed. Wall Street got all their money. The home buyers end up losing their homes, which drop in value by 40% as soon as the con ends. People who bought fractional interests of the loans lost. But Wall Street made a fortune. And kicked back a percentage to the politicians to avoid imprisonment.

Here we are again, 80 years later, and the same types of criminals are running Wall Street, running the same cons and pyramids and scams, with the same result. Most people have lost a bundle, the world is in a depression, the rich got away with stealing hundreds of billions of dollars, and everyone else suffers. 2% of the people in the world own 50% of the assets and wealth of the world. http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/01/352279.shtml Do you know why every decade fewer people own more of the wealth, and more and more people have nothing? Because the rich people steal everything, lie about it, kill anyone who gets in their way, and bribe the politicians to stay out of prison.

The diamond mines of Africa, for example, are "owned" by a few white Europeans whose ancestors murdered the Africans and stole the mine claims. Don't buy diamonds, don't wear diamonds, and if you own any diamonds, get rid of them. The simple answer, of course, is to take the assets and wealth away from those few people who stole it in the first place, and redistribute it to the people of the world.

It's not as bad today in the U.S. as it was in 1929. Yet. But we don't know whether we'll get there. And it seems that conditions are worse in the rest of the world. Or at least the reports of One Billion People starving because of this economic depression seems dire.

The question is this: why even allow an organization like Wall Street to exist? Who benefits from an international gambling casino, other than the racketeers who run the tables? Who benefits from having a slick mob that can put together packages of financing and sell them to the public based on usually fraudulent representations?

How about this for an idea: if somebody wants to buy stock in a business, let them buy into a local business. End Wall Street. Shut it down. No more national lenders, no more international lenders, no more chopping up packages of mortgages and deeds of trust and re-selling fractional interests. End it all.

There is nothing good that has come out of Wall Street. A very few people use their insider position to steal from everyone else. For the rest of us, we get nothing.

For example, did you read that the credit card companies are going to start charging a fee for anyone who pays on time? How can they possibly get away with fining people for paying their bills? Here's how: Wall Street. Wall Street, where all the money is under the control of a few people, has put most banks out of business, and left only a few financial institutions that have credit cards. If there are only 2 credit card companies in the country, a monopoly control, they can do whatever they want. They can charge $100/month as a "billing" fee if they want, and nobody can stop them because there are no other options available. And most people need to borrow money, which is all a credit card is, because they aren't making enough to get by.

So I would suggest we shut down Wall Street, break up every financial institution, institute a tax of 90% for all income or gain over $250,000 (the Disney CEO was paid $51 Million in 2008 -- let's tax it and put an end to this obscenity - http://concentrationofwealth.blogspot.com/ ), and put these criminal cartels out of business.

Either that or let them continue to make suckers out of us, steal our money, loot our treasury, and set up the conditions for neverending suffering and war throughout the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930

17% Real Unemployment As Of End Of September, 2009. The Democrats in D.C. Are Balloon Boys And Girls: All Hot Air And Fraud.

The U.S. Department of Labor has various reports showing the unemployment on a weekly and monthly basis. It's probably important to occasionally take a look at those charts so our heads don't inflate, and we don't rush out to book expensive European cruises based on the TV economic reporting, which tells us that Happy Days Are Here Again. Not so for the unemployed and marginally employed in this country. Not so for the long-term unemployed. Not so for those looking forward with anxiety to becoming part of the nation's unemployed.

The official reports were that as of the end of September, 2009, the nation's unemployment was "about" 10% with some states, like California, showing the worse statistics.

But you always have to look at the tables, the back-up data to the official reports.

Table A-12 of the unemployment report at the U.S. Department of Labor shows that the actual unemployment as of the end of September, 2009, was 17%. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm

Table A-12, Note U-6: "U-6 Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers (as of September, 2009): 17.0 %."

"NOTE: Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not looking currently for a job. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule."

The University of Rhode Island has a report and discussion on-line about unemployment through the mid-1990s, which includes two historical charts.

One of the charts shows the historical unemployment rates. The highest reported rate ever was in the mid 1930s, at 25%. We're at 17% now. Isn't it time to panic? Isn't it time for the Balloon Boys and Girls in Congress to start creating and funding serious jobs programs for the unemployed people in this country, instead of just giving billions more to Wall Street?

