Major World News: Gigantic Panama Offshore data leak 2.6 TB largest in history

[Chris Coles]

Re: Major World News: Gigantic Panama Offshore data leak 2.6 TB largest in history

So, how do we bring this idiocy to an end?

[BillBoard]

Re: Major World News: Gigantic Panama Offshore data leak 2.6 TB largest in history

So, how do we bring this idiocy to an end?

Like it always does, it collapses, some or lots of people die and the cycle begins again.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Major World News: Gigantic Panama Offshore data leak 2.6 TB largest in history

Like it always does, it collapses, some or lots of people die and the cycle begins again.

Then the very first point to make is to rephrase the question; so, how do we bring this idiocy to an end without, "some or lots of people die"? How do we bring about change peacefully?

Last evening I watched the movie, Changeling; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changeling_(film) which is an excellent demonstration that the US already has achieved necessary change and we, all of us; need to return to the core debate and do it all again by loudly, speaking out against such stupidity.

We should start with a direct conversation with Clint Eastwood.

[BillBoard]

Re: Major World News: Gigantic Panama Offshore data leak 2.6 TB largest in history

Chris,

It's the ancient question since there was more than one human on earth, who is to be master and who is to be slave.

I used to think that the status quo was truly unfair, until I had to manage a very large organization and realized that the very large majority of people don't give a shit about anyone else, they just want to eat their cake and have it too.

The oligarchs know that if they weren't ruling someone would be ruling them, the best we can do on an individual basis is to unite with others that have an equal vested interest and push your own agenda.

As it stands, it is my firm belief that even those in power that want to make a change would not be able to do so, it would look very foolish and stupid to those around them.

Enjoy the ride and get what you can out of it, let it collapse.

[jk]

Re: Major World News: Gigantic Panama Offshore data leak 2.6 TB largest in history

Chris,

It's the ancient question since there was more than one human on earth, who is to be master and who is to be slave.

I used to think that the status quo was truly unfair, until I had to manage a very large organization and realized that the very large majority of people don't give a shit about anyone else, they just want to eat their cake and have it too.

The oligarchs know that if they weren't ruling someone would be ruling them, the best we can do on an individual basis is to unite with others that have an equal vested interest and push your own agenda.

As it stands, it is my firm belief that even those in power that want to make a change would not be able to do so, it would look very foolish and stupid to those around them.

Enjoy the ride and get what you can out of it, let it collapse.

well said and disappointingly plausible.

[Woodsman]

Re: Major World News: Gigantic Panama Offshore data leak 2.6 TB largest in history

well said and disappointingly plausible.

Then who owns whom in this scenario?

“It’s stunning to think that our government would back the Saudis over its own citizens,” said Mindy Kleinberg, whose husband died in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 and who is part of a group of victims’ family members pushing for the legislation.

Saudi Arabia Warns of Economic Fallout if Congress Passes 9/11 Bill

By MARK MAZZETTIAPRIL 15, 2016

WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia has told the Obama administration and members of Congress that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The Obama administration has lobbied Congress to block the bill’s passage, according to administration officials and congressional aides from both parties, and the Saudi threats have been the subject of intense discussions in recent weeks between lawmakers and officials from the State Department and the Pentagon. The officials have warned senators of diplomatic and economic fallout from the legislation.

Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, delivered the kingdom’s message personally last month during a trip to Washington, telling lawmakers that Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they could be in danger of being frozen by American courts.

Several outside economists are skeptical that the Saudis will follow through, saying that such a sell-off would be difficult to execute and would end up crippling the kingdom’s economy. But the threat is another sign of the escalating tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United States

The administration, which argues that the legislation would put Americans at legal risk overseas, has been lobbying so intently against the bill that some lawmakers and families of Sept. 11 victims are infuriated. In their view, the Obama administration has consistently sided with the kingdom and has thwarted their efforts to learn what they believe to be the truth about the role some Saudi officials played in the terrorist plot.



http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/16/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-warns-ofeconomic-fallout-if-congress-passes-9-11-bill.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1

[jk]

Re: Major World News: Gigantic Panama Offshore data leak 2.6 TB largest in history

Then who owns whom in this scenario?

the people with the money own the people without the money. like always everywhere.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Major World News: Gigantic Panama Offshore data leak 2.6 TB largest in history

Chris,

It's the ancient question since there was more than one human on earth, who is to be master and who is to be slave.

