AMERICA FIRST!

Keith Olbermann rips into the Democrats

2007-06-13T09:07:00.000-05:00

If the US Government in Washington, DC doesn't Heed the Call from the Commonwealth of the United States...

This is what they will Face once again under the Powers of The Declaration of Independence, 1776, Preamble.

The US Constitution did not Create and/or Define the United States... it is the Perpetual Governance Mission, not the Vision of this Republic... the Vision resides in The Declaration of Independence-- a Heirloom that cannot be Modified.

We Declared Independence from the British... We can Declare Independence from the Global Financial Cabals in 2011 ;-)

Lee Iacocca: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

2007-06-05T07:52:00.000-05:00

Excerpt: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
By Lee Iacocca with Catherine Whitney

Had Enough? Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course." Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out! You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies.Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for.

I've had enough. How about you? I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have. My friends tell me to calm down. They say, "Lee, you're eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people." I'd love to, as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I'm going to speak up because it's my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I'll tell you how I see it, and it's not pretty, but at least it's real. I'm hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don't vote because they don't trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us. Who Are These Guys, Anyway? Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them, or at least some of us did. But I'll tell you what we didn't do. We didn't agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn't agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that's a dictatorship, not a democracy. And don't tell me it's all the fault of right-wing Republicans or liberal Democrats. That's an intellectually lazy argument, and it's part of the reason we're in this stew. We're not just a nation of factions. We're a people. We share common principles and ideals. And we rise and fall together.

Where are the voices of leaders who can inspire us to action and make us stand taller? What happened to the strong and resolute party of Lincoln? What happened to the courageous, populist party of FDR and Truman? There was a time in this country when the voices of great leaders lifted us up and made us want to do better. Where have all the leaders gone?

The Test of a Leader

I've never been Commander in Chief, but I've been a CEO. I understand a few things about leadership at the top. I've figured out nine points, not ten (I don't want people accusing me of thinking I'm Moses). I call them the "Nine Cs of Leadership." They're not fancy or complicated. Just clear, obvious qualities that every true leader should have. We should look at how the current administration stacks up. Like it or not, this crew is going to be around until January 2009. Maybe we can learn something before we go to the polls in 2008. Then let's be sure we use the leadership test to screen the candidates who say they want to run the country. It's up to us to choose wisely.

So, here's my C list:

A leader has to show CURIOSITY. He has to listen to people outside of the "Yes, sir" crowd in his inner circle. He has to read voraciously, because the world is a big, complicated place. George W. Bush brags about never reading a newspaper. "I just scan the headlines," he says. Am I hearing this right? He's the President of the United States and he never reads a newspaper? Thomas Jefferson once said, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter." Bush disagrees. As long as he gets his daily hour in the gym, with Fox News piped through the sound system, he's ready to go.

If a leader never steps outside his comfort zone to hear different ideas, he grows stale. If he doesn't put his beliefs to the test, how does he know he's right? The inability to listen is a form of arrogance. It means either you think you already know it all, or you just don't care. Before the 2006 election, George Bush made a big point of saying he didn't listen to the polls. Yeah, that's what they all say when the polls stink. But maybe he should have listened, because 70 percent of the people were saying he was on the wrong track. It took a "thumping" on election day to wake him up, but even then you got the feeling he wasn't listening so much as he was calculating how to do a better job of convincing everyone he was right.

A leader has to be CREATIVE, go out on a limb, be willing to try something different. You know, think outside the box. George Bush prides himself on never changing, even as the world around him is spinning out of control. God forbid someone should accuse him of flip-flopping. There's a disturbingly messianic fervor to his certainty. Senator Joe Biden recalled a conversation he had with Bush a few months after our troops marched into Baghdad. Joe was in the Oval Office outlining his concerns to the President, the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanded Iraqi army, the problems securing the oil fields. "The President was serene," Joe recalled. "He told me he was sure that we were on the right course and that all would be well. 'Mr. President,' I finally said, 'how can you be so sure when you don't yet know all the facts?'" Bush then reached over and put a steadying hand on Joe's shoulder. "My instincts," he said. "My instincts." Joe was flabbergasted. He told Bush,"Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough." Joe Biden sure didn't think the matter was settled. And, as we all know now, it wasn't. Leadership is all about managing change, whether you're leading a company or leading a country. Things change, and you get creative. You adapt. Maybe Bush was absent the day they covered that at Harvard Business School.

A leader has to COMMUNICATE. I'm not talking about running off at the mouth or spouting sound bites. I'm talking about facing reality and telling the truth. Nobody in the current administration seems to know how to talk straight anymore. Instead, they spend most of their time trying to convince us that things are not really as bad as they seem. I don't know if it's denial or dishonesty, but it can start to drive you crazy after a while. Communication has to start with telling the truth, even when it's painful. The war in Iraq has been, among other things, a grand failure of communication. Bush is like the boy who didn't cry wolf when the wolf was at the door. After years of being told that all is well, even as the casualties and chaos mount, we've stopped listening to him.

A leader has to be a person of CHARACTER. That means knowing the difference between right and wrong and having the guts to do the right thing. Abraham Lincoln once said, "If you want to test a man's character, give him power." George Bush has a lot of power. What does it say about his character? Bush has shown a willingness to take bold action on the world stage because he has the power, but he shows little regard for the grievous consequences. He has sent our troops (not to mention hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens) to their deaths. For what? To build our oil reserves? To avenge his daddy because Saddam Hussein once tried to have him killed? To show his daddy he's tougher? The motivations behind the war in Iraq are questionable, and the execution of the war has been a disaster. A man of character does not ask a single soldier to die for a failed policy.

A leader must have COURAGE. I'm talking about balls. (That even goes for female leaders.) Swagger isn't courage. Tough talk isn't courage. George Bush comes from a blue-blooded Connecticut family, but he likes to talk like a cowboy. You know, My gun is bigger than your gun. Courage in the twenty-first century doesn't mean posturing and bravado. Courage is a commitment to sit down at the negotiating table and talk.

If you're a politician, courage means taking a position even when you know it will cost you votes. Bush can't even make a public appearance unless the audience has been handpicked and sanitized. He did a series of so-called town hall meetings last year, in auditoriums packed with his most devoted fans. The questions were all softballs.

To be a leader you've got to have CONVICTION, a fire in your belly. You've got to have passion. You've got to really want to get something done. How do you measure fire in the belly? Bush has set the all-time record for number of vacation days taken by a U.S. President, four hundred and counting. He'd rather clear brush on his ranch than immerse himself in the business of governing. He even told an interviewer that the high point of his presidency so far was catching a seven-and-a-half-pound perch in his hand-stocked lake. It's no better on Capitol Hill. Congress was in session only ninety-seven days in 2006. That's eleven days less than the record set in 1948, when President Harry Truman coined the term do-nothing Congress. Most people would expect to be fired if they worked so little and had nothing to show for it. But Congress managed to find the time to vote itself a raise. Now, that's not leadership.

A leader should have CHARISMA. I'm not talking about being flashy. Charisma is the quality that makes people want to follow you. It's the ability to inspire. People follow a leader because they trust him. That's my definition of charisma. Maybe George Bush is a great guy to hang out with at a barbecue or a ball game. But put him at a global summit where the future of our planet is at stake, and he doesn't look very presidential. Those frat-boy pranks and the kidding around he enjoys so much don't go over that well with world leaders. Just ask German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who received an unwelcome shoulder massage from our President at a G-8 Summit. When he came up behind her and started squeezing, I thought she was going to go right through the roof.

A leader has to be COMPETENT. That seems obvious, doesn't it? You've got to know what you're doing. More important than that, you've got to surround yourself with people who know what they're doing. Bush brags about being our first MBA President. Does that make him competent? Well, let's see. Thanks to our first MBA President, we've got the largest deficit in history, Social Security is on life support, and we've run up a half-a-trillion-dollar price tag (so far) in Iraq. And that's just for starters. A leader has to be a problem solver, and the biggest problems we face as a nation seem to be on the back burner.

You can't be a leader if you don't have COMMON SENSE. I call this Charlie Beacham's rule. When I was a young guy just starting out in the car business, one of my first jobs was as Ford's zone manager in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. My boss was a guy named Charlie Beacham, who was the East Coast regional manager. Charlie was a big Southerner, with a warm drawl, a huge smile, and a core of steel. Charlie used to tell me, "Remember, Lee, the only thing you've got going for you as a human being is your ability to reason and your common sense. If you don't know a dip of horseshit from a dip of vanilla ice cream, you'll never make it." George Bush doesn't have common sense. He just has a lot of sound bites. You know, Mr.they'll-welcome-us-as-liberators-no-child-left-behind-heck-of-a-job-Brownie-mission-accomplished Bush. Former President Bill Clinton once said, "I grew up in an alcoholic home. I spent half my childhood trying to get into the reality-based world, and I like it here." I think our current President should visit the real world once in a while.

The Biggest C is Crisis Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down. On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. Where was George Bush? He was reading a story about a pet goat to kids in Florida when he heard about the attacks. He kept sitting there for twenty minutes with a baffled look on his face. It's all on tape. You can see it for yourself. Then, instead of taking the quickest route back to Washington and immediately going on the air to reassure the panicked people of this country, he decided it wasn't safe to return to the White House. He basically went into hiding for the day, and he told Vice President Dick Cheney to stay put in his bunker. We were all frozen in front of our TVs, scared out of our wits, waiting for our leaders to tell us that we were going to be okay, and there was nobody home. It took Bush a couple of days to get his bearings and devise the right photo op at Ground Zero. That was George Bush's moment of truth, and he was paralyzed. And what did he do when he'd regained his composure? He led us down the road to Iraq, a road his own father had considered disastrous when he was President. But Bush didn't listen to Daddy. He listened to a higher father. He prides himself on being faith based, not reality based. If that doesn't scare the crap out of you,I don't know what will.

A Hell of a Mess.

So here's where we stand. We're immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership.

But when you look around, you've got to ask: "Where have all the leaders gone?" Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.

Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo? We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened. Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane, or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm. Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again. Now, that's just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out what you're going to do the next time.

Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when "the Big Three" referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen, and more important, what are we going to do about it? Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.

I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bobblehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change? Had Enough? Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope. I believe in America. In my lifetime I've had the privilege of living through some of America's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crises, the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the 1970s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11. If I've learned one thing, it's this: You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play. That's the challenge I'm raising in this book. It's a call to action for people who, like me, believe in America. It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close. So let's shake off the horseshit and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had enough

Excerpted from Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
(C) 2007 by Lee Iacocca. All rights reserved.

It is Time to Read, Implement, & Execute our Pursuit of Happiness

Charlie Rose - Lee Iacocca / David Rockwell / Acevedo Vila

Watergate Reborn: WireGate

2007-02-10T07:49:00.000-05:00

De Facto President Bush Doesn't Hold a Candle to President Nixon's Challenges, Triumphs and Tragedies, & Everlasting Legacy

Yet, Bush Torched his Way through the 2004 Presidential Elections in the most flamboyant Fashion in US Constitutional History... I hear that the Men who first Examined Nixon's flaws have Awaken to Examine another sitting President soon.

I also Predict that the 44th President of the United States will Repeat President Ford's decision to Pardon his Processor for all his Crimes & Misdemeanors so that the Country can Move On.

Deja vu?

Reference: http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Chief_Counsel_to_Committee_that_probed_0207.html

_{Source: http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2007_cr/schiff012407.html
On January 24, 2007 US Rep. Schiff of California Made this Speech on the House Floor on this Matter.}

"...developments over the last year bear a striking resemblance to events that occurred some 30 years ago, when a series of troubling reports began appearing in the press concerning domestic intelligence activities and surveillance of political activities of U.S. citizens.

These revelations and others revealed by the Watergate scandal convinced lawmakers that Congress had been too permissive and trusting, failing to carry out its oversight responsibilities over the executive branch."
[snip]

Source: http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/28219prs20070131.html

US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that he will allow key lawmakers to see secret documents on the government's National Security Agency surveillance program under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
[snip]

So, What is Bush's Opinion on the Matter?

"Bring it On!"

That's Right George, Stay the Course & Never Learn...

Well George, You Need your Legacy to be Fulfilled... We all Know That.

Meanwhile, while you are Desperately trying to Glue that One Together... Watch a little Bit of the Future coming Your Way ;-)

Disease of Conceit: Homeless US Iraq Veterans

2006-11-14T07:57:00.000-05:00

Disease of Conceit
by Bob Dylan, Oh Mercy album, Released: Sept 12, 1989

Anderson Cooper 360

Early Coverage by NPR, October 27, 2006.

Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6394180

Joe Raicaldo leans against the '98 Plymouth he has been living in since his honorable discharge from the Army after he was injured in Iraq.

Mr. Raicaldo is Highly Articulate & Intelligent, Do We Have a Dignified Position for Him in your Company?

Please Let Me Know at bizblogs@comcast.net

_{Serious Inquiries Only}

COOPER (voice-over): There are two things National Guard Corporal Joe Raicaldo never dreamed he'd see: the sun setting over Iraq and the sun setting over his '98 Plymouth, the car he now calls home.

JOE RAICALDO, HOMELESS IRAQ VET: I never thought, like, after the ball was dropped, you're out here in this parking lot. I never thought I'd be here.

COOPER: The long road to get here, a parking lot in Jones Beach, New York, began two years ago in Iraq.

(on camera) So you were in this lane here?

RAICALDO: Yes, in that top piece in the front turret.

COOPER (voice-over): Joe was the gunner in this Humvee when his vehicle took a sharp turn and flipped. His body was nearly crushed underneath

RAICALDO: I just remember I couldn't move anything. I couldn't breathe. I was bleeding. You know, I just felt blood all over me, my face. And I squeezed out the words, "Get a medevac fast," because I thought that was it.

COOPER: Joe suffered traumatic brain injury, broke his back, all his ribs and shattered his left arm. He was unconscious for days.

RAICALDO: Told my sister they're going to fly her out there; I wasn't going to make it.

COOPER: To the surprise of his own doctors, he survived. Over many months doctors pieced him back together, using metal rods and screws to fuse his spine and metal plates to hold his shattered arm together.

(on camera) You have a lot of metal?

RAICALDO: A lot of metal. Probably built a small Eiffel Tower over there in hardware. COOPER (voice-over): Today every step hurts, but Joe remembers when he could run on this beach for miles.

RAICALDO: Me and my friend, we used to go eight miles that way.

COOPER: Joe can't lift more than ten pounds, so he couldn't go back to being an auto mechanic. Instead, he took a job with the National Guard, patrolling Penn Station in New York.

He says he lasted six months before landing in the hospital again with back pain and a bone infection.

RAICALDO: At that point I gave up. I simply gave up. I know I can't work. I have no income coming in. I'm finished.

COOPER: What he had coming in was $218 a month from a disability check. So it wasn't long before Joe, at age 50, ended up homeless.

RAICALDO: This is my clothes closet here.

COOPER (on camera): The trunk is your closet?

RAICALDO: Yes, forgive me. The maid didn't show up this morning. I'm going to fire her when I get home.

COOPER (voice-over): Joe says he's looked for part time work with no luck.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, Joe.

RAICALDO: Hey.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are you?

COOPER: He has one sister and a few friends who've offered to help, but he's too proud to accept it and too proud to stay in a shelter.

So he spends most days alone, a stranger in his hometown of Hicksville, New York, on Long Island. One possible reason for his withdrawal, Joe was recently diagnosed with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

RAICALDO: I just don't belong. I don't feel I belong anywhere.

COOPER: Joe is one of an estimated 600 homeless veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. That's not many, compared with the 200,000 or so from all wars who are currently homeless.

But these vets are showing up even more quickly than after Vietnam, a war that left nearly 70,000 homeless, an even greater number than died in combat.

CHERYL BEVERSDORF, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL COALITION FOR HOMELESS VETS: If the experience with Vietnam is any predictor, I am very worried about the numbers of homeless veterans where people at risk of being homeless who are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

COOPER: The Department of Veterans Affairs is working to avoid a repeat of what happened after Vietnam.

JIM NICHOLSON, SECRETARY OF VETERANS AFFAIRS: There was a delayed effect with a lot of veterans after Vietnam. We know that. We've studied it. We've learned from that. And so that's why we're trying to intervene now right away.

COOPER: The V.A. spent more than a billion dollars on homeless programs last year, but some veterans still fall through the cracks. Misclassified, as the V.A. now says Joe was, unable to receive full compensation.

(on camera) You feel sort of like you got lost in the system?

RAICALDO: Absolutely. Lost -- I'm still lost. I'm still dizzy from what happened.

COOPER (voice-over): And sick and tired of fighting for benefits. Last month, though, Joe's persistence began to pay off. His disability status was raised from 20 percent to 60 percent, or $873 a month.

But as Joe puts it, in New York, that is just enough to either afford an apartment or eat, not both.

RAICALDO: I'm disgusted. And it's not because I'm a veteran or a soldier or somebody who served. That means nothing. You know, we choose to go. No one forced us to go.

I'm just saying you should be treated like a human being, for God's sake. That's all I want. And I think about the other veterans from other wars and they're still fighting to this day. And it's just -- it's horrible. And I had to live it.

COOPER: It was only after CNN made repeated inquiries about this case that the V.A. called to inform us that Joe would finally be granted full 100 percent disability status, retroactive to March and worth $2,600 a month. Meaning he may actually get to sleep in a real bed very soon.

When we called Joe with the news, he said he'll believe it when he gets the first check.

The war in Iraq may have broken his body, but it's the fight here at home that's come close to breaking his spirit.

Aired November 10, 2006 - 22:00 ET

Homeless Vet Found in River

November 5, 2006

A man found dead Saturday in White River had been discharged hours earlier as a patient at the nearby veterans hospital, police said.

Roger Wightman, 45, was found floating in the river about 7:50 a.m. by two people crossing the 10th Street bridge.
“It appears the individual was homeless,” said Indianapolis Police Department spokesman Sgt. Matthew Mount. “He’d been released from the VA hospital on Friday evening.”

The Richard L. Roudebush Veterans Affairs Medical Center is located by the river at 1481 W. 10th Street.

Indianapolis Fire Department divers recovered Wightman’s body. Mount said an autopsy would be conducted Monday to determine a cause of death.

This is What You Call Supporting the Troops???

... and the Line just Gets Longer & Longer,

Yes... More So Than Ever. Maybe the Hooded One will be an Veteran??

The Commonwealth of the United States Have SPOKEN!

2006-11-08T09:52:00.000-05:00

(Turn Speakers to Hear this Rally Cry)

... and (I) Joe, You are not Immune to the Wrath that is Coming either,

And GD Bill Gates better Leave Town Soon... MOVE ON! to China, your new Home... Bill-- You Bought It-- It's Yours & You can Have It, Son-of-a-Bitch!

The Internet Railroad - _{Are Giants: Bill Gates & Microsoft, the Ultimate Traitors & Executioners to the Commonwealth of the United States?}

Just Unbelievable that Such an Icon is on the Run...

Well, We Got News for China & the Far East... We Will Start PROTECTING our COMMONWEALTH in 2007!.

Click to Listen to Tune

Shame & a Decent Hanging for FoxNews is in Store

2006-09-26T07:53:00.000-05:00

The Attempt to BushWhack a Highly Regarded & Respected US President by World Leaders from all Over the Globe on an US Owned Television Network or Otherwise is Beyond Distasteful!-- it is a Downright Un-American Activity that Deserves the Joe McCarthy Treatment and Much, Much Worse...

a Public Hanging... GD Right!

The 1st of its Kind in United States History, a Diary of the Daily Planning, Decisions, & Duties of the Presidency... notated & written by his Chief of Staff-- the #2 Man in the White House.

Being President of the United States is No Easy Picnic, Folks! The Age before their Time... their Burdens are Tremendous.

You Wear the Shoes of the President of the United States and Then, and Only Then-- Can You Pass Judgement.

State of the Union Address in 2000 by President Clinton :-O

2006-09-03T09:11:00.000-05:00

Does Anybody remember Just How Great it Was Before Bushca? What On Earth, literally, have We Done?

America... It has been Six Years Since 2000, Please Tell Me Which President is On Crack?

Here's My Opinion,

Washington Gang-- UR Fired! It's Time for Some Humility Around the Globe

2006-08-15T07:13:00.000-05:00

The Current Severity of Our Foreign Relations with KAOS Demands an Immediate Resolution...

Not to Mention: Quit Spending Other Peoples Money in Stupid Ways.

Jez, they have spent more money thus far than we spend on the entire Vietnam War... and there is Absolutely No Light in the that Tunnel Vision.

Instead, Let us access those WWII Swiss Bank account funds and make an Investment in Tomorrow's Global Stability.

Once Mission is Truly Accomplished-- then send the Bill to the White House.

Since we cannot Rely on Maxwell Smart & the I-Spy Duo of the 60s Anymore due to the Lack of Interest by the President of the United States,

which is most likely following somekind of Warped Strategic Plan designed by Global Cabal(s)-- We Need to Empower the Best of the Best to Pickup the Slack & Execute what is Necessary with Extreme Prejudice.

These Best of the Best know Who they Are, and most of them just hangout in the Jungles of South America doing Odd Jobs, Here & There... and the Empowerers know Who they Are too ;-)

It's Time for a Whole Can of Uncommon Valor to be Whipped Out on these Rogue Rebels & Trouble Makers.

If a Pima Indian can Survive Landing on a Beach in Iwo Jima Fighting & Later Put up the Stars & Stripes... I'm sure there are a lot more of the Same that Can Do a much, much better Job of Enforcing our Interests around the Globe than that of the Cheney/Rove/Bush _{(Actual Chain of Command)} Administration that Continues to Hide the Carrot & the Stick in a Undisclosed Location on a Frequent Basis.

Seriously Folks, Do You Honestly believe that the Combined Intelligence community of the Western Civilized World cannot get even a Handle on these Boys? Yeah, Right...

Remember Laos? What's the Difference... We were There & other Places, but NOT Officially... Plausable Denial ;-)

Plus, Lets put a Stop to maming the Innocient Civilians with Depleted Uranium munitions with your Shotgun Approach... Surgically, We Can Do Better than That!

Depleted Uranium Infant Victims, Access Link with Extreme Caution: Rated MA/XXX

Lets Begin with the Top (10) Global Most Wanted list,

Here is a 2'Fr Deal & it Pays GREAT Dividends as Well.

Erase Itnl Bad Hair Day

Great Intellectual Speaker, But doesn't have any Credibility.

Priest Vowels don't Include Guns & Terrons.

I Don't quite have (10) on My List... Care to Add Some More?

Pearl Harbor II on Our Aging, Proven Battleships: The Baby Boomers

2006-05-17T08:12:00.000-05:00

That's right... another attack without a single shot fired or a single bomb dropped from an airplane, again, from The Far East... will once again Sink our Fleet of Battleships that have Supported Us & Our Country's Destiny for over 65 years-- our Retiring Baby Boomers.

Just when you think things couldn't get worse... they do, Day by Day.

Imagine a Titanic event with 100s of millions of passengers... floating in the frozen seas of the Atlantic... starving & slowly dying of thirst-- eaten one by one, hour by hour... by large schools of Sharks, when & whenever they feel the urge to consume their lifeless bodies.

I am Speechless after watching...

PBS' Frontline segment last night on May 16 2006 titled, "Can You Afford to Retire?".

[Transcript Quotes to Follow Soon]

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were tried, convicted, and executed for spying for the Soviet Union. Specifically, the couple was charged with conspiracy to commit espionage and were accused of passing nuclear weapons secrets to Russian agents.

Henry Wirz, Former Commander of Confederate Prison Was Hanged,

Reading the death warrant to Wirz on the scaffold in Washington, D.C.
_{Source: "Washington, D.C. Reading the Death Warrant to Wirz on the Scaffold." November 10, 1865. Selected Civil War Photographs, 1861-1865, Library of Congress.}

Hell Hath No Fury like a Farmer
_{This photograph captures a scene most folks in Centerboro would just as soon forget. The 1930s were not happy years for farmers, who had trouble paying their mortgages and other loans. A group of Centerboro-area farmers marched one day to protest in front of the bank. They were met on the outskirts of Centerboro by a number of club-wielding citizens who had been deputized by the sheriff's department to keep them off the streets. In the ensuing minor riot, both sides suffered a number of physical injuries, but the deeper damage was done to the amicable relations that had always existed between the farmers and the townspeople.}

I predict the Fever Pitch of the Silent Majority of Americans will Rise Again and Be Enroute to Washington, D.C. with Pitch Forks in Hand by 2010... & plan on Supporting them through My Efforts to Bring Back the Senate Committee of "Un-American Activities" to follow in the footsteps of their Rage.

There will be a Special Nooses available for the Senior White House Officials & Cabinet members as well... I'm quite sure of that to be one of the many Horrors that are to Come during this Period of Wrath.

Only God Can Forgive You.

I ask My Fellow American Commonwealth,

Who in Washington, D.C. should be on this List?

<br /><bgsound src="http://members.ispwest.com/bramafear/sounds/PearlHarbour.wav" loop="infinite"><br />

The Immigration Crisis & The China Grab

2006-04-28T07:15:00.000-05:00

Sundown on the Union: In the 80's & Now... Same Tune with a Twist!

Union Sundown
by Bob Dylan

Dylan wrote this fine piece back in 1983 during the Reagan Years.

Anything sound any different to you?

Listen & Ponder... and I'll be back to add more meat on this Turkey.

Well at Last, CONGRATULATIONS! to Cuba & Fidel Castro for finally finding your place on the Fossil Fuel Wheel of Fortune - BIG OIL.

Boy, have we been Blind for over 40 years... over a Mafia Real Estate Issue gone bad involving lost Revenues from Casinos & other Assorted Goodies?

So tell me, who has the last laugh, Fidel & Friends or the United States?

Previous to the Grab by China, they successfully grabbed this with our Congressional Approval,

What do you bet... that we take it back?

Another Deal Gone Bad.

-- Now, Here's an Artist with an Eye --

_{"Land of Greed, World in Need",(story: China tells US Congress to back off businesses), "31 Days in July Series" (July 5)}

Final Analysis: We have a more pressing threat on the Horizon from China, Inc & the Far East than we do with Illegal Immigrants at the moment. Lets reflect on the numbers for a moment by Population & GDP Growth,

o United States - 300M / 3-4%
o Illegal Immigrants - 12-20M (estimated) / ??%
o China & the Far East - 2-3B (billion) / 9-10%

China has begun a Resource Grab program that will dwarf anything the United States has done since the 20th Century... so, what should be our Real Concern?

Our current US Immigration issue stems from China's advantage over our first attempt at creating Immigration Deterrents we crafted in the 90's: NAFTA. During that time period the Economy of the United States was growing by Leaps & Bounds... and we could afford the Hit of partial manufacturing migration to Mexico & Region.

CAFTA was sitting on the shelf as the last phase of the project to curtail the Illegal Migration of the poor peoples of Mexico & Central America. All of the areas CAFTA effected were the targets of Govt Fail Economic stewardships... any other countries near & not on the list had successful Govt Economic programs and their peoples did not have any reasons to migrate, illegally, to the United States. These countries not on the list are countries like Belize, Costa Rica, Panama, & Colombia.

The clear Objective of FTAs are to provide Economic Stimulus & Growth to a segment of the Middle Class population in the Regions targeted. In due time this thriving population of the Middle Class would demand better Stewardship by their Govts or forms of Govts. The final results would level the opportunity playing field with Us & Them and thus, eliminate the desire to cut & run across our borders out of the pure need of survival.

Unfortunately, since the Summer of 2000... our Economy has faltered & the rest of the World caught a COLD. Businesses, large and small, tried to outrun the Recession and a good many didn't make it. Others looked for another release and they found it in China & India. The foothold they created there outlasted their expectations. Now, their long-term Wealthbuilding efforts are following their short-term pursuits in the Far East. Why would I invest millions & billions in the United States or any other low performing G8 Nation at 3.5% on Return, when I can invest the same amount in the Far East and make 9-11% on my investments? ... Common Sense Wealthbuilding.

President Clinton was a Lame Duck president since 1999, and we have had a Lame Duck president ever since--- Just like President Truman's sign on his desk read,

"The Buck Stops Here!".

No, the Illegal Immigrants and Legal Aliens are not our Enemy-- China & the Far East are... Face the Facts and Plan & Act accordingly.

Therefore, since our President has failed his Economic Stewardship for (5) straight years, we can only look to The Congress to 'Bring Home the Bacon' in 2007 & hold them accountable for Results.

Lets go over those Economic numbers, again for a moment by Population & GDP Growth,

o United States - 300M / 3-4%
o Illegal Immigrants - 12-20M (estimated) / ??%
o China & the Far East - 2-3B (billion) / 9-10%

The biggest threat I see is Volume in Population-- we have a serious problem if their Economy produces more Middle Class than we have, correct?

Next, I challenge anybody to provide us up-to-date Population figures for both Spheres of Influence: The G8 Nations & The Far East, segmented by Economic Common, Middle, & Upper Class groups and Totaled.

With such information I believe that you will discover the True, Shocking, Big Picture that awaits all of Us on the Horizon.

My Solution would involve growing our G8 Nation population & its Productivity, and Protect our G8 Markets from Invaders & Plunderers. Immediately, we must address many issues Head On: Wealthbuilding outside of our Sphere of Influence, the constant attritional bleeding of our Commonwealth by Non-G8 Nations, Innovate, & Grow our Sphere of Influence and pick up other Friends along the Way.

Currently, there are (4) large continental resource markets in Limbo: Central America, South America, Africa, & Russia-- the Economic Power Grab has already occurred between Us & the Far East... and they are closing real fast on South America for the Raw Materials: China 1 - G8 Nations 0. Can we afford to have a potential physical enemy to have controlling interests in our Hemisphere? Does Dubai Ring a Bell... China already owns the rights to operate the Panama Canal... what's next?

Maybe someone from the Audience can come up here and layout the next steps of, "D,E,F, & G".

Today, we need to encourage our Central American Friends to START the GOOD FIGHT in their own REGION & the COUNTRIES within. The "Carrot & Stick" will be the driving factor behind our Encouragement to Produce these Ends.

The "Stick" will be the Deportation of Illegal Immigrants & the Ultimate Protection of our Borders-- the US Military.

Currently, our military has 100s of camps & bases dotted all across the United States.

http://www.cr.nps.gov/nagpra/DOCUMENTS/BasesMilitaryMAP.htm

My solution would be to Redeploy segments of the Military along the entire US/Mexico Border and Erect these Signs all along the Border in English & Spanish,

_{Notice the phrase: "Use of deadly force is authorized}

If these instruments are good enough to keep US Citizens Out-- It's good enough to keep out Non-Citizens as well.

