Global Policy Dominated by Elites?

Source: RT

Income inequality has been on the rise on a global scale. Currently there are two global forums that are discussing possible solutions to close that gap. Some believe that the one percent is in Davos while on the other hand World Social Forum is more for the 99 percent. But is there really a difference? Mike Norman, chief economist at John Thomas Financial, joins us to take a deeper look.

Panetta: Military Spending Is Going Up

Source: Global Research
David Swanson

On Thursday, Leon Panetta held a press conference announcing what he called "cuts" to military spending.  The first question following his remarks pointed out that the "cuts" are to dream budgets, while the actual spending will be increased over Panetta's 10-year plan.  Is there any year, the reporter asked, out of the 10 years in question, other than the first one, 2013, in which spending will actually decrease at all.  Panetta replied that he was proposing really truly to cut the projected dream budgets that he had hoped for.  In other words, he did not answer the question.

Now, there are additional minor cuts "on the table" as the saying goes, cuts that Panetta has described as disastrous, cuts that would take U.S. military spending back to about 2007 levels, cut nowhere close to what a majority of the country favors.  (How we survived 2007 and all the years preceding it has never been explained.)  Earlier this week, Republican members of the House Armed Services Committee sent President Obama a video denouncing these cuts.  They are, of course, the cuts mandated by the legislation that created the Super Committee, which failed, resulting in supposedly automatic cuts.

The video (available here) is itself packed with lies.  It falsely claims that cuts have already been made.  It uses dollar figures derived from lumping 10 years of budgets together to make cuts sound 10 times larger.  It pretends the automatic cuts would all be to the military, whereas many could be to the State Department and other subsidiary arms of the military.  These Republicans propose slashing 10% of non-military government jobs and describe this as saving jobs, even though non-military spending produces more jobs for the same dollars than military spending does.  And of course there is no mention in this video or in any official discussion of exactly how outrageously huge the U.S. military has become.  But a crazy video, and a bill to go with it, can not only pass the House and make its way into the Senate (Senator John McCain is already working on companion legislation), but the President is already in agreement with this bill's primary purpose of undoing any actual cuts to the military.  The history of lame duck officials, by the way, is that of becoming less, not more, representative of the public will. Caveat emptor!

In 2004, three times in three debates Senator John McCain proposed cutting military spending and Obama avoided the topic. Candidate Obama proposed significantly enlarging the largest military the world had ever seen.  And he has done so.  He now proposes not to cut it while pretending to cut it.  The best bit of rhetoric in this week's State of the Union address was this:

"Take the money we're no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home."

Under NDAA, Obama Can Release Death Sqauds on Americans

Source: Infowars

Alex interviews Francis Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law, about the NDAA and the impending war to be waged against Iran.

BREAKING NEWS: Putin accuses America of attempts to "Dominate the World"

Source: Itar Tas

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States of attempts to dominate the world and challenging internal political procedures in other countries as a tool for achieving that goal.

He spoke about foreign policy at the end of his meeting with Tomsk students that lasted about 3.5 hours on Wednesday, January 25. One of them asked Putin what could be the reasons for the negative Western reaction to the parliamentary elections in Kazakhstan.

“The reason is the U.S. foreign policy doctrine. They want to control everything...sometimes I have the impression that the United States does not need allies, that it needs vassals,” the prime minister said.

“They are not prepared to cooperate on real terms either with Europe or us. Cooperation on equal terms means determining threats together and working out a system of response to them together. They reject that flatly,” he said, referring to the missile defence system the U.S. is building in Europe.

According to Putin, one of the American ways to influence other countries is to “doubt everything and say that you do not meet certain standards” but “they work out these standards themselves”.

The Russian authorities are ready to cooperate with public organisations in the country but will not allow them to turn into a tool for external influence, Putin said.

“An attempt to use our non-governmental organisations by foreign states in their own interests for securing their own foreign policy goals with regard to our country must entail rejection. This must not be allowed to happen,” he said.

“The authorities must respond and listen, no matter what they say and how abuse their language may be. It’s indecent, but all the same [we] must listen to them,” Putin said. “The only thing we must not allow is allowing anyone to use anything inside the country for achieving their own foreign policy goals with regard to our country.”

Speaking of the elections in Kazakhstan, he recalled that the number of parties represented in the national parliament has increased from one to three. “That’s a step forward. That’s good,” he said.

Will the Young Rise Up and Fight Their Indentured Servitude to the Student Loan Industry?

Source: AlterNet
Bruce E. Levine

The solution to class exploitation and abuse is always the same: Get conscious, get angry, get energized, and get organized.

In October 2011, the White House announced, “Currently, more than 36 million Americans have federal student loan debt.” By the end of 2011, student loan debt had exceeded $1 trillion. Two-thirds of college seniors graduate with student loans, including over 62 percent of public university graduates.

According to the Project on Student Loan Debt, they carried an average of $25,250 in debt in 2010, but many have far greater debt than that average. And nowadays, with high unemployment, even higher underemployment, the inability to pay bills, and accumulating interest and penalties, the lives of student loan debtors can quickly turn into financial nightmares.  

Indentured Servitude? I’ll be paying for my student loans for the rest of my life....A large portion of my earnings goes to the Wall Street elites that have commoditized and securitized my loans....I knew at the time I signed the student loans (again and again) that I would be responsible...what I didn’t figure was the cost to my children —Jeff Vincent, AlterNet 

How outlandish is it to say that the spirit of indentured servitude has been revived in the United States? What can young people and their parents do to prevent student loan debt servitude, and what can all of us do to help liberate student loan debtors who are currently doomed to decades of financial misery? 

