Back Around Once More!!!

And this brings us back around to where Ed says "big business is now controlling the political process". The scary part is that I was preaching this revelation two years ago. The anti-christ is Shrub boy, and all his cabinet his minions. All you Shrub supporters be happy in the fact they will wipe out our middle-class and you all will be corporate "slaves". And don't forget to vote even though that doesn't count any longer either. You are now in the 'Matrix'!

The Dirty Little Secret Behind The UAE Port Security Scandal

By David Sirota
Working for Change
2-23-6

Politicians and the media are loudly decrying the Bush administration's proposal to turn over port security to a firm owned by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) - a country with ties to terrorists. They are talking tough about national security - but almost no one is talking about what may have fueled the administration's decision to push forward with this deal: the desire to move forward Big Money's "free" trade agenda.

How much does "free" trade have to do with this? How about a lot. The Bush administration is in the middle of a two-year push to ink a corporate-backed "free" trade accord with the UAE. At the end of 2004, in fact, it was Bush Trade Representative Robert Zoellick who proudly boasted of his trip to the UAE to begin negotiating the trade accord. Rejecting this port security deal might have set back that trade pact. Accepting the port security deal - regardless of the security consequences - likely greases the wheels for the pact. That's probably why instead of backing off the deal, President Bush - supposedly Mr. Tough on National Secuirty - took the extraordinary step of threatening to use the first veto of his entire presidency to protect the UAE's interests. Because he knows protecting those interetsts - regardless of the security implications for America - is integral to the "free" trade agenda all of his corporate supporters are demanding.

The Inter Press Service highlights exactly what's at stake, quoting a conservative activists who admits that this is all about trade:

"The United States' trade relationship with the UAE is the third largest in the Middle East, after Israel and Saudi Arabia. The two nations are engaged in bilateral free talks that would liberalise trade between the two countries and would, in theory at least, allow companies to own and operate businesses in both nations. 'There are legitimate security questions to be asked but it would be a mistake and really an insult to one of our leading trading partners in that region to reject this commercial transaction out of hand,' said Daniel T. Griswold, who directs the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington-based libertarian think tank."

Look, we've seen this before. Just last year, Congress approved a US taxpayer-funded loan by the Bush administration to a British company to help build nuclear technology in Communist China. Despite major security concerns raised - and a legislative effort to block the loan - Congress's "free traders" (many of whom talk so tough on security) made sure the loan went through so as to preserve the US-China free trade relationship that is allowing lawmakers' corporate campaign contributors export so many US jobs.

There is no better proof that our government takes its orders from corporate interests than these kinds of moves. That's what this UAE deal is all about - the mixture of the right-wing's goal of privatizing all government services (even post 9/11 port security!) with the political Establishment's desire to make sure Tom-Friedman-style "free" trade orthodoxy supersedes everything. This is where the culture of corruption meets national security policy - and, more specifically, where the unbridled corruption of on-the-take politicians are weakening America's security.

The fact that no politicians and almost no media wants to even explore this simple fact is telling. Here we have a major US security scandal with the same country we are simultaneously negotiating a free trade pact with, and no one in Washington is saying a thing. The silence tells you all you need to know about a political/media establishment that is so totally owned by Big Money interests they won't even talk about what's potentially at the heart of a burgeoning national security scandal.

WHY?

By Frosty Wooldridge
2-17-6

A reader wrote a letter yesterday that piqued my interest enough to follow up on the biggest question on everyone's minds concerning the massive immigration invasion of the United States of America.

Why do our leaders not only permit it, but encourage it--even aid it?

Rick James of Missouri wrote, "I have read your articles and you are great at pointing out what is obvious to those of us who are intelligent. But for some reason, I have never read or heard on talk radio the REASON that Congress and the presidents want to ruin this nation. It cannot possibly be that you and I are much smarter than all of congress or all the presidents, and therefore I must assume that these men and women KNOW that these illegals are stealing
hardworking Americans' money. I must assume that these smart politicians are aware that this cannot go on without the country going broke, and that they surely must be aware that a service based economy where we don't actually make anything, aside from printed money, will eventually bring this country down to the level of Mexico and other Third World nations."

"So why?" James asked. "Since Congress has far more assets and tools for accessing information than you or I, why then would they allow this to continue? We can read all the articles about WHAT is happening. But WHY are the elected officials allowing it to happen? They know what you and I know so why would they allow it to happen? That's the $64,000 question! Why?"

James asks the same question millions of Americans ask daily as they see their towns, cities and schools flooded with non-English speaking illegal aliens and legal immigrants. What and why is it happening? Zogby, Pew, Roper and Dobbs polls show that a stunning 80 to 95 percent of Americans demand our borders be closed. They want legal immigration reduced back to the pre-1965 levels so immigrants will assimilate instead of what's happening: enclaving and separating.