Secondly, we are going to Disrupt the Death Train that travels the total lenght of Mexico which provides most of the transport needs of these fleeing Immigrants,

First Class, but Rare indeed.

Viva America!

More to Come...

Upcoming Generations Ruined & On the Path to Oblivion

2006-04-12T07:04:00.000-05:00

April 17, 2006 Vol. 167 No. 16

Source: Time

"Shawn Sturgill, 18, had a clique of his own at Shelbyville High, a dozen or so friends who sat at the same long bench in the hallway outside the cafeteria. They were, Shawn says, an average crowd. Not too rich, not too poor; not bookish, but not slow. They rarely got into trouble. Mainly they sat around and talked about Camaros and the Indianapolis Colts.

These days the bench is mostly empty. Of his dozen friends, Shawn says just one or two are still at Shelbyville High. If some cliques are defined by a common sport or a shared obsession with Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, Shawn's friends ended up being defined by their mutual destiny: nearly all of them became high school dropouts.

Shawn's friends are not alone in their exodus. Of the 315 Shelbyville students who showed up for the first day of high school four years ago, only 215 are expected to graduate. The 100 others have simply melted away, dropping out in a slow, steady bleed that has left the town wondering how it could have let down so many of its kids.
[snip]

They all left to work for the likes of McDonalds and Taco Bell... that's just swell. I can just see their payroll deductions supporting the coffers of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, & Federal and State Income Taxes.

If you are 40-50 Something-- don't count on Uncle Sam's promises when you retire.

Was it all just a Dream?

Do you want to continue to "Live In A World of Darkness" or do you want to "Fly Like A Eagle"?

It's Your Choice in 2006 & 2008...

The Internet Railroad

2006-02-22T08:47:00.000-05:00

Click to Play Background Theme

Either my good friend Bill Gates and his monolith company, Microsoft, have a diabolical master plan or he is the luckiest son-of-a-bitch on the planet-- he stands to double his empire within the next 15-20 years by selling his wares to the Far East.

_{Are Giants: Bill Gates & Microsoft, the Ultimate Traitors & Executioners to the Commonwealth of the United States?}

Currently, Microsoft is bogged down with piracy issues like everybody else that does business in that region. But if brother Bill can at least sale 20% or better of his wares, he would easily have sold about 100s of millions of copies of the Microsoft operating system with better residual rates due to population growth in that region that would eclipse the performance of Microsoft during the 20th Century.

That's the difference when you add one more "zero" to the end of the equation-- billions versus millions, folks.

The G8 Nation's populations are no match for the critical mass wealthbuilding of the up & coming billions of people of the Far East-- Go West, young man, rush to the shores of California, & paddle across the horizon -- that's where you will find your fortune & Gold in this Century!

20 years ago, the only thing American's knew about China was the Great Wall & the Panda... and maybe the Dragon if they visited Chinatown. While we were asleep, China has grown to be 3rd World's largest economies-- an economic development machine on steroids.

How did this happen? Ask Bill-- he knows...

Does anybody remember the big hoorah about the Telecom companies laying down all that wonderful Fiber Optic cables across the Atlantic and elsewhere around the globe? Great things lay ahead on the horizon if we can just close the gap between distance & time... it didn't take long until the sucking sound began rise in decibels--- louder and louder until we grew deaf, dumb, numb, & utterly paralyzed.

The secret ingredient to baking any developed country is to add a lot of iron & trees, then mix the two together to form a seamless rail across the country-- spanning over the mountains, valleys, rivers, & streams. Once laid, the magic of the rail will flow the life's blood of the country's resources & finished products that will produce huge compounded amounts of wealth in the process, from end to end.. day to day... each generation better off than the generation before because of new discoveries of opportunities never dreamt of before.

Life is Good... Life is full of Promise & Prosperity.

100s of years later, Bill was born. Bill was Bill... and Bill was an Innovator. What Bill couldn't create he borrowed from somebody else and framed it into his own vision. Not only could Bill seize opportunities others were blind to, but he was cunning as a Jester before the King of IBM and borrowed his Crown too. You've got to hand it to Wiley-coyote Bill... he had accomplished things beyond any College Drop Out. Bill was Bill... and now Bill gets what Bill wants-- no questions asked.

Life was Fantastic... Life was Unbelievable!

Then Bill discovered the Internet (or was it Al Gore?)... and proclaimed that's where Microsoft should be leading the way!... and Bill got his wish, slaying those in his path along the way to complete, global domination.

Once again, the Whiz Kid from Washington had astounded us -- Bill delivered upon us the Information Age with no boundaries-- if you had (3) ingredients, you could ride a new rail across the Oceans-- You could exchange & collaborate with your customers, associates, and pen pals in real time.

Bill saw that more investment in the infrastructure of the new rail had to be overhauled and go beyond anybody's expectations that would last for decades to come. Bill whispered to the Telecom companies, "build me an Information Super-Highway and I will deliver you the passengers to ride on it". From the powerhouses of Wall Street down, they invested in droves... for they heeded Bill's new vision & promise--- and it was done!

Life was at it's Zenith... Life was a Dream!

But unfortunately (or well planned in my opinion), while the Telecom companies were laying down this new rail for the Information Super-Highway, the century was in transition... and that transition called for change in all of the operating systems, databases, & software known to man, across the globe--- Y2K.

The hype of Y2K placed so much Fear in the modern economies that they spent more treasure than ever before in such a short period of time. During the fever pitch of the coming of the end of the 20th Century, there was mass panic that they could not fix every system pot hole in time... before time would run out. And then the 20th Century expired --- everybody held their breathe and they slept lightly during the passing of the night -- afraid of what they might find missing from their bank accounts in the morning when they woke.

Life was a Cold Sweat... Life was Restored!

To everyone's total astonishment--- NOTHING HAPPENED! All the pot holes were fixed on time! There were no major LEAKS or BUMPS in the ride. Relief was welcomed and another major achievement for man past... business returned to business as usual.

But something snapped in the new century-- nobody was buying anymore systems or servicing systems needs. This event put a dour face on many that were riding high on the Information Age. They pondered in silence-- they looked at one another in awe. Then after while of bewilderment--- the rug was pulled out from under them, and all that rode the wave divested themselves in a panic... billions where lost-- billions were salvaged-- and billions were looking for another safe, comfortable wave that would come in due time.

But the next wave was overshadowed by a massive freak-anomaly of worldly events -- the Bread Basket of the World had been attacked by Terrorist on 9/11. An attack that decisively wounded the World Financial Markets and placed the leadership in a tailspin for years following...

Oh My! What to do? I'm so afraid!

The Financial Cabal of the World waited patiently for a Recovery that never came. They tried to creatively bide their time by practicing Financial Witchcraft and were soon exposed. With nowhere else to turn... they braced themselves for the Federal Auditors, Congressional Hearings, Criminal Courts, & that slow ride to Jail. "What to do next? I have shareholders' interests to Protect!, the CEOs all exclaimed.

It was then that the last resort was uttered in the bowels of the multi-national corporations headquarters, "We must divest ourselves from our homeland and invest elsewhere to sustain our shareholders' interests-- it is the Final & Last Resort, Gentlemen".

_{... And another Fine Chapter of Americana is Closed on an American Icon...}

_{... And Legend...Henry Ford.}

... How Many More of Our Wealth will have to Go to the Far East to Survive, Senator??? How Do You Get Through the Night?

_{Irony... Chinese Immigrant Worker during the Western Railroad Boom.}

Well, I guess the Irony is on US... The Chinese Immigrants built the Western Railroads of the United States-- Guess Who Gets The Last Laugh as the United States continues to DIVEST Itself?

I Believe NOT! Senator, if you are unable to Protect & Defend the United States' Commonwealth... these are images to come,

Snuff out a Son of a Father's Dreams and ...

... this is What You Get...

... Honor & Duty, and Country will be RESTORED with or without YOU, Senator!

We'll be sending a Six-Pack to the China Sea... soon.

Morning Exercises & Safety Check in the China Sea.

Whoops! Orders just came in to unload on the Mainland...

Lets look at that Action from Satellite imagery...

USS Jimmy Carter on Patrol in China Sea... Hot & Heavy.

We have Birds of Prey...

They land on Floating Nests like these...

This is Big Bird!

We have more than a Few to Deliver...

They come Fully Loaded too.

Declaration of Independence

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

GD you, Senator & the Hollow Ground You Walk On... Your Apathy Days are Over!

What has the Internet Railroad done for US?

The Foundation has already been poured...

Taiwan Security Enhancement Act of 2000

Sino-American relations

2006 Is The Year Of The Exorcist

2006-02-05T09:41:00.000-05:00

Listen to Soundtrack

and Tubular Bells will be playing on the airwaves all around the World...

The Republicans have become possessed, and their Excesses of Greed & their Lust for Power has reached its zenith... now, they must be Exorcised...

ex·or·cise (ĕk'sôr-sīz', -sər-)
tr.v., -cised, -cis·ing, -cis·es.

1. To expel (an evil spirit) by or as if by incantation, command, or prayer.
2. To free from evil spirits or malign influences.

Harry Reid, US Senator & Minority Leader - will execute the Rites of the Exorcism.

The only question that remains will be...

How many will pass through this window?

US Senate Finance Ranking Member Sees Firsthand - The China Syndrome Threat

2006-02-03T08:51:00.000-05:00

US Senator Max Baucus of Montana Smells that Smell...

Not only does the Good Senator smell that smell, but he can spell "Economic Development", perfectly,...

Economic Development
Continuing Economic Development Efforts

Over the years, I've helped Montana businesses expand and we've worked to attract new companies to our state. I worked hard to bring Centene and its new claims processing center to Great Falls, which should open in 2005, and will continue to attract major businesses to Montana.

I've organized numerous trade missions to develop new markets for Montana businesses and products. I recently negotiated a $10 million deal to sell Montana agricultural products to Cuba, and led business delegations to Asia, New Zealand and Australia in 2004.

I've brought ambassadors from more than ten countries to Montana to explore business opportunities. Introducing the world to Montana's economy ensures that we will remain competitive as the world grows smaller.

I had three rules at the first Economic Development Summit I organized, in 2001. These are rules I continue to live by in order to keep our momentum going and create good paying jobs:

First, No Politics. There's just no room for politics when it comes to Montana's economy. It's about working together and doing what's right for our economy. As the sign on my desk says, "Montana Comes First!"
_{-- Author's Comment: Max, Lets go all the way-- America First!}

Second, All Solutions Should be Private-Sector Driven. Private-public partnerships are key to providing the right environment to help our economy grow.

Third, Nothing's Off the Table. An open mind and outside-the-box thinking are essential in this new economy. I'll continue to work together to find new ways to create the jobs that will let our kids stay here to raise their families.

Okay, History lesson is over...

_{Now, Try and Stomach This...
C-Span Sen. Max Baucus (D-MO) on American Competitiveness, January 25, 2006}

We better come up with Something Fast and Innovative & a Lot more Valuable than Fortune Cookies to Export to China by 2010...

Previous pieces of April...

The China Price by Newsweek

Reasons for World Wars

The China Syndrome - CBS News / 60 Minutes

Our Murky Economic Undertow Plagued by Lurking Financial Sharks

Did I Mention the Importance of Aircraft Carriers?

Live & Let Die: His Time Is Back!

2005-12-28T10:30:00.000-05:00

Things you find on the Sea of China's coastline.

The Intruder, James Bond... the CIA has been expunge by the Bush Admin, only MI6 remains to do the dirty jobs.

_{Warning to China & The Far East:}
He means business... and he always gets his Girl...
& Whatever HE Wants with IT!

No More Treat's for China's Spectre

Could Bloomfield be Blofeld?

Where there is smoke...

Who are Spectre's Henchmen: Past, Present, & Future?

GHWB Number #? Permindex₁ Permindex₂

Richard Cheney Number #? Haliburton ( Brown & Root)<-- Permindex

GWB Number # or Stooge?

PM Blair Number # or Stooge?

OBL Number #? Bush & Bin Laden Family Ties₁ Wikipedia: Bush family conspiracy theory₂

Wal-Mart Number #?

You Only Live Twice - It's Party Time!

Click Drax's image for a Rebate, But first... A few words from Mr. Drax.

If MI6 fails to preserve the 20th Century G8 Nation's Heritage, then shouldn't we support Drax's Noah's Ark Vision?

There's a New Sheriff in Town -- Busted Flat, Needs Guns & Ammo!

2005-12-09T08:58:00.000-05:00

http://www.uscc.gov/
U.S. – CHINA COMMISSION CITES TROUBLING TRENDS FOR U.S. ECONOMIC AND NATIONAL SECURITY INTERESTS

Need anything else be said?

The Gunless Posse

The Bush Whitehouse: Dumb & Dummer

2005-11-22T07:38:00.000-05:00

Mix of Shock and Resignation on G.M... Shop Floors Set to Close

_{Like many of the G.M. plants that are closing, the assembly plant in Doraville, Ga., dates to an era when G.M. dominated the car market.}

Source: NY Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/22/business/22workers.html?th&emc=th

By JEREMY W. PETERS
Published: November 22, 2005

LANSING, Mich., Nov. 21 - When Dan Fairbanks received word from General Motors early Monday morning that his plant had been tagged for closing next year, there were few people in the factory to tell.

About two-thirds of the 300 hourly employees at the Lansing Craft Center, where Mr. Fairbanks is the president of a local chapter of the United Automobile Workers, are temporarily laid off. In fact, they have not worked for most of the year. The Lansing Craft Center is still scheduled to ratchet up production early next month but will close for good sometime next year.

_{Closing Plants and Losing Employees}

_{What's Next for G.M. and Ford?}

_{Kerkorian's Offer}

_{G.M. Management Shake-Up}

_{G.M. Is Treading Water}

Related

News Release (gm.com)

_{For a G.M. Family, the American Dream Vanishes (November 19, 2005)}
Union Vote Accepts Cuts in Benefits at G.M. (November 12, 2005)
S. & P. Cuts Debt Ratings for G.M. and Ford to Junk Status (May 5, 2005)

Jessica McGowan for The New York Times

Tammy Andrews, a line worker in Doraville, Ga., learned on awakening of her plant's closing. "I'm going to cry when I go home tonight," she said.

"There are going to be some casualties, and we are one of them," Mr. Fairbanks said. In many ways, the plant is symbolic of the problems facing General Motors. The automaker slowed production there to a trickle as demand for the vehicle it produces, the $40,000 high-performance Chevrolet SSR pickup truck, failed to keep pace with capacity. Although most employees do not come to work, under their union contract G.M. is still required to pay them.

A cold drizzle fell in a mainly empty parking lot at the center as this city took in the news that G.M. would close all or part of 12 operations in North America. Here in Lansing, where two of those plants are situated, the automaker's cuts will be deep.

Still, G.M. employs thousands of people in the area at four plants and is currently building a new factory, with modern equipment. The plants that will remain open will provide some cushion for workers who do not take buyouts.

On Monday, G.M. workers across the country met the news of the plant closings and the job cuts with a mixture of shock, resignation and frustration at the company's management.

"There's a lot of people who rely on G.M., especially in this town," said Michael McCoy, 52, a production worker at the Lansing Metal Center with 30 years at the company. The metal center, a sprawling industrial complex across the street from the craft center that makes sheet metal parts for various vehicles, is also scheduled to close.

About the time the G.M. corporate headquarters in Detroit informed union officials at the craft center of the closing next year, Mr. McCoy and his co-workers on the morning shift at the metal center were summoned to the shop floor by their union chairman and told the news.

Art Baker, the chairman of the local auto workers union that represents the 950 hourly workers at the metal center, said he learned of G.M.'s decision just 15 minutes before he told employees. "It was not the expectation that General Motors was going to get lean and mean," Mr. Baker said. "It was a real shock."

The union called the job cuts and plant closings "extremely disappointing, unfair and unfortunate." The union's president, Ron Gettelfinger, and its vice president, Richard Shoemaker, said in a statement that for workers, "hope is diminished, the future is unclear and communities are less stable."

In Oklahoma, Georgia and other states where G.M. is closing its only plants, G.M. workers will have fewer options than their counterparts in Lansing for jobs that offer such high pay and generous benefits.

"I was awakened out of my sleep and told the plant was closing," said Tammy Andrews, 35, a line worker at the General Motors assembly plant in Doraville, Ga., just outside Atlanta. "I'm going to cry when I go home tonight."

Many of the plants that will close, like Doraville Assembly and the Lansing Metal Center, are more than 50 years old and date back to an era when G.M. held a commanding share of the American car market. As Asian competitors with lower labor costs and vehicles that many Americans consider more desirable have cut G.M.'s market share down to about a quarter of all American vehicles, the automaker has grappled to regain its competitiveness. Closing under-used plants and trimming its work force is one way it hopes to do that.

For cities like Lansing and Flint, Mich., that have for decades looked to the American auto industry to provide much of their livelihood, G.M.'s downsizing means the end of an era in which generations of families could depend on steady work at a car company and a generous retirement plan after 30 years of service.

"It used to be our kids would come in here and follow us, but that's not the trend anymore," Mr. McCoy said. "I just think it'd be nice if General Motors could get everything together, get it fixed and get going again."

Alvin Jones, 59, a line worker at the metal plant, has 40 years of experience but said he resented the idea of taking a retirement buyout. "Once you take the buyout, what's going to be left for you to do?" he asked. Mr. Jones moved to Lansing from the South in the mid-1960's to take a job with G.M. that he assumed would be his as long as he wanted to work.

Throughout his four decades at G.M., Mr. Jones said he had seen the domestic auto industry at some of its highest and lowest points. As he stood outside the Lansing metal plant on Monday and absorbed the news his plant would be closed, he said, "I've never seen it this bad, and I've been around for a lot of years."

Daniel Crane, 27, who installs glass on minivans at the Doraville plant, criticized G.M. for not making cars that sell well. "Who buys a minivan?" he asked. "G.M.'s not coming out with a product anybody wants."

As news of billion-dollar losses, job cuts and benefit reductions has rolled out of G.M. with alarming regularity this year, some workers said they saw the writing on the wall well before Monday. "Everybody in the G.M. system is trying to speculate on where they stand," said Mr. Fairbanks, the Lansing union president. "A total surprise? No. Not with the way things are going."

Brenda Goodman contributed reporting from Doraville, Ga., for this article.

Folks, enough is enough... a strong message needs to be sent to the Congress to hold those accountable for this Icon-Economic failure to stand before the American People, under oath, and take a tongue lashing-- and that definitely includes the Whitehouse!... the dysfunctional Whitehouse indeed.

Maybe there is HOPE for Congress in 2006 with a Band of Gypsies that call themselves, "The 30 Somethings". Lord help us, there is only (13) of them thus far...

"Let it Grow, Let it Grow, Let it Blossom-- Let it Grow...", Eric Clapton.

Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan is Glaring-Down at The Far East

2005-11-16T07:31:00.000-05:00

From the Senate floor on November 15, 2005...

My eyes were Bleeding with JOY!

Finally, the United States Senate is STANDING UP! and saying, "NO MORE!" to the White House and GWB! From Senator Harry Reid pounding on the White House Gates to surrender the TRUTH about the IRAQ fiasco, to Senator Debbie Stabenow pounding on the Senate Floor for Economic Justice & Independence from China & the Far East... Now, we have a WINNING hand to call their BLUFF... ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

It's only for a few American Icons that are at stake,

Source: Senator Stabenow's Site

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nov. 10, 2005

Contact: Bob Meissner
Phone: 202-224-4822

Stabenow, Senators Urge President to Stand Up for U.S. Manufacturers and Get Tough With China and Japan

In his trip to Japan and China, Bush must join fight to curb illegal trade practices, senators say

WASHINGTON— With the U.S. suffering billions in lost manufacturing sales and thousands of American jobs hanging in the balance, President Bush must take the toughest possible stand with China and Japan on their illegal trade practices when he visits those nations next week, U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and 14 other Senate colleagues said today.

Stabenow said the president must demand changes in the economic relationships we share with China and Japan. “President Bush needs to tell the leaders of China and Japan, ‘We no longer accept your illegal trade practices and we demand that you change them.’

“We can no longer accept Japan’s and China’s currency manipulation, which allows them to artificially lower the price of their exports, and we can no longer accept the theft of our patents and intellectual property rights,” Stabenow said. “I have been fighting in the Senate to strengthen our trade enforcement and protect U.S. jobs, and this is the opportunity for the president to join this fight. Together, we can do better.”

In a letter to Bush today, the senators said that counterfeiting costs the auto industry – Michigan’s prime industry – an estimated $12 billion a year in lost sales. Simply halting the counterfeiting of auto parts would allow manufacturers in the U.S. to add about 200,000 additional workers – which would be equal to cutting Michigan’s unemployment rate by nearly two-thirds, Stabenow said.

By undervaluing its currency, the senators said, China holds down the price of its goods by between and 15 and 40 percent. “Undervaluation of yuan is tantamount to an illegal subsidy for imports from China and a large tax on U.S. exports to China,” Stabenow said.

Stabenow noted a disturbing statistic. According to The Economist magazine, she said, manufacturing jobs in U.S. have dropped below 10 percent for the first time in history. “This nation cannot sustain a middle class without a manufacturing base, but our manufacturers are having a hard time these days,” she said. “These illegal trade practices wipe out American manufacturing jobs.”

“The president must stand up for our manufacturers and insist that China and Japan play by the rules,” Stabenow said. “The president must act now – before our manufacturing sector and our middle class are taken from us.”

Dispute Leaves U.S. Executive in Chinese Legal Netherworld

2005-11-01T08:15:00.000-05:00

Dispute Leaves U.S. Executive in Chinese Legal Netherworld

Du Bin for The New York Times
Employees heading to work at Sichuan Changhong Electric in Mianyang. The company, once a defense contractor, is publicly traded and majority owned by the city of Mianyang and the province of Sichuan.

By JOSEPH KAHN
Published: November 1, 2005
BEIJING, Oct. 31 - David Ji, a Chinese-American electronics entrepreneur, spent two months in custody enduring all-night interrogation sessions, but his stubbornness and occasional flashes of sarcasm infuriated his Chinese captors.

David Ji, left, shown last year during his stay under guard in a residence in Shanghai that is owned by Sichuan Changhong Electric.

Apex Digital
David Ji, co-founder of Apex Digital, is accused of fraud.

Imaginechina
Zhao Yong, a former partner, is chief executive of Changhong, which says Apex owes it $470 million.

So in late December last year, according to a person who compiled a record of the encounter, guards emptied his pockets, removed his shoes and socks, and ripped the buttons off his oxford shirt. He was ushered disheveled and barefoot into the office of Zhao Yong, the chief executive of Sichuan Changhong Electric, Mr. Ji's onetime business partner and, more recently, his warden.

"Your only way out is to do what Changhong tells you to do," Mr. Zhao told him. "If I decide today I want you to die, you will be dead tomorrow."

Mr. Ji soon agreed to cooperate with Changhong. But a year after the Chinese police apprehended him in his hotel room during a business trip, he remains in China as a pawn - Mr. Ji's colleagues say a hostage - in a commercial dispute that pits Changhong, China's largest television manufacturer, against Apex Digital, Mr. Ji's electronics trading company based in Los Angeles.

Changhong, which declined repeated requests for comment over several weeks, claims that Apex owes it $470 million. Apex, which recruited Changhong to supply Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Circuit City with inexpensive television sets and DVD players, says it owes less than $150 million. The sums involved are large, but what is more significant about the case is the way Changhong, a major state-owned company in Sichuan Province, deployed the police, prosecutors and judges in a campaign to collect its debt.

China has attracted hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign investment and has become the world's third largest trading power. But its legal system, even when handling nonpolitical business cases, has progressed far more haltingly and still rarely backs investors or ordinary citizens against the state.

Difficulty enforcing contracts, rampant violations of copyrights and trademarks and protection of domestic industry champions have heightened trade tensions at a time when China is struggling to convince the outside world that its growing economic might poses no threat. Beijing is under heavy pressure to embrace global legal norms with the same fervor with which it has pursued foreign trade.

Courts and arbitration panels do resolve many business conflicts that arise from China's thriving market-oriented economy, and they can rule professionally and impartially. But when the fate of powerful companies like Changhong, which has 36,000 employees, lies in the balance, the judicial system does not act independently and offers no recourse for outsiders like Mr. Ji.

Ultimately, some legal scholars argue, China's legal system may not improve markedly until central and local government officials relinquish some control and stop putting short-term political goals, like protecting influential companies and suppressing dissent, above the law.

Mr. Ji and his Los Angeles-based partner, Ancle Hsu, are ethnic Chinese who became American citizens. They helped Changhong break into the American market, and its products outsold Sony and Panasonic, heralding China's arrival as an electronics powerhouse.

Relations with Changhong soured, however, over quality control problems and unpaid debts. And when they did, Changhong's first response was not to file a lawsuit, but to dispatch the police.

The police from Mianyang, the city in southwestern Sichuan province where Changhong has its headquarters, apprehended Mr. Ji in Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, on Oct. 23, 2004. He entered a legal netherworld in which Changhong decided where he would be held in custody, when to interrogate him, and how he could help Changhong take over Apex, according to court documents, video recordings, and taped witness accounts compiled by people sympathetic to Mr. Ji. The records, which were also submitted to the State Department, were obtained independently by The New York Times.

Mianyang is a company town. The legal ambiguity partly reflects the tight bond between local corporate and government officials. It also reflects a risk of doing business in China that applies mainly to ethnic Chinese, dozens of whom have faced criminal charges after falling out with government-backed business partners. Overseas Chinese are often treated as subject to local authority regardless of their country of citizenship.

But in this case, Changhong did not act like a rogue. It solicited and received financial and political support from the most senior levels of the central government, according to lawyers involved in the matter.

Changhong's executives said they could not discuss a pending legal matter. But Jack C. Auspitz, a lawyer with Morrison & Foerster in New York who represents Changhong in an ongoing court case against Apex, said the California company repeatedly failed to pay for goods Changhong delivered. He said that he did not have detailed information about Mr. Ji's conditions in Chinese custody, but that he had no reason to believe that he had been coerced.

The Chinese police accused Mr. Ji of fraud for writing bad checks to Changhong and have threatened to prosecute him. He has been released on a form of bail, with heavy restrictions on his freedom, while negotiations with Apex proceed. That has left the impression that his legal fate depends on debt talks between the companies.

"We have been doing business there for many years but could never imagine something like this happening," said Mr. Hsu, Mr. Ji's partner, in a recent interview. "They have turned a commercial dispute into a hostage situation and a human rights issue."

Trial and Error

Changhong and Apex seemed, for a time, a brilliant match.

The American company spotted the potential of the DVD player to replace the VCR in American living rooms if the price came down. Japanese makers dominated sales in the late 1990's, but often charged $400 or more, making it a luxury item. Apex thought that with the right Chinese partner it could change that.

The job fell to Mr. Ji, 53, who is also known by his Chinese name, Ji Longfen. He was born in Jiangsu Province in eastern China and learned English at Fudan University in Shanghai before emigrating to California. There he and Mr. Hsu, a native of Taiwan, sold scrap metal and car radios before testing the DVD market.

Retiring by American standards, Mr. Ji projects a polite deference that plays well in China. He wears his hair in a starchy wave, a style popular among Chinese officials. He toured industrial zones and small township enterprises for partners, a trial-and-error process that produced some embarrassing failures. A worker in one plant altered a chip on an Apex DVD player to make a message appear on the screen if a user loaded an X-rated film: "You dirty old man!"
Changhong, once a big defense contractor and now a publicly traded electronics maker, seemed more professional. The company, though majority owned by the Mianyang city and Sichuan provincial governments, had entrepreneurial drive. Under Ni Rongfen, its chief executive, Changhong became China's top television maker. It had its sights set on the American market.
Mr. Ji and Mr. Ni struck a deal in 2001. In the Chinese style, the agreement consisted of a simple three-page purchase order.

Changhong was not Apex's only vendor, but it rapidly became its largest. Its bulk production brought the retail price of its DVD players at Wal-Mart and Circuit City down to $59. In 2002, Apex became the top brand of DVD player in the United States.

Apex also began selling Changhong-made television sets and got the cost of a 27-inch color model below $100, a record. The company's total sales hit $1 billion in 2002 and nearly $2 billion in 2003.

But the two companies were on a collision course. Changhong received far less from its American sales than it initially recorded on its books. Fast growth covered that deficit for a time, but the Chinese company later claimed that half of what it sold ended up as unpaid debt.

The companies have different explanations of what happened. Apex says Changhong mismanaged its business, basing production on price forecasts that proved overly optimistic. It also did not time its shipments well, saddling Apex with high storage costs, the company says. Worse, the California company claims, Changhong provided low-quality goods, including a ill-fated foray into rear-projection televisions, which left Apex to deal with dissatisfied customers and defective products.

Changhong executives have told the Chinese news media that Apex played tricks with its vendors. It persuaded them to finance their own production and wait months for payment. Payments often lagged behind badly, raising suspicions of fraud.

Two other Chinese electronics makers, the Hongtu High Technology Company and the Tianjin Tiancai Company, say Apex owes them money. A third supplier, the China Minmetals Corporation, recently settled a dispute with Apex in arbitration.

Whatever the root causes of the dispute, Apex and Changhong initially tried to keep things on track, including by taking steps that came back to haunt Mr. Ji.

In early 2003, as debts piled up, Mr. Ni, the Changhong boss, came under pressure to explain the shortfall. He leaned on Mr. Ji, who wrote 37 company checks totaling $85 million. Apex said the checks, which do not bear the markings of having been deposited, were meant as promissory notes. It said it honored them and more by paying Changhong $370 million later in 2003.

Even so, Changhong's debt load worsened and its stock price plunged. Chinese state-run banks stopped advancing loans, Chinese news media reports said. That prompted a boardroom coup against Mr. Ni last summer. He was replaced by Zhao Yong, the deputy mayor of Mianyang.

Shortly after he took office, Mr. Zhao sent a mission to Apex's headquarters to demand payment of $470 million, a figure Apex claimed was three times what it owed. The business relationship froze.

Apex still had a sizable business in China. In October 2004, Mr. Ji visited to oversee progress on a Wal-Mart order for portable DVD players. He ignored warnings of a colleague at Apex, who felt the dispute with Changhong had reached a dangerous impasse, and decided to contact Changhong during the trip. He told his family he would be back in a week.

Mr. Ji phoned Changhong after he arrived and said he would like to meet Mr. Zhao after attending to business in Shenzhen. He hung up thinking that a dinner appointment had been arranged.