I used to think that the status quo was truly unfair, until I had to manage a very large organization and realized that the very large majority of people don't give a shit about anyone else, they just want to eat their cake and have it too.

The oligarchs know that if they weren't ruling someone would be ruling them, the best we can do on an individual basis is to unite with others that have an equal vested interest and push your own agenda.

As it stands, it is my firm belief that even those in power that want to make a change would not be able to do so, it would look very foolish and stupid to those around them.

Enjoy the ride and get what you can out of it, let it collapse.

The United States was founded by a disparate group of individuals who fought hard, both militarily and in debate to create a nation based upon the rule of law; indeed law deliberately designed to apply to everyone. That all men be deemed equal under law. This is not now nor ever has been about financial equality; it is that in such a nation built upon the rule of the law; the law must apply; equally; to everyone. That is how Lincoln got rid of slavery, that is how we allow everyone the same chance to succeed; under the rule of law.

A nation built upon the rule of the law; applied equally to every citizen; is never one where power over the people may be applied outside of the rule of law as we so frequently see today. It was that thought in mind that led me, in October 2005 to draft my petition to the United States Supreme Court under the title; Requesting counsel be appointed to represent me In my contention that The Government of the United States is Ultra Vires.

My underlying argument being, (in part), the questions:

3. That where a government department or other agency of the United States infringes United States patents and fails to act with the highest ethical standards towards the inventor; is that government department Ultra Vires?

4. That the Solicitor General for the government of the United States; is in such circumstances thus also Ultra Vires?

5. The Court please create a framework of appropriate rules; to ensure that in future, at all times, government attorneys always act to the highest ethical standards in their dealings with inventors granted United States patents?

At the time, I was so strapped for money here in the UK that I could not afford to follow through and pay for the costs of re-conforming my petition to the standards required under the rules for such applications and I left the matter in limbo. Instead, when I sat down to write my book; The Road Ahead from a Grass Roots Perspective, I added the underlying substance of my draft petition as Chapter 12 The Responsibilities of government.

Perhaps soon I should set out to return to the original idea and deliver it in proper format and see if it will fly.

As I see it the true problem is not that there are always people that have an inbuilt desire to dominate; but that, by imposing secrecy, they can cover up their actions; that secrecy allows them to ignore the rule of the law. Allowing them to treat the majority with utter contempt.

Treating honest hard working citizens with utter contempt is not leadership. Never was; never will be. It is simply criminality.

The moment any group can deliberately ignore the rights, (under the concept of a free nation ruled by law), of the majority; that majority are not citizens of a free nation; they are people living in just another example of a reversal back to a form of medieval feudal society; no different to ones fought against by the founders of the United States.

As it may be that my every word is monitored, it is important to state that I have no desire nor intent to in any way disrupt the coming visit of the President of the United States to the United Kingdom. Yes I have issues; but this is not the time and place to re-present them.

[Woodsman]

Re: Major World News: Gigantic Panama Offshore data leak 2.6 TB largest in history

the people with the money own the people without the money. like always everywhere.

Then are we slaves of the Saudis? They are our masters?

[jk]

Re: Major World News: Gigantic Panama Offshore data leak 2.6 TB largest in history

Then are we slaves of the Saudis? They are our masters?

in subtle ways, yes. no whips are involved. why do you think the administration wants to maintain saudi immunity from suits based on their supposed participation in/support of 9/11? it's the golden rule: he who has the gold makes the rules. it's interesting that the saudis are explicitly deploying the threat that so many have imputed to the chinese: piss us off and we'll sell our tbonds.