The other chart shows the historical difference between unemployment in black Americans vs. white Americans (black Americans historically suffer twice the unemployment of white Americans). Assuming that is still true, the unemployment rate among black Americans could be as high as 34%.


http://www.uri.edu/artsci/newecn/Classes/Art/INT1/Mac/Measure/Lab/LM1.U.html

We all know the millions of immigrants from Mexico and Central America who have been lured into this country during the past decade by businesses who wanted cheap, desperate labor instead of hiring Americans. The immigrants took many of the jobs across the country in construction, factories, manufacturing, and other types of labor, and they are suffering very high unemployment as those fields have all laid off workers. Of course the Americans who used to hold those jobs were also forced out of work, and replaced by the immigrants at lower wages.

The economic situation for the majority of working people in this country is very bad. We start with this historically almost unparallelled level of unemployment. We then have a loansharking industry, called credit cards, that charge 25% interest per year to working people for short-term loans that they need to take out in order to survive. Foreclosures are forcing many people out of their homes, real estate values continue to drop, and the banks pay 0% interest to people who have a little money in a savings account. People who still have jobs don't have medical or pensions.

Most people cannot afford dental or medical, and Congress's idea of health care "reform" is to order 40 million Americans to give money to the health insurance industry so they will pay kick-backs to the politicians. There is no affordable housing, and no plans from Congress to build affordable housing units, which would provide immediate relief by creating jobs and creating housing for people losing their homes to foreclosures.

What are the Democrats doing? The Democrats who now control the national government. What are they doing to help American working people?

Not a thing. No jobs program. The six-month debate over health care "reform" is just a phony scheme to force another 40 million Americans to buy unaffordable health insurance to pay obscene rates charged by doctors, drug dealers, and hospitals. Oh yeah -- the old people on social security won't get a cost of living this year. Screw the old people, right, isn't that the Democrat's Party Motto?

There's been massive media coverage this week about Balloon Boy. Some family reported that one of their kids had been swept away into the air by a home-made balloon. Turns out to have been a bunch of hot air. Just to get publicity. That's what the Democrats are: Balloon Boys and Girls. Lots of hot air. Lots of pompous bombast. But there's nothing really there.

Where are the jobs programs? There are none. Instead, what we get from the Democrats is a lot of hot air.

Michael Moore sent out an e-mail listing 15 things people should do to try to save the world, and the first five are certainly relevant to this blog post, so I'll quote them below:

FIVE THINGS WE DEMAND THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS DO IMMEDIATELY:

1. Declare a moratorium on all home evictions. Not one more family should be thrown out of their home. The banks must adjust their monthly mortgage payments to be in line with what people's homes are now truly worth -- and what they can afford. Also, it must be stated by law: If you lose your job, you cannot be tossed out of your home.

2. Congress must join the civilized world and expand Medicare For All Americans. A single, nonprofit source must run a universal health care system that covers everyone. Medical bills are now the #1 cause of bankruptcies and evictions in this country. Medicare For All will end this misery. The bill to make this happen is called H.R. 3200. You must call AND write your members of Congress and demand its passage, no compromises allowed.

3. Demand publicly-funded elections and a prohibition on elected officials leaving office and becoming lobbyists. Yes, those very members of Congress who solicit and receive millions of dollars from wealthy interests must vote to remove ALL money from our electoral and legislative process. Tell your members of Congress they must support campaign finance bill H.R.1826.

4. Each of the 50 states must create a state-owned public bank like they have in North Dakota. Then congress MUST reinstate all the strict pre-Reagan regulations on all commercial banks, investment firms, insurance companies -- and all the other industries that have been savaged by deregulation: Airlines, the food industry, pharmaceutical companies -- you name it. If a company's primary motive to exist is to make a profit, then it needs a set of stringent rules to live by -- and the first rule is "Do no harm." The second rule: The question must always be asked -- "Is this for the common good?" (Click here for some info about the state-owned Bank of North Dakota.)

5. Save this fragile planet and declare that all the energy resources above and beneath the ground are owned collectively by all of us. Just like they do it in Sarah Palin's socialist Alaska. We only have a few decades of oil left. The public must be the owners and landlords of the natural resources and energy that exists within our borders or we will descend further into corporate anarchy. And when it comes to burning fossil fuels to transport ourselves, we must cease using the internal combustion engine and instruct our auto/transportation companies to rehire our skilled workforce and build mass transit (clean buses, light rail, subways, bullet trains, etc.) and new cars that don't contribute to climate change. (For more on this, here's a proposal I wrote in December.) Demand that General Motors' de facto chairman, Barack Obama, issue a JFK man-on-the-moon-style challenge to turn our country into a nation of trains and buses and subways. For Pete's sake, people, we were the ones who invented (or perfected) these damn things in the first place!!