Why would a sitting president be SO out of touch with his oath of office and with what is happening? Quick answer: he isn't. He's a driving force assisting illegal immigration. Why would the House of Representatives be so clueless for two decades concerning this quickening national nightmare? How could 434 (save Congressman Tom Tancredo) representatives be so useless to their constituents for so long? Short answer: they're part of the problem on both sides of the political aisle. How could 100 senators twiddle their thumbs while Americans write, call, phone, fax, attend town meetings and form militia groups to combat illegal aliens in every community and every state? Long answer: this is my take on it.

When Teddy Kennedy rammed the 1965 Immigration Reform Bill down the American peoples' throats, he opened the annual flood gates from a stable 175,000 immigrants to 1,000,000 mostly uneducated workers from foreign countries who worked for peanuts. Big business found out how to bust up labor unions by hiring those hapless immigrants who would not complain. From that point on, follow the money. In every aspect of this immigration invasion, whether it be illegal or legal, follow the green back dollar. Follow the greed over love of community or country.

Business barons from Amour, Swift, Tyson, Hormel, Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Wendy's, construction firms and many others found they could break unions' grip on wages by undercutting them with scab and illegal labor.

Meat packing plants paid $18.00 an hour with benefits in the early 80s. Americans filled those jobs. Today, illegal aliens work at $7.00 an hour with no benefits. No complaints, either. Corporate employers work millions of illegals off the books as if they don't exist-voila!-no taxes are paid on cash payments.

For an employer to hire an illegal alien is a $2,000.00 fine for each illegal and up to five years in jail. How do these employers get away with it? They hire lobbyists like Jack Abramoff to make sure laws are unenforced, degraded or not passed.

Who makes sure senators and House reps don't enforce our immigration and hiring laws? Those corporations, of course!

What it means is, the rich get richer on the backs of the Middle Class while the Middle Class works two and three jobs per person at poverty wages. All the while, taxpayers pay for all those illegal aliens' kids in schools, medical, food stamps, assisted housing and more. In the meantime, our working poor stand in food stamp and public assistance lines.

I discovered while traveling through Third World countries that the high class and the ruling classes don't give a damn about the poor. One look at Mexico with its five million miserably wretched destitute living in cardboard shacks surrounding the 22 million people in Mexico City illustrates President Vicente Fox's total lack of integrity and his complicity in corruption. He has not moved a finger to change it for his countrymen. He's shipped 10 million of them up to our country.

His country enjoys a high class and a poor class. No middle class! That holds true in all Third World countries. They're illiterate, poor and powerless. If you look back to European history, the Middle Ages featured the rich in castles and the poor working the fields.

Now, look at our president. He's been filthy rich all his life. He wouldn't know the cost of a gallon of gas or a gallon of milk from a Guernsey cow. He wouldn't know a mortgage payment from mud pie. Those in Congress, both senators and congressmen--they've got their own retirement fund not hitched to Social Security. They have unlimited free transportation all over the world on junkets. They use it too, at over $129 million a year for their trips around the world. They are served, wined and dined. Who do you think they listen to? You and me? Do you think they care if Middle Class Americans suffer job loss, suffer the effects of outsourcing, insourcing and offshoring of jobs? Do you think they care if the minimum wage wouldn't keep a rabbit alive?

Look at the American companies that became multi-national corporations based in the United States. They enjoyed this country's incredible creative and economic fertile conditions while allowing us to work for them at living wages that created the most vibrant middle class in the history of the world. Today, they send jobs to 50 cents-an-hour workers in China and India at the drop of a hat.

From my take, what you're seeing is a methodical, planned and corporate
rich-elite-instigated down-grading and destruction of America's Middle Class. Our schools turn out undereducated students who won't have enough brain power to protest the devolving spiral of our Republic into a Third World country. American IT and engineering students are undercut by insourcing from foreign countries with workers who are happy to work for peanuts. Our own companies ship jobs overseas for sheer profits for the rich.

By flooding us with millions of the world's poorest immigrants, the rich get richer off the consumption of millions of new mouths while we keep paying our taxes with the jobs we have left. Given enough time, they will break the nation in half economically. But no matter how much they degrade our standard of living, they, like the rich in Third World countries, will remain at the top. They live in gated communities and send their kids to private schools. They are not touched by this invasion. They profit at our expense.

That is, of course, until Paris, France becomes Anytown, USA. Again, why would they do it to their own country? Much like the rich in most countries, they feel privileged, aloof and above it all. What's our part in this 'why'? Only 50 percent of us vote in national elections. Less than 20 percent of us vote in local elections. No wonder it's so easy for corporations to buy votes and pay off our elected leaders-it's a good old boys club with members that have been intertwined for decades. Corruption is their game for personal gain-- and our national disgrace.

Finally, you need to figure out 'why' you're not doing anything to stop it. If you and I keep voting in the same senators and congressmen into office time and time again, we're doomed as a viable, sustainable and First World civilization.

We probably will vote most of the same ones back into office in November and that's what the elites count on for their continued success.