[Woodsman]

Re: Major World News: Gigantic Panama Offshore data leak 2.6 TB largest in history

in subtle ways, yes. no whips are involved. why do you think the administration wants to maintain saudi immunity from suits based on their supposed participation in/support of 9/11? it's the golden rule: he who has the gold makes the rules. it's interesting that the saudis are explicitly deploying the threat that so many have imputed to the chinese: piss us off and we'll sell our tbonds.

I think disagree with that larger premise. I believe it to be fundamentally anti-American and anti-human, but understand its nature and struggle with it myself. I appreciate the opportunity you gave me to struggle some more with it.

When political power aligns with wealth, it certainly can look like slavery to those without either. And for those willing to support and encourage this condition, they have acclimated themselves to living for the sake of the master and base their self-worth almost entirely on their worth to him. I expect by and large those folks do this without consciousness or a sense of agency. But surely those best at it defend it best of all because they know precisely what they are doing. Here the Clinton and Bush families come immediately to mind. More than anything this might account for the well-known affection between those two infamous clans.



It's true as you say that always and everywhere there have been people willing to submit to this, especially those looking to be kapos in the camp. But it's hardly as natural or irresistible a condition as the kings, oligarchs and their house Negros would have us believe.

"The concentration camp system owed its stability in no small way to a cadre of kapos, who took over the daily operations of the camp, relieving the SS personnel. Thus, absolute power was ubiquitous. Without the delegation of power, the system of discipline and supervision would have promptly disintegrated. The rivalry over supervisory, administrative and warehouse functionary jobs was, for the SS, just a welcome opportunity to pit groups of prisoners against each other and keep them dependent. The normal prisoner, however, was at the mercy of a dual authority, the SS, who often hardly seemed to be at the camp, and the prisoner functionaries, who were always there."
—Eugen Kogon, concentration camp survivor

Always and everywhere are people who refuse and say no. At all times and places there are people who resist, many even unto their end.



Those people don't seem to value themselves in dollars or shekels or status and think little of the master outside of a generalized contempt. At times such people are considered rebels, at others patriots, but no matter what we name them they've never ever gone away. For every man who volunteers himself to slavery there are two running towards freedom.

Most don't make it, but it's the running that counts.

-

As for the repulsive Saudi monarchy, I don't think it's a serious threat. I'm more convinced it's a frightened gambit by a terrified minority of little potentates who have their violent and humiliating end in sight.



A family like that, merely three generations removed from a subsistence economy and stupefying ignorance should know better than to threaten those who watch over them in their sleep. But alas princes become so due to mere accidents of birth rather than their wisdom or intelligence.



Should they threaten too much, the template for their removal is well worn by now. And if it happens that they can't be removed, they can at least be made to wake each morning to sounds of chaos and conflict. How soon before color revolutions begin in Saudi Arabia once the decision is made to change the regime? How soon before princes and sheikhs fall to illness and accidents most untimely and unfortunate?



The British elite were willing to sell out their people and nation for bribes and payment delivered by men whose fathers knew nothing of flush toilets and whose grandfathers slept among their herd of goats.



Now so it seems many of their American cousins engage in the same treachery. But the American people are not subjects and rankle at princely despots no matter how many kisses they share with the Bush family or how deep Obama bows before his king.



And should it come to pass that any elite, Saudi, Israeli, or American, had a hand in that terrible day, well I were I a praying man, I might pray for them.



Sauce for the goose, jk. Give it time.

[jk]

Re: Major World News: Gigantic Panama Offshore data leak 2.6 TB largest in history

i thought it was interesting that the saudi's threatened to sell all their u.s. assets, but they didn't say OUT LOUD, that they would no longer accept dollars in payment for their oil.

[Milton Kuo]

Re: Major World News: Gigantic Panama Offshore data leak 2.6 TB largest in history

Then are we slaves of the Saudis? They are our masters?