Handel's Passacaglia

Swine Flu Update - October 21, 2009

The government keeps telling us that only the children need to get the swine flu vaccine, because that flu is mostly deadly to the children. But when you look at the reported death rates at the CDC, and the census information for age groups, it shows that children are no more likely to die from swine flu than are the people in any other age group. So it appears that the reason they are rationing the swine flu vaccine is because they just don't have enough. And they don't want the rest of us to panic.

(From the Center for Disease Control website):


"What percentage of deaths for 2009 H1N1 flu occur in different age groups in the United States?"

"The percentage of deaths for 2009 H1N1 flu in the United States varies by age group. From August 30, 2009 through October 10, 2009, states reported 292 laboratory-confirmed 2009 H1N1 deaths to CDC. The percentage of 2009 H1N1 related deaths that occurred among people 0 years to 4 years was 3%; among those 5 years to 18 years was 14%; among people 19 to 24 years was 7%; among people 25 to 49 years was 33%; among people 50-64 years was 32%; and among people 65 years and older was 12%. For a graphical representation of this data, please see the chart below. "

[NOTE: I READ THAT LABS STOPPED TESTING TO CONFIRM WHETHER IT WAS SWINE FLU OR NOT, BECAUSE AS THE FLU HAS BECOME PANDEMIC, IT WAS DETERMINED TO BE SOMEWHAT A WASTE OF RESOURCES. THEREFORE, THE REPORTED DEATHS, LIMITED AS ONLY THOSE CONFIRMED BY LAB TESTS, COULD BE GROSSLY UNDERSTATED]
http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/qa.htm

As of 2007, the Census reported 6.9% of the population was under the age of 5 (3% of the swine flu deaths). About 18% of the population is reported as being between the age of 5 and 18 (14% of the swine flu deaths). So both groups are actually showing a lower percentage of the deaths than they represent in our population as a percentage. In other words, if swine flu deaths were as likely among all age groups, then the under 5 years of age, 6.9% of our population, would have 6.9% of the swine flu deaths. Instead, they are reported as half that -- 3% of the swine flu deaths). The census reports that about 75% of the population was 18 or older in 2007, yet they represent 83% of the swine flu deaths reported by the CDC, slightly more than their actual percentage of the population. 12% of our population is over the age of 65, and that group represents 12% of the deaths.

The point being that the story being circulated, that the swine flu is more deadly to children so the vaccine must be given to them, and older people don't die from the swine flu so don't need the vaccine, appears to be untrue using the government's own numbers. Now I don't believe much of anything that the government says, but nonetheless. I'm just wondering why the information from the CDC about swine flu deaths does not support their contention that it is mostly deadly to the young.

http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/STTable?_bm=y&-qr_name=ACS_2007_1YR_G00_S0101&-geo_id=01000US&-ds_name=ACS_2007_1YR_G00_&-state=st&-_lang=en&-redoLog=false

The official story from the government is that swine flu is only a danger to children, so only the children (and health care providers) will receive the vaccination when it becomes available. Then if there is enough vaccine later on (we are told), other people can get it too. (Want to bet everyone in Congress gets the vaccine before the children do).

The fact is that 76% of the deaths from swine flu in the most recent reporting period were of people 25 years of age and older. Yet that group, 76% of the deaths, is not on the list to receive the vaccination when it becomes available.

The CDC has released a priority list for who should receive the vaccination. First are the children (which most of us would support -- except for the anti-vaccine people), then the health care providers (also makes sense). Pregnant women. But not the teachers of the children, who will most likely be exposed from the germy little kids? No. After those first few groups, only the people with serious medical conditions will get vaccinated. Anyone over 65 is at the back of the line -- forget about it. And everyone over 25 who does not have a serious medical condition, the group that represents 76% of the recent deaths from the swine flu -- no vaccinations for them.

(From the CDC website):
"2009 H1N1 Recommendations: Who will be recommended to receive the 2009 H1N1 vaccine?"

"CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) has recommended that certain groups of the population receive the 2009 H1N1 vaccine when it first becomes available. These target groups include pregnant women, people who live with or care for children younger than 6 months of age, healthcare and emergency medical services personnel, persons between the ages of 6 months and 24 years old, and people ages of 25 through 64 years of age who are at higher risk for 2009 H1N1 because of chronic health disorders or compromised immune systems."