Write for that 25-point action letter to stop this nation-destroying madness at www.frostywooldridge.com

Forget Iran, Americans Should Be Hysterical About This

By Paul Craig Roberts
2-12-6

Last week the Bureau of Labor Statistics re-benchmarked the payroll jobs data back to 2000. Thanks to Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services, I have the adjusted data from January 2001 through January 2006. If you are worried about terrorists, you don't know what worry is.

Job growth over the last five years is the weakest on record. The US economy came up more than 7 million jobs short of keeping up with population growth. That's one good reason for controlling immigration. An economy that cannot keep up with population growth should not be boosting population with heavy rates of legal and illegal immigration.

Over the past five years the US economy experienced a net job loss in goods producing activities. The entire job growth was in service-providing activities--primarily credit intermediation, health care and social assistance, waiters, waitresses and bartenders, and state and local government.

US manufacturing lost 2.9 million jobs, almost 17% of the manufacturing work force. The wipeout is across the board. Not a single manufacturing payroll classification created a single new job.

The declines in some manufacturing sectors have more in common with a country undergoing saturation bombing during war than with a super-economy that is "the envy of the world." Communications equipment lost 43% of its workforce. Semiconductors and electronic components lost 37% of its workforce. The workforce in computers and electronic products declined 30%. Electrical equipment and appliances lost 25% of its employees. The workforce in motor vehicles and parts declined 12%. Furniture and related products lost 17% of its jobs. Apparel manufacturers lost almost half of the work force. Employment in textile mills declined 43%. Paper and paper products lost one-fifth of its jobs. The work force in plastics and rubber products declined by 15%. Even manufacturers of beverages and tobacco products experienced a 7% shrinkage in jobs.

The knowledge jobs that were supposed to take the place of lost manufacturing jobs in the globalized "new economy" never appeared. The information sector lost 17% of its jobs, with the telecommunications work force declining by 25%. Even wholesale and retail trade lost jobs. Despite massive new accounting burdens imposed by Sarbanes-Oxley, accounting and bookkeeping employment shrank by 4%. Computer systems design and related lost 9% of its jobs. Today there are 209,000 fewer managerial and supervisory jobs than 5 years ago.

In five years the US economy only created 70,000 jobs in architecture and engineering, many of which are clerical. Little wonder engineering enrollments are shrinking. There are no jobs for graduates. The talk about engineering shortages is absolute ignorance. There are several hundred thousand American engineers who are unemployed and have been for years. No student wants a degree that is nothing but a ticket to a soup line. Many engineers have written to me that they cannot even get Wal-Mart jobs because their education makes them over-qualified.

Offshore outsourcing and offshore production have left the US awash with unemployment among the highly educated. The low measured rate of unemployment does not include discouraged workers. Labor arbitrage has made the unemployment rate less and less a meaningful indicator. In the past unemployment resulted mainly from turnover in the labor force and recession. Recoveries pulled people back into jobs.

Unemployment benefits were intended to help people over the down time in the cycle when workers were laid off. Today the unemployment is permanent as entire occupations and industries are wiped out by labor arbitrage as corporations replace their American employees with foreign ones.

Economists who look beyond political press releases estimate the US unemployment rate to be between 7% and 8.5%. There are now hundreds of thousands of Americans who will never recover their investment in their university education.

Unless the BLS is falsifying the data or businesses are reporting the opposite of the facts, the US is experiencing a job depression. Most economists refuse to acknowledge the facts, because they endorsed globalization. It was a win-win situation, they said.

They were wrong.

At a time when America desperately needs the voices of educated people as a counterweight to the disinformation that emanates from the Bush administration and its supporters, economists have discredited themselves. This is especially true for "free market economists" who foolishly assumed that international labor arbitrage was an example of free trade that was benefitting Americans. Where is the benefit when employment in US export industries and import-competitive industries is shrinking? After decades of struggle to regain credibility, free market economics is on the verge of another wipeout.

No sane economist can possibly maintain that a deplorable record of merely 1,054,000 net new private sector jobs over five years is an indication of a healthy economy. The total number of private sector jobs created over the five year period is 500,000 jobs less than one year's legal and illegal immigration! (In a December 2005 Center for Immigration Studies report based on the Census Bureau's March 2005 Current Population Survey, Steven Camarota writes that there were 7,9 million new immigrants between January 2000 and March 2005.)

The economics profession has failed America. It touts a meaningless number while joblessness soars. Lazy journalists at the New York Times simply rewrite the Bush administration's press releases.

On February 10 the Commerce Department released a record US trade deficit in goods and services for 2005--$726 billion. The US deficit in Advanced Technology Products reached a new high. Offshore production for home markets and jobs outsourcing has made the US highly dependent on foreign provided goods and services, while simultaneously reducing the export capability of the US economy. It is possible that there might be no exchange rate at which the US can balance its trade.

Polls indicate that the Bush administration is succeeding in whipping up fear and hysteria about Iran. The secretary of defense is promising Americans decades-long war. Is death in battle Bush's solution to the job depression? Will Asians finance a decades-long war for a bankrupt country?

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com