"I felt very happy because I thought the problem would finally be resolved by one person," Mr. Ji told a colleague.

Pursuit and Capture

Just after breakfast on Oct. 23, he answered his door at the Grand Skylight Hotel in Shenzhen. Seven men in civilian clothes identified themselves as police officers from Sichuan, 500 miles to the west. They interrogated Mr. Ji for most of the day. He was told he had committed fraud, though the charges were not spelled out and they had no warrant, according to the account compiled by people sympathetic with him.

Late that afternoon, Mr. Ji was taken to a private dining room, where a Changhong executive played host for a banquet, complete with champagne and abalone. The Changhong executive raised his glass to the policemen, congratulating them on their "pursuit and apprehension" of Mr. Ji.

Mr. Ji objected, saying he had never been on the run, according to the record of his detention. He was told not to speak for the rest of the meal.

The officers then took him to the airport for a flight to Sichuan. Changhong purchased all eight seats in the first-class section, so the group had the cabin to itself.

In Sichuan, he was handed over to Changhong. The company cordoned off a floor in one of its guesthouses and barred the windows, a makeshift jail. Guards kept watch. A television was left blaring day and night. For four days, Mr. Ji barely slept.

On the fifth day, he was put on the phone with a lawyer named Charlie Wang, known as Wang Xiaolin in Chinese, of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, a white-shoe American law firm that Changhong had retained. Mr. Wang, who was based in Washington, D.C., told Mr. Ji that he had committed fraud and that his only way out was to sign documents that would help Changhong recover missing funds. Exhausted and afraid, Mr. Ji agreed to study the documents, the record of his detention says.

He was then presented with a stack of legal papers the size of a mini-bar. They pledged all of Apex's assets, real property, trademarks and bank accounts as well as Mr. Ji's personal assets to settle the claimed $470 million debt. The documents granted Changhong power of attorney to review Apex's books and remove Mr. Hsu from his position. In effect, he signed away his stake of Apex to Changhong.

Mr. Ji initially balked. A guard then asked, "Do you want this pen, or do you want your hand?" The guard made a motion of chopping off his hand. Mr. Ji took the pen.

'Business as Usual'

Changhong then began an attempt to take over Apex, Apex officials and the record of Mr. Ji's detention say. Mr. Ji was sent to Shanghai by train.

There he stayed in a Changhong-owned residence under guard. But he was instructed to visit Apex offices and act as if he were going about business as usual. He made frequent phone calls back home. As his Changhong guards listened, he repeatedly told Mr. Hsu to execute Changhong's instructions.

The calls did not persuade Mr. Hsu.

"He pretended that nothing was wrong and everything would be worked out," Mr. Hsu recalled. "But we knew he was not himself. Eventually, there was nothing we could say on the phone except, 'Yes David, O.K., yes.' "

Changhong dispatched accountants and investigators to Los Angeles in early December, but Apex refused access, arguing that Changhong lacked legal authority.

It was only then that Changhong took legal action. On Dec. 14, Changhong sued Apex in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The company alleged breach of contract and demanded access to Apex, citing the documents Mr. Ji had signed.

Apex contested the suit. In court documents, it said that Mr. Ji had been abducted and that the documents had been signed under coercion.

Changhong pressed Mr. Ji harder to make Mr. Hsu cooperate. Mr. Ji scoffed, saying he had already "fired" his partner on Changhong's orders so there was little more he could do, according to the record of his detention.

There were constant reminders, however, that his fate hung in the balance. A prosecutor and a judge from Mianyang visited Shanghai to talk with Mr. Ji. They told him that the 37 checks he had written to Changhong in early 2003 constituted a serious crime and that he could get life in prison or even be executed. His only choice was to cooperate with Changhong, the record said.

Changhong submitted the checks as evidence in its American lawsuit. There are no visible markings on the checks to show that they were deposited or sent through the banking system for payment. Apex says that proves Changhong treated the checks as they were intended - as collateral to solve an accounting problem. They became obsolete when Apex made big payments to Changhong in April 2003, the company says.

Mr. Auspitz, Changhong's lawyer in New York, said that despite any other payments Apex may have made in 2003, those checks should have been honored. "There is no question that Apex should have paid and did not," he said.

To counter Apex's argument that Mr. Ji was a hostage, Changhong arranged to have Mr. Ji deposed in Apex's Shanghai offices. Mr. Wang, the Cadwalader lawyer, was present and conducted the videotaped inquiry. Mr. Ji had no lawyer present, and Apex later argued that that raised questions of whether the tape would have any value in an American court.

When taping began, Mr. Ji disputed Changhong's version of events, prompting a heated argument between Mr. Ji and Mr. Wang, according to people who saw the confrontation.

The next day, Mr. Ji was taken to meet Mr. Zhao, Changhong's boss. Buttons and belt removed, he had to hold his pants up with his hands. Mr. Zhao warned him that Changhong controlled the courts in Mianyang, that Mr. Ji would be tried there, and that Changhong would decide if he lived or died.

"Apex must give Changhong all the money. This is your only way out," Mr. Ji was told, according to the record of his detention.

A second taped deposition was arranged. Mr. Ji dressed neatly in a suit. He sat slumped in his chair and smiled wanly. Everything Mr. Wang asked him, he muttered agreement. As the camera rolled, he said Changhong had "invited" him to stay at its apartment in Shanghai while he sorted out the dispute about the checks.

"I am trying to run my company," Mr. Ji says on tape. "I am the majority shareholder and want to use my power to manage this situation."

High-Level Intervention

Changhong's lawsuit has remained unresolved in court in Los Angeles. The taped deposition was never formally submitted, though Apex received a copy. Apex then complained that Changhong's lawyer, Mr. Wang, acted improperly by being a party to the detention of Mr. Ji.

Cadwalader subsequently withdrew from the case and Mr. Wang, who was made a partner just a few months earlier, left the firm. A spokesman for Cadwalader declined to comment on the case or on Mr. Wang, citing client confidentiality. Apex's business deteriorated as suppliers and customers learned of its troubles. Its sales this year are off sharply, and it has teetered on the verge of bankruptcy. It now claims it has no money to pay even the portion of the Changhong debt it acknowledges owing.

Internally, however, Changhong may have scored a political touchdown. According to lawyers involved in the case, Changhong submitted a report to Prime Minister Wen Jiabao shortly after it arranged to have Mr. Ji detained. The report claims that a fraud masterminded by Mr. Ji put its business, and its 36,000 workers, in grave peril.

It is unclear if Mr. Wen or other central government officials investigated the matter independently or endorsed Changhong's role in managing Mr. Ji's custody. But the lawyers involved said Changhong had boasted repeatedly about receiving Mr. Wen's support in the form of a three-point written instruction late last fall.

The prime minister praised Changhong's leadership, authorized the company to take legal actions at home and abroad to protect its interests, and ordered state banks to provide emergency financing totaling nearly $1 billion, roughly double the amount Changhong claimed Apex owed it, they said.

The ruling defused the crisis that prompted Changhong to pursue Mr. Ji. But it left the business dispute unresolved. And it left Mr. Ji in legal limbo, facing possible prosecution on the alleged fraud the company described to the leadership.

On May 28, seven months after Mr. Ji was first detained, he was handed over to the Mianyang police for formal arrest on charges of "financial instrument fraud," apparently a reference to the 37 checks he wrote Changhong.

In formal police custody, Mr. Ji's conditions improved, according to the detention record. He has been allowed to visit a hospital to get treatment for hypertension, a kidney problem and a bladder infection. The interrogations ceased. American diplomats have visited him regularly, though they have not spoken publicly about the case.

In June, Apex and Changhong signed a security agreement. Apex acknowledged a $150 million debt. The debt remains unpaid, however. Apex claims it has no money.

In August, the police released Mr. Ji on restricted bail. He is allowed to move around Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, but he is under strict orders not to discuss his case with anyone. The police confiscated his passport and gave him a mobile phone that he must keep with him 24 hours a day. He has not been indicted, but the local authorities frequently remind him that they can prosecute at any time.

"They turned this into a criminal case, and now they don't know how to resolve it," says Mr. Hsu of Apex. "I'm afraid we need government intervention, maybe divine intervention, to help David return home."

Jesus! Does anybody remember when this happened?

Race to the Bottom: Jobs, Trade, Deficit and Justice

2005-10-26T06:33:00.000-05:00

Race to the Bottom: Jobs, Trade, Deficit and Justice
By Alan Tonelson, fellow, U.S. Business and Industry Council

What is the difference between free trade and fair trade? Who wins and who loses when multinational corporations tap into a global surplus of workers? Why should Americans be concerned about the growing trade deficit? With off-shoring, outsourcing, stagnant wages, and declining benefits, American workers are worried.

Alan Tonelson examines the role that globalization of trade and labor plays in their lives. No one is exempt, he argues, from low-wage textile workers to high-tech aerospace engineers. What decisions need to be made in Washington and around the world so that labor and trade policies assure prosperity for working people in the era of globalization?

Alan Tonelson is a fellow at the US Business and Industry Council. He has been following trade and labor issues for more than a decade and is the author of numerous articles in national publications as well as the book The Race to the Bottom: Why a Global Worker Surplus and Uncontrolled Free Trade are Sinking American Living Standards. In November, 2004, he was interviewed for PBS Frontline's examination of Wal-Mart, Is Wal-Mart Good for America?

Listen Here

The MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE

2005-10-15T05:46:00.000-05:00

Source: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/china/index.html

FILM, MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE: Allow me to introduce our American visitors --

PAUL SOLMAN: When I was growing up, the monomaniacal Red Chinese were Hollywood's baddest actors.
[snip]

Censorship and economics

PAUL SOLMAN: But what does a culture of repression have to do with economics? Well, we Westerners assume that political freedom and technological innovation go hand in hand. And indeed, innovation is essential. For China to keep growing, it has to evolve into a more advanced economy; has to innovate because right now it relies almost entirely on exports, says MIT's Yasheng Huang.

YASHENG HUANG: Japan is usually viewed as a country obsessed with export and foreign trade; the ratio is about 20 percent. The US is a free trading nation; the ratio is about 20 percent. China has 70 percent of its GDP tied up in foreign trade.
[snip]

PAUL SOLMAN: The Chinese economic miracle. You see it in the glitz and glimmer of the big cities, the hustle and bustle of new businesses. China's economy grew a dazzling 9.5 percent last year, leading the world, as it has the entire past decade. But to MIT's Yasheng Huang, the miracle isn't how fast China is growing, but how far it still has to go.

YASHENG HUANG: If you look at the economies after the Second World War, which succeeded in catching up and overtaking the West, each single one of them is located in East Asia.

PAUL SOLMAN: Huang is talking about South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
[snip]

YASHENG HUANG: How come you have an economy that is growing around 8 to 9 percent churning out poor returns? That shows to me that the investment returns must have been very low, and probably even negative.

PAUL SOLMAN: The returns on the money invested in its publicly traded companies, that is. If the stock market goes up, those companies are presumably making money. If it goes down, they're presumably not. Even the so-called father of Chinese venture capital, high party official Cheng Siwei, agrees that the vast majority of Chinese companies are losers, not worth investing in.

CHENG SIWEI: I think only 30 percent of the listed companies are valuable to invest.

PAUL SOLMAN: 30 percent?

CHENG SIWEI: Yes.
[snip]

Misinvestment: secrecy and no accountability

PAUL SOLMAN: Now, it's not that nobody's making money in China. It's just that, with government control of both the media and investment, there's no transparency, no way to know if firms are profitable; especially state-owned firms, more interested in preserving jobs than being competitive, says Finance Professor Chun Chang.

PAUL SOLMAN: The banking system also shows how badly investment has been directed in China up to now, as our colleague Darren Gersh of the Nightly Business Report found when he looked into it in some depth.

DARREN GERSH: Even official statistics show that China's banks are technically insolvent. If economic growth falters, some fear China's banking system could collapse.

PAUL SOLMAN: The point is: Investments by stockholders or banks are only as good as the profits they generate. If China has been misinvesting its money, that would help explain why it's lagged so far behind its East Asian neighbors, which suggests that the Chinese economy could turn out to be less miracle than mirage.
[snip]

Sounds like VaporWare and THE BIG BANG! all rolled up into one to me. Is this what the analyst at Citigroup are talking about?

G8 Appeasement & Treason and The Far East: WWIII

2005-10-14T07:34:00.000-05:00

DRAFT: A Work in Progress

G8 Appeasement & Treason and The Far East: WWIII

Ladies & Gentlemen of the World,

It is painfully clear that The Far East which includes Malaysia, India, & China have embarked on a Economic War since the 1990s with the Western Industrialized civilizations which is represented mainly by the G8 Nations which includes The United States, Europe, & Japan.

It appears that Communism has a new face, a face we can recognize on the surface like a iceberg: A Free Market Economy. But it is the unseen below sea level that concerns us all. I am quite sure that historical figures in the past such as President Harry S. Truman, General Douglas McArthur, Chairman Nikita Khrushchev of the USSR, President John F. Kennedy, & President Richard M. Nixon are rolling in the graves about now in response to the rise of The Far East Empire.

A former Supreme Allied Commander and Five-Star General was relieved of his command during the Korean War by President Truman due to General MacArthur's position on China and his insubordination to the Commander and Chief of the United States Armed Forces regarding the Chinese incursions into that war at the time. General MacArthur's position was to unleash atomic weapons & invade China and eliminate the flow of support from the Chinese to the North Koreans. President Truman did not intend on widening the Korean conflict and overruled General MacArthur's Chinese invasion plan. General MacArthur in response embarked on a support of his opinion campaign in the United States and to the United Nations to invalidate President Truman's decision. President Truman had no choice but to FIRE General MacArthur for insubordination. [1]

The History of the first half of the 20th Century in relation to The Far East, tells us that General MacArthur spent most of his military career in & around The Far East, which made him a top American specialist and advisor on the culture of The Far East to the United States military and government. The Japanese had attacked the United States in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7th 1941 which forced the isolationistic country of the time into the throws of World War II. Two distinct Theaters of Operations were defined & military leadership was assigned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt: General Dwight Eisenhower of the European Theater and General Douglas MacArthur of the Pacific Theater. Resources were in short supply & restricted before the war and the Pacific Theater was prioritized as a secondary objective, Europe and Adolph Hitler were to remain to primary objective of the United States involvement in WWII. The Pacific Theater suffered incredible losses and setbacks until General MacArthur flexed his political talents and was thus rewarded more resources.

[More to come, but first ponder these images...]

"Peace is at hand", British Prime Minster Neville Chamberlain.

A warning for Malaysia, India, & China approaching 2010.

We've been there, done that before... are you ready for the Ultimate Sacrifice?

China's first atomic bomb was exploded Oct. 16, 1964 in the desert of Xinjiang.
My comment: It looks like we missed our golden opportunity to starve off another World War...Vietnam would never have happened either.

Source: http://hnn.us/articles/9245.html
Why Did Truman Really Fire MacArthur? ... The Obscure History of Nuclear Weapons and the Korean War Provides the Answer
By Bruce Cumings

Mr. Cumings is the author of, North Korea: Another Country (2003) and co-author of, Inventing the Axis of Evil: The Truth About North Korea, Iran, and Syria (2004).

On 9 July 1950 -- just two weeks into the war, it is worth remembering -- MacArthur sent Ridgway a hot message that prompted the joint chiefs of staff (JCS) "to consider whether or not A-bombs should be made available to MacArthur." The chief of operations, General Charles Bolte, was asked to talk to MacArthur about using atomic bombs "in direct support [of] ground combat." Bolte thought 10-20 such bombs could be spared for Korea without unduly jeopardising US global war capabilities.

Boite received from MacArthur an early suggestion for the tactical use of atomic weapons and an indication of MacArthur's extraordinary ambitions for the war, which included occupying the North and handling potential Chinese -- or Soviet -- intervention: "I would cut them off in North Korea . . . I visualise a cul-de-sac. The only passages leading from Manchuria and Vladivostok have many tunnels and bridges. I see here a unique use for the atomic bomb -- to strike a blocking blow -- which would require a six months' repair job. Sweeten up my B-29 force."

At this point, however, the JCS rejected use of the bomb because targets large enough to require atomic weapons were lacking; because of concerns about world opinion five years after Hiroshima; and because the JCS expected the tide of battle to be reversed by conventional military means. But that calculation changed when large numbers of Chinese troops entered the war in October and November 1950.

At a famous news conference on 30 November President Harry Truman threatened use of the atomic bomb, saying the US might use any weapon in its arsenal. (10) The threat was not the faux pas many assumed it to be, but was based on contingency planning to use the bomb. On that same day, Air Force General George Stratemeyer sent an order to General Hoyt Vandenberg that the Strategic Air Command should be put on warning, "to be prepared to dispatch without delay medium bomb groups to the Far East . . . this augmentation should include atomic capabilities."

General Curtis LeMay remembered correctly that the JCS had earlier concluded that atomic weapons would probably not be useful in Korea, except as part of "an overall atomic campaign against Red China." But, if these orders were now being changed because of the entry of Chinese forces into the war, LeMay wanted the job; he told Stratemeyer that only his headquarters had the experience, technical training, and "intimate knowledge" of delivery methods. The man who had directed the firebombing of Tokyo in 1945 was again ready to proceed to the Far East to direct the attacks. (11) Washington was not worried that the Russians would respond with atomic weapons because the US possessed at least 450 bombs and the Soviets only 25.

On 9 December MacArthur said that he wanted commander's discretion to use atomic weapons in the Korean theatre. On 24 December he submitted "a list of retardation targets" for which he required 26 atomic bombs. He also wanted four to drop on the "invasion forces" and four more for "critical concentrations of enemy air power."

In interviews published posthumously, MacArthur said he had a plan that would have won the war in 10 days: "I would have dropped 30 or so atomic bombs . . . strung across the neck of Manchuria." Then he would have introduced half a million Chinese Nationalist troops at the Yalu and then "spread behind us -- from the Sea of Japan to the Yellow Sea -- a belt of radioactive cobalt . . . it has an active life of between 60 and 120 years. For at least 60 years there could have been no land invasion of Korea from the North." He was certain that the Russians would have done nothing about this extreme strategy: "My plan was a cinch." (12)

A second request

Cobalt 60 has 320 times the radioactivity of radium. One 400-ton cobalt H-bomb, historian Carroll Quigley has written, could wipe out all animal life on earth. MacArthur sounds like a warmongering lunatic, but he was not alone. Before the Sino-Korean offensive, a committee of the JCS had said that atomic bombs might be the decisive factor in cutting off a Chinese advance into Korea; initially they could be useful in "a cordon sanitaire [that] might be established by the UN in a strip in Manchuria immediately north of the Korean border." A few months later Congressman Albert Gore, Sr. (Father of former VP and 2000 Democratic candidate Al Gore, Jr., and subsequently a strong opponent of the Vietnam war) complained that "Korea has become a meat grinder of American manhood" and suggested "something cataclysmic" to end the war: a radiation belt dividing the Korean peninsula permanently into two.

Although Ridgway said nothing about a cobalt bomb, in May 1951, after replacing MacArthur as US commander in Korea, he renewed MacArthur's request of 24 December, this time for 38 atomic bombs. (13) The request was not approved.

The US came closest to using atomic weapons in April 1951, when Truman removed MacArthur. Although much related to this episode is still classified, it is now clear that Truman did not remove MacArthur simply because of his repeated insubordination, but because he wanted a reliable commander on the scene should Washington decide to use nuclear weapons; Truman traded MacArthur for his atomic policies. On 10 March 1951 MacArthur asked for a "D-Day atomic capability" to retain air superiority in the Korean theatre, after the Chinese massed huge new forces near the Korean border and after the Russians put 200 bombers into airbases in Manchuria (from which they could strike not just Korea but also US bases in Japan). (14) On 14 March General Vandenberg wrote: "Finletter and Lovett alerted on atomic discussions. Believe everything is set."

At the end of March Stratemeyer reported that atomic bomb loading pits at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa were again operational; the bombs were carried there unassembled, and put together at the base, lacking only the essential nuclear cores. On 5 April the JCS ordered immediate atomic retaliation against Manchurian bases if large numbers of new troops came into the fighting, or, it appears, if bombers were launched from there against US assets. On that day the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Gordon Dean, began arrangements for transferring nine Mark IV nuclear capsules to the Air Force's 9th Bomb Group, the designated carrier for atomic weapons.

The JCS again considered the use of nuclear weapons in June 1951, this time in tactical battlefield circumstances (15) and there were many more such suggestions as the war continued to 1953. Robert Oppenheimer, former director of the Manhattan Project, was involved in Project Vista, designed to gauge the feasibility of the tactical use of atomic weapons. In 1951 young Samuel Cohen, on a secret assignment for the US Defence Department, observed the battles for the second recapture of Seoul and thought there should be a way to destroy the enemy without destroying the city. He became the father of the neutron bomb. (16)

The most terrifying nuclear project in Korea, however, was Operation Hudson Harbour. It appears to have been part of a larger project involving "overt exploitation in Korea by the Department of Defence and covert exploitation by the Central Intelligence Agency of the possible use of novel weapons" -- a euphemism for what are now called weapons of mass destruction.

Stake Through the Heart of a True Vampire: Karl Rove

2005-10-14T06:54:00.000-05:00

Jitters at the White House Over the Leak Inquiry

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By RICHARD W. STEVENSON
Published: October 14, 2005

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 - Karl Rove nosed his Jaguar out of the garage at his home in Northwest Washington in the predawn gloom, starting another day in which he would be dealing with a troubled Supreme Court nomination, posthurricane reconstruction and all the other issues that come across the desk of President Bush's most influential aide.

But Mr. Rove's first challenge on Wednesday morning came before he cleared his driveway: how to get past the five television crews and the three photographers waiting for him. He flashed his blinding high beams into the camera lenses and sped by.

That is the way things are for the Bush White House these days. The routines are the same. But everything, in the glare of the final stages of a criminal investigation that has reached to the highest levels of power in Washington, is different.

Mr. Rove is scheduled to testify before a federal grand jury on Friday, the fourth time he will have done so in the case, which centers on the disclosure of an undercover C.I.A. officer's identity.

Mr. Rove, deputy White House chief of staff for policy and senior adviser, and I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, are the most prominent administration officials to find themselves squirming under the attention of the hard-nosed special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, and the attendant news media scrutiny.

But the inquiry has swept up a dozen or more other officials who have been questioned by investigators or have testified before the grand jury, and, should it lead to the indictment of anyone at a senior level, it has the potential to upend the professional lives of everyone at the White House for the remainder of Mr. Bush's second term.

The result, say administration officials and friends and allies on the outside who speak regularly with them, is a mood of intense uncertainty in the White House that veers in some cases into fear of the personal and political consequences and anger at having been caught in the snare of a special prosecutor. And given how badly things have been going for Mr. Bush and his team on other fronts - a poll released Thursday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center put his approval rating at 38 percent, a new low - they hardly have deep reserves of internal enthusiasm or external good will to draw on.

"Everyone is going about the work at hand while bracing for the worst case," said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to get around the official White House position that it will not comment on the investigation.

Most administrations come to a point like this, at risk of being paralyzed internally and frozen externally in the klieg lights of scandal. To those who worked in the White House under Bill Clinton, it was almost a way of life and such a searing experience that many former Clinton officials have more than a dollop of sympathy for what their successors in power are going through.

"In this presumption of guilt culture, which is what has come about in Washington in the last 10 or 15 years, there must be a sense of anger there and an inability to manage the facts," said Lanny J. Davis, a lawyer in Washington who was brought into the Clinton White House to help deal with the multiple investigations of that administration. "It's hard to imagine how bad it is. You sit at your desk and you know what the facts are, but you can't get them out to the public because the lawyers tell you you can't - or if you can, the noise from the presumption of guilt culture overwhelms the facts."

Mr. Bush joked late last year with Matthew Cooper, a reporter for Time magazine, about why Mr. Cooper was not yet in jail for fighting a subpoena demanding that he testify about a conversation with a source who later turned out to be Mr. Rove. These days, though, the leak investigation is almost never spoken of openly within the West Wing, and certainly not made light of, administration officials say.

Lawyers for most of the officials who have testified before the grand jury have by and large chosen not to share information with one another, leaving colleagues largely in the dark about what others are telling Mr. Fitzgerald.

There is a presumption inside the White House that anyone who was indicted would resign or go on leave to fight the charges, though it is unclear what planning has taken place for that possibility.

The prospect of a White House without Mr. Rove, Mr. Bush's longtime strategist, has some allies of the president in a near panic, fearful that without him the administration would lose the one person capable of enforcing discipline across a party that has become increasingly fractious and that is almost at war with itself over the president's nomination of Harriet E. Miers to the Supreme Court.

With the White House stumbling and preoccupied, some allies of the president already see a policy void that is being filled by other prominent Republicans, like Senator John McCain of Arizona, who recently outmaneuvered the administration to win passage of an amendment that would set new standards to guard against the use of torture in the interrogation of detainees in the fight against terrorism.

Asked about the case in his daily on-camera news briefing on Thursday, Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, portrayed Mr. Bush as eagerly awaiting the results of the investigation. The case centers on whether administration officials illegally disclosed the identity of the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, as part of an effort to distance the White House from criticism by her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV. In mid-2003, Mr. Wilson, a former diplomat, became an outspoken critic of how the administration had used prewar intelligence about Iraq's weapons programs to justify the invasion.
The investigation led to the imprisonment of a reporter for The New York Times, Judith Miller, for 85 days for refusing to testify before the grand jury about a conversation with a confidential source, later identified as Mr. Libby.

"The president has said that no one wants to get to the bottom of it more than he does," said Mr. McClellan, whose own credibility has taken a pounding because of statements he made two years ago that Mr. Rove had no involvement in leaking the C.I.A. officer's identity. "I want to get to the bottom of it. We don't know all the facts."

Despite the fear inspired by Mr. Fitzgerald, the White House has treated the special prosecutor extremely gingerly, making no public criticism and pledging at every turn to be completely cooperative. When Mr. Bush was asked about the investigation during an appearance on the NBC News "Today" program on Tuesday, he said Mr. Fitzgerald had conducted the case in "a very dignified way," a statement that could make it difficult for Republicans to attack the prosecutor if he should bring charges against administration officials.

If the Bush White House is marked by anything, it is relentlessness and resilience. While the West Wing seems more on edge than usual - Mr. McClellan got into an uncharacteristically heated exchange with reporters on Thursday about the Miers nomination - the official line is business as usual, and the principals appear to be trying hard to play their roles.

Mr. Libby still arises in the wee hours each morning and puts in 14- to 16-hour days in Mr. Cheney's office. Mr. Rove, who left his house at 5:50 on Wednesday morning, has kept up his usual duties, Mr. McClellan said. After appearing before the grand jury on Friday, Mr. Rove will get right back into political mode. He is scheduled to appear at a fund-raiser over the weekend for Jerry Kilgore, the Republican candidate for governor of Virginia.
Doug Mills contributed reporting for this article.

What's very much in store for George W. Bush after Impeachment is uninhibited Revenge: Mussolini Style,

The Political Way: Sellout, Lies, & Deceit

2005-10-05T06:59:00.000-05:00

This is a neighbor of mine that I found while reading my local newspaper's editorial section, in which John wrote a very compelling, outspoken piece about the State of the Union. I was so impressed and elated that I decided to look him up and give him a ring.

At first our conversation was guarded with suspicion on John's part, in my little county in a Southern Red State, it doesn't pay to be a progressive politico of any kind. But we broke through it all and since have kept in touch, and I intend on helping John succeed to that awful, deceitful place in Washington, DC... to an office in The Capital building.

Recently, John informed me that he had dropped out of the private sector and that he was going to invest himself in the public sector and run for US Congress. I reckon that he felt pretty strongly about his views and he put his money where is mouth is. Impressed, again.

Yesterday, John called me for my email address and that he wanted to send me a little something that he wanted to get my opinion on. I gave him the information and hung up. Later, I found this in my inbox...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contact:

John Konop JohnKonopForCongress.com

John Konop For Congress jkonop@johnkonop.com

P.O Box 706 (770) 852-2222

Lebanon, GA 30146

Republican Party official rejects John Konop—Republican candidate for U.S. Congress—because of his positions on immigration, trade, and Federal spending.

Canton, Georgia, September 29, 2005 — John Konop is seeking the Republican nomination for Georgia’s 6th Congressional District seat. Bart Brannon—in his capacity as the Cherokee County Republican Party Vice Chairman of Communications—repeatedly suggests that Mr. Konop is not a “real” Republican because of his positions on:

· Curbing illegal immigration by, among other things, controlling our borders

· Renegotiating trade deals like NAFTA and CAFTA to strengthen American wages, jobs, and industry

· Ending out-of-control Federal spending

When told that Mr. Konop’s positions are shared by many fellow Republicans, Mr. Brannon writes that the proposals would, “…end illegal immigration without regard to how this would effect our economy... those are not conservative principles.” Mr. Konop rejects the assertion that lawless immigration and lax enforcement benefit Americans and represent conservative values.

Mr. Brannon criticizes Mr. Konop’s proposals for restructuring America’s trade deals claiming they would “…restrict the free market... (and) essentially grow the size of government and its regulatory influence on American business.” Yet Mr. Brannon refuses to explain how the CAFTA provision empowering foreign tribunals benefits American companies. U.S. Congressman Norwood (GA Rep), in a pre-CAFTA floor speech, warned, “If (CAFTA) becomes law, the administration, the American courts, even the United States Constitution will have no effect on the final interpretation of this agreement. That will be left to the CAFTA tribunal, two Central American judges, always pitted against one judge from the United States.” Mr. Konop rejects Mr. Brannon’s assertion that demanding smart trade deals means Americans are economic isolationists.

Mr. Brannon also suggests that Americans submit to China’s ongoing trade violations or, “…be ready to send our children to fight them within the next twenty years.” Mr. Konop rejects the use of such fearful, extortionist rhetoric as the foundation for American trade policies.

Mr. Brannon supports the votes by local Congressmen John Linder and Tom Price for the pork-laden Transportation and Energy bills, for the lop-sided CAFTA trade agreement, and against cracking down on China’s blatant trade violations. Mr. Brannon arrives at the conclusion that he and Mr. Konop are, “…on opposite ends of the political spectrum…I will be supporting your opposition whether it is John or Tom.”

Finally, Mr. Brannon says the Transportation Bill, “…could be better, but unfortunately there are not enough congressmen willing to decline their share of vote-buying pork.” Fortunately for Americans, Congressman John Konop will say no to pork and yes to balanced budgets. Please visit JohnKonopForCongress.com to learn more.