"We do not expect that there will be a shortage of 2009 H1N1 vaccine, but availability and demand can be unpredictable. There is some possibility that initially the vaccine will be available in limited quantities. In this setting, the committee recommended that the following groups receive the vaccine before others: pregnant women, people who live with or care for children younger than 6 months of age, health care and emergency medical services personnel with direct patient contact, children 6 months through 4 years of age, and children 5 through 18 years of age who have chronic medical conditions. "

"The committee recognized the need to assess supply and demand issues at the local level. The committee further recommended that once the demand for vaccine for these target groups has been met at the local level, programs and providers should begin vaccinating everyone from ages 25 through 64 years. Current studies indicate the risk for infection among persons age 65 or older is less than the risk for younger age groups. Therefore, as vaccine supply and demand for vaccine among younger age groups is being met, programs and providers should offer vaccination to people over the age of 65."

Democrats Ignore Dead Babies: One Child Dies From Hunger Every Six Seconds Because Wall Street Criminals Stole The World's Money.

Wall Street has worked with Congress to loot our country and much of the rest of the world. Wall Street brokers have become filthy rich stealing everyone's money, and they pay kick-backs to Congress so that nobody will investigate or prosecute them, or force them to pay back the money they stole. Babies are dying because of what Wall Street did. The Democrats turn away from the little dead baby corpses because they're too busy hauling away their share of the loot.

We may be shocked as we watch our neighbors thrown out of work, their jobs sent to third world countries to be done by slave labor. Or we see the for sale signs followed by bank-owned signs throughout our communities, nobody plans to retire anymore, everyone says their savings and retirement money has been stolen by Wall Street, their credit card company just raised their interest rates, insurance premiums go up, food goes up, everything costs more but people can't find work. And it's really not something that most of us can understand, those of us who did not go through the Great Depression, anyway, those of us who were raised to believe that our society was fair, businesses honest, government existed to protect us. Ha!

But as bad as things are or may get in this country, it's a lot worse in other countries. The effect of the market, currency, real estate, stock, and financial manipulation, conspiracy, collusion, theft and fraud by the people on Wall Street, in conjunction with our politicians in Congress, is going to cause hundreds of millions of people in the world to die. At least One Billion people are suffering from hunger right now because of what the Wall Street criminals have done.

Who suffers the most from hunger and malnutrition? Babies and children. One child dies from hunger every six seconds. Yet the Democrats have refused to investigate, prosecute, seize the assets, indict, imprison the Wall Street criminals who are mostly responsible for the economic devastation in the world. Dead Babies don't get the Democrats' attention. They're too busy counting their bribes.

There is enough food in the world, right now, to feed everyone. We could immediately eliminate hunger and malnutrition with the food we have on hand. But the problem is that the rich won't share the food with the poor. The number of people suffering from hunger right now is greater than the total population of the U.S., Canada, and Europe all combined. Try to imagine every single person, old men and women, babies, children, pregnant women, your family and siblings and spouse and children and parents, all being hungry, every one in our country being hungry and not having enough food every single day. Try to imagine that.

We keep hearing that the "popular" charities are having trouble fundraising because of the recession or depression in this country. Museums, zoos, school programs. But there is an institutional system of programs which provides meager aid to the poorest people very year, just enough to keep them alive, and this year there is not enough aid to stave off massive starvation.

Right now, the United Nations is reporting that because food-aid is down due to the poor economy in the world, more than One Billion people in the world will face unrelieved hunger this year.

One Billion people. 60% of them are women. A child dies every six seconds because of hunger. And nobody really cares. These are people who are being systematically exterminated by starvation not because there is not enough food in the world, but just because the rich people have taken way more than their share, and the politicians take bribes to look the other way, step over the bodies of the dead and dying on the way to their private jets and bags of gold.

Think of all the rich people who take their money, usually without paying taxes, and hide it in private charities where they can keep it forever, without paying any taxes, as long as they pay out 5% per year. Like Bill Gates, for example, who hides his money in his private charity so he doesn't have to pay taxes on it. Instead, he does a little PR photo op to convince the world he's really a generous guy, but he keeps most of his money, while a billion people go hungry. If he wanted to help, he would give away his money. Or people like Bill Clinton who has reportedly collected almost a billion dollars from rich people, from foreign countries, from the princes and oil sheiks of Saudi Arabia, from corporations after he left office, and he puts his money into his own "private" charity while a billion people starve.