Colonial Indentured Servants and Modern Student Loan Debtors

In colonial America, historians estimate that between one-half and two-thirds of white immigrants arrived as indentured servants. Indentured servants in England were in servitude typically for one year, while indenture in America was typically four to seven years. Today in the United States, student debt is an even longer debt commitment than colonial indentured servitude. The standard Stafford federal loan is, for example, 15 years, and with waivers and refinancing, it is not uncommon for Americans to be paying off student loans well into middle age. 

24 Facts That Show How Ridiculously Unfair Our Economy Is For Americans Under The Age Of 30

Source: The American Dream
Michael Snyder

If you are an American under the age of 30, you have probably figured out by now that the entire economic system is stacked against you.  The way that our economy is structured today is ridiculously unfair to younger Americans.  First, we endlessly push our young people to go to our ridiculously expensive colleges and universities where the pile up enormous amounts of debt.  Then they get out into the real world where they find that only a handful of really good jobs are available for the vast army of college graduates entering the workforce.  Sadly, most of the jobs that our young people are working these days do not pay enough to be able to support a family or buy a decent home.  Meanwhile, our politicians are busy mortgaging their future.  Our young people are expected to support a Social Security system that will not be there when they get older, and every single day more than 2 billion dollars is added to a debt that will hang around the necks of younger Americans and their children for the rest of their lives.  If you stop and think about all of this for too long, your head might just explode with anger.  Well, not literally, but you get the point.  The truth is that this is going to be the first generation in U.S. history that is going to do significantly worse than their parents, and that is a terrible shame.

Are you not convinced that things are really bad for younger Americans?

Do you think that they should just shut up and quit whining about things?

Well, keep reading.  You just might change your mind by the time this article is over.
The following are 24 facts that show how ridiculously unfair our economy is for Americans under the age of 30 that will make your head explode....

#1 U.S. households led by someone 65 years of age or older are 47 times wealthier than U.S. households led by someone 35 years of age or younger.

#2 Today, only about 55 percent of all Americans between the ages of 16 and 29 have a job.

#3 Back in the year 2000, more than 50 percent of all Americans teens had a job.  This past summer, only 29.6% of all American teens had a job.

#4 Since the year 2000, incomes for U.S. households led by someone between the ages of 25 and 34 have fallen by about 12 percent after you adjust for inflation.

#5 It is absolutely ridiculous how much it costs to get a college education in America today.  After adjusting for inflation, U.S. college students are now borrowing about twice as much money as they did a decade ago.

President Obama's State of the Union: Ten Skirted Issues

Source: The Intel Hub
Nomi Prins

I confess; I expected to be bored out of my mind listening to President Obama’s campaign – I mean, State of the Union – I mean campaign, speech.

I kept hoping some truly earth shattering story would sneak in there beforehand, like say some discovery that Mitt Romney had been having an affair with Newt Gingrich’s ex-wife while he was creating jobs at Bain capital, and we could all focus on that instead.

It turned out that my pre-determination proved accurate. I wonder if the members of Congress felt the same sense of same déjà vu that I did, as they were bopping up and down and applauding.

Obama’s speech was a compilation of highlights from his past ones. One part optimism, two parts repetition equals one total uninspiring. Maybe it’s so boring, because it matters so little at this point.

Taking away popularity polls, our national threshold for belief in hope or change has been trampled, not just because of Obama or Romney, but of the whole political apparatus that thrives on deflection of reality and posturing.

We don’t have the same energy to expend listening to politicians, the endless spin that renders fact obsolete, responsibility absent, and true accomplishment, unnecessary.

We saw Optimistic Obama in his first address to Congress in 2009: “While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken; though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.”

We got Presumptuous Obama in 2010: “As we stabilized the financial system, we also took steps to get our economy growing again, save as many jobs as possible, and help Americans who had become unemployed.”

We watched Philosophical Obama in 2011: “We are the first nation to be founded for the sake of an idea -– the idea that each of us deserves the chance to shape our own destiny.  That’s why centuries of pioneers and immigrants have risked everything to come here… The future is ours to win.”

Now, we had Campaigning on Fairness Obama. He returned to the roots of his pre-Presidential words, having accomplished little to attain the goal that his words implied. Here are ten things that President Obama skirted:

Fukushima Saga, Seal 6 Psyop, Preppers - New World Next Week

Source: Corbett Report and Media Monarchy


Welcome to the 100th episode of New World Next Week — the video series from Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news. This week:

Story#1: Who Knew What When? The Fukushima Saga Continues
http://ur1.ca/7spje
Calgary Sun: Fukushima fallout hit home
http://ur1.ca/7sx0o

Story#2: Nine Dead, Hostages Saved – SEAL Team 6 Does It Again
http://ur1.ca/7spk6
Obama State of the Union 2012 Transcript
http://ur1.ca/7spkq
Related: Inside Story of the UK’s Secret Mission to Beat Gaddafi
http://ur1.ca/7spkt

Story#3: Subculture of Americans Prepares for Civilization’s Collapse
http://ur1.ca/7spla
Video Flashback: In Hard Times, Some Flirt With Survivalism
http://ur1.ca/7splc

Previous Episode: SOPA Backout, SCOTUS Copywrong, Abuse Archives
http://ur1.ca/7spld