Attachments:

Two (2) emails from Bart Brannon to John Konop dated 9/26/05 and 9/28/05
Contact information from the Cherokee County Republican Party website
JohnKonopForCongress.com flyer
Rep. Norwood Floor Speech

John Konop & Bart Brannon Emails

Email #1

John,

No John, I do not believe by simply paying dues one qualifies as a member of any organization, especially a political group. But that is the practice shared by every political organization I have ever followed. The party can outline its basic beliefs as is the case with CCRP's mission statement hoping to attract those who subscibe to that point of view. I for one wish there were more Republicans running for public office, but it seems with every election cycle the party must look outside itself to find candidates (see Governor Perdue, State Senator Bill Stephens and five or six other senators).

CCRP is open to you with your isolationist philosophy and me with a desire to expand America's influence on the global economy. You would apparently seek more government imposed restrictions on trade where I would rather let the free enterprise system control trade through higher quality products being produced here in the western hemisphere then shipped worldwide. If other countries impose restrictive tariffs, then American companies have the ability to influence consumers through marketing campaigns. If other countries offer lower labor costs as is the case in South America, India, China and elsewhere, then American companies should take advantage with the result being better deals for American consumers. If America offers lower labor costs as is the case with automobile manufacturing (I believe you drive a nice BMW built by a company that offshored much of its manufacturing to the SE U.S. creating thousands of jobs) then we attract that business. Government should reduce the burden of working with other countries (i.e. NAFTA/CAFTA/China trade) vs. building a wall around America to protect some perceived lack of competitiveness espoused by Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot and other isolationists.

Highway Bill -- could be better, but unfortunately there are not enough congressmen willing to decline their share of vote-buying pork. A possible solution would be ending so much money funneling through DC bureaucracy before being returned to the states. I think GA gets about 90% of what it sends to DC which is up from previous years due to Johnny Isakson fighting for our state.

Energy Bill -- Decent legislation if ANWR is approved. Additional research money for bio-diesel vehicles would be good and also benefit farmers so we could reduce that ridiculous waste of taxpayer subsidy supported heavily by Georgia's Saxby Chambliss as Chairman of the Senate Ag Committee.

China -- Either work with them or be ready to send our children to fight them within the next twenty years. Don't know about you, but IMHO that would be the war to end all wars.

Bart

----- Original Message -----

Friday, September 23, 2005 7:04 PM Page 1 of 2 mySite.com - emailMyName

Subject: Re: CCRP - Constitution Day

Bart,

I have not heard from you. The coffee over is still open. I would like to know your opion on the Highway bill, Energy bill and China as a trade partner. How dose that work with the CCRP mission statement. Is your point if you pay your dues the mission statement dose not matter. Thanks jk

Email #2

John,

No matter who put the platform together, it's foundation is the same as Ben's; stop free trade, end illegal immigrationwithout regard to how this would effect our economy, restrict the free market by regulating how companies accom their work...essentially grow the size of government and its regulatory influence on American business. To me, th not conservative principles (generally or otherwise). With all due respect, I do not see the need for a coffee meeting. We are on opposite ends of the political spectrum totally different concerns and ideas about how to solve these concerns. Good health to you as you go forward in campaign, but I will be supporting your opposition whether it is John or Tom.

Regards,
Bart
----- Original Message -----
From: johnkonop@mysite.com
To: bartbrannon@bellsouth.net

Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 10:04 AM
Subject: Re: Cherokee County Republican Party eLetter SPECIAL EDITION

Bart,

My web company was already correcting that before you pointed it out.As in any project, we constantly proof reading our copy as you may understand to make sure it is correct. That is just of other mistakes we caught.Our company is making the correction as fast as they can. If yo any more feel free to point them out.

As far as my brother goes, the platform was put together by fellow members of the CCRP pa brother was never a part of any meetings. Are you saying anyone who helped or supports the platform is not a real Republican?

Finally, can you focus on the platform detail and give an opinon without personal attacks and generazaltions. I have not found many people who don't think it's a conservative platform. Yes, I am still interested in your opinon. Also, the coffee offer is still open. Thanks

My comment: Is Bart for Real? ... or another out-of-touch Republican Bart Simpson?

GM's Idle Class: Big Pay, No Work

2005-10-05T06:53:00.000-05:00

GM's Idle Class: Big Pay, No Work
By Jonathan Fahey & Joann Muller, 10.17.05

GM has thousands of workers collecting paychecks for not doing much. What would it take to get them off the payroll? Probably more than GM could afford to spend.

Scott Taylor spent this summer fixing up neighborhood parks in Edgemere, Md., a pleasant suburb in Baltimore County that juts into Chesapeake Bay. He trucked sand into the waterfront Lynch Point Park to rebuild the beach, power-washed the play set, fixed the fences and helped a Boy Scout troop paint a flagpole. For this and other community service work Taylor earned $31 an hour along with fully paid health insurance and credit toward raises and his pension. Who's paying him? General Motors, the carmaker that has lost $1.3 billion so far this year.

Taylor, 49, is an autoworker, but GM no longer has a job for him. The Baltimore factory where he worked for the past 21 years closed in May. Instead of sending Taylor packing with a nice severance package, GM put him in what's known as the "jobs bank." Under a contract it first negotiated with the United Auto Workers in 1984, GM is obliged to pay workers who lose their jobs full wages and benefits, even though they are not building vehicles.

Across the U.S. some 5,000 GM workers like Taylor are in the jobs bank. Many are doing what Taylor is doing, volunteering at parks departments, fire departments, churches, schools and GM dealerships. Others are going to community colleges, with tuition aid from the UAW and GM. Still others go to a room in an industrial park or shopping mall near their closed factory, in Baltimore; Linden, N.J.; Lansing, Mich. and elsewhere, and pass the time playing cards, watching movies and doing occasional paperwork. Some transfer to other GM factories when jobs open up. Others stay in the jobs bank until retirement.

GM's cost for all those idle workers: $750 million a year.

It's a situation no one likes--not GM and not workers like Taylor. "I'm getting an opportunity to help out, and my community is getting free labor," Taylor says. "But I enjoyed my job, and I hated to see it go. I want to be in the plant, working."

The pay guarantee is one more reason--after disappointing cars, brutal competition and health care costs--that GM is having trouble getting its finances in order. Chairman G. Richard Wagoner has said GM needs to shed 25,000 or more workers by 2008 and close three or four factories. But unlike most companies, it has labor costs that are fixed. The costs don't go down when GM closes a factory.

The idea behind the thumb-twiddling jobs bank, paradoxically, was to give workers an incentive to do their jobs faster. In the early 1980s, as Detroit automakers were getting slammed by the first wave of Japanese competition, GM realized that workers would only come up with ways to boost productivity if they were sure it wouldn't cost them their livelihood. The jobs bank was intended to be a temporary holding pen for workers awaiting reassignment. GM's productivity has indeed risen--31% since 1995, according to Harbour Consulting--but its market share has steadily dropped, from 32% to 27%.

A logical solution, it would seem, would be to buy out workers like Taylor. In principle there ought to be some severance pay that would make GM better off, because it would be less than it would otherwise fork out to keep a worker in the jobs bank but would also make the worker better off, because he could quit the make-work and take a real job somewhere. "From a social standpoint, there couldn't be anything but an improvement," says University of Chicago economist Chad W. Syverson. "If they're bought out, at least they can go do something else that's productive, besides playing cards."

So why isn't GM buying out redundant workers?Probably because the sums involved are so large. A jobs banker who quits is walking away from extremely valuable benefits--not only a rich guaranteed wage of $70,000 but precious health coverage, too. His pension kicks in when he quits at, say, age 62, and the health insurance lasts for as long as he lives. To be sure, he can get Medicare at age 65, but it isn't anything close to GM's insurance in quality. So a 50-year-old worker is walking away from 12 years of paychecks, or $840,000, plus health coverage for himself and his family for 15 years, plus the equivalent of Medigap insurance for as long as he and his spouse live. Tote it up and you have $1 million or more sitting on the table.

What this 50-year-old would gain by walking away is the freedom to take another job. But that other job--in construction, say--might pay only half as much. And who wants to start hauling asphalt shingles at age 50? The flagpole assignment doesn't look so bad now.

Would $500,000 tempt people to leave? It might. "If you offered $500,000 to autoworkers, I wouldn't want to step in the way of the stampede," says former UAW President Douglas Fraser. But some of these workers might resist even that sum. Taxes would cut it in half. The health benefits, in contrast, are tax free.

In January 2004 Chrysler sold an Indiana component factory to a supplier, Metaldyne. To make the deal palatable to the unionized workers, Chrysler offered them an incentive of $10,000 per year of service, in exchange for a $10 wage cut and reduced health coverage. Only 200 or so of the 1,100 Chrysler component workers, mostly younger ones, accepted that deal. The rest retired or decided to wait for reassignment in Chrysler's jobs bank.

Julie Langley, 31, spent 11 years at GM, most on the assembly line and in the body shop at Baltimore Assembly before landing in the jobs bank. She would seem young and vigorous enough to want to find another job or career. Yet she says she doesn't want any part of a buyout. "I don't want to walk away from 11 years of my life," she says. "And I'd be facing employment without a pension and without health care." Since the plant's closing in May she has been taking classes in global business and public policy, and doing office work at a UAW union hall. She's on a list to get hired at GM's Baltimore transmission plant, but her lack of seniority may keep her waiting a long time. She'll move to take another GM job but would rather not.

For its part GM probably doesn't find the notion of writing $500,000 checks very appealing. Multiply that sum by the 5,000 workers in the jobs bank and 20,000 additional workers who ought to be there and you get $12.5 billion. That's a significant fraction of the company's dwindling net worth. The deterioration of GM's former partsmaking unit, Delphi, could make matters worse. If Delphi goes into bankruptcy as it has threatened, GM could be on the hook for Delphi's retiree costs. To avert a filing Delphi wants GM to take back 7,000 workers, many of whom would end up in the jobs bank.

If GM simply bides its time, the jobs bank obligations will shrink. Each year some jobs bank workers reach retirement, some die, and a tiny handful leave voluntarily, without any lump sum. Time, too, will eventually cure GM's health insurance crisis. GM has 181,000 workers left in North America, yet it has 1.1 million people collecting health benefits from the plan--workers, retirees and dependents. That number is starting to shrink, but it will still take quite a while for GM to age its way out of that burden. Only $16 billion of GM's $77 billion health care obligation to retirees is funded.

Wagoner might offer some concession to workers to accept a shrinking of the health coverage. He could also seek an overhaul of the benefits package, including ending the jobs bank in 2007, when the UAW contract ends. Expect the union to fight hard on both fronts.

Meanwhile, James Heid, 45, who installed the second seat belt in Astro vans for 13 years, gets job training, of a sort. On a recent afternoon Heid was having a beer at the Angle Inn, near where the hulking Baltimore factory sits, lifeless, off to the side of an elevated stretch of Interstate 95. He was rushing off to class at Dundalk Community College, where he takes history and blueprint reading. Truth is, Heid doesn't have much interest in those classes. But he says he sure as heck doesn't want to sit at a table in the jobs bank room eight hours a day, waiting for a job that will probably never open up. So he's marking time, to no one's advantage.

My Comment: My God... it takes a huge private sector employer to invest in its people to 'up the productivity' in the face of working themselves out of job and is forced to stick to its committment to 5,000 plus people.

Shame on the Congress...

Shame on the President...

Shame on Us???

... for not investing in ourselves.

"So, bye bye Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levy
But the levy was dry
And good ole boys where drinking whiskey & rye
Singing, 'This'll be the day that I die, this'll be the day that I die...'"

The Invasion of the Chinese Cyberspies

2005-08-30T07:37:00.000-05:00

WHO'LL STOP THE RAIN: Shawn Carpenter at his Maryland home

The Invasion of the Chinese Cyberspies
(And the Man Who Tried to Stop Them)
An exclusive look at how the hackers called TITAN RAIN are stealing U.S. secrets
By NATHAN THORNBURGH
Monday, Aug. 29, 2005

It was another routine night forÂ Shawn Carpenter. After a long day analyzing computer-network security for Sandia National Laboratories, where much of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is designed, Carpenter, 36, retreated to his ranch house in the hills overlooking Albuquerque, N.M., for a quick dinner and an early bedtime. He set his alarm for 2 a.m. Waking in the dark, he took a thermos of coffee and a pack of Nicorette gum to the cluster of computer terminals in his home office. As he had almost every night for the previous four months, he worked at his secret volunteer job until dawn, not as Shawn Carpenter, mid-level analyst, but as Spiderman--the apt nickname his military-intelligence handlers gave him--tirelessly pursuing a group of suspected Chinese cyberspies all over the world. Inside the machines, on a mission he believed the U.S. government supported, he clung unseen to the walls of their chat rooms and servers, secretly recording every move the snoopers made, passing the information to the Army and later to the FBI.

The hackers he was stalking, part of a cyberespionage ring that federal investigators code-named Titan Rain, first caught Carpenter's eye a year earlier when he helped investigate a network break-in at Lockheed Martin in September 2003. A strikingly similar attack hit Sandia several months later, but it wasn't until Carpenter compared notes with a counterpart in Army cyberintelligence that he suspected the scope of the threat. Methodical and voracious, these hackers wanted all the files they could find, and they were getting them by penetrating secure computer networks at the country's most sensitive military bases, defense contractors and aerospace companies.

Carpenter had never seen hackers work so quickly, with such a sense of purpose. They would commandeer a hidden section of a hard drive, zip up as many files as possible and immediately transmit the data to way stations in South Korea, Hong Kong or Taiwan before sending them to mainland China. They always made a silent escape, wiping their electronic fingerprints clean and leaving behind an almost undetectable beacon allowing them to re-enter the machine at will. An entire attack took 10 to 30 minutes. "Most hackers, if they actually get into a government network, get excited and make mistakes," says Carpenter. "Not these guys. They never hit a wrong key."

Goaded by curiosity and a sense that he could help the U.S. defend itself against a new breed of enemy, Carpenter gave chase to the attackers. He hopped just as stealthily from computer to computer across the globe, chasing the spies as they hijacked a web of far-flung computers. Eventually he followed the trail to its apparent end, in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong. He found that the attacks emanated from just three Chinese routers that acted as the first connection point from a local network to the Internet.

It was a stunning breakthrough. In the world of cyberspying, locating the attackers' country of origin is rare. China, in particular, is known for having poorly defended servers that outsiders from around the world commandeer as their unwitting launchpads. Now Chinese computers appeared to be the aggressors.

If so, the implications for U.S. security are disturbing. In recent years, the counterintelligence community has grown increasingly anxious that Chinese spies are poking into all sorts of American technology to compete with the U.S. But tracking virtual enemies presents a different kind of challenge to U.S. spy hunters. Foreign hackers invade a secure network with a flick of a wrist, but if the feds want to track them back and shut them down, they have to go through a cumbersome authorization process that can be as tough as sending covert agents into foreign lands. Adding in extreme sensitivity to anything involving possible Chinese espionage--remember the debacle over alleged Los Alamos spy Wen Ho Lee?--and the fear of igniting an international incident, it's not surprising the U.S. has found it difficult and delicate to crack these cases.

In Washington, officials are tight-lipped about Titan Rain, insisting all details of the case are classified. But high-level officials at three agencies told TIME the penetration is considered serious. A federal law-enforcement official familiar with the investigation says the FBI is "aggressively" pursuing the possibility that the Chinese government is behind the attacks. Yet they all caution that they don't yet know whether the spying is official, a private-sector job or the work of many independent, unrelated hands. The law-enforcement source says China has not been cooperating with U.S. investigations of Titan Rain. China's State Council Information Office, speaking for the government, told TIME the charges about cyberspying and Titan Rain are "totally groundless, irresponsible and unworthy of refute."

Despite the official U.S. silence, several government analysts who protect the networks at military, nuclear-lab and defense- contractor facilities tell TIME that Titan Rain is thought to rank among the most pervasive cyberespionage threats that U.S. computer networks have ever faced. TIME has obtained documents showing that since 2003, the hackers, eager to access American know-how, have compromised secure networks ranging from the Redstone Arsenal military base to NASA to the World Bank. In one case, the hackers stole flight-planning software from the Army. So far, the files they have vacuumed up are not classified secrets, but many are sensitive and subject to strict export-control laws, which means they are strategically important enough to require U.S. government licenses for foreign use.

Beyond worries about the sheer quantity of stolen data, a Department of Defense (DOD) alert obtained by TIME raises the concern that Titan Rain could be a point patrol for more serious assaults that could shut down or even take over a number of U.S. military networks. Although he would not comment on Titan Rain specifically, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman says any attacks on military computers are a concern. "When we have breaches of our networks, it puts lives at stake," he says. "We take it very seriously."

As cyberspying metastasizes, frustrated network protectors say that the FBI in particular doesn't have enough top-notch computer gumshoes to track down the foreign rings and that their hands are often tied by the strict rules of engagement. That's where independents--some call them vigilantes--like Carpenter come in. After he made his first discoveries about Titan Rain in March 2004, he began taking the information to unofficial contacts he had in Army intelligence. Federal rules prohibit military-intelligence officers from working with U.S. civilians, however, and by October, the Army passed Carpenter and his late-night operation to the FBI. He says he was a confidential informant for the FBI for the next five months. Reports from his cybersurveillance eventually reached the highest levels of the bureau's counterintelligence division, which says his work was folded into an existing task force on the attacks. But his FBI connection didn't help when his employers at Sandia found out what he was doing. They fired him and stripped him of his Q clearance, the Department of Energy equivalent of top-secret clearance. Carpenter's after-hours sleuthing, they said, was an inappropriate use of confidential information he had gathered at his day job. Under U.S. law, it is illegal for Americans to hack into foreign computers.

Carpenter is speaking out about his case, he says, not just because he feels personally maligned--although he filed suit in New Mexico last week for defamation and wrongful termination. The FBI has acknowledged working with him: evidence collected by TIME shows that FBI agents repeatedly assured him he was providing important information to them. Less clear is whether he was sleuthing with the tacit consent of the government or operating as a rogue hacker. At the same time, the bureau was also investigating his actions before ultimately deciding not to prosecute him. The FBI would not tell TIME exactly what, if anything, it thought Carpenter had done wrong. Federal cyberintelligence agents use information from freelance sources like Carpenter at times but are also extremely leery about doing so, afraid that the independent trackers may jeopardize investigations by trailing foes too noisily or, even worse, may be bad guys themselves. When Carpenter deputized himself to delve into the Titan Rain group, he put his career in jeopardy. But he remains defiant, saying he's a whistle-blower whose case demonstrates the need for reforms that would enable the U.S. to respond more effectively and forcefully against the gathering storm of cyberthreats.

A TIME investigation into the case reveals how the Titan Rain attacks were uncovered, why they are considered a significant threat now under investigation by the Pentagon, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security and why the U.S. government has yet to stop them.

Carpenter thought he was making progress. When he uncovered the Titan Rain routers in Guangdong, he carefully installed a homemade bugging code in the primary router's software. It sent him an e-mail alert at an anonymous Yahoo! account every time the gang made a move on the Net. Within two weeks, his Yahoo! account was filled with almost 23,000 messages, one for each connection the Titan Rain router made in its quest for files. He estimates there were six to 10 workstations behind each of the three routers, staffed around the clock. The gang stashed its stolen files in zombie servers in South Korea, for example, before sending them back to Guangdong. In one, Carpenter found a stockpile of aerospace documents with hundreds of detailed schematics about propulsion systems, solar paneling and fuel tanks for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the NASA probe launched in August. On the night he woke at 2, Carpenter copied a huge collection of files that had been stolen from Redstone Arsenal, home to the Army Aviation and Missile Command. The attackers had grabbed specs for the aviation-mission-planning system for Army helicopters, as well as Falconview 3.2, the flight-planning software used by the Army and Air Force.

Even if official Washington is not certain, Carpenter and other network-security analysts believe that the attacks are Chinese government spying. "It's a hard thing to prove," says a network-intrusion-detection analyst at a major U.S. defense contractor who has been studying Titan Rain since 2003, "but this has been going on so long and it's so well organized that the whole thing is state sponsored, I think." When it comes to advancing their military by stealing data, "the Chinese are more aggressive" than anyone else, David Szady, head of the FBI's counterintelligence unit, told TIME earlier this year. "If they can steal it and do it in five years, why [take longer] to develop it?"

Within the U.S. military, Titan Rain is raising alarms. A November 2003 government alert obtained by TIME details what a source close to the investigation says was an early indication of Titan Rain's ability to cause widespread havoc. Hundreds of Defense Department computer systems had been penetrated by an insidious program known as a "trojan," the alert warned. "These compromises ... allow an unknown adversary not only control over the DOD hosts, but also the capability to use the DOD hosts in malicious activity. The potential also exists for the perpetrator to potentially shut down each host." The attacks were also stinging allies, including Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, where an unprecedented string of public alerts issued in June 2005, two U.S. network-intrusion analysts tell TIME, also referred to Titan Rain--related activity. "These electronic attacks have been under way for a significant period of time, with a recent increase in sophistication," warned Britain's National Infrastructure Security Co-Ordination Center.

Titan Rain presents a severe test for the patchwork of agencies digging into the problem. Both the cybercrime and counterintelligence divisions of the FBI are investigating, the law-enforcement source tells TIME. But while the FBI has a solid track record cajoling foreign governments into cooperating in catching garden-variety hackers, the source says that China is not cooperating with the U.S. on Titan Rain. The FBI would need high-level diplomatic and Department of Justice authorization to do what Carpenter did in sneaking into foreign computers. The military would have more flexibility in hacking back against the Chinese, says a former high-ranking Administration official, under a protocol called "preparation of the battlefield." But if any U.S. agency got caught, it could spark an international incident.

That's why Carpenter felt he could be useful to the FBI. Frustrated in gathering cyberinfo, some agencies have in the past turned a blind eye to free-lancers--or even encouraged them--to do the job. After he hooked up with the FBI, Carpenter was assured by the agents assigned to him that he had done important and justified work in tracking Titan Rain attackers. Within a couple of weeks, FBI agents asked him to stop sleuthing while they got more authorization, but they still showered him with praise over the next four months as he fed them technical analyses of what he had found earlier. "This could very well impact national security at the highest levels," Albuquerque field agent Christine Paz told him during one of their many information-gathering sessions in Carpenter's home. His other main FBI contact, special agent David Raymond, chimed in: "You're very important to us," Raymond said. "I've got eight open cases throughout the United States that your information is going to. And that's a lot." And in a letter obtained by TIME, the FBI's Szady responded to a Senate investigator's inquiry about Carpenter, saying, "The [FBI] is aggressively pursuing the investigative leads provided by Mr. Carpenter."

Given such assurances, Carpenter was surprised when, in March 2005, his FBI handlers stopped communicating with him altogether. Now the federal law-enforcement source tells TIME that the bureau was actually investigating Carpenter while it was working with him. Agents are supposed to check out their informants, and intruding into foreign computers is illegal, regardless of intent. But two sources familiar with Carpenter's story say there is a gray area in cybersecurity, and Carpenter apparently felt he had been unofficially encouraged by the military and, at least initially, by the FBI. Although the U.S. Attorney declined to pursue charges against him, Carpenter feels betrayed. "It's just ridiculous. I was tracking real bad guys," he says. "But they are so afraid of taking risks that they wasted all this time investigating me instead of going after Titan Rain." Worse, he adds, they never asked for the passwords and other tools that could enable them to pick up the investigative trail at the Guangdong router.

Carpenter was even more dismayed to find that his work with the FBI had got him in trouble at Sandia. He says that when he first started tracking Titan Rain to chase down Sandia's attackers, he told his superiors that he thought he should share his findings with the Army, since it had been repeatedly hit by Titan Rain as well. A March 2004 Sandia memo that Carpenter gave TIME shows that he and his colleagues had been told to think like "World Class Hackers" and to retrieve tools that other attackers had used against Sandia. That's why Carpenter did not expect the answer he claims he got from his bosses in response to Titan Rain: Not only should he not be trailing Titan Rain but he was also expressly forbidden to share what he had learned with anyone.

As a Navy veteran whose wife is a major in the Army Reserve, Carpenter felt he could not accept that injunction. After several weeks of angry meetings--including one in which Carpenter says Sandia counterintelligence chief Bruce Held fumed that Carpenter should have been "decapitated" or "at least left my office bloody" for having disobeyed his bosses--he was fired. Citing Carpenter's civil lawsuit, Sandia was reluctant to discuss specifics but responded to TIME with a statement: "Sandia does its work in the national interest lawfully. When people step beyond clear boundaries in a national security setting, there are consequences."

Carpenter says he has honored the FBI's request to stop following the attackers. But he can't get Titan Rain out of his mind. Although he was recently hired as a network-security analyst for another federal contractor and his security clearance has been restored, "I'm not sleeping well," he says. "I know the Titan Rain group is out there working, now more than ever."

--With reporting by Matthew Forney/Beijing and Brian Bennett, Timothy J. Burger and Elaine Shannon/Washington

Bow Down Your Head In Shame... Tom Dooley

2005-08-21T07:08:00.000-05:00

Debtors in Rush to Bankruptcy as Change Nears
By TIMOTHY EGAN
Published: August 21, 2005

BOISE, Idaho - Rushing to beat an October deadline when the biggest overhaul of the bankruptcy law in a quarter century goes into effect, rising numbers of Americans have filed for protection in the four months since the law was changed, seeking to have their debts erased.

Delores Hawks, 56, of Ontario, Ore., went into debt to learn new skills.

Escaping Debt

Since President Bush signed the new law in April, bankruptcy filings have jumped, particularly in the heartland. Filings in the four months through July are up 17 percent this year over last in Cleveland, 14 percent in Milwaukee and 22 percent in northern Iowa, according to court filings, matching similar patterns in the Midwest and parts of the South and rural West.

Nationwide, bankruptcy filings for April, May and June were up by 12 percent over the same period last year, according to LexisNexis, the data collection service, which tracks filings ahead of the quarterly reporting done by the federal courts. The rise is coming after bankruptcy had leveled off and even started a slight decline last year.

Under the revised law, debtors who earn more than the median income in their state and who can repay at least $6,000 of their debt over five years will no longer be able to have their debts wiped out for a fresh start under the more generous provisions of Chapter 7 of the bankruptcy code. Instead, they will have to seek protection under Chapter 13, which requires a repayment schedule. In addition, under the new provisions, they will have to enroll in a court-supervised financial counseling program.

The rise, which lawyers and bankruptcy experts say is driven in large part by people who say they fear that it will become much more difficult to escape debt and seek a clean slate under the new law, appears to have caught some bankers and lawyers by surprise.

When the new bankruptcy bill was passed by Congress last spring, bankers predicted it would turn many people away from the protection of the courts by making it harder to extinguish debt. That may still turn out to be the case. But thus far, it has been a rush to the courts in many places.

Here in Idaho, the soundless wave of Americans going broke washes up at the clerk's office in bankruptcy court, with nearly 20 fresh declarations of desperation every working day.

There is the Moore family of Boise, Kevin and Linda, listing a $10 cat and a $5 toaster among their meager assets against a medical bill of more than $18,000. There is Delores Hawks, going into debt to learn a skill, and never getting out because of endless credit card interest on the self-loan that once looked so manageable.

"Someday, I think we'll eventually get ahead," said Linda Moore, a 41-year-old part-time school bus driver who said she did not know of her husband's medical bills when she married him. "I don't know when that day will be."

Bankruptcy filings rose eightfold over the last 30 years, from 200,000 in 1978 to 1.6 million last year. Although filings vary from month to month, the pace for this year, if it holds up, projects to about 1.8 million bankruptcies. The overwhelming majority of them are personal, not business.

Economists say bankruptcy has become more likely as household debt has continued to rise while the savings rate has fallen precipitously. The Federal Reserve reported that household debt hit a record high last year, relative to disposable income.

"Bankruptcies historically have risen with debt, and a lot more people are now living near the edge," said Henry J. Sommer, president of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys. "What we're seeing now is a rush to get in before October. After that, a certain amount of people will be priced out of bankruptcy."

Courts in Indiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin, among other places, report that people are hurrying into bankruptcy in numbers rarely seen.

"I'm probably about four times more busy than normal," said Merv Waage, a bankruptcy lawyer in Denton, Tex. "People are saying, 'Honey, we can't pay our bill. We have no choice. We can't live under the stringent new rules. Let's file now before it's too late.' "

Idaho, a state with an otherwise prosperous sheen to its economy, is among the per capita leaders in a category that no state will brag about. Filings were up 11 percent for July over the same period last year - on a record pace for the year.

Escaping Debt

Gordon Barry, a bankruptcy lawyer in Toledo, Ohio, where filings are up 21 percent this year, said: "We've been busier than ever. People are running in, trying to beat the deadline."

The new requirements are an incentive to seek protection now, perhaps the last chance for a relatively hassle-free bankruptcy, some of the newly bankrupt say.

Certainly that was case of Ms. Hawks, who is 56, and lives in Ontario, Ore., just over the Idaho state line. After years of odd jobs, she took out loans on credit cards to go to business school and learn office skills. Once out of school, she found she had a rare nerve disease that she said kept her from holding a job. The debts piled up, even after she got rid of her credit cards.

She paid just enough to satisfy the credit card minimum payment, she said, but never advanced out of the loop of perennial debt on the interest.

"I was paying interest on the interest," Ms. Hawks said, "it was $5,000, and I never got ahead of it. Month after month after month. Finally, I just got tired of it. I said, 'I've had enough.' "

She had heard enough about the changes in the bankruptcy law to feel that it was important to file this summer rather than wait until all provisions of the new law took effect in October, she said. "I had to do something," said Ms. Hawks, who now lives on $656 a month in Social Security disability. "I decided to do it now rather than later."

Families with children are three times more likely to file as those without, according to studies done by Elizabeth Warren of Harvard Law School and others, and more than 80 percent of them cite job loss, medical problems or family breakup as the reason.

Ms. Moore, an Air Force veteran of the Persian Gulf war who married a carpenter and inherited his outstanding medical bills, said those old debts forced the couple into bankruptcy. Both Ms. Moore and her husband had been divorced before.

But she admits that they brought on some of the problem themselves.

"My husband, he's the kind of guy who when he gets a bill that he can't pay, he just puts it aside," Ms. Moore said.

The monthly math of the Moore family budget leaves little room for unplanned events. Mr. Moore makes about $1,200 a month as a carpenter. Ms. Moore, a mother of three children, drives a school bus part time, and makes $11 an hour. She also receives $300 a month in alimony. Their rent is $700 a month. Their food costs are $400 a month. Their cars, insurance and upkeep are $200 more.