How about Warren Buffett, who keeps saying that he plans to give away all his money when he dies. I don't believe a word he says. But for anybody who does believe him, ask this question: Why doesn't he give his money away now, so that one billion people don't starve to death this year? All these people who publicly insist that they don't want the money, they're such philanthropists all they want to do is to help others, they'll give it all away when they die, but in the meantime they hide the money in private charities so they can avoid paying taxes, and pay out the absolute minimum, 5% per year, to keep their money tax-free.

It works like this: Let's say somebody earned $200 million this year. They are allowed under our tax laws (written for the benefit of rich people) to put half of that, $100 million, into a new bank account that they label under their own name - Joe Citizen, charity. They don't pay taxes on that money. As long as they pay out 5%/year to some charity, they get to keep the rest of their money. Pretty good con, huh, and all the rich people use it. If they really wanted to be charitable, they would give away all the money in their charity. Instead, they keep all their money, and pay out the absolute minimum that is required under the tax laws.

If our government taxed the rich and shut down these tax scams, maybe there wouldn't be so many people starving to death in the world. We could use that money to feed the hungry.

And why isn't there a world tax? Why aren't people required to pay taxes to help the nations which have been exploited and plundered for centuries by the western world? Because the poor people don't have a voice, and because nobody cares that they are hungry, and that their children die.

What about agri-business, modern miracles, inventions, science, medicine, all these things we hear about that are supposed to be so amazing? What difference does it make when a Billion People are going to starve this year. For these people, they get nothing. Agribusiness, once promoted as a system to improve farming throughout the world, has instead concentrated food production in the hands of a few corporate CEOs who increase the prices for seed, wipe out local farmers, and watch the people die of starvation if they can't pay the outrageous prices charged by the corporations. Same for medical, same for water, same for everything.

The fact is that we produce enough food for everyone, but a few corporations, like Monsanto, have control of the seeds and food production, and use that monopoly control to keep raising the costs of everything. People are dying of hunger -- a child dies every six seconds from hunger -- because the corporations keep raising the price of food to increase the bonuses they pay to their CEOs and corporate insiders. Corporate theft causes people to die, causes babies to die.

Why is it with all the modern miracles we hear about, things just keep getting worse? The answer is that more and more of the world's wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few, and the majority of people have nothing. Not even a bite to eat. We should take that money back from the rich people, and distribute it to everyone else. That's the only solution.

"Despite a record level of people suffering from hunger, food aid is at a 20-year low due to the poor global economy, United Nations officials said today. The result: More than 1 billion people across the world will face hunger this year. "

"'For the world's most vulnerable, the perfect storm is hitting with a vengeance,' said U.N. World Food Program (WFP) Executive Director Josette Sheeran. So far this year, the agency has received less than half of the $6.7 billion it needs to feed 108 million people in 74 countries, Sheeran said."

... "Iron deficiency, the most common form of malnutrition, affects billions worldwide. It can impede brain development."

"Vitamin A deficiency affects 140 million pre-school children in 118 countries. It is the leading cause of child blindness and can make people more susceptible to diseases. It kills one million infants a year, according to UNICEF."

"Iodine deficiency affects 780 million people worldwide. Babies born to iodine-deficient mothers can have mental impairments. "

... "While enough food exists to feed the world's entire population, the WFP estimates that the number of hungry in the world tops 1 billion, or about one in every six people - more than the populations of the United States, Canada and the European Union combined. "

"The statistics (from the WFP) on those facing the results of hunger can be stark:
An estimated 146 million children in developing countries are underweight.
Every six seconds a child dies because of hunger and related causes.
More than 60 percent of chronically hungry people are women."

While aid programs made inroads in combating hunger at the end of the 20th century, rising food prices have been negating those efforts, causing the number of hungry to rise again everywhere except in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The rising cost of food caused the number of hungry to jump by 75 million people in 2007 and 40 million people in 2008.

http://www.unicef.org/media/media_51443.html

I'm sure most people already give a little to a local charity or food bank. But in addition, maybe this year you could send Ten Dollars to Unicef to feed the hungry babies in the world, and send a letter to your Senators telling them to indict, prosecute, seize the assets, throw into prison every scumbucket from Wall Street, fix the tax code and get rid of the tax cons, and make the rich people start paying taxes again. Demand that the Senators take every penny they have received from Wall Street in the last 8 years and donate the entire amount to Unicef. It's all dirty money, obtained through corruption, they should be ashamed of themselves for taking it, but at a minimum they should send it all to save a few more babies from dying. Here's the Unicef link: http://www.unicef.org/

Damn! Now What Am I Going To Serve For Sunday Dinner?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced that 33,000 pounds of beef tongue has been recalled. The reason for the recall is that the tonsils had not been removed from the tongues before shipping.