That's not the opinion I have. I think Obama is the slave of moneyed interests. If he does something that they don't like, his name will be removed from the invitation list for the speech circuit that the Clintons have been on for the past two decades. What a failure Obama has been. I cannot think of anything positive to say about his presidency and he is arguably as bad as, or even worse than, George W. Bush.

I'm certain you have already considered the following so I'm really stating it for others who have not given the idea any thought.

The U.S. is in a different place from most other debtor nations since we not only control the major reserve currency, we also have a military powerful enough and an armed population numerous enough that no one dares use force to collect on a debt that we renege upon, which wouldn't happen anyway since all of our debts are denominated in currency we control the issuance of.

Of course, reneging upon debt would cause a restructuring of the IMS but even then, most countries would have to bend somewhat to the U.S.'s will because there is no other single country on the face of the earth with the sheer number of people capable of affording much of the product exported by other countries.

Even if Saudi Arabia and OPEC gave us the finger, vowed never to do business with us again, and we decided we would not wage another war for oil, the U.S. would come through unharmed albeit with some discomfort. The shale oil fields will allow the economy to continue to run while buying us time to make electric vehicles more practical and building out mass transit infrastructure.

I believe that the above is some of the idea behind EJ's Fortress America theme. We are one of the few nations that is capable of becoming largely, if not fully, self-sufficient while still maintaining a first-world standard of living.

[FrankL]

Re: Major World News: Gigantic Panama Offshore data leak 2.6 TB largest in history

i thought it was interesting that the saudi's threatened to sell all their u.s. assets, but they didn't say OUT LOUD, that they would no longer accept dollars in payment for their oil.

Changing to sell oil for currency other than USD would not immediately destroy the USD. It effectively would be inviting externally imposed regime change. After seeing what happened to Saddam Hussein and Ghadaffi, the Saudi royals know better than to threaten with that.

Threatening to sell their dollar-denominated holdings however, in their mind, is exposing their 'Samson option'; crashing the US bond markets and doing untold damage on US interests.

Personally, I believe the actual threat is negligible.
Make FED and the primary dealers buy up any amount of Saudi holdings at a considerable discount, without doing major damage to treasury/bond markets.
As soon as SA starts selling their holdings, declare that this is considered as an act of aggression, and seize their remaining treasury holdings as a consequence.
The US-led world has many times shown that they will freeze foreign assets when it suits them. An Saudi asset-freeze would be no different.

[BillBoard]

Re: Major World News: Gigantic Panama Offshore data leak 2.6 TB largest in history

Chris,

You have to be more pragmatical and realistic than that.

Those are the ideals we are taught as children, but once you are thrust forward into the true and cynical reality on which we exist it is a dog eat dog world. Albeit, much subtler just as violent if not more than the animals.

The questions is asked, "Then are we slaves of the Saudis? They are our masters?"

How can you deduce who is the master or who is the slave in this scenario? What's the ultimate action the Saudi can pull and still be in control and master of the game? Answer: nothing. They are subservient. They don't have the raw power of violence to carry out their will.

You are correct Chris that the representation of the Rule of Law is what makes America unique, but the confidence game must be kept going for the majority of the people. At the moment the Oligarchs cross the line and think they can remain in power while the masses see through the veil, is the time the game is over.

This whole game is nothing more than a cheap parlor trick, foisted up by the clever manipulations of words into malleable terms. Think about it, they use terms such as a "flexible currency" for a unit of exchange that lets them take your wealth, and you are hard press to perceive how they do it. They call it a monetary system, when it is in fact a hybrid credit system, with coins as nothing more than tokens in representation of ephemeral units of exchange.

There is nothing supernatural about political economics, all Adams Smith's invisible hand is nothing more than human requirement for food, shelter, safety, and entertainment. And those requirements are managed by the leaders with a system of currency, which can be as little as a intangible unit of exchange, a book and a trusted bookkeeper.