Most months, they barely break even, she said. But what pushed them into bankruptcy were bills from the past, which kept growing with interest - a mountain that finally turned into an avalanche. They detailed the bills in their court filings.

The biggest was an $18,000 medical bill, for Mr. Moore, from a severe knee injury. He also owed $2,469 to a hospital where he went for care during a bout of depression. There was a $205 bill to DirecTV, and a $600 bill to Money Tree and a $615 debt to Capitol One - both lending services. And he owed child support, for $542.

Ms. Moore said she did not know about most of her new husband's debts until she started getting her wages garnished from her bus-driving job. She has health insurance from her Air Force days, but it has not been enough to keep them out of bankruptcy.

"My husband's old medical bills - that's what killed us," she said. Bankruptcy was a chance to start clean, she said. Bankers say the surge in filings is driven in part by misinformation about how the new law will work. They say it will force only the small percentage of people who abuse the system into regular payment schedules, while keeping an open door of debt forgiveness to the vast majority of bankruptcy filers, who are individuals rather than businesses.

"I would hope that consumers are not getting the rush-rush because they're afraid they won't have the same protection in a few months," said Wayne Abernathy, an executive at the American Bankers Association, which lobbied heavily for the new law.

Consumer groups say the law will only make matters worse for the large number of families who are not abusing the system. They say families will be stuck in "debtor's prison without walls," as the Consumer Federation of America, which fought the new bill, calls it.

Many economists and legal experts say that once all provisions of the law take effect in October, bankruptcies should fall again. And some experts say people will be caught in an endless cycle of debt repayment.

Ms. Hawks, who said that she declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy last month to get out of the endless interest payments on credit cards she had long given up, is puzzled by the financial industry's continued interest in her.

"Couple of times a week, I get a phone call or something in the mail trying to get me to accept a new credit card," she said. "I don't get it - because I'm broke."

Maureen Balleza contributed reporting for this article from Houston.

It's a Flat World, After All -- The New York Times

2005-04-09T09:12:00.000-05:00

It's a Flat World, After All
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, April 3, 2005

In 1492 Christopher Columbus set sail for India, going west. He had the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. He never did find India, but he called the people he met "Indians" and came home and reported to his king and queen: "The world is round." I set off for India 512 years later. I knew just which direction I was going. I went east. I had Lufthansa business class, and I came home and reported only to my wife and only in a whisper: "The world is flat."

And therein lies a tale of technology and geoeconomics that is fundamentally reshaping our lives -- much, much more quickly than many people realize. It all happened while we were sleeping, or rather while we were focused on 9/11, the dot-com bust and Enron -- which even prompted some to wonder whether globalization was over. Actually, just the opposite was true, which is why it's time to wake up and prepare ourselves for this flat world, because others already are, and there is no time to waste.

I wish I could say I saw it all coming. Alas, I encountered the flattening of the world quite by accident. It was in late February of last year, and I was visiting the Indian high-tech capital, Bangalore,

working on a documentary for the Discovery Times channel about outsourcing. In short order, I interviewed Indian entrepreneurs who wanted to prepare my taxes from Bangalore, read my X-rays from Bangalore, trace my lost luggage from Bangalore and write my new software from Bangalore. The longer I was there, the more upset I became -- upset at the realization that while I had been off covering the 9/11 wars, globalization had entered a whole new phase, and I had missed it. I guess the eureka moment came on a visit to the campus of Infosys Technologies, one of the crown jewels of the Indian outsourcing and software industry. Nandan Nilekani, the Infosys C.E.O., was showing me his global video-conference room, pointing with pride to a wall-size flat-screen TV, which he said was the biggest in Asia. Infosys, he explained, could hold a virtual meeting of the key players from its entire global supply chain for any project at any time on that supersize screen. So its American designers could be on the screen speaking with their Indian software writers and their Asian manufacturers all at once. That's what globalization is all about today, Nilekani said. Above the screen there were eight clocks that pretty well summed up the Infosys workday: 24/7/365. The clocks were labeled U.S. West, U.S. East, G.M.T., India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia.

“Outsourcing is just one dimension of a much more fundamental thing happening today in the world,” Nilekani explained. “What happened over the last years is that there was a massive investment in technology, especially in the bubble era, when hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in putting broadband connectivity around the world, undersea cables, all those things.” At the same time, he added, computers became cheaper and dispersed all over the world, and there was an explosion of e-mail software, search engines like Google and proprietary software that can chop up any piece of work and send one part to Boston, one part to Bangalore and one part to Beijing, making it easy for anyone to do remote development. When all of these things suddenly came together around 2000, Nilekani said, they “created a platform where intellectual work, intellectual capital, could be delivered from anywhere. It could be disaggregated, delivered, distributed, produced and put back together again -- and this gave a whole new degree of freedom to the way we do work, especially work of an intellectual nature. And what you are seeing in Bangalore today is really the culmination of all these things coming together.”

At one point, summing up the implications of all this, Nilekani uttered a phrase that rang in my ear. He said to me, “Tom, the playing field is being leveled.” He meant that countries like India were now able to compete equally for global knowledge work as never before -- and that America had better get ready for this. As I left the Infosys campus that evening and bounced along the potholed road back to Bangalore, I kept chewing on that phrase: “The playing field is being leveled.”

“What Nandan is saying,” I thought, “is that the playing field is being flattened. Flattened? Flattened? My God, he's telling me the world is flat!”

Here I was in Bangalore -- more than 500 years after Columbus sailed over the horizon, looking for a shorter route to India using the rudimentary navigational technologies of his day, and returned safely to prove definitively that the world was round -- and one of India's smartest engineers, trained at his country's top technical institute and backed by the most modern technologies of his day, was telling me that the world was flat, as flat as that screen on which he can host a meeting of his whole global supply chain. Even more interesting, he was citing this development as a new milestone in human progress and a great opportunity for India and the world -- the fact that we had made our world flat!

This has been building for a long time. Globalization 1.0 (1492 to 1800) shrank the world from a size large to a size medium, and the dynamic force in that era was countries globalizing for resources and imperial conquest. Globalization 2.0 (1800 to 2000) shrank the world from a size medium to a size small, and it was spearheaded by companies globalizing for markets and labor. Globalization 3.0 (which started around 2000) is shrinking the world from a size small to a size tiny and flattening the playing field at the same time. And while the dynamic force in Globalization 1.0 was countries globalizing and the dynamic force in Globalization 2.0 was companies globalizing, the dynamic force in Globalization 3.0 -- the thing that gives it its unique character -- is individuals and small groups globalizing. Individuals must, and can, now ask: where do I fit into the global competition and opportunities of the day, and how can I, on my own, collaborate with others globally? But Globalization 3.0 not only differs from the previous eras in how it is shrinking and flattening the world and in how it is empowering individuals. It is also different in that Globalization 1.0 and 2.0 were driven primarily by European and American companies and countries. But going forward, this will be less and less true. Globalization 3.0 is not only going to be driven more by individuals but also by a much more diverse -- non-Western, nonwhite -- group of individuals. In Globalization 3.0, you are going to see every color of the human rainbow take part.

“Today, the most profound thing to me is the fact that a 14-year-old in Romania or Bangalore or the Soviet Union or Vietnam has all the information, all the tools, all the software easily available to apply knowledge however they want,” said Marc Andreessen, a co-founder of Netscape and creator of the first commercial Internet browser. “That is why I am sure the next Napster is going to come out of left field. As bioscience becomes more computational and less about wet labs and as all the genomic data becomes easily available on the Internet, at some point you will be able to design vaccines on your laptop.”

Andreessen is touching on the most exciting part of Globalization 3.0 and the flattening of the world: the fact that we are now in the process of connecting all the knowledge pools in the world together. We've tasted some of the downsides of that in the way that Osama bin Laden has connected terrorist knowledge pools together through his Qaeda network, not to mention the work of teenage hackers spinning off more and more lethal computer viruses that affect us all. But the upside is that by connecting all these knowledge pools we are on the cusp of an incredible new era of innovation, an era that will be driven from left field and right field, from West and East and from North and South. Only 30 years ago, if you had a choice of being born a B student in Boston or a genius in Bangalore or Beijing, you probably would have chosen Boston, because a genius in Beijing or Bangalore could not really take advantage of his or her talent. They could not plug and play globally. Not anymore. Not when the world is flat, and anyone with smarts, access to Google and a cheap wireless laptop can join the innovation fray.

When the world is flat, you can innovate without having to emigrate. This is going to get interesting. We are about to see creative destruction on steroids.

How did the world get flattened, and how did it happen so fast?

It was a result of 10 events and forces that all came together during the 1990's and converged right around the year 2000. Let me go through them briefly. The first event was 11/9. That's right -- not 9/11, but 11/9. Nov. 9, 1989, is the day the Berlin Wall came down, which was critically important because it allowed us to think of the world as a single space. “The Berlin Wall was not only a symbol of keeping people inside Germany; it was a way of preventing a kind of global view of our future,” the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen said. And the wall went down just as the windows went up -- the breakthrough Microsoft Windows 3.0 operating system, which helped to flatten the playing field even more by creating a global computer interface, shipped six months after the wall fell.

The second key date was 8/9. Aug. 9, 1995, is the day Netscape went public, which did two important things. First, it brought the Internet alive by giving us the browser to display images and data stored on Web sites. Second, the Netscape stock offering triggered the dot-com boom, which triggered the dot-com bubble, which triggered the massive overinvestment of billions of dollars in fiber-optic telecommunications cable. That overinvestment, by companies like Global Crossing, resulted in the willy-nilly creation of a global undersea-underground fiber network, which in turn drove down the cost of transmitting voices, data and images to practically zero, which in turn accidentally made Boston, Bangalore and Beijing next-door neighbors overnight. In sum, what the Netscape revolution did was bring people-to-people connectivity to a whole new level. Suddenly more people could connect with more other people from more different places in more different ways than ever before.

No country accidentally benefited more from the Netscape moment than India. “India had no resources and no infrastructure,” said Dinakar Singh, one of the most respected hedge-fund managers on Wall Street, whose parents earned doctoral degrees in biochemistry from the University of Delhi before emigrating to America. “It produced people with quality and by quantity. But many of them rotted on the docks of India like vegetables. Only a relative few could get on ships and get out. Not anymore, because we built this ocean crosser, called fiber-optic cable. For decades you had to leave India to be a professional. Now you can plug into the world from India. You don't have to go to Yale and go to work for Goldman Sachs.” India could never have afforded to pay for the bandwidth to connect brainy India with high-tech America, so American shareholders paid for it. Yes, crazy overinvestment can be good. The overinvestment in railroads turned out to be a great boon for the American economy. “But the railroad overinvestment was confined to your own country and so, too, were the benefits,” Singh said. In the case of the digital railroads, “it was the foreigners who benefited.” India got a free ride.

The first time this became apparent was when thousands of Indian engineers were enlisted to fix the Y2K -- the year 2000 -- computer bugs for companies from all over the world. (Y2K should be a national holiday in India. Call it “Indian Interdependence Day,” says Michael Mandelbaum, a foreign-policy analyst at Johns Hopkins.) The fact that the Y2K work could be outsourced to Indians was made possible by the first two flatteners, along with a third, which I call “workflow.” Workflow is shorthand for all the software applications, standards and electronic transmission pipes, like middleware, that connected all those computers and fiber-optic cable. To put it another way, if the Netscape moment connected people to people like never before, what the workflow revolution did was connect applications to applications so that people all over the world could work together in manipulating and shaping words, data and images on computers like never before.

Indeed, this breakthrough in people-to-people and application-to-application connectivity produced, in short order, six more flatteners -- six new ways in which individuals and companies could collaborate on work and share knowledge. One was “outsourcing.” When my software applications could connect seamlessly with all of your applications, it meant that all kinds of work -- from accounting to software-writing -- could be digitized, disaggregated and shifted to any place in the world where it could be done better and cheaper. The second was “offshoring.” I send my whole factory from Canton, Ohio, to Canton, China. The third was “open-sourcing.” I write the next operating system, Linux, using engineers collaborating together online and working for free. The fourth was “insourcing.” I let a company like UPS come inside my company and take over my whole logistics operation -- everything from filling my orders online to delivering my goods to repairing them for customers when they break. (People have no idea what UPS really does today. You'd be amazed!). The fifth was “supply-chaining.” This is Wal-Mart's specialty. I create a global supply chain down to the last atom of efficiency so that if I sell an item in Arkansas, another is immediately made in China. (If Wal-Mart were a country, it would be China's eighth-largest trading partner.) The last new form of collaboration I call “informing” -- this is Google, Yahoo and MSN Search, which now allow anyone to collaborate with, and mine, unlimited data all by themselves.

So the first three flatteners created the new platform for collaboration, and the next six are the new forms of collaboration that flattened the world even more. The 10th flattener I call “the steroids,” and these are wireless access and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP). What the steroids do is turbocharge all these new forms of collaboration, so you can now do any one of them, from anywhere, with any device.

The world got flat when all 10 of these flatteners converged around the year 2000. This created a global, Web-enabled playing field that allows for multiple forms of collaboration on research and work in real time, without regard to geography, distance or, in the near future, even language. “It is the creation of this platform, with these unique attributes, that is the truly important sustainable breakthrough that made what you call the flattening of the world possible,” said Craig Mundie, the chief technical officer of Microsoft.

No, not everyone has access yet to this platform, but it is open now to more people in more places on more days in more ways than anything like it in history. Wherever you look today -- whether it is the world of journalism, with bloggers bringing down Dan Rather; the world of software, with the Linux code writers working in online forums for free to challenge Microsoft; or the world of business, where Indian and Chinese innovators are competing against and working with some of the most advanced Western multinationals -- hierarchies are being flattened and value is being created less and less within vertical silos and more and more through horizontal collaboration within companies, between companies and among individuals.

Do you recall “the IT revolution” that the business press has been pushing for the last 20 years? Sorry to tell you this, but that was just the prologue. The last 20 years were about forging, sharpening and distributing all the new tools to collaborate and connect. Now the real information revolution is about to begin as all the complementarities among these collaborative tools start to converge. One of those who first called this moment by its real name was Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard C.E.O., who in 2004 began to declare in her public speeches that the dot-com boom and bust were just “the end of the beginning.” The last 25 years in technology, Fiorina said, have just been “the warm-up act.” Now we are going into the main event, she said, “and by the main event, I mean an era in which technology will truly transform every aspect of business, of government, of society, of life.”

As if this flattening wasn't enough, another convergence coincidentally occurred during the 1990's that was equally important. Some three billion people who were out of the game walked, and often ran, onto the playing field. I am talking about the people of China, India, Russia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Central Asia. Their economies and political systems all opened up during the course of the 1990's so that their people were increasingly free to join the free market. And when did these three billion people converge with the new playing field and the new business processes? Right when it was being flattened, right when millions of them could compete and collaborate more equally, more horizontally and with cheaper and more readily available tools. Indeed, thanks to the flattening of the world, many of these new entrants didn't even have to leave home to participate. Thanks to the 10 flatteners, the playing field came to them!

It is this convergence -- of new players, on a new playing field, developing new processes for horizontal collaboration -- that I believe is the most important force shaping global economics and politics in the early 21st century. Sure, not all three billion can collaborate and compete. In fact, for most people the world is not yet flat at all. But even if we're talking about only 10 percent, that's 300 million people -- about twice the size of the American work force. And be advised: the Indians and Chinese are not racing us to the bottom. They are racing us to the top. What China's leaders really want is that the next generation of underwear and airplane wings not just be “made in China” but also be “designed in China.” And that is where things are heading. So in 30 years we will have gone from “sold in China” to “made in China” to “designed in China” to “dreamed up in China” -- or from China as collaborator with the worldwide manufacturers on nothing to China as a low-cost, high-quality, hyperefficient collaborator with worldwide manufacturers on everything. Ditto India. Said Craig Barrett, the C.E.O. of Intel, “You don't bring three billion people into the world economy overnight without huge consequences, especially from three societies” -- like India, China and Russia -- “with rich educational heritages.”

That is why there is nothing that guarantees that Americans or Western Europeans will continue leading the way. These new players are stepping onto the playing field legacy free, meaning that many of them were so far behind that they can leap right into the new technologies without having to worry about all the sunken costs of old systems. It means that they can move very fast to adopt new, state-of-the-art technologies, which is why there are already more cellphones in use in China today than there are people in America.

If you want to appreciate the sort of challenge we are facing, let me share with you two conversations. One was with some of the Microsoft officials who were involved in setting up Microsoft's research center in Beijing, Microsoft Research Asia, which opened in 1998 -- after Microsoft sent teams to Chinese universities to administer I.Q. tests in order to recruit the best brains from China's 1.3 billion people. Out of the 2,000 top Chinese engineering and science students tested, Microsoft hired 20. They have a saying at Microsoft about their Asia center, which captures the intensity of competition it takes to win a job there and explains why it is already the most productive research team at Microsoft: “Remember, in China, when you are one in a million, there are 1,300 other people just like you.”

The other is a conversation I had with Rajesh Rao, a young Indian entrepreneur who started an electronic-game company from Bangalore, which today owns the rights to Charlie Chaplin's image for mobile computer games. “We can't relax,” Rao said. “I think in the case of the United States that is what happened a bit. Please look at me: I am from India. We have been at a very different level before in terms of technology and business. But once we saw we had an infrastructure that made the world a small place, we promptly tried to make the best use of it. We saw there were so many things we could do. We went ahead, and today what we are seeing is a result of that. There is no time to rest. That is gone. There are dozens of people who are doing the same thing you are doing, and they are trying to do it better. It is like water in a tray: you shake it, and it will find the path of least resistance. That is what is going to happen to so many jobs -- they will go to that corner of the world where there is the least resistance and the most opportunity. If there is a skilled person in Timbuktu, he will get work if he knows how to access the rest of the world, which is quite easy today. You can make a Web site and have an e-mail address and you are up and running. And if you are able to demonstrate your work, using the same infrastructure, and if people are comfortable giving work to you and if you are diligent and clean in your transactions, then you are in business.”

Instead of complaining about outsourcing, Rao said, Americans and Western Europeans would “be better off thinking about how you can raise your bar and raise yourselves into doing something better. Americans have consistently led in innovation over the last century. Americans whining -- we have never seen that before.”

Rao is right. And it is time we got focused. As a person who grew up during the cold war, I'll always remember driving down the highway and listening to the radio, when suddenly the music would stop and a grim-voiced announcer would come on the air and say: “This is a test. This station is conducting a test of the Emergency Broadcast System.” And then there would be a 20-second high-pitched siren sound. Fortunately, we never had to live through a moment in the cold war when the announcer came on and said, “This is a not a test.”

That, however, is exactly what I want to say here: “This is not a test.”

The long-term opportunities and challenges that the flattening of the world puts before the United States are profound. Therefore, our ability to get by doing things the way we've been doing them -- which is to say not always enriching our secret sauce -- will not suffice any more. “For a country as wealthy we are, it is amazing how little we are doing to enhance our natural competitiveness,” says Dinakar Singh, the Indian-American hedge-fund manager. “We are in a world that has a system that now allows convergence among many billions of people, and we had better step back and figure out what it means. It would be a nice coincidence if all the things that were true before were still true now, but there are quite a few things you actually need to do differently. You need to have a much more thoughtful national discussion.”

If this moment has any parallel in recent American history, it is the height of the cold war, around 1957, when the Soviet Union leapt ahead of America in the space race by putting up the Sputnik satellite. The main challenge then came from those who wanted to put up walls; the main challenge to America today comes from the fact that all the walls are being taken down and many other people can now compete and collaborate with us much more directly. The main challenge in that world was from those practicing extreme Communism, namely Russia, China and North Korea. The main challenge to America today is from those practicing extreme capitalism, namely China, India and South Korea. The main objective in that era was building a strong state, and the main objective in this era is building strong individuals.

Meeting the challenges of flatism requires as comprehensive, energetic and focused a response as did meeting the challenge of Communism. It requires a president who can summon the nation to work harder, get smarter, attract more young women and men to science and engineering and build the broadband infrastructure, portable pensions and health care that will help every American become more employable in an age in which no one can guarantee you lifetime employment.

We have been slow to rise to the challenge of flatism, in contrast to Communism, maybe because flatism doesn't involve ICBM missiles aimed at our cities. Indeed, the hot line, which used to connect the Kremlin with the White House, has been replaced by the help line, which connects everyone in America to call centers in Bangalore. While the other end of the hot line might have had Leonid Brezhnev threatening nuclear war, the other end of the help line just has a soft voice eager to help you sort out your AOL bill or collaborate with you on a new piece of software. No, that voice has none of the menace of Nikita Khrushchev pounding a shoe on the table at the United Nations, and it has none of the sinister snarl of the bad guys in “From Russia With Love.” No, that voice on the help line just has a friendly Indian lilt that masks any sense of threat or challenge. It simply says: “Hello, my name is Rajiv. Can I help you?”

No, Rajiv, actually you can't. When it comes to responding to the challenges of the flat world, there is no help line we can call. We have to dig into ourselves. We in America have all the basic economic and educational tools to do that. But we have not been improving those tools as much as we should. That is why we are in what Shirley Ann Jackson, the 2004 president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, calls a “quiet crisis” -- one that is slowly eating away at America's scientific and engineering base.

“If left unchecked,” said Jackson, the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in physics from M.I.T., “this could challenge our pre-eminence and capacity to innovate.” And it is our ability to constantly innovate new products, services and companies that has been the source of America's horn of plenty and steadily widening middle class for the last two centuries. This quiet crisis is a product of three gaps now plaguing American society. The first is an “ambition gap.” Compared with the young, energetic Indians and Chinese, too many Americans have gotten too lazy. As David Rothkopf, a former official in the Clinton Commerce Department, puts it, “The real entitlement we need to get rid of is our sense of entitlement.” Second, we have a serious numbers gap building. We are not producing enough engineers and scientists. We used to make up for that by importing them from India and China, but in a flat world, where people can now stay home and compete with us, and in a post-9/11 world, where we are insanely keeping out many of the first-round intellectual draft choices in the world for exaggerated security reasons, we can no longer cover the gap. That's a key reason companies are looking abroad. The numbers are not here. And finally we are developing an education gap. Here is the dirty little secret that no C.E.O. wants to tell you: they are not just outsourcing to save on salary. They are doing it because they can often get better-skilled and more productive people than their American workers.

These are some of the reasons that Bill Gates, the Microsoft chairman, warned the governors' conference in a Feb. 26 speech that American high-school education is “obsolete.” As Gates put it: “When I compare our high schools to what I see when I'm traveling abroad, I am terrified for our work force of tomorrow. In math and science, our fourth graders are among the top students in the world. By eighth grade, they're in the middle of the pack. By 12th grade, U.S. students are scoring near the bottom of all industrialized nations. . . . The percentage of a population with a college degree is important, but so are sheer numbers. In 2001, India graduated almost a million more students from college than the United States did. China graduates twice as many students with bachelor's degrees as the U.S., and they have six times as many graduates majoring in engineering. In the international competition to have the biggest and best supply of knowledge workers, America is falling behind.”

We need to get going immediately. It takes 15 years to train a good engineer, because, ladies and gentlemen, this really is rocket science. So parents, throw away the Game Boy, turn off the television and get your kids to work. There is no sugar-coating this: in a flat world, every individual is going to have to run a little faster if he or she wants to advance his or her standard of living. When I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, “Tom, finish your dinner -- people in China are starving.” But after sailing to the edges of the flat world for a year, I am now telling my own daughters, “Girls, finish your homework -- people in China and India are starving for your jobs.”

I repeat, this is not a test. This is the beginning of a crisis that won't remain quiet for long. And as the Stanford economist Paul Romer so rightly says, “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.”

Thomas L. Friedman is the author of “The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century,” to be published this week by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and from which this article is adapted. His column appears on the Op-Ed page of The Times, and his television documentary “Does Europe Hate Us?” will be shown on the Discovery Channel on April 7 at 8 p.m.

What the Bankruptcy Bills Means to You

2005-04-09T07:43:00.000-05:00

Credit Card Companies Make a Powerful Point: Email Friendly Version

Credit Card Companies Make a Powerful Point: The Director’s Cut!

Signs

No Second Chances!
Bring Back Debtors Prison!
Congress: Thanks! The check is in the mail!

Press Release

Download

Chants

Power to the Credit Card Companies!

Interest, compounded, will never be defeated!

Save the Asset Protection Trust! Less for them and More for US!

Talking Points

We’re demanding that congress support the American Dream: One credit card at a time

Vets And injured or ill seniors shouldn’t retain the same protection as our corporations, after all, we’re more than just people, too, we’re profitable.

So what that George Bush has seen the deficit skyrocket to record levels? The President shouldn’t have to worry about setting a bad example, after all, he’s not the one who has to pay it back!

2000-2010: The Most Dangerous Men of the Decade

2005-01-05T10:28:00.001-05:00

They say a picture can express a thousand words.

Here's my lastest addition to my walls.

Nut? Or Our Next Cuba For Putin?

2004-12-13T08:15:00.000-05:00

VENEZUELA: Chavez calls for world ‘anti-globalisation' network

Stuart Munckton

At a government-sponsored World Forum of Intellectuals and Artists in Defence of Humanity, held in Caracas on December 2-3, Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's radical left-wing president, “pledged to provide an office and resources in Venezuela to initiate a ‘network of networks' of social organisations and institutions around the world working to build alternative models of development in the face in globalisation”, the Venzuelanalysis.com website reported.

The forum was attended by 350 progressive intellectuals from around the world. Participants included well-known Pakistan-born British left-wing author Tariq Ali and Argentinean Nobel peace prize laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel.

Venzuelanalysis reported on December 3 that the forum was centred on a series of workshops discussing concrete alternatives to the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, US imperialism and global inequality.

It reported that Chavez, whose government has now won nine elections, survived a military coup that briefly put the head of the Chamber of Commerce in power, and a two-month “strike” by big business, addressed the forum, urging the participants to go on an offensive against capitalism “in the defence of humanity”.

According to Venzuelanalysis reporter Robin Nieto, writing in an article posted on December 6, Chavez spoke of the need to return to the ideas of Russian revolutionary socialist Leon Trotsky, who argued that it was not possible to construct socialism in one country, but that a worldwide revolution was required.

Nieto reported the conference ended with a mass meeting attended by 2000 people. At the meeting, Chavez announced the plan for an “anti-globalisation” network, saying: “Let's take this network everywhere we go, in the valleys, the mountains, the barrios, the workplace, the study halls, the military barracks and extend this network across the planet Earth.”

Adolfo Perez Esquivel read the final conclusions of the forum, entitled the Caracas Declaration. Nieto reported that this “outlines the need to build a front of global resistance against the project of domination that today is imposed by the current government of the United States of America and global organisations like the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)”.

“Let's get to work intensely”, Chavez told the participants. “Let's put the ideas concluded at this forum to work, let's make it a reality.”

From Green Left Weekly, December 15, 2004.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

This is just to PERFECT to pass up for the new Russia under President Putin. Chavez has OIL and his country resides in the next developing continent of the century.

Two Global Trade Union Federations to Reunite: Anti-Globalization

2004-12-13T08:07:00.000-05:00

Thu Dec 9,12:45 PM ET
World - OneWorld.net
Jim Lobe, OneWorld US

WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec 9 (OneWorld) In an effort to keep up with the challenges posed by corporate globalization, the world's two largest global trade union federations have agreed to merge.
The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), whose 250 affiliates in 152 countries represent 138 million union members, and the World Confederation of Labour (WCL), which represents some 27 million workers worldwide, say they hope to consummate the union next year. Both groups are based in Brussels.

"Such a merger would create a single free trade union movement around the world, from Australia to Zimbabwe, united by a common vision of social globalization that works for people rather than the other way round," according to Brendan Barber, general secretary of Britains national union federation, the Trades Union Congress (TUC).

"Each of these bodies, with their proud traditions, knows it cannot continue to champion the interests of its members if it does not operate internationally," he wrote in the Financial Times earlier this week.

The plans were unveiled at the ICFTU's annual conference, which is being held this week at Miyazaki, Japan, under the slogan, "Globalizing Solidarity." The ICFTU delegates attending the conference are expected to approve the merger Friday.

Speakers at the conference stressed this week that unifying efforts should not end with the merger of the two global unions. It should be extended to other major national unions in order to cope with the impact of globalization one of whose features is accelerating the movement of entire production lines and service sectors from one country to another to take advantage of cheaper labor costs or laws which make it difficult or impossible for unions to organize.

To address such challenges, labor activists have long argued that it is necessary to organize across borders to both "level the playing field" and ensure that labor markets are not competing against one another on a "race to the bottom." While multinational corporations operate globally, they have always preferred to deal with national labor groups.

"The logic of globalization is that international action should become a much bigger part of national unions' thinking," said Guy Ryder, the ICFTUs general secretary.

The merger decision came as the International Labour Organization (ILO) reported this week that half of the worlds workers some 1.4 billion people are trapped in grinding poverty, unable to earn enough to lift their family incomes above the US$2 a day poverty line.

The ILO's "World Employment Report 2004-2005" also found that 185.9 million people who were unemployed in 2003 represent the "tip of the iceberg" of the what the UN agency called "the decent work deficit," since more than seven times that number of people are employed but still live in poverty.

At the same time, the report found that of the 2.8 billion people who were employed globally in 2003, about half were living on less than $2 a day and some 550 million were living on less than the $1 day.

This vast labor pool more than 10 times greater than the total union membership that will now come under one global federation underlines the difficulty unions face in trying to organize for higher wages. Nonetheless, ICFTU officials believe that a global organizing strategy is increasingly essential.

"In a political and economic climate in which 60 million children in India are exposed to forced labor and 32 percent of Albanians between 6 and 17 years of age work, the planned unification will help trade unions to more effectively represent workers in the industrialized and developing world," the ICFTU said this week.

This conclusion was underlined by various speakers at this week's conference. "We cannot afford to have two heads to serve one body," said Adams Oshiomole, a representative of Nigerias powerful union federation, while Sally Hunt of Britain's TUC recalled that "for 50 years, we have been letting bad employers and bad governments get away with far too much while we disagreed with each other."

The global labor movement has essentially been split three ways over the past almost 60 years. The ICFTU, by far the largest world trade federation, was created by Socialist and Social Democratic unions in 1949 after the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) was essentially taken over by Communist affiliates. Many of those affiliates joined the ICFTU after the Cold War.