Most of the cow's tongues were shipped to California and to Nebraska. What the heck is California doing with a bunch of cow's tongues? School lunch programs? Isn't California the leader in number of people incarcerated? Do they feed the prisoners beef tongues? And if so, what difference does it make if they also feed them tonsils?

For anyone looking for a good recipe for beef tongue, here's a tip: remove the tonsils before sauteeing. Supposedly if you leave the tonsils on, it increases the risk that you will be serving your dinner guests with bovine spongiform or what we used to call Mad Cow Disease.

And why does our country sell food products that can kill us? Because corporations treat food production just like they treat tire production: cheap labor, no safety standards, use as much poison as they can get away with, sell to the public, bribe the politicians so nobody can sue them, take the money and flee the country in advance of the angry mob. Cows weren't made in nature with inherent weird diseases like Mad Cow Disease. That was created by the corporate food masters who feed the cows poison, then turn around and sell deadly beef to the public.

And guess who is responsible for overseeing food production in this country? The federal government, most of whom are on the take, being bribed to look the other way. What a disgrace.

http://www.startribune.com/nation/64489812.html

Democrats Use Their Control Of The National Government to Shakedown Businesses And Sell Out The People.

You know how they used to have all those movies about the Mafia, the Mob, the Dons, the Rackets, how they ran criminal enterprises and made money and killed anyone who got in their way.

You know why you don't hear about the mob so much anymore? Because they all put on nice suits and ran for Congress. They do the same things they always did, just in very expensive clothes.

For example, the Shake-Down. This is how it worked. Guido and Carmine would pay a little visit to the enterprising young family man whose entire family had come together and put up the money to open a pizza place in the neighborhood. Sal's Pizza signs were painted on the window, the floors were washed down, and a new business opened its doors. Then Guido and Carmine would stop by and explain how it worked: "We'd hate to see someone burn your place down, Sal, but if you pay us protection money, we'll make sure that doesn't happen. Say 10% of your gross." If Sal pays every week, everything's okay. If Sal doesn't pay, Guido and Carmine will send a friend to burn down Sal's Pizza. It's just that simple.

And that is the business model for the politicians in Washington D.C. The Democrats have perfected the model under the leadership of Bill Clinton who argued that the Democratic Party should take money from corporations and do their bidding, and abandon the working people, the poor, the excluded, the minorities, the unions, the traditional Democratic base. Bill's thinking must have been like this: "The corporations are the ones with all the money. If we want money, we need to go join their side."

I've said all along that the Democrats are just doing shake-downs since they got into office. First they had the big "Credit Card Reform" shakedown. They went out into the public and got the unwashed masses all riled up saying that Congress was going to get tough, they were going to pass some laws to "reform" the credit card industry. Then the Democrats went to the credit card industry, which is really the loan shark industry except the people wear more expensive suits. And instead of busting your kneecaps, they take the food off your kids' plates.

But the Democrats went to the credit card loansharks and said Look, either you pay us off bigtime or we will pass some laws to "reform" your loansharking industry. Thus the fix was in, the deal was made, the people betrayed. And instead of "reforming" the credit card and loansharking industry, in the only significant way needed, which is to limit the amount of interest they can charge, the Democrats made some meaningless administrative changes that will help no one. From now on, the loansharks have to send you a letter before they come over to your house to bust your face in. "Notice" is what you get. Thanks for nothing.

This whole "health care reform" craziness we've been hearing about for months now? Wash, rinse, repeat. It's the same deal as the credit card reform. Even worse, actually. The Democrats met secretly with the major corporations in the medical care industry: doctors' lobbies, health insurance industries, hospital owners, pharmaceutical companies (aka drug dealers) and cut a deal with them within 2 months of taking control of the national government. It was a shake-down.

The Democrats held a series of secret meetings with the health care corporate industry and cut deals with them starting in April of this year, set up phony organizations, got money to fund them, all to promote a health care "reform" written by the corporations which will get them Billions of dollars more every year, and which will get nothing for the citizens. There will be no healthcare reform to help the people of this country. Instead, the Democrats promised they would compel, by order of law, 40 million more people to buy health insurance. Do you know how much money that is? Say $5,000 per person per year. That's Two Hundred Billion Dollars that the Democrats promised to deliver to the healthcare corporations. Say the health insurance industry takes 30% off the top (which they do), that's Seventy Billion Dollars to them, with an additional One Hundred Thirty Billion Dollars to be paid out to the doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical drug dealers. What a con. For the citizens, we get nothing.