The WCL, which was created in 1920 as the Federation of Christian Trade Unions and then reconstituted under its present name in 1968, has been closely tied to Christian Democratic parties in Europe and Latin America.

Now, Lets pile on the mustard & ketchup!

The China Price by Newsweek

2004-11-29T08:17:00.000-05:00

U Got Milk? Say, "Bye-Bye" to New York -- and Hello to Beijing & Kuala Lumpur!

Fri Nov 26, 4:00 PM ET
By Pete Engardio and Dexter Roberts with Brian Bremner in Beijing and bureau reports

From the rich walnut paneling and carved arches to the molded Italian Renaissance patterns on the ceiling, the circa 1925 council chamber room of Akron's municipal hall evokes a time when the America's manufacturing heartland was at the peak of its power. But when the U.S.-China Economic & Security Review Commission, a congressionally appointed panel, convened there on Sept. 23, it was not to discuss power but decline. One after another, economists, union officials, and small manufacturers took the microphone to describe the devastation Chinese competitors are inflicting on U.S. industries, from kitchenware and car tires to electronic circuit boards.

These aren't stories of mundane sunset industries equipped with antiquated technology. David W. Johnson, CEO of 92-year-old Summitville Tiles Inc. in Summitville, Ohio, described how imports forced him to shut a state-of-the-art, $120 million tilemaking plant four football fields long, sending Summitville into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Now, a tenfold surge in high-quality Chinese imports at "below our manufacturing costs" threatens to polish Summitville off. Makers of precision machine tools and plastic molds -- essential supports of America's industrial architecture -- told how their business has shrunk as home-appliance makers have shifted manufacturing from Ohio to China. Despite buying the best computer-controlled gear, Douglas S. Bartlett reported that at his Cary (Ill.)-based Bartlett Manufacturing Co., a maker of high-end circuit boards for aerospace and automotive customers, sales are half the late-1990s level and the workforce is one-third smaller. He waved a board Bartlett makes for a U.S. Navy (news - web sites) submarine-detection device. His buyer says he can get the same board overseas for 40% less. "From experience I can only assume this is the Chinese price," Bartlett said. "We have faced competition in the past. What is dramatically different about China is that they are about half the price."

Slide Show: China Prices

Where the Jobs Went

"The China price." They are the three scariest words in U.S. industry. In general, it means 30% to 50% less than what you can possibly make something for in the U.S. In the worst cases, it means below your cost of materials. Makers of apparel, footware, electric appliances, and plastics products, which have been shutting U.S. factories for decades, know well the futility of trying to match the China price. It has been a big factor in the loss of 2.7 million manufacturing jobs since 2000. Meanwhile, America's deficit with China keeps soaring to new records. It is likely to pass $150 billion this year.

Now, manufacturers and workers who never thought they had to worry about the China price are confronting the new math of the mainland. These companies had once held their own against imports mostly because their businesses required advanced skills, heavy investment, and proximity to customers. Many of these companies are in the small-to-midsize sector, which makes up 37% of U.S. manufacturing. The China price is even being felt in high tech. Chinese exports of advanced networking gear, still at a low level, are already affecting prices. And there's talk by some that China could eventually become a major car exporter.

Multinationals have accelerated the mainland's industrialization by shifting production there, and midsize companies that can are following suit. The alternative is to stay at home and fight -- and probably lose. Ohio State University business professor Oded Shenkar, author of the new book The Chinese Century, hears many war stories from local companies. He gives it to them straight: "If you still make anything labor intensive, get out now rather than bleed to death. Shaving 5% here and there won't work." Chinese producers can make the same adjustments. "You need an entirely new business model to compete."

America has survived import waves before, from Japan, South Korea (news - web sites), and Mexico. And it has lived with China for two decades. But something very different is happening. The assumption has long been that the U.S. and other industrialized nations will keep leading in knowledge-intensive industries while developing nations focus on lower-skill sectors. That's now open to debate. "What is stunning about China is that for the first time we have a huge, poor country that can compete both with very low wages and in high tech," says Harvard University economist Richard B. Freeman. "Combine the two, and America has a problem."

How much of a problem? That's in fierce dispute. On one side, the benefits of the relationship with China are enormous. After years of struggling to crack the mainland market, U.S. multinationals from General Motors (NYSE:GM - News) to Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG - News) and Motorola (NYSE:MOT - News) are finally reaping rich profits. They're making cell phones, shampoo, autos, and PCs in China and selling them to its middle class of some 100 million people, a group that should more than double in size by 2010. "Our commercial success in China is important to our competitiveness worldwide," says Motorola China Chairman Gene Delaney.

By outsourcing components and hardware from China, U.S. companies have sharply boosted their return on capital. China's trade barriers continue to come down, part of its agreement to enter the World Trade Organization (news - web sites) in 2001. Big new opportunities will emerge for U.S. insurers, banks, and retailers. China's surging demand for raw materials and commodities has driven prices up worldwide, creating a windfall for U.S. steelmakers, miners, and lumber companies. The cheap cost of Chinese goods has kept inflation low in the U.S. and fueled a consumer boom that helped America weather a recession and kept global growth on track.

But there's a huge cost to the China relationship, too. Foremost is the question of America's huge trade deficit, of which China is the largest and fastest-growing part. While U.S. consumers binge on Chinese-made goods, the U.S. balance-of-payments deficit is nearing a record 6% of gross domestic product. The trade shortfall -- coupled with the U.S. budget deficit -- is driving the dollar ever downward, raising fears that cracks will appear in the global financial system. And by keeping its currency pegged to the greenback at a level analysts see as undervalued, China amplifies the problem.

America's Eroding Base

The deficit with China will keep widening under most projections. That raises the issue: Will America's industrial base erode to a dangerous level? So far the hardest-hit industries have been those that were destined to migrate to low-cost nations anyway. But China is ramping up rapidly in more advanced industries where America remains competitive, adding state-of-the-art capacity in cars, specialty steel, petrochemicals, and microchips. These plants are aimed at meeting insatiable demand in China. But the danger is that if China's growth stalls, the resulting glut will turn into another export wave and disrupt whole new strata of American industry. "As producers in China end up with significant unused capacity, they will try to be much more creative in how they deploy it," says Jim Hemerling, a senior vice-president at Boston Consulting Group's Shanghai office.

That's why China is an even thornier trade issue for the U.S. than Japan was in the 1980s. It's clear some Chinese exporters cheat, from intellectual-property theft and dumping to securing unfair subsidies. Washington can get much more aggressive in fighting violations of trade law. But broader protectionism is a nonstarter. On a practical level the U.S. is now so dependent on Chinese suppliers that resurrecting trade barriers would just raise costs and diminish the real benefits that China trade confers. Also, unlike Japan 20 years ago, China is a much more open economy. It continues to lower tariffs and even runs a slight trade deficit with the whole world -- which makes the U.S.'s deficit with China all the more glaring. Hiking the value of the yuan 30% might help. But that's unlikely. For one thing, Beijing fears what such a shift would do to jobs -- and the value of its $515 billion in foreign reserves. The real solution is for the U.S. to reduce its twin deficits on its own -- but that's more America's issue than China's.

Meanwhile, U.S. companies are no longer investing in much new capacity at home, and the ranks of U.S. engineers are thinning. In contrast, China is emerging as the most competitive manufacturing platform ever. Chief among its formidable assets is its cheap labor, from $120-a-month production workers to $2,000-a-month chip designers. Even in sophisticated electronics industries, where direct labor is less than 10% of costs, China's low wages are reflected in the entire supply chain -- components, office workers, cargo handling -- you name it.

China is also propelled by an enormous domestic market that brings economies of scale, feverish local rivalry that keeps prices low, an army of engineers that is growing by 350,000 annually, young workers and managers willing to put in 12-hour days and work weekends, an unparalleled component and material base in electronics and light industry, and an entrepreneurial zeal to do whatever it takes to please big retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE:WMT - News), Target (NYSE:TGT - News), Best Buy (NYSE:BBY - News), and J.C. Penney (NYSE:JCP - News). "The reason practically all home furnishings are now made in China factories is that they simply are better suppliers," says Janet E. Fox, vice-president for international procurement at J.C. Penny Co. "American manufacturers aren't even in the same game."

Fox's point is important. China's competitive advantages are built on much more than unfair trade practices. Some 70% of exports now come from private companies and foreign ventures mainly owned by Taiwanese, Hong Kong, Japanese, and U.S. companies that have brought access to foreign markets, advanced technology, and managerial knowhow. Aside from cheap land and tax breaks in some areas, private Chinese manufacturers get minimal government help. "The Chinese government cannot afford to offer financial support to the export economy," says business professor Gu Kejian of People's University in Beijing. And as capital floods in and modern plants are built in China, efficiencies improve dramatically. The productivity of private industry in China has grown an astounding 17% annually for five years, according to the U.S. Conference Board (news - web sites).

China needs U.S. imports, though not as much as imagined when Beijing agreed to join the WTO. U.S. exports to China have risen 25% to 35% annually in the past two years. But China's exports still outstrip its imports from the U.S. by 5 to 1. The U.S. sells about $2.4 billion worth of aircraft a year, and its semiconductor exports tripled in three years. Otherwise the U.S. looks like a developing nation. It runs surpluses in commodities such as oil seeds, grains, iron, wood pulp, and raw animal hides.

Meanwhile, the Chinese keep expanding their export base. Chinese competition arrives so fast that it's nearly impossible to adjust through the usual strategies, such as automating or squeezing suppliers. The Japanese, South Koreans, and Europeans often took "four or five years to develop their place in the market," says Robert B. Cassidy, a former U.S. Trade Representative official who helped negotiate China's entry into the WTO and now works for Washington law firm Collier Shannon Scott, which wages dumping cases on behalf of U.S. clients. "China overwhelms a market so quickly you don't see it coming."

"Shock and Awe"

Georgetown Steel Co. is a case in point. The Georgetown (S.C.) maker of wire rods used in everything from bridge cables to ball bearings had battled Asian and Mexican imports for years. But last year it shut its 600-worker plant, citing a tenfold leap in Chinese imports, to 252,000 tons, from 2001 to 2003. International Steel Group Inc. (NYSE:ISG - News) has since bought the facility after U.S. anti-dumping duties on imports and a rise in global demand helped hike domestic prices. The Gardiner (Mass.) plant of Seaman Paper Co., a maker of crepe and decorative paper, is highly automated. Yet Chinese imports have grabbed a third of the market. It sells 81-foot streamers to big retailers for as little as 9 cents each. That's below Seaman's cost of materials. "We thought we could offset Chinese labor cost by automating, but we just couldn't," says Seaman President George Jones III.

In bedroom furniture, 59 U.S. plants employing 15,500 workers have closed since January, 2001, as Chinese imports have rocketed 221%, to $1.4 billion -- half of the U.S. market. Prices have plunged 30%. Dumping certainly seems to be one factor: At its Galax (Va.) factory, Vaughan-Bassett Furniture Co. displays a Chinese knockoff of one of its dressers that wholesales for $105 -- below the world market cost for the wood. But the main competition comes from Chinese megaplants that sell directly to U.S. retailers and can get a new design into mass production in two months. The new Chinese factories of suppliers such as Lacquer Craft Furniture, Markor, and Shing Mark, some of them Taiwanese-owned, employ thousands and are so big they seem meant to build Boeing 747s, making most U.S. factories look like cottage industries. "The first wave is shock and awe," says John D. Bassett III, CEO of Vaughan-Bassett, whose sales and workforce have shrunk even though it has boosted productivity fivefold at its 600-worker Galax plant since 1995 by investing in computer-controlled wood drying, cutting, and carving gear. "American industry has never encountered (such) competition."

As component industries and design work follow assembly lines to China, key elements of the U.S. industrial base are beginning to erode. American plastic-molding and machine-tool industries have shrunk dramatically in the past five years. Take Incoe Corp. in Troy, Mich., a maker of steel components for plastic-injection machines. "When the economy turned soft, we anticipated the business would come back," says Incoe CFO Robert Hoff. "But it didn't. We saw our customer base either close or migrate to China." The U.S. printed-circuit-board industry has seen sales go from $11 billion to under $5 billion since 2001. In that time, PCB exports from China have more than doubled, to a projected $3.4 billion this year, says market researcher Global Sources Ltd. (NasdaqNM:GSOL - News) Most U.S. production of key electronics materials, such as copper-clad laminates, has fled, too. "The whole industry is hollowing out," says Joseph C. Fehsenfeld, CEO of Midwest Printed Circuit Services Inc. in Round Lake Beach, Ill.

The migration of electronics to China began when the Taiwanese shifted plants and suppliers across the Taiwan Strait in the late 1990s. As recently as four years ago, though, the U.S. exported $45 billion in computer hardware. Since the tech crash, that number has slid to $28 billion as the industry headed en masse for China, which is even more competitive than Taiwan. "All electronics hardware manufacturing is going to China," says Michael E. Marks, CEO of Flextronics Corp (NasdaqNM:FLEX - News)., a contract manufacturer that employs 41,000 in China. Flextronics and other companies are hiring Chinese engineers to design the products assembled there. "There is a myth that the U.S. would remain the knowledge economy and China the sweatshop," says BCG's Hemerling. "Increasingly, this is no longer the case."

A visit to Flextronics' campus in the Pearl River Delta town of Doumen vividly illustrates Marks's point. The site employs 18,000 workers making cell phones, X-box game consoles, PCs, and other hardware in 13 factories sprawled over 149 acres. The bamboo scaffolding is about to come down on an additional 720,000-square-foot factory nearing completion. Almost every chemical, component, plastic, machine tool, and packing material Flextronics needs is available from thousands of suppliers within a two-hour drive of the site. That alone makes most components 20% cheaper in China than in the U.S., says campus General Manager Tim Dinwiddie. Plus, China will soon eliminate remaining tariffs on imported chips. In the past five years, electronic manufacturing-services companies such as Flextronics have cut their U.S. production from $37 billion to $27 billion while doubling their China output, to $31 billion. That's likely to double again by 2007.

"Gravitational Pull"

China is even making its presence felt in the U.S. market for networking gear, a bastion of American comparative advantage. On Nov. 15, struggling 3Com Corp. (NasdaqNM:COMS - News) in Marlborough, Mass., launched a data-communications switching system for corporate networks of 10,000 users or more. It claims twice the performance of Cisco Systems Inc.'s (NasdaqNM:CSCO - News) comparable switch. At $183,000, 3Com's list price is 25% less. Its secret? 3Com is settling for lower margins and taking advantage of a 1,200-engineer joint venture with China telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co. This is the first high-end piece of networking gear sold by a U.S. company that is designed and manufactured in China. For the price of one U.S. engineer, the joint venture can throw four engineers into the task of making customized products for a client. Even if 3Com does not succeed, similar tie-ups are expected, which could drive down prices of high-end gear sold in the U.S. Says 3Com President Bruce Claflin: "We want to change the pricing structure of this industry." 3Com hopes this is the start of a whole line of networking gear designed and made in China for the global market. Without referring to China, Cisco CEO John T. Chambers says "we are starting to see a stream of good, very price-competitive competitors, particular from Asia."

The next step for China is critical mass in core industries. Outside Beijing, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (NYSE:SMI - News) has just opened a chip plant fabricating 12-inch silicon wafers that experts say is just two generations behind Intel Corp. (NasdaqNM:INTC - News) A foundry that makes chips on a contract basis, this plant won't compete directly with U.S. chipmakers. But with four more 12-inch wafer plants due by 2006 and many more fabs in the pipeline, the U.S. Semiconductor Industry Assn. warns that a "gravitational pull" could suck capital, people, and leading-edge research-and-development and design functions from the U.S.

Digital technologies aren't the only areas where the Chinese have huge ambitions. In the past decade, U.S. petrochemical makers have invested in little new capacity. But at a three-mile-long site in Nanjing, 12,000 workers are erecting a $2.7 billion network of pipes and towers for China's Sinopec (NYSE:SNP - News) and Germany's BASF (NYSE:BF - News) that by next year will be among the world's biggest, most modern complexes for ethylene, the basic ingredient in plastics. An even bigger complex is going up in Shanghai. "The Chinese understand everything that scale means," says Fluor Corp. (NYSE:FLR - News) Group President Robert McNamara, who lives part-time in Shanghai and whose company has design contracts at both complexes. "When they target an industry to dominate, they don't mitigate."

Can China dominate everything? Of course not. America remains the world's biggest manufacturer, producing 75% of what it consumes, though that's down from 90% in the mid-'90s. Industries requiring huge R&D budgets and capital investment, such as aerospace, pharmaceuticals, and cars, still have strong bases in the U.S. "I don't see China becoming a major car exporter in the foreseeable future," says GM China (NYSE:GM - News) Chairman Philip F. Murtaugh. "There is no economic rationale." Murtaugh cites high production costs and quality issues at Chinese car plants, as well as just-in-time delivery needs in the West, as impediments.

Burning Rubber

Don't tell that to Miao Wei, president of Dongfeng Motor Corp. On Nov. 7, Dongfeng and Honda Motor Co. (news - web sites) (NYSE:HMC - News) announced that their joint venture will invest $340 million to boost output of Honda CR-Vs and Civics fivefold, to 120,000, by early 2006. The plant aims to achieve world standards by employing Honda's flexible manufacturing system. "Honda will sell some of the Chinese-built cars in Europe," says Miao. Nissan Motor Co. (NasdaqSC:NSANY - News) is also talking about exporting with Dongfeng.

China's carmakers are developing the suppliers that one day could sustain exports. Auto-parts maker Wanxiang Group in Hangzhou started as a tiny township-owned farm-machinery shop in 1969. Now it's a $2.4 billion conglomerate that supplies the Chinese assembly plants of GM, Ford Motor (NYSE:F - News), Volkswagen, and others and also exports 30% of its output. In two years, China will drop the rule that its auto plants buy at least 40% of parts locally. Wanxiang is getting ready: It is opening a $42 million plant loaded with U.S. and European testing gear. And since 1995, Wanxiang has bought 10 U.S. auto-parts makers. "Our goal is to acquire technology, management, and most important, to get access to overseas markets," says Chairman Lu Guanqiu.

Some U.S manufacturers hope China will run out of steam. This year, factories in Guangdong and Fujian faced serious labor shortages for the first time. Red-hot demand has meant skyrocketing costs for China's producers, most of which rely on imported goods such as steel, plastics, and components. Energy shortages have forced manufacturers to shut factories several times a week. In almost any industry one can think of, vicious price wars are biting into already razor-sharp margins. "There are so many small companies competing that they crowd out all profit," says Beijing University economist Zhang Weiying. Indeed, given the low emphasis on profits and the unsophisticated accounting of many Chinese companies, often their pricing isn't based on a full understanding of costs. Having gotten as far as they can on cheap production costs, Chinese manufacturers must develop their own technologies and innovative products to move ahead -- areas in which they've made slow progress so far.

The juggernaut will slow, but only slightly. While salaries for top Chinese designers are rising fast, they are still a fifth to a tenth of those in Silicon Valley. If China's wages rise 8% annually for the next five years, says a Boston Consulting Group study, the average factory hand will still earn just $1.30 an hour by then. If China allowed the yuan to appreciate by around 10% in the next year, productivity gains would more than offset the higher costs, figures China expert Nicholas R. Lardy of the Institute for International Economics. "I don't think revaluation will have a significant impact," he says.

And Chinese producers are hardly standing still. In a recent survey of Chinese and U.S. manufacturers by IndustryWeek and Cleveland-based Manufacturing Performance Institute, 54% of Chinese companies cited innovation as one of their top objectives, while only 26% of U.S. respondents did. Chinese companies spend more on worker training and enterprise-management software. And 91% of U.S. plants are more than a decade old, vs. 54% in China. Shanghai-based TV maker SVA Group, for example, has opened China's first plant to make flat panels, a venture with Japan's NEC (NasdaqNM:NIPNY - News) Corp. That is enabling SVA to secure a U.S. beachhead by selling liquid-crystal display and plasma TV sets through channels such as the online sites of Costco Wholesale (NasdaqNM:COST - News) and Target. Starting price: $1,600 -- 30% below similar models by Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE:PHG - News) and Panasonic (NYSE:MC - News).

More innovation. Better goods. Lower prices. Newer plants. America will surely continue to benefit from China's expansion. But unless it can deal with the industrial challenge, it will suffer a loss of economic power and influence. Can America afford the China price? It's the question U.S. workers, execs, and policymakers urgently need to ask.

When the G7 Talks, Is Anyone Listening? No... We Have Lost Our Balls!

2004-10-03T09:33:00.000-05:00

Sat Oct 2, 4:18 PM ET Business - Reuters
By Glenn Somerville

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The tiny but elite club of Group of Seven finance chiefs seems to have hit the limits of its influence on the two top economic issues of the day -- oil prices and the emerging powerhouse that is China.

[My Comment]

Yep, keep refinancing your homes and obtaining ridiculous interest only mortgages...Who do you think are buying your mortgages: US Companies or Far East Companies?

It was clear after a gathering on Friday of G7 finance ministers and central bankers that the officials had little more than words to use against soaring oil prices and China's tight currency peg.

Analysts said this underlined the fact that the G7 -- the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan -- no longer controls the lion's share of output that once made its dictates tantamount to law for policy-makers.

"The fact is the center of global economic activity has shifted away from the G7 and that will be increasingly the case as we go forward," said economist Mark Zandi of Economy.com.

He said a growing proportion of economic production will shift to Asia, Eastern Europe and other regions with little or no G7 representation.

"The group is going to have to evolve and bring in other voices or else it's simply no longer going to be an effective voice in global policy-making," Zandi added.

To some extent, the G7 has been trying to do that.

Russia has a limited participation in the coterie and the group invited top Chinese officials to Washington for a discussion over dinner on Friday night about currency policy and broader economic issues.

However, China -- the world's seventh-largest economy -- showed little sign it wanted formal membership in the club, even if it were offered.

DON'T CALL US...

"We have no immediate plans to join the G7," China's Finance Minister Jin Renqing told a small group of Chinese reporters on Saturday.

After meeting with the United States this week, China said it was moving toward a flexible currency but offered no timetable and said it would move at its own pace.

Jim O'Neill, chief global economist for Goldman Sachs International, said G7 members were in an awkward position since they were dealing with events beyond their control.

"In this peculiar time of our history, the biggest issues involve those outside the G7," O'Neill said.

"G7 participants themselves must know that there is a limit to how many of these statements they can release without achieving their goals," he added.

The election-bound Bush administration is pushing especially hard for China to act on currency reform, in part because of domestic politics.

U.S. manufacturers claim the yuan lends Chinese imports an unfair price edge, and Treasury Secretary John Snow repeated on Friday he wants China to move "as soon as possible."

Costly oil is potentially a bigger and more universal problem for the Group of Seven economies and this weekend the ministers renewed a push for producers to "to provide adequate supplies to ensure that prices moderate."

However, the group has little or no leverage here either.

Since it made a similar call to oil-producing nations in May, prices have risen some 20 percent and -- as the G7 ministers met on Friday -- cracked the $50-a-barrel level.

Aside from the fact that major oil producers are outside the G7, the bulk of additional oil demand is coming from developing countries.

The International Monetary Fund (news - web sites) estimates up to half of this year's increased demand comes from China and 8 to 10 percent from India and elsewhere.

OIL FOR CHINA

"We really are up against the wall on this issue of supply," said economist Sung Won Sohn of Wells Fargo Bank in Minneapolis. "Supplies are limited but it's something people don't want to admit and demand is rising from China at an exponential rate and will continue to do so."

Some observers have suggested that one solution for the G7's waning influence would be to elevate the wider and more inclusive G20 grouping that includes developing giants such as China, India, Russia and Brazil as well as the G7 members.

The G20 membership represents two-thirds of the world's population, 90 percent of its gross national product and accounts for 80 percent of global trade. Additionally, China takes up the presidency of the group next year from Germany.

Whether the G20 will take on the G7's mantle is open to question, but analysts are convinced that some evolution away from the core group, which originated in the mid 1970s, is inevitable as emerging nations pick up their pace and seek their place at the policy-making table.

"It's so increasingly obvious that it's going to happen that it's primarily a question of how and how fast you get there," Zandi said.

Shake Up the Economy: Tony Montana Style

2004-09-10T13:09:00.000-05:00

Ronald Reagan became President in 1980. After a year of blind faith and no employment prospects in 1983, I was advised to head to the nearest hotspot... Miami, Florida.

After a month, my friend & I did secure general employment where once there was none. I later took a position as a computer operator at a law firm in downtown Miami... that was nice as long as it lasted.

Not long after that, I headed up to Atlanta, Georgia for Mo'Money, and the rest is history...

But all the while I thought the upshot in the economy was due to Reagan's "Trickle Down Economics", I learn years later that Miami bubbled & burp because it had so much cash to launder from the Drug Trade....and it was a sea of money. And I am sure New York, Chicago, & Los Angeles were flooded as well.

See folks, illegal money has to be invested in a legal venture to be able to erase the dirty stripes. During the 80's, there was a lot of investment going around that later built legitimate empires & monoliths to mankind... all of this mostly fueled by the Drug Trade in America,

Can't find any Capital on Wall Street these days? Meet my little friend, my small town Miami-New York-Chicago-Los Angeles banker buddy. He's with me!

Okay, time is a wasting here....since the politicians can't get their head out of sand and do something in the decade, should we let in the next wave of Tony Montanas from Cuba into this country again in order to jump-start this economy, again?

Welcome to My Dream... My Nightmare

2004-08-29T09:01:00.000-05:00

Where I will find everything around me will be of an Oriental flavor...and less and less of what used to be called, "America".

And fewer and fewer of it's inhabitants will be remembered as Americans... A peoples from a far away place in world history thats innovation & way of life decayed during the birth of the 21st Century...

Sushi, anyone?

Welcome to the largest, Non-American Corporation in History.

Their speciality: they make things to replace you.

Could this be your face?

America, Are we running out of time?

Read Rory's Far East encounters. Rory is a young international travelling teacher in the Far East. Rory is from Australia. Rory has a network of friends & associates all around the Far East that he leans on for friendship & help. I believe his personal insights about the Far East culture are very fascinating and a must read.

Site Warning: beware of strong adult language content.

A Tale of a Global Investor & An Once Legendary Civilization

2004-08-26T00:27:00.000-05:00

CORTEZ THE KILLER
By Neil Young

He came dancing across the water
With his galleons and guns
Looking for the new world
In that palace in the sun.

On the shore lay Montezuma
With his coca leaves and pearls
In his halls he often wondered
With the secrets of the worlds.

And his subjects gathered 'round him
Like the leaves around a tree
In their clothes of many colors
For the angry gods to see.

And the women all were beautiful
And the men stood straight and strong
They offered life in sacrifice
So that others could go on.

Hate was just a legend
And war was never known
The people worked together
And they lifted many stones.

They carried them to the flatlands
And they died along the way
But they built up with their bare hands
What we still can't do today.

And I know she's living there
And she loves me to this day
I still can't remember when
Or how I lost my way.

He came dancing across the water
Cortez, Cortez
What a killer.

Moral of the Story:

Never, never ever sell out or allow others to sell out your country to anybody. I don't care what kind of clothes he wears...

<br /><bgsound src="http://home.comcast.net/~bramafear/sounds/cortez9601.mp3" loop="infinite"><br />

The Waltons: A Lifestyle to be Broken

2004-08-25T22:10:00.000-05:00

Sugar Mountain
By Neil Young
(modified)

Oh, to live on sugar mountain
With the Waltons and the colored balloons
You can’t be twenty on sugar mountain
Though you’re thinking that you’re leaving there too soon
You’re leaving there too soon

It’s so noisy at the fair, but all your friends are there
And the candy floss you had and your mother and your dad.

Oh, to live on sugar mountain
With the Waltons and the colored balloons
You can’t be twenty on sugar mountain
Though you’re thinking that you’re leaving there too soon
You’re leaving there too soon

There’s a girl just down the aisle, oh to turn and see her
smile
You can hear the words she wrote as you read the hidden
note.

Oh, to live on sugar mountain
With the Waltons and the colored balloons
You can’t be twenty on sugar mountain
Though you’re thinking that you’re leaving there too soon
You’re leaving there too soon

Now you’re underneath the stairs, and you’re giving back
some glares
To the people who you met, and it’s your first cigarette.

Oh, to live on sugar mountain
With the Waltons and the colored balloons
You can’t be twenty on sugar mountain
Though you’re thinking that you’re leaving there too soon
You’re leaving there too soon

Now you say you’re leaving home, ’cause you want to be alone

Ain’t it funny how you feel when you’re finding out it’s
real.

Oh, to live on sugar mountain
With the Waltons and the colored balloons
You can’t be twenty on sugar mountain
Though you’re thinking that you’re leaving there too soon
You’re leaving there too soon

Listen Here

Moral of the Story: Their children will be forced to leave for the military or for a job in the city in order to survive due to the rural economic effects caused by Globalization.

The Old WWII Veteran, Navy Secretary, & Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John Warner: Cuts Like A Knife

2004-08-25T20:06:00.000-05:00

I can't tell you if this man said something from the heart, as a fellow veteran, or he was simply put up to it by the Bush Administration in the form of an apology for the Vietnam Smear Campaign against John Kerry's military accommodations. But what I can tell you is... that it sounded damn good.

But if this long term serving public servant can be trusted, it was the sweetest thing to my ears since January 2000 of what I heard him say on C-SPAN today. Here is something he was quoted eariler on regarding the same subject,

WASHINGTON - The Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said
yesterday that John Kerry "deserved" his combat medals for heroism in Vietnam,
which some vets have disputed.

Sen. John Warner, an ex-Navy secretary
under President Richard Nixon, particularly defended the process by which Kerry
won his highest honor, the Silver Star.

"I'd stand by the process that
awarded that medal, and I think we best acknowledge that his heroism did gain
that recognition," Warner (R-Va.) told CNN's "Late Edition."

Kerry was
awarded a Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Hearts as a Navy Swift boat
commander in the Mekong Delta in February and March 1969.

"We did
extraordinary, careful checking on that type of medal [the Silver Star], a very
high one, when it goes through the secretary," Warner said. "I feel that he
deserved it." Like Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Nixon - both Navy vets of World
War II whose war service was later questioned - Kerry has had to face recent
allegations in TV ads from others serving near him in Vietnam claiming that he
lied about his combat heroism.

(I hope to find today's transcript later
on and post it in place of this.)

If this is truly on the up & up, BRAVO SIR, FOR YOUR UNIQUE HONESTY AND COURAGE!

Do You Think That the Downsizing of America will Impact the Godfather?

2004-08-23T10:50:00.000-05:00

You better believe it will... And when it does... he is not gonna be sending angels to Washington, DC... He will be sending them constant, subtle reminders on the Hill... to get to work! and don't leave until you are finished -- no congressional breaks allowed on his watch...

Too many line items on that bill to pass? Give it to me for a couple of days and I'll make an offer they can't refuse...

Ooh, it just gives me goosebumps when somebody finally takes charge of America's destiny with absolute & final resolve like that.

Lets face it: the downsizing of America is bad for business... all way around.

UnPatriotic Arrogance on High: Off with the American Workforce's Head

2004-08-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

Re-Imagining the Enterprise: The Tom Peters Interview

The most influential business thinker of our time, on post-9/11 business, the tech bust that wasn't, and new wireless technologies that offer great promise - and untold peril - to companies great and small
By Rick Mathieson

The responsibility to re-imagine

In his latest book, Re-imagine: Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age, Tom Peters lays the ground rules for a new world of high-risk, high-value innovation driven by those who fearlessly allow themselves to screw up, think weird, and throw out the old business playbooks.

Tom Peters is ticked off.

Even in the face of the dot-com bust, corporate scandals, a tepid economy and a worldwide war on terrorism, Peters is peeved about the prevailing power of bureaucrats, today's risk-averse, play-it-safe corporate mindset and business-as-usual in these frightfully unusual times.

In his first major book since 9/11, Re-imagine: Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age, Peters is in top form. Part polemicist, part unabashed cheerleader, Peters lays the ground rules for a new world of high-risk, high-value innovation driven by those who fearlessly allow themselves to screw up, think weird, and throw out the old business playbooks.

"It is the foremost task - and responsibility - of our generation to re-imagine our enterprises and institutions, public and private," he writes, adding that emerging technologies make anything imaginable eminently possible.

The Peters principles

Of course, Peters has always had a sensationalist streak. Beginning with the success of his groundbreaking book In Search of Excellence (1982), and in a dozen bestsellers since, Peters invented the manager-as-rock-star ethos of the '80s, and the "Me, Inc." entrepreneurialism of the '90s. The Los Angeles Times has called him "the father of the post-modern corporation." And companies pay the 60-year old rabble-rouser up to $50,000 for a one-hour speech in hopes of gleaning some secret to success in the new millennium.

With Re-imagine, Peters rants as well as he raves - "Pursue failure (damn it!)" "Fire all the male salespeople!" "Info-tech changes everything! Embrace it - or else!" - all with his trademark CAPITALS, (endless parentheticals), incessant exclamation points!!!! And short. Declarative. Sentences.

"White-collar employment as we've known it is dead," he proclaims. "All job security, as we have known it over the past three or four generations, is over. Over and gone."

In Peters' eyes, tomorrow's increasingly messy and chaotic world belongs to those who embrace "creative destruction;" nimble, creative innovators who go beyond the production of mere products and services to master the all-powerful customer experience.

We felt a self-preserving mpulse to find out more.

[Mathieson] A lot has happened since your last big book, Circle of Innovation, in 1998. The dot-com bust. Accounting scandals. 9/11. Two wars. What are the primary lessons we should take from the current chaos, and how do we use it to empower ourselves?

[Peters] To me the primary lesson is, don't pull in your horns. This thing is only beginning. Yes, we had the collapse of the dot-com bubble, which frankly I don't find quite as interesting as other people do, meaning that I don't think it was this profound or significant change. I think it was an intense contraction following intense expansion, and this whole new technology thing, whether we're talking Napster, whether we're talking the Recording Industry of America, whether we're talking about the studios, whether we're talking about war with terrorists, we're engaged in this exceptionally energetic process of redefinition, which will generate some number of winners, and lots of losers. And participation vigorously therein is what it's all about.

Nothing, nothing, nothing has changed for me in the last two or three years since the so-called tech bubble imploded. I will acknowledge that the vacancy rate in South San Francisco is a hell of a lot higher than it was.

But the larger point is that something quite exceptional is going down. Particularly in terms of you and me who are Californians, who are right in the center of it, nothing has changed. If anything, I think the strength of the signal, if you will, is higher than ever before.

Whenever I speak to a group, I always say to them, look, for better or worse you've got a Californian of 35 year standing, and a Silicon Valley-ite of 35 years standing, and I love that milieu. I love the Jobs, I love the McNealy's, I love the Gates, albeit he is little bit north of our normal turf. I love the Ellison's, I love the Groves. And I love some of those who made a trillion dollars and some who are less well known who have lost a trillion dollars, but were vigorously engaged in the fray. This book is about those who are in the fray at a time of truly dramatic change.

[Mathieson] In the book, you talk a lot about the war on terror. Donald Rumsfeld would probably embrace your ideals of nimble, responsive teams and decentralized power. In Iraq, that's been great at winning battles, but it's proving underwhelming in securing peace. In business, how do we marshal the power of agility and nimble organizational structures to make strategic moves with the critical mass to ensure category dominance?

[Peters] Well, let's forget for a moment whether it was correct to go into Iraq. The president made a decision, and then following that decision, the military executed the Iraqi campaign with incredible skill, and I think there is no issue about that, meaning the part called "the military victory." And I think Rumsfeld gets a lot of the credit. [But] peacemaking is ten times tougher.

That said, obviously, the stakes are a lot lower in the world of business then they are in the world of war and peace. As I say in the book, I'm not terribly concerned about companies that go out of business. I'm a lot more concerned about countries that go out of business. I'm probably among the sinners, and I'm vulnerable for some of the stuff I talk about in the book, but I think we make a bit of a mistake by drawing an exact analog between war and peace and commerce.

I had a chapter in my book Liberation Management, ten years ago, and the charming title of the chapter was "Dammed If You Do. Dammed If You Don't. Just Plain Damned." And the comment that I made, which I think is the eternal truth, is that in order to be excellent you must be consistent. And as soon as you're consistent, you are vulnerable to attack from the outside.

And so I think the real answer to your question is that companies vacillate back and forth between being energetic and entrepreneurial, and then trying to make some money out of it, which means being a lot more persistent and consistent.

[Mathieson] And as soon as you get there, you'd better change - or "re-imagine" your game.

[Peters] That's exactly right. Look, I don't know how to be Secretary of State, but I know how to be the Secretary of the Treasury. If I'm the Secretary of Treasury, I just want a lot of damned energy in the economy, and I don't care who dies, okay?

You can kill GE off as far I'm concerned. I don't care if Microsoft or GE exists; that's my view as an economist. As long as they made an extraordinary contribution and did great work, then when their time comes, ala Sears, let them die. I mean who cares if Microsoft is around? It doesn't make any difference because the kids who are working for Microsoft are exceptionally well talented, and so if for some strange reason Microsoft died tomorrow morning, the reality is that 99% of their employees would get good new jobs, right? And so we Americans don't have to sweat that.

[Mathieson] One of the major themes in Re-Imagine is the power of disruptive technology, especially for enabling unfettered communications throughout the organization. You say that you are fighting for a day when "a fresh-caught, 26-year old front line CIA operative is able to communicate with her counterpart, a fresh-caught, 26-year old, front-line FBI agent, through the latest technology, and without needing to wade through" several levels of supervisors. How do you think the emergence of mobile technologies and pervasive computing can best be put to use to enhance the way organizations work?

[Peters] The most important thing I can say is, "I don't know." And anybody who says they do know is an idiot, and you may quote me on that. And what I mean by that is, I think the change is so profound, particularly relative to the extremely young men and extremely young women who will be peopling organizations ten years from now, that I think we've got to make the whole damn thing up anew.

I think that's why I titled the book, Re-imagine. I don't know what a world looks like where literally 98% of middle management, from the world of the army to the world of enterprise, gets decapitated. And I refuse to consider that I'm the genius who has mapped the path out.

I think I've said some things that are not silly. But as Peter Drucker said, we're still looking for the Copernicus of the New Organization. I quote a lot of people like, David Weinberger, who I adore, who wrote this book called Small Pieces Loosely Joined, and Howard Rheingold with Smart Mobs and so on. I think that there are a whole lot of very smart people who are painting some very interesting pictures right now. But to say that somebody has painted the correct picture is gross exaggeration and it sure as hell isn't me.

[Mathieson] Much of the point of these and other new technologies is to optimize efficiencies. Wal-Mart's a master of it. And you point to Cisco, Oracle and others. But as Re-imagine hits book shelves, headlines are dominated by how new efficiencies are resulting in a jobless recovery, salary deflation and offshore outsourcing of many business functions - both blue collar and white. What should our game plan be if all the good jobs are going away?

[Peters] It depends upon your age. My sympathy/empathy goes out to the 49- or 52-year old who was told that they had this lifetime deal, and God would take care of them, and God was called PG&E or BofA, IBM or whoever. In simple language, they're screwed.

The youngsters, and I don't know what that means - 26, 36, 18, 32 - I don't think young men and young women grow up thinking they're going to work at the same place for 50 years.

But, on the flip side of that, it's also kind of cool. I would rather be in charge of me than have PG&E be in charge of me. But your head has got to be screwed on right for that because we went through two, three, four, five generations where people thought that Big Brother would take care of them.

Our national policies such as the absence of relatively universal healthcare make it more difficult, but I think the notion is not so much I'm on my own, but I'm responsible for myself. I think that's going to be part of the American litany over the next 10 to 25 years, but the transition isn't going to be pretty.

[Mathieson] Some of the most exciting themes in the book are around branding and creating memorable customer experiences. Today, when companies look at new technology, the focus has been on the creation of the aforementioned efficiencies. How should we move the discussion about technology from efficiency to experiences - the value technology can bring to your brand?

[Peters] Part of the answer is, ask Carly [Fiorina]. When the whole HP-Compaq deal went down, the young Hewlett and the young Packard said we should just be happy being a printing company, and we can sell these cartridges and we can make a ton of money and we can get higher ROI. Carly made the more dangerous bet on Compaq, and I think it had less to do with the hard technology, and more to do with acquiring a whole digital service force and being a true competitor to IBM Global Services.

And obviously, even though it's technologically driven, Apple/Pixar has always created great experiences, albeit at a price, that are driven more by the bits and bytes then by the consultants.

Look, we're moving to a more and more ethereal society where the manufactured product is less significant than before. And as we continue to shift these very expensive jobs offshore, the question, the issue, the struggle is, 'What's left?' And presumably what's left increasingly is the very high value-added stuff, and that value-added stuff being the stuff Carly presumably understands, and certainly Steve has understood since the beginning of time.

[Mathieson] And that being the intellectual property of it all.

[Peters] That's right. And Grove got it too. Just this week, Motorola just sold off the semiconductor division. And remember when Intel, and a lot of people don't because they're so damn big now, but remember when Intel bet the company by dumping the low-end semiconductors that they were so very good at, and leaping into the microprocessor market, which, after all is the intellectual capital market albeit embedded on a chip. That was way ahead of the game.

I remember when Intel's Bob Noyce became a protectionist, and the Japanese were going to kick our buns and everyone said we should spend our time lobbying in Sacramento and Washington. At the same time, Intel made this incredible decision that we can't compete with the Japanese. And of course the Japanese couldn't either, and they shipped semiconductor manufacturing out to Korea. But Intel made that shift from commodity semiconductors to very leading-edge microprocessors. Today the microprocessor sounds like a commodity, but it's sure as hell wasn't then.

[Mathieson] In terms of creating the brand experience, you go to great lengths about the ascendancy of women in the workplace. You even facetiously call for the firing of all male sales people. What in your view is key to the power of women in the workplace?

[Peters] Well, there's a huge piece of it that's about as simple minded as it comes, and that is that women control the professional, commercial, and the consumer purse strings. And the simple fact is, from Silicon Valley to Madison Avenue, the upper hierarchies of most enterprises are still controlled by males who I find to be relatively clueless to the perceived needs and desires of women and the way that women make purchase and service decisions. And they're much more adept at key business functions such as relationship building, which you and I just ain't wired to do.

[Mathieson] You write that the story of "why this book" has to do with your tombstone, and wanting to be remembered as "a player." What about tombstones is so key to your message about re-imagining business in a disruptive age?

[Peters] I'm older than you are, that's the easy answer. People at 60 think about things that people who are significantly less therein don't. I'm almost in a sappy way taking advantage of my age here. But I think the big message here is, Al-Qaeda notwithstanding, Anthrax notwithstanding, WMDs-strapped-in-a-belly-pack notwithstanding, I think it's a very cool time to be alive. Let's participate vigorously.

I look at all the people who are sour, including Silicon Valley people who thought God put them on Earth to make a $1 million by the age of 26, if not $10 million, and I say how cool to be part of this. It's a wonderful time. It's wonderful in Santa Clara County. It's wonderful in Austin, It's wonderful in Seattle. We're just re-inventing everything,

I also think - and people are going to get quite confused by this, which is fine with me - I think being in the military right now is cool. Because the military is also shedding 150 years worth of tradition as they try to figure out how to preserve the peace and fight wars in a totally different environment. It's scary, and it's weird and it's uncomfortable. But in the best sense of the word - and not said with naivety or rose-colored glasses - it's a very cool time to be alive.

Now you can inform the immigrants still coming here:" Why you coming to America for? ... Turn around 180 degrees and head in that direction, down and around the Cape of Africa, across the Indian Ocean towards India or China for Life, Liberty, Justice, & Whatever... We are just fresh out of opportunity here."

Yeah, just take whatever you have and send on down to highway 61.

If this is the caliber of advice that's being pedaled out there to our business leaders, we have a damn big problem on our hands that is not simply going to disappear all by itself.

If this doesn't incite you people with rage, I don't know what else to show you that will move you.

The Global Investor's & Shareholder's Dream: Downsize America

2004-08-22T12:11:00.000-05:00

The Economic Times Online
Printed from economictimes.indiatimes.com >News By Industry >Infotech >ITeS

18 Reasons Tom Peters Loves Outsourcing

ECONOMICTIMES.COM[ WEDNESDAY, MARCH 03, 2004 06:35:29 PM ]

"One Singaporean worker costs as much as three in Malaysia, eight in Thailand, thirteen in China, eighteen in India."

( Strait Times )

"The proper role of a healthily functioning economy is to destroy jobs and put labor to use elsewhere. Despite this truth, layoffs and firings will always sting, as if the invisible hand of enterprise has slapped workers in the face."

(Joseph Schumpeter, economist)

Outsourcing is good for the US! Outsourcing is bad for the US! The debate goes in even as 50 US senators plan to introduce a bill in the US Congress denying federal aid to companies that offshore work to cheaper climes. Here's management guru Tom Peters's take on the inevitability, pitfalls and matchless opportunities of outsourcing.

Peters has not tried to propound his views on outsourcing with lengthy discussions. he has put forward his observations, 18 of them, to explain his views.

First of all, he says "off-shoring" will continue; the tide cannot be reversed.

[my comment]
Really? Which country is he from?

He rightly points out that service jobs are a bigger issue than manufacturing jobs, by sheer magnitude.

The automation of business processes, according to him, is as big a phenomenon in job shrinkage as off-shoring.

We are in the middle of a once every hundred years' (or so) productivity burst -- which is good for us ... in the long haul, says Peters.

Job churn is normal and necessary: The more the better ... in the long haul, he says.

He says the Americans' "unearned wage advantage" could be erased ... permanently.

[my comment]
Oh, boy... sound's like we are heading back to the lifestyle of Dylan's,
"Maggies Farm".

One of the biggest challenges of the coming days is going to be the entry of 2.5 billion people from China and India into the global economy at an accelerating rate. The result is almost unfathomable, and will throw up exceptional challenges as well as amazing opportunities.

[my comment]
Whoops! There goes the neighborhood... America, welcome back to the slums.

Outsourcing shouldn't be curbed as Peters feels that Free trade works. in his own words: "It makes the world a safer place ... in the long haul. The process is not pretty at times. (Sometimes long times.) Those who dutifully followed yesterday's rules yet are displaced must be helped when the rules change. Such help must not be in perpetuity -- it demands a sunset date."

Big companies are off-shoring almost exclusively in pursuit of efficiency and shareholder value enhancement. Big companies do not create jobs, and historically have not created jobs. Big companies are not "built to last;" they almost inexorably are "built to decline."

[my comment]
Only those traiter, self-fulfilling shareholders in olive green are in
pursuit of the American Apocalypse.

If big companies did not exist, what would a small company do? Agriculture?
Nonsense that big companies do not create jobs!

Built to last? Maybe, because they get eaten up by bigger, useless big
companies, right?

Job creation is entrepreneurially led, especially by the small fraction of "start-ups" that become growth companies (Microsoft, Amgen, FedEx et al.); hence entrepreneurial incentives including low capital-gains taxes and high R&D supports are a top priority.

Primary and secondary education must be reformed, in particular to underscore creativity and innovation -- the mainstays of high-value added products and services. Children should be nurtured on risk-taking, with a low expectation of corporate cosseting.

Future success rests upon ... excellence in Innovation. Hence, among other things, research universities must be vigorously supported.

[my comment]
Agree, but find it difficult since funding has been cut and the student
loan program is in a unfavorable state due to the current jobless graduates
since 1999.

National/global protection of intellectual capital-property is imperative.

[my comment]
Absolutely!

All economic progression is a matter of moving up the "value-added chain." The good news: Technology change is so vigorous for the foreseeable future that those who can "seize the moment" have lots of room to play.

Worker benefits (health care, re-training credits, pensions) should be portable, to induce rather than impede labour mobility, says Peters.

Workers have the ultimate stake. And thus the ultimate personal responsibility. "Workers"/we/all must "re-imagine" ourselves -- take the initiative to create useful global skills, not imagine that large employers or powerful nations will protect us from the current (and future!) labour market upheavals.

[my comment]
Plant a stake in that heart! This is the obvious heart of a vampire no less...

© Bennett, Coleman and Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[my comment]

Our demise has been premeditated since 1991 it appears.

Please note that this article came off a Indian news site denoted at the beginning of this post.

Mugshot of Tom Peters

He Looks Harmless enough, but could he be... "Satan?"

Per the Church Lady from Saturday Night Live.

My next post regarding Mr. Peters will blow your socks off!

Reasons for World Wars

2004-08-20T14:34:00.000-05:00

The reasons for most major wars are:

Trade - Pearl Harbor: Japan's embargo influenced by the United States.
I Want What You Have - Napoleon's conquest for the sake of conquest.
Vengence - Europe: Germany's resurrection after the Versailles Treaty. Had it not been for the trade issue between the Japan & the United States, Adolf Hitler would have been the Emperor of All Europe & Asia.
Fear of the Upper Hand - Vietnam: The United States' fear of the Domino Theory.

Some are a combination of the bits & pieces of all four.

Which category does Iraq fall into?

Which category will the G8 's WWIII (which includes the United States) fall into?

China & the Far East are treading on the toes of the G8 nations with their appetite for resources, production, & corruption, and it will all end because of the perverse greed of these people. Competition in most forms are productive to society, overall; however, certain forms are downright detremental to the fabric of an economy when these forms counterfeit & mislead with unfair practices.

I just wonder, how many US Greenbacks & Euros are counterfeited everyday in China to help pay for their Economic Boom... boom!

If diplomacy fails, I am very confident & afraid that this will be the final option to neutralize China & the Rest of the Far East and most likely give what's left to Russia to use in return for some mutual favors to the West, like OIL & a modern population more suited for mass consumerism.

Sorry...

The China Syndrome - CBS News / 60 Minutes

2004-08-08T19:29:00.000-05:00

The World's Greatest Fakes
CBS News / 60 Minutes
Aug. 8, 2004

Name an American brand. Any brand, and any kind of product.

Clothing, computer chips, car parts. Just name it and we’ll tell you something about it. It’s probably being counterfeited in China as we speak.

For years, China has been the workshop of the world. And for years, American and other western firms have set up shop in China to tap into the enormous, cheap labor force.

The question is: Once the Chinese know how to make an American product, what’s to stop them from copying it?

The answer?

Nothing at all.

And what's to prevent the Chinese from shipping these counterfeits back to the United States? Not much, reported Correspondent Bob Simon last January.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
60 Minutes found a corner shop in Donguan, China, selling clubs by Callaway, the American manufacturer of the famous Great Big Bertha driver.

The Chinese government didn’t want 60 Minutes to bring our cameras, so we did – undercover. Inside, we saw a club that looked and felt like the Great Big Bertha. Not only that, we were offered Callaway irons, putters, golf bags, gloves, and even a Callaway umbrella.

And the best part? What would retail for close to $3,000 in the United States, was being offered to us for $275. Why? Because, as the owner of the shop readily admitted, the whole set was a copy.

That’s what they call it in China. But at Callaway, they call it counterfeit.

“The first clue we had to that problem was when people began sending in the clubs as they broke,” says Stu Herrington, head of security for Callaway Golf. He’s seen fake Callaway clubs pour into the United States from China. “And of course, repairs took a look at this broken club and realized right away it was fake.”

But fake golf clubs don't begin to suggest the enormity of the problem.

“We have never seen a problem of this size and magnitude in world history. There’s more counterfeiting going on in China now than we’ve ever seen anywhere,” says Dan Chow, a law professor at Ohio State University who specializes in Chinese counterfeiting. “We know that 15 to 20 percent of all goods in China are counterfeit.”

And these days, the way China’s economy is booming, 15 to 20 percent means tens of billions of dollars.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evidence of the counterfeiting trade can be seen every day at one Hong Kong warehouse, where counterfeit watches, shoes and computer chips -- all copied in China and seized in Hong Kong -- are tossed onto a conveyor belt and consigned to the dustbin of history.

But it’s like stopping the rain. The seizure may look impressive, but every day, 6,000 shipping containers leave from Hong Kong for America, packed with products made in China. Only a small fraction of those containers are ever inspected.

“This is the most profitable criminal venture, as far as I know, on Earth … Counterfeiting,” says attorney Harley Lewin, who has been chasing counterfeiters from China for more than 20 years. “And your partners don’t kill you.”

And now, China is the undisputed capital of counterfeiting.

60 Minutes went undercover and found a small factory in Donguan churning out fake Callaway golf bags at a rate of 500 a week. The workers, mostly from rural provinces, make a few bucks a day and don’t have the slightest idea that what they’re doing is illegal.

China may be the largest labor pool in the world, but ultimately, it’s all in the family.

“When you teach the production line here how to make your product, if it’s a mold, that mold will find its way down to a relative’s production line down the street, an uncle, or grandfather, or husband, or brother,” says Lewin.

And the buyer could be a daughter or a son. So if you thought that children’s books would be off-limits to counterfeiters, think again.

Harry Potter is as popular here in China as he is in the rest of the world, so you can imagine the excitement when volumes five, six and seven of the Harry Potter series appeared in stores all over China last year with J.K. Rowling’s name on them.

"Harry Potter and the Crystal Vase" was the title of one; "Harry Potter and Leopard Walk Up To Dragon," the title of another.

There was only one problem. As any American kid could tell you, J.K. Rowling didn’t write them. The Chinese counterfeited something that doesn’t exist.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What are some of the most astounding things that Lewin has seen?

“We had prunes the other day. Fake prunes," says Lewin. "Coming from China to Thailand.”

So if you can copy a prune, why can’t you copy a car?

“The client doesn’t want me to go into it, but I can tell you a very funny story about a recent auto show in Shanghai. There is a new factory in China that rolled out its very first automobile. And the front half was German model-A, and the back half was German model-B,” says Lewin.

But don’t think it’s just for export. At a shopping mall in Shenzhen, there are hundreds of stores packed with brand-name goods. Not one of them is real.

To the untrained eye, necklaces and studs marked Tiffany’s look real. So do blue pills marked Viagra, which promise to make you a stud.

The mall is not exactly underground. It’s five stories high. And not much of a secret. The local police are here, but only to give directions. 60 Minutes came here with Jack Clode, an investigator for Kroll Associates.

“They do raids here. But very quickly, the shops are back in business,” says Clode, who adds that once a shop gets raided, it’s usually not gone for good. “It might change its name, it may shift one floor up or down. But it will be back in business.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Whether it’s retail or wholesale, counterfeiting is an industry that supports entire towns.

Yiwu, a few hours from Shanghai, is the wholesale counterfeit capital of China. Villagers from around the country flock here by truck and by bike to buy or to sell or both. In the indoor market, you’ll find batteries that look like Duracell even if they’re called Dynacell or Supercell.

Kodak film is popular. So are Gillette razors and Mickey. A 100 percent genuine? Maybe not. The Chinese are addicted to brand names even if they don’t always know how to spell them.

With the help of Kroll investigators, we found a counterfeiter who took us to her garage in Yiwu where she displayed western running shoes ready to be copied.

We wondered how long it would take to make copies of Nikes. The answer? Within 10 days, 1,000 shoes at $4 a pair. Was this counterfeiter afraid of the police? Not at all. She said she had a good relationship with the cops.

And what does the chief cop in Beijing say?

“This phenomenon does exist. I admit its existence. I’ve also seen it. But there is a question of how hard you crack down. That’s because under Chinese law, someone cannot be prosecuted only because he sells a small quantity of fake products,” says Gao Feng, the head of China’s anti-counterfeiting police unit.

There were about 1,000 police raids last year, often followed by press conferences and displays of the seized goods. But American companies say that’s what it amounts to -- just a display. Why? Because the relationship between the cops and the counterfeiters is often less confrontational than cozy.

“I remember going on a raid one time in which the counterfeiter and the local enforcement officials seemed to know each other very well. He said hello. He actually served tea to us when we went and seized the product and carted the product off. Of course, I was outraged at the time,” recalls Chow.

But that outrage is not shared by the Chinese authorities. They will do anything to avoid social unrest, and counterfeit factories keep a lot of poor people employed. American firms may not like it, but they may just have to live with it.

"We don't want to ignore counterfeiting, but for those foreign companies, when they enter the Chinese market, I'm afraid they should also pay some cost due to the realities of China," says Feng.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trouble is, it’s not just a problem for American companies. Consumers beware.

”You won’t die from purchasing a pair of counterfeit blue jeans or a counterfeit golf club. You can die from taking counterfeit pharmaceutical products,” says John Theriault, head of global security for the American pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer. “And there’s no doubt that people have died in China from bad medicine.”

Chinese government studies indicate that thousands of their own citizens have died because of fake medicines -- counterfeit drugs that may have had some active ingredients or not.

But they look good. One example: Pfizer’s popular drug, Viagra, a favorite among Chinese counterfeiters.

While Pfizer is confident Chinese counterfeits haven’t infiltrated American pharmacies, there’s that market that transcends state lines. It's the Internet, where you’ll find fake expensive brand names sold for next to nothing on the Web – and often to Americans.

“The oldest adage in the world is when you get something for nothing, that’s usually what it’s worth,” says Lewin. “Except people go brain dead when they buy this stuff.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
60 Minutes wanted to see if we had gone brain dead. Remember that set of Callaway golf clubs we bought for $275 at a corner shop in China? We brought them to Callaway’s headquarters in California, and had our clubs inspected by a pro, an investigator and a robot – all in an attempt to see how good the counterfeits were.

“These look like the authentic thing,” says Herrington.

What we learned is that the Great Big Bertha of China was hitting 240 yards on the robot – only 10 yards shorter than a genuine. Pretty good.

But then, we gave them to a real golfer, Jim Colbert of the PGA Champions tour, who swings with Callaways. “Uh, that’s ugly,” says Colbert.

Our club kept slicing the ball to the right of the fairway. Then Herrington showed us why: “This is supposed to be a titanium club. You paid for titanium, and you got steel.”

Unless the average golfer had a saw, he or she wouldn’t necessarily notice what 60 Minutes discovered – that the head of our Great Big Bertha was actually two pieces welded together instead of one, which is what one might expect for $275.

“Folks who have bought a set for $275 in China bring them to the United States and they Internet auction them for $1,500. And you know, that’s a pretty good margin in anybody’s book,” says Herrington.

So good, that American companies are having trouble staying even one step ahead of China's counterfeiters.

“On the day that Callaway Golf releases a new club, they can purchase one, and within seven days, using computer-assisted design and their modern facilities, begin cranking out counterfeits.”

The Chinese authorities insist that they’re working on the problem, and that they are sensitive to American concerns. But 60 Minutes thought about that as we strolled down Silk Alley in Beijing -- where you can buy everything except the real thing.

Silk Alley is just a few steps from the American embassy.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since this report last January, dozens of children from one eastern Chinese city died after being fed counterfeit baby formula. Thousands of boxes of counterfeit formula have been discovered.

© MMIV, CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Wake Up, People... China, India, Singapore, Malaysia, amoung others are taking away more than your jobs and lively hood -- they are stealing your Innovation, Sweat, Dreams, & Prosperity.

Based upon this information by 60 Minutes, it's time to sunset the WTO and offshore the United Nations somewhere else besides here and make the agenda, once again, AMERICA FIRST!

Let us remember the Imperial Oriental Mind & Practices:

Pearl Harbor
Bataan
Korea
Vietnam
... Globalization

These people eat fish heads, whole... and fly into the face of death... that's their honor... that's their pride... that's the soul of the Far East.

The statement above can be interpreted as a racist's point of view, but it is not... it goes much, much further to the customs of such a culture and their value of human life. Historical events illustrates very well the tenacity and strength of this culture, a culture that the rest of the world have been unable to occupy or pacify, except by the same cultural empires. IE: WWII, Japanese occupation of Vietnam.

The United States was no match for the elusive Vietcong that traveled up and down the Ho Chi Ming trail along the border of Cambodia, Laos, & Vietnam. These people traveled at night by candles with a windshield made of leaves. They wore no socks. They grunted up & down the mountain terrain in saddles. They transported barge-sized amounts of food, weapons, & supplies, individually by bicycles. Not even cases and cases of Budweiser dropped at strategic locations on the trail could slow them down.

Dien Bien Phu, 1954: The famous French Legionnaires were slaughtered by the Vietminh. 13,000 French troops surrounded by 50,000 Vietnamese troops. At the close of the battle, the French lost 55% of their troops either dead, wounded, or missing. The Vietminh lost 7,900 troops, plus another 15,000 wounded or maimed. The decisive factor: send up human bullet catchers (HBC). They sent waves after waves of these HBCs to weaken the supply of bullets and the resolve of the French forces... and it worked.

Dien Bien Phu

After General Giap's decisive victory at Dien Bien Phu, the French never return to Vietnam... The United States met a similiar challenge in 1968 masterminded by Giap: The Tet Offensive.