You know what else the Democrats promised the health insurance industry? First, the Democrats will pass a law forcing all Americans to buy private health insurance, even if they can't afford it, and even if the coverage they get is worthless. But next, the Democrats also promised the health insurance industry that there would be no limits to the amount they could charge citizens for premiums every month. In other words, if the insurance company decides to charge you $10,000 per month as a premium, that's perfectly okay with the Democrats. After all, they get bribes and kick-backs from the insurance companies, so it's in their best interest to help their corporate friends loot the American public.

Who do you think came up with this brilliant idea of the secret meetings? Secret organizations set up between the White House and the health insurance industry and given phony misleading names like "Citizens for Healthcare Reform," to fool and deceive the public? The first ShakeDown meeting was in April, maybe two months after the Democrats took control of the government. They clearly had this in mind. But who? Rahm Emanuel is my guess, because he opposed healthcare reform all along, he wants to stay on the good (receiving end) side of corporate America because he plans to run for Senate, then the White House, and because the guy from the White House who attended all the planning meetings, got this whole thing going, was Jim Messina, who works directly for Rahm Emanuel.

By the way, I don't see the benefit of spending too much time berating Obama. He's Faust. He sold his soul to get the top spot, but he's had no effect whatsoever on changing anything. The people who run the Democratic party are the ones who bring in the most bribes from the corporations. That's it. End of story.

I mostly blame Congress, but hold Obama equally accountable because he's going along for personal self-aggrandizement: he wants to be reelected, he wants to claim that he got "credit card reform" and "health care reform," that he "won" the wars. I assume that when he leaves office, he wants the corporations to give him hundreds of millions of dollars, just like Bill Clinton got. His vanity and ambition seems to guide his every move. Any commitment to the public that ever did exist is no longer apparent.

The effect of the 2008 election is clear: Instead of having the Capone Family terrorize and exploit the public, we've now got the Gambino Family in charge. For your average working person, there is no change: a bunch of criminals stealing, lying, cheating, bribing law enforcement, making our lives miserable.

P.S.: the article below refers to Jim Messina from the White House being involved in these meetings. Messina works under the direction of Rahm Emanuel. Rahm Emanuel, when he was still in Congress, was known as Wall Street's favorite politician because he took more Wall Street money than anybody else. He is rumored to be planning to run for Senate from Illinois in 2012, and likely wants to run for President in 2016, and will want to have control of the big corporate money for his campaign: Wall Street (who he has protected by making sure the Obama administration gives them lots of money and does nothing to hold them accountable). And now he surely is going after the money from the medical corporations by opposing health care reform.

Emanuel already has a lock on the defense money because he supports war, loves wars, wants more war. He volunteered to work with the Israeli military during the first Gulf War but oddly chose to never serve in the U.S. military. Rahm Emanuel, chosen by Obama, is a corporate Clintonista pro-war Democrat in Name Only. As soon as Obama brought him into the White House, we should have known it was already game over. Actually, that and the decision to bring in Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, Tim Geithner, Larry Sumners -- actually almost every person selected by Obama to serve with him in the White House is a pro-war pro-Wall Street money-grubbing corporate sell-out. We expect change from this gang of thieves?

Excerpts below, link to article here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20091016/pl_politico/28362

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"At a meeting last April with corporate lobbyists, aides to President Barack Obama and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) helped set in motion a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign, primarily financed by industry groups, that has played a key role in bolstering public support for health care reform."

"The role Baucus’s chief of staff, Jon Selib, and deputy White House chief of staff Jim Messina played in launching the groups was part of a successful effort by Democrats to enlist traditional enemies of health care reform to their side. No quid pro quo was involved, they insist, as do the lobbyists themselves."

[NOTE: THIS STATEMENT, "NO QUID PRO QUO" IS REALLY PART OF THE COVER-UP. THE LAWS WHICH CONGRESS WRITES TO GOVERN THEMSELVES SAY THAT THE POLITICIANS CAN TAKE MONEY OR SOLICIT MONEY FROM ANYONE AS LONG AS THERE WAS NO "QUID PRO QUO" INVOLVED IN THE DONATION. WHAT THAT MEANS IS THAT THE POLITICIANS DON'T SAY OUTRIGHT "GIVE ME MONEY AND I'LL VOTE TO GIVE YOU TAXPAYER MONEY, OR PASS WHATEVER LAWS YOU WANT." INSTEAD, THEY ALWAYS PRETEND THAT THESE TWO THINGS ARE SEPARATE: THE POLITICIAN SAYS I WILL VOTE AS THE CORPORATION INSTRUCTS; AND THE CORPORATIONS SAYS WELL, JUST COINCIDENTALLY, WE WILL GIVE YOU HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS FOR THE DEMOCRATIC OR REPUBLICAN PARTY, BECAUSE BOTH PARTIES OPERATE THE SAME WAY].

"The result has been a somewhat unlikely alliance between an administration that came into power criticizing George W. Bush for his closeness to Big Business and groups such as the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and the American Medical Association."

"The previously undisclosed meeting April 15 at the offices of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee led to the creation of two groups — Americans for Stable Quality Care and a now-defunct predecessor group called Healthy Economy Now — that have spent tens of millions of dollars on TV advertising supporting health reform efforts."

[NOTE: THE MEETING WAS HELD AT THE DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE OFFICES. YOU KNOW WHAT THAT IS? THAT IS THE GROUP THAT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR RAISING MONEY FOR DEMOCRATS IN THE SENATE IN CONGRESS. I WONDER IF THE DEMOCRATS TOLD THE CORPORATE LOBBYISTS TO JUST BRING WHEELBARROWS FULL OF CASH. IT'S THAT BLATANT WHAT'S GOING ON.]

"In the most recent ad sponsored by Americans for Stable Quality Care, Obama speaks directly into the camera for 60 seconds, extolling the virtues of health care reform, while text at the bottom of the screen encourages viewers to visit the websites of the White House and the Finance Committee, which this week approved a 10-year, $829 billion health overhaul." [OBAMA IS AN ON-CAMERA SPOKESPERSON FOR THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY, BUT THE WHOLE THING IS BEING COVERED UP BY CREATING THIS PHONY GROUP THAT IS SUPPOSEDLY "SUPPORTING" HEALTHCARE "REFORM," WHICH IS REALLY JUST A GIVEAWAY OF TAXPAYER MONEY. THE FUNNY THING IS THAT OBAMA WOULD PROBABLY NEVER HAVE GOTTEN THE GIG IF ED MCMAHON HADN'T DIED. I THOUGHT HE HAD A LOCK ON THE COMMERCIALS SELLING CRAP TO THE PUBLIC.]

... "Days after the meeting, Healthy Economy Now’s website address was registered, and meeting attendees began receiving unsolicited calls asking for cash for the coalition from Baldick, whose firm — Hilltop Public Solutions — had been hired to run Healthy Economy Now. In addition to PhRMA and the American Medical Association, the strange-bedfellows coalition included AARP, the American Cancer Society, the Business Roundtable, the advocacy group Families USA and the Service Employees International Union, as well as trade groups for biotech and medical device firms." [AARP IS AN INSURANCE SALES GROUP THAT FRONTS AS A PRO-SENIOR GROUP. THE FACT THAT THE SEIU WAS INVOLVED IS UNFORTUNATELY NO LONGER A SURPRISE, SINCE THAT UNION SEEMS TO ALWAYS BE ON THE SIDE OF THE CORPORATE RULERS, NEVER ON THE SIDE OF THE PEOPLE].

[THE ARTICLE ALSO SAYS THAT PHRMA, THE LOBBYING GROUP FOR THE PHARMACEUTICAL/DRUG DEALERS, AGREED TO GIVE A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF MONEY IN EXCHANGE FOR THE DEMOCRATS AGREEING THEY WOULD NOT TRY TO FORCE THE DRUG COMPANIES TO LOWER THE PRICE THAT THEY CHARGE AMERICANS FOR THEIR DRUGS. WHAT A DISGUSTING DISCLOSURE].

"Allison [someone speaking on ethical issues] said that ... “What you’ve had was the Senate and the White House sitting down and cutting deals with special interests,” he said. “I don’t think that’s quite what the American people signed up for when the Obama campaign said that they were going to limit the influence of special interests in this White House.”

[THE COMMERCIALS FOR THESE PHONY GROUPS WERE CREATED BY]"AKPD Message and Media, which was founded by White House senior adviser David Axelrod, still owes him $2 million and employs one of his sons — and GMMB."