Four-star General Vo Nguyen Giap led Vietnam's armies from their inception, in the 1940s, up to the moment of their triumphant entrance into Saigon in 1975

Stubborn? Nawh... The Japanese Emperor knowing very well the Allied Forces were closing in on Japan with their rapid acquistion of offensive island positions in the Pacific, dreadfully near for Allied bombers, still demanded that his people and his armies fight to the very last man, woman, & child. What to do?

Sometimes the life a decision maker can become grave and lonely....such a life would have to be the life of President Harry S. Truman. When he received the word from Los Alamos that the mystery solution was ready, he had to ponder & make that fateful decision to deliver Fat Man & Little Boy to the Japanese mainland.

Enough Allied Forces had died already. Victory had been won in Germany and the only lose end was Japan... enough was enough...drop the bomb on them. Harry S. Truman was never the same after that decision, both in public and in private life.

Since they are eating our Economic Lunch, due to weak International Trade Law enforcement, we only have two options:

Withdraw All Far East Manufacturing and Send in Special Ops to Destroy the Counterfeiting Plants and Place an Embargo on all Far East Goods & Services, OR
All of the elements of Option# 1 & Send in the Equalizer.... and May We have Mercy on their Souls (highly impractical, I know, but it sure would make a heck of a statement on behalf of our beliefs, laws, & principles: Don't Bite the Hand that Feeds You).

It is very simple folks to estimate the damage that can be done by the Far East: the value of every Patent that is stolen equals the same value in counterfeiting the US Dollar. Get the BIG PICTURE?

We the People of the United States will not succumb to be a 3rd country due to black market manipulation... instead the earth and it's people will witness our wrath.

Others Beware. Next on the list are: India, Singapore, Malaysia...

Here are a Few Reminders of our Will & Actions...

Yippe!

Not a Particularly Good Day... When More Persuasion would have to be Used, Due to their Well Known, Extreme Stubbornness... & Strictly by the Shear Volume of their Numbers... Multinational Economic Locust... Exterminate with Extreme Prejudice...

Whoops!

Little Boy and Fat Man

Little Boy was the first nuclear weapon used in warfare. It exploded approximately 1,800 feet over Hiroshima, Japan, on the morning of August 6, 1945, with a force equal to 13,000 tons of TNT. Immediate deaths were between 70,000 to 130,000.

Little Boy was dropped from a B-29 bomber piloted by U.S. Army Air Force Col. Paul W. Tibbets. Tibbets had named the plane Enola Gay after his mother the night before the atomic attack.

Fat Man was the second nuclear weapon used in warfare. Dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945, Fat Man devastated more than two square miles of the city and caused approximately 45,000 immediate deaths.

Major Charles W. Sweeney piloted the B-29, #77 that dropped Fat Man. After the nuclear mission, #77 was christened Bockscar after its regular Command Pilot, Fred Bock.

Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me

2004-07-28T08:13:00.000-05:00

I was in shock & awe while listening to President Clinton addressing the 2004 Democratic National Convention. I couldn't believe what HOPEFUL visions and practical concepts I was hearing from my usually mis-guided, mis-informed, and branded TV --- I was hearing AMERICA FIRST principals coming from the not so late, distant President of the United States. I was amazed and re-affirmed by his message.

Secondly, the next day's address by Teresa Hines, an immigrant from South Africa and possible 1st Lady of the United States, was a very moving portrayal from the outside-looking-in of our very best qualities... qualities & vision that has been lost for such a long, long time it seems. Somewhere along our recent journey, we have allow ourselves to fade to black.

Here is the question every American must ask himself/herself today:

Due to our role as the World's Care Giver & Superpower, and all of the trappings that go with it, how on earth do you expect the United States to compete with those that do not carry such a burden in the race to the bottom of GLOBALIZATION?

President Clinton knows the answer to this question and touched on it briefly during his DNC address:

"...These policies have turned a projected $5.8 trillion surplus that we left, enough to pay for the baby boomer retirement, into a projected debt of almost $5 trillion, with over $400 billion in deficit this year and for years to come.

Now, how do they pay for that deficit? First, by taking the Social Security surplus that comes in every month and endorsing the checks of working people over to me to pay for the tax cuts. But it's not enough.

So then they have to go borrow money. Most of it they borrow from the Chinese and the Japanese government. Sure, these countries are competing with us for good jobs, but how can we enforce our trade laws against our bankers? I mean, come on... "

What would Theodore Roosevelt have said about this issue?

"You wanna talk about trade agreements with the United States, meet me on an Aircraft Carrier, yours or mine?"

My plea to the Soroses, Buffetts, Iacoccas, Welches, & Gates is:

"Don't leave this country's destiny and fate open to blind faith. Develop a safeguard that will provide appropriate guidance and action when needed in order to protect the best interests of the United States at all times, regardless of party leadership. We needed AMERICA FIRST! yesterday!

My God, could you actually imagine another 4 years of GWB and his robot hardliners? Can we endure 4 more years of collateral damage? Instead of seeing stars, we will wind up sending our sons and daughters on slave ships to the far east to pay for our past ignorance."

Please continue to visit and comment about AMERICA FIRST!

Just a reminder from a song by Elton John:

I can’t light no more of your darkness
All my pictures seem to fade to black and white
I’m growing tired and time stands still before me
Frozen here on the ladder of my life

Our Murky Economic Undertow Plagued by Lurking Financial Sharks

2004-07-17T09:52:00.000-05:00

Indebted U.S. Ponders Maggots, Robbery
Sat Jul 17, 7:28 AM ET
By Alister Bull

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A mouthful of maggots could not deter Michele Goncalo from vying for a $50,000 prize in a television game show because, like millions of other Americans, she wants to clear her credit-card debts.

Besides tasting insect larvae on "Fear Factor," she crawled out of a helicopter as it hovered over a chilly lake.

But luck was not with her. Goncalo was eliminated from the show, and a few weeks later the Federal Reserve (news - web sites) raised interest rates for the first time since 2000.

U.S. consumers are laboring under more than $2 trillion in debt after years of easy credit. And with that era drawing to a close, the plight of those who borrowed too much has fallen under a harsh spotlight.

Goncalo declined to be interviewed, but she said on "Fear Factor" that if she won the prize, she would use it to wipe her slate clear of debt.

Others whose obligations have gotten out of hand say constant demands for payment can quickly create a sense of desperation.

Ric Wade, who had $16,000 in debts after renovating a house he couldn't sell, said he was getting six calls a day from credit-card companies.

"I told them I just don't have the money," the South Miami resident said. "I can go and rob a bank?"

CREDIT-CARD NATION

Americans possess more than 600 million credit cards, or 4.8 for every holder in the country, and have loaded that plastic up with some $700 billion.

Wade turned to a nonprofit credit counseling organization -- a growth industry in the United States -- and got his monthly bills cut to $450 from $1,400 under a four-year repayment plan he hopes to complete ahead of schedule.

"We're a consumer nation, and advertising works," he said. "They create demand and you feel that you've got to have it ... They don't ask 'Can you afford it?' You just look at the monthly payments, and suddenly you can afford it."

Affordability has become less certain after the Fed's June quarter-point rate hike to 1.25 percent, which economists see as the first of a number of moves to keep inflation tame.

According to the influential Blue Chip survey, top economists on average see the fed funds rate at 2 percent by year-end and 3.5 percent by December 2005.

How debtors react to the pinch from rising borrowing costs is important in an economy where consumer spending accounts for roughly two-thirds of gross domestic product.

Market interest rates, which are influenced by the fed funds rate but set independently, had climbed even before the Fed moved on June 30. Their rise was among the factors blamed for weaker household spending in the second quarter.

But Fed officials have repeatedly said they don't think consumers are at risk from tighter monetary policy even though household indebtedness stands at a record and debt service levels, a measure of monthly interest obligations as a percentage of disposable income, are also near their peak.

One reason policy-makers remain sanguine is that many households used low interest rates to consolidate debts into single, longer-term loans.

This pushed up debt levels, but disguised an underlying improvement in the strength of household finances and their ability to absorb higher interest rates, Fed officials say.

"Although there are pockets of financial stress among households, the sector as a whole appears in good shape," Federal Reserve Board Governor Susan Schmidt Bies said on Thursday.
But those dealing daily with people drowning in debt see enormous problems.

"This will hurt the middle class, families on $30,000-$70,000 a year," said Howard Dvorkin, founder and president of Consolidated Credit Counseling Services in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

EASY MONEY

Americans received 4.9 billion unsolicited offers for credit cards through the mail last year. While the success rate of these marketing efforts is just 0.6 percent, a lot of the wrong people have been tempted into signing up.

Dvorkin has students with no current income turning up for counseling after charging thousands of dollars to their cards. His average customer has $23,000 on plastic.
Nor is it just credit cards. Some people are also having trouble repaying bank loans, and higher interest rates would only make this more difficult.

Dvorkin calculated that a 2 percentage-point increase on a typical 20-year, variable rate home equity line of $50,000 would raise the final interest bill by $60 a month, or $14,000 for the life of the loan.

"These families are doing what they have to do (to get by)," he said, "but a 2 or 3 percentage point rise in interest rates will hit them pretty bad."

Would this make a difference to spending? Definitely, say people at the receiving end.
"If rates go up, it makes everything more of a struggle," said Ted Long, now within a couple of months of completing a debt workout thrashed out in counseling. "It would have had a severely negative impact on our financial decisions if we still had the credit card debt we had back then."
Long and his wife ran up $11,000 on cards and were paying $650 a month -- more than the rent on their Hollywood, Florida, home -- before going to the counselors.

"I didn't wake up one morning and decide 'I'll want $11,000 credit,' but it just builds up little by little," Long said. "People think credit cards are like money or a paycheck, and that is so wrong."

How can the United States continue to sustain a thriving middle class consumer base when their careers are being threatened and at the same time having their financial stability eroded by daily compounded interest?

I believe that Critical Mass has been achieved in this area. Would you choose to remove it from our economy as you would a wart?

Who Ultimately Pays for this Group of Legal Fees of $4.95 Billion for MCI & ENRON ?

2004-07-15T08:56:00.000-05:00

MCI, Enron Imbroglio Gut Citigroup Profit

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C - news) on Thursday said second-quarter profit fell 73 percent to nearly a six-year low, after setting aside $4.95 billion for legal costs related to MCI, Enron and other scandals.

Ken Lay

The world's No. 1 financial services company said net income fell to $1.14 billion, or 22 cents per share, from $4.3 billion, or 83 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding items, profit would have risen 24 percent to $5.34 billion, or $1.02 per share, New York-based Citigroup said. On that basis, analysts on average had forecast profit of 97 cents per share, according to Reuters Estimates.

"It was better than I was anticipating," said Jeffery Harte, an analyst at Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP in New York. "Retail and consumer (was) stronger than corporate and investment banking, but they seemed to offset each other."

Revenue rose 15 percent to $22.3 billion. Expenses rose 87 percent to $18.6 billion, but would have risen 7 percent excluding the legal charges, Citigroup said.

In May, Citigroup said it would pay $2.65 billion to settle claims by investors in WorldCom Inc., now known as MCI Inc. (Nasdaq:MCIP - news), that it hid risks.

It also increased reserves to pay for pending lawsuits involving energy trader Enron Corp. (Other OTC:ENRNQ - news), alleged biased stock research, initial public offerings and other matters.

Results also included a gain of $756 million, or 15 cents per share, for the sale of a 20 percent stake in Saudi Arabian bank Samba Financial Group.

Profit was the lowest since Citigroup reported $677 million in the fourth quarter of 1998, when the company had expenses for the merger of Citicorp and Travelers Property Casualty Corp. Citigroup has $1.4 trillion of assets.

"Underlying business dynamics were strong ... despite sluggish capital markets in May and June," said Chief Executive Charles Prince in a statement. "The credit environment is the best we have seen in years."

CONSUMER PROFIT RISES

Consumer profit rose 37 percent to $3.07 billion, including half of the Samba gain, on revenue of $12.1 billion.

Retail banking income rose 15 percent to $1.16 billion, credit card income rose 34 percent to $1.01 billion and consumer finance income rose 14 percent to $594 million.

Citigroup's corporate and investment bank posted a $2.81 billion loss, including the legal charge and the rest of the Samba gain. Capital markets and banking income rose 28 percent to $1.5 billion, and transaction services income rose 45 percent to $261 million.

Global investment management profit rose 7 percent to $451 million, including increases of 15 percent in life insurance and annuities and 9 percent at the private bank, and a drop of 16 percent in asset management.

Private client services profit rose 15 percent to $209 million.

International profit surged 76 percent to $2.83 billion, including increases of 50 percent in Asia; 161 percent in Europe, the Middle East and Africa; 34 percent in Latin America, and 13 percent in Japan.

Citigroup shares closed Wednesday at $45.10 on the New York Stock Exchange (news - web sites). They have fallen 7 percent this year, while the Philadelphia KBW Bank Index (^BKX - news) has fallen 3 percent.

Answer: WE DO as Usual; however, knowing and accepting this fact during the pre-train wreck phase, could we have gonna ahead and spent $2.5 billion US Treasury dollars to restore & turnaround these huge companies instead of burning them to the ground?

Remember: Companies = People + Relationships + Assets
Economies = People + Companies

Is There a Decade of New Hope for The Whitehouse or Just Us Stuck in the Middle Again?

2004-07-08T07:06:00.000-05:00

John Edwards' "Two Americas" stump speech is a powerful rallying cry to take our country back. As he said at a campaign stop in December:

“Today, under George W. Bush, there are two Americas, not one: One America that does the work, another America that reaps the reward. One America that pays the taxes, another America that gets the tax breaks. One America that will do anything to leave its children a better life, another America that never has to do a thing because its children are already set for life. One America -- middle-class America - whose needs Washington has long forgotten, another America - narrow-interest America - whose every wish is Washington's command. One America that is struggling to get by, another America that can buy anything it wants, even a Congress and a President.”

“I've been fighting this fight my whole life. For 20 years, I have sat in courtrooms across from these people. I have been an advocate for families and their children against armies of lawyers. I've won most of those battles. In the Senate, I fought for the Patients' Bill of Rights, against big HMOs, against big insurance companies. I fought to bring down prescription drug costs for every American, against big drug companies. I fought to do something about drug company advertising on TV when others weren't willing to do it. I fought to create energy independence in this country.”

“I believe the backbone of the American economy is the hard work, determination, and ingenuity of the middle class, not the insiders. I believe the way to grow the economy is to grow and strengthen the middle class, not shrink its size and add to its burdens. I believe the way a rich nation gets richer is by giving all its citizens the chance to get richer, not by only helping those like me who've already succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. I believe the way to create new wealth is by rewarding work and responsibility, not coddling the privileged and going soft on executives, accountants, and analysts who squander other people's money.”

“For every man and woman who is worried about paying their bills; for every child who needs health care and a strong school to go to, and for every American who waits for the 1st and the 15th of every month -- together we will end this era of anxiety. We will replace the crass politics of greed and the current politics of rage with a new politics of opportunity.” (As Prepared, Des Moines, IA, 12/29/03)

John Kerry adds on:

“In the next 120 days and in the administration that follows, John Edwards and I will be fighting for the America we love,” Kerry said. “We'll be fighting to give the middle class a voice by providing good paying jobs and affordable health care. We'll be fighting to make America energy independent. We'll be fighting to build a strong military and lead strong alliances, so young Americans are never put in harm’s way because we insisted on going it alone.” (As Prepared, JohnKerry.com, 7/6/04)

The question remains: Will they remember what they said and the passion they once embraced?

The Black Death: Is it the next Bubonic Plague or Globalization in the 21st Century?

2004-06-20T08:12:00.000-05:00

"The bubble economy of the 90s really crashed hard, employment-wise at the end of Clinton/start of Bush's Presidency", (a quote from Paul Jenkins,Congressional Candidate for the 3rd District of Texas on Sat Mar 06, 2004).

Not sure about the answer to the title of this post, but I am pretty sure the disease is blowing in from the Far East & Pacific Rim. From where I am standing, it is a pretty strong, pungent smell.

However on the flipside of this issue, UI figures only track two measurements: New weekly unemployment claims and duration of claims.

Basically, these Key Performance Indicators (KPI) should represent the pulse of the non-skilled workforce in normal times; however, during major recessions it becomes muddied and distorted by the skilled workforce layoffs. Another important KPI they follow is the term of average unemployment which we have seen as very lengthy this go around.

Unfortunately, UI loses track of those individuals that exhaust their UI benefits and seem to fall off any tracking system thereafter -- this is a major failure point. At this juncture One Stops & WIA career centers should takeover which I believe they are doing now as of 2004. Unfortunately, a bit too little to late for bunch of families that lost there jobs between 2000-2003.

Another difference to point out regarding this recession versus prior recessions is that this recession created a precedent for massive white collar layoffs. During this recession most of the 50 states are running deficits and are cutting services by unprecedent levels including teachers in the public school system.

If one could visualize what has just occurred economically to something that is more graphic and easier to understand, I would have to offer up this image: The Black Death, the Bubonic Plague during the 14th century.

The Black Death: Bubonic Plague

In the early 1330s an outbreak of deadly bubonic plague occurred in China. Plague mainly affects rodents, but fleas can transmit the disease to people. Once people are infected, they infect others very rapidly. Plague causes fever and a painful swelling of the lymph glands called buboes, which is how it gets its name. The disease also causes spots on the skin that are red at first and then turn black.

Since China was one of the busiest of the world's trading nations, it was only a matter of time before the outbreak of plague in China spread to western Asia and Europe. In October of 1347, several Italian merchant ships returned from a trip to the Black Sea, one of the key links in trade with China. When the ships docked in Sicily, many of those on board were already dying of plague. Within days the disease spread to the city and the surrounding countryside. An eyewitness tells what happened:

"Realizing what a deadly disaster had come to them, the people quickly drove the Italians from their city. But the disease remained, and soon death was everywhere. Fathers abandoned their sick sons. Lawyers refused to come and make out wills for the dying. Friars and nuns were left to care for the sick, and monasteries and convents were soon deserted, as they were stricken, too. Bodies were left in empty houses, and there was no one to give them a Christian burial."
The disease struck and killed people with terrible speed. The Italian writer Boccaccio said its victims often

"ate lunch with their friends and dinner with their ancestors in paradise."
By the following August, the plague had spread as far north as England, where people called it "The Black Death" because of the black spots it produced on the skin. A terrible killer was loose across Europe, and Medieval medicine had nothing to combat it.

In winter the disease seemed to disappear, but only because fleas--which were now helping to carry it from person to person--are dormant then. Each spring, the plague attacked again, killing new victims. After five years 25 million people were dead--one-third of Europe's people.

My observations have yielded a number of 10 Million unemployed/under-employed Americas are among us. Is this number normal or high all through history. Can anybody tell us? I know one thing for certain is that there has never been such a high proportional amount of skilled labor in that dreadful pool of anguish.

Secondly, what value of loss does the number represent within economic terms? Just for effect lets assume the average national income and calculate the minimal effect of $330 billion economic dollars. My, my, my... that is 68% of the annual Defense Budget.

Now, let us apply a half & half scenario to this group of unfortunate again ( non-skilled + skilled average incomes ). I will just be a minute....

How about these figures for thought:

$590 billion annually
$2.065 trillion lost since Jan 2001 over 3.5 years so far....
$2.065 trillion losses on the horizon for the next 3.5 years
=====
$4.130 trillion estimated losses until 2008

If this current economic situation is not a form of the Black Plague, I don't know what else to compare it to. I will even go one step farther and declare that this event is much larger than The Great Depression due to the fact that the GDP of the nation can withstand, temporarily mind you, these kinds of annual losses. However, the consumer base will begin convulsions in early 2005 if the current course is not altered in time.

Re-Attain the Global Vision for American Interests at Home & Abroad

2004-05-30T11:11:00.000-05:00

Summary

President Theodore Roosevelt, on 16 December 1907 and headed to Cuba and then down the coast of South America, visiting several countries on their highly successful cruise. Rounding Cape Horn, the Fleet, comprising of some 16 battleships. gradually made its way up the Pacific coast of the Americas. It met with ships of the Pacific Fleet in another review in San Francisco for the Secretary of the Navy on 8 May 1908.

The ships, commonly known as the "Great White Fleet" due to their white-painted hulls, called in ports the world over, impressing foreign dignitaries with the appearance of great power. The entire affair was designed to impress, and everything was done to make sure the fleet's appearance was perfect.

Details

At the turn of the century 100 years ago, the United States had just emerged from a series of military excursions in the Caribbean & Central America as well as in the Pacific. In an endeavor to exert a wider international influence, it was decided to build up the navy and to send it on an extended tour of the seven seas.

Quite simultaneously, Marconi and a host of other experimenters were making rapid strides in the development of the new wireless apparatus, both in the Old World as well as in the New. Wireless was now enabling rapid communication from country to country and from ship to shore.

For a preliminary series of test transmissions, wireless apparatus was installed on two battleships, "Connecticut" and "Virginia", and trials were conducted in September 1907 off the Atlantic Coast of the United States. These wireless communications were conducted successfully between the two battleships as well as with the land-based station CC on Cape Cod.

As a result of these experimental transmissions, a total of 24 transmitters and receivers were installed on the major vessels making up the flotilla that would sail the world. The main network transmitter was installed on the battleship, "Ohio".

Altogether, 16 battleships and 4 destroyers, together with additional support ships, were assembled at the Brooklyn Navy Yard ready to make the 14 month tour around the world. All of the ships were newly painted a gleaming white and hence the flotllla became known as the "Great White Fleet".

Each of these massive ships bore the name of an American state, except for one which was called the "Kearsarge". Radio callsigns were allotted to each transmitter on each ship; some were just abbreviated initials such as GC on the "Georgia" whereas others were internationally accepted callsigns such as KSZ on the "Virginia".

This navy convoy began its epic 46,000 mile journey on December 16, 1907 just one week before Christmas. Their onward journey took them down the Atlantic Coast of South America, around Cape Horn, and up along the Pacific Coast of South America to California.

At Long Beach, a coastal suburb of Los Angeles, two ships from the "Great White Fleet", were released and two came in as replacements. The battleships "Alabama" and "Maine" were released and they were replaced by the "Nebraska" and "Wisconsin".

The next stage of the grand tour took the navy flotilla to Hawaii, then on to Auckland in New Zealand, across to Sydney in Australia, up to Japan via the Philippines, and then across to China, and around to Colombo in British Ceylon. The final stage of the tour took the largest convoy the world had ever seen to Aden and then into the Mediterranean and out across the Atlantic back home again. By the time this flotilla returned to the Brooklyn Navy Yards, 15 months had elapsed and it was now March in the year 1909.

Along the way, many goodwill wireless broadcasts were made, consisting of both speech and music It should be remembered that radio broadcasting on land had not yet begun and it was in fact still a dozen more years before radio broadcasting would be launched.

As the "Great White Fleet" proceeded around the world, many wireless broadcasts were made, to passing ships as well as to land based communities. The first series of major broadcasts was made to the combined navies of the United States and Brazil off the Atlantic Coast of South America.

On the Pacific side of the South American continent, another series of broadcasts was made to the combined fleets of Great Britain and Chile. While anchored at Long Beach in coastal California in April 1908, the "Ohio" made several broadcasts of music and speech.

As the flotilla made its way across the Pacific, several long distance broadcasts were made for the benefit of radio operators in Hawaii, Auckland and Sydney. Likewise, radio operators in the Philippines, Japan and China also heard a similar series of wireless broadcasts.

The historical rundown of the "Great White Fleet" informs us that additional wireless broadcasts were made for the benefit of professional and amateur radio operators in Colombo, Aden and Egypt, as well as to Greece, Turkey and Gibraltar.

When the "Great White Fleet" returned to the Brooklyn Navy Yards at the conclusion of this historic diplomatic and radio jaunt around the world, the entire assemblage of wireless apparatus was removed from all of the participating ships and placed into storage. Thus concluded a milestone event, not only in the history of the sea, but also in the history of radio, an event that is seldom chronicled in the pages of the modern radio historian

USS Ronald Reagan: U Got Milk?

2004-05-30T10:20:00.000-05:00

(Harry S. Truman is actuall shown in this photograph)
This is what a strong economy can buy you. Can you afford one of these and provide a Million dollars a day just for standard operations around the globe?

We are having seconds thoughts ourselves in our moral struggle with Globalization...

This beauty cost us $5 billion to build. About 0.1% of our trade deficit's current value, carry the negative numeric value as well to our economy. Who does it serve? Us or Them?

Capability

o Top speed exceeds 30 knots
o Powered by two nuclear reactors that can operate for more than 20 years without refueling
o Expected to operate in the fleet for about 50 years
o Carries over 80 combat aircraft
o Three arresting cables can stop a 28-ton aircraft going 150 miles per hour in less than 400 feet

Size

o Towers 20 stories above the waterline
o 1092 feet long; nearly as long as the Empire State Building is tall
o Flight deck covers 4.5 acres
o 4 bronze propellers, each 21 feet across and weighing 66,200 pounds
o 2 rudders, each 29 by 22 feet and weighing 50 tons
o 4 high speed aircraft elevators, each over 4,000 square feet

Capacity

o Home to about 6,000 Navy personnel
o Carries enough food and supplies to operate for 90 days
o 18,150 meals served daily
o Distillation plants provide 400,000 gallons of fresh water from sea water daily, enough for 2000 homes
o Nearly 30,000 light fixtures and 1,325 miles of cable and wiring
o 1,400 telephones, 14,000 pillowcases and 28,000 sheets

Just One More for the Gipper -- A Prime Example of Strength We Desperately Lack in Today's Leadership Material in America...

The Sad Image of the Next Non-Bush President of the United States

2004-05-30T08:53:00.000-05:00

Date: 07/31/1968
Photographer: Jack Kightlinger

Event:

President Lyndon B. Johnson listens to tape sent by Captain Charles Robb from Vietnam.

Location:

Cabinet Room, White House, Washington, DC

Description:

President Lyndon B. Johnson listens to tape sent by Captain Charles Robb (his son-in-law) from Vietnam.

Collection:
WHPO

Topic:
Vietnam

How to Conduct Trade Agreements: LBJ Style

2004-05-30T08:42:00.000-05:00

I would venture to say that the United States Congress is probably the busiest place on earth for perpetual negotiations & agreements, wouldn't you say?

Did I Mention the Importance of Aircraft Carriers?

2004-05-30T08:28:00.000-05:00

Sun May 30, 5:12 AM ET Add Business - Reuters to My Yahoo!

By Samia Nakhoul

KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia was tightly guarding its vast energy network, still running as normal after a militant attack in Khobar, as its oil minister planned on Sunday to reassure Western executives over security.

World oil markets have been on edge over the possibility of a militant strike in top crude exporter Saudi Arabia, now pumping more than 9 million barrels daily in a bid to cool scorching prices.

But a purported statement from al Qaeda boasting of a hit on "American companies...specialized in oil" and claiming the attack on the eastern oil city of Khobar will heighten dealers' concern about supply security in the Middle East.

"No Saudi Aramco facilities or personnel were affected by the incidents in al-Khobar on May 29, 2004, and normal operations continue at all of the company's installations," state-run Saudi Aramco said in a statement received by Reuters.

"...the company is committed to carrying out the Saudi Arabian government's policy of providing a reliable supply of oil to meet world energy demand."

Suspected al Qaeda militants killed some hostages after Saudi commandos stormed a building on Sunday to rescue some 50 foreigners in a Khobar housing compound. Hostage-taking is a new twist in the wave of militant violence sweeping the kingdom.

But pledges of secure supplies from oil giant Saudi Aramco might not go far enough to soothe jittery world markets, where prices again were threatening to pierce the $40 a barrel mark. Markets reopen on Tuesday after a long weekend holiday.

"The attack has some shock value for oil prices, but things may calm down again," said Peter Gignoux, senior oil adviser at New York-based GDP (news - web sites) Associates.

"This was a terrible act of terrorism, but it hasn't had any impact on Saudi oil production or exports."

SAUDI SET TO SOOTHE OIL EXECS

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi was due to meet senior Western oil executives later on Sunday at Aramco headquarters in nearby Dhahran to ease their concern over security, a Western industry source said.

The state oil company's "top priority is to ensure the security of its employees, dependants, facilities and communities, by working closely with Saudi government authorities," said the Aramco statement.

The kingdom's well protected energy infrastructure has yet to be struck by militants, but some dealers feared emboldened fighters might shift from soft targets and attack production and export facilities.

Despite the fresh weekend violence, Western oil majors said they were unlikely to pull out of the oil-rich kingdom.

Executives from Royal Dutch/Shell, Total and LUKOIL had lived at the Oasis compound, scene of the hostage ordeal.

"I don't expect a mass exodus, but families will consider leaving," said a Western oil executive.

The Saturday attack in Khobar comes just days ahead of a meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in Beirut where the cartel is due to consider a big increase in output limits.

Saudi Arabia, the only OPEC (news - web sites) member with any significant immediate spare capacity, has made clear it will pump real extra volumes of some 700,000 bpd, irrespective of quotas.

By Golly, guess who is coming to town in the very near future to secure this area? Could it be the USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT (CVN 71)?

They are great Roving Platforms for things that Sting like a Bee,

My Friends: Bob Reich & CNN

2004-05-30T08:25:00.000-05:00

From: Michael L. Masters
To: lou@cnn.com ; wolf@cnn.com
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 10:58 AM
Subject: CNN: Continue Waving that Flag for Us Poor Souls

Wolf,

I am so glad that CNN has taken up the 'battle axe' and is swinging it against our current Economic Crisis for the people. I have been watching Lou's progress on this issue and I am finally glad that Lou's segments are being quoted on the House floor -- it's about time.

I thought your segment on Jan 29 with Dear Abby was excellent! Just as President Clinton said that day to the press and Democratic folks, "You need to put a face to this issue". Once again, he is absolutely right when it comes to domestic policies. For 110 million voices and opinions to be distilled into the No. 1 issue from a well respected source of advice, was simply amazing. I hope her insight and conviction on this issue will make it stick on top of somebody's agenda in Washington.

Before 2002, I was accustomed to paying $50k plus for Federal & State, Fica, Medicare deductions; annually. Since then, I haven't been able to find much value for my yearly contributions. It must benefit somebody else instead, and that is becoming a problem for us middle class folks. Furthermore, I don't even think we are an element of anybody's statistics -- especially those of us upper 5 figure and 6 figure unemployed, highly skilled folks that the "system" has cut the cord on. If you are not on unemployment insurance anymore, how can they know your status? They don't want to know in my opinion, it reduces the size and volume of the statistical reports.

Here's what really galls me --- when I was officially laid off on the day that George Harrison died, I trotted off to my local DOL center to make my claim for unemployment insurance. During group orientation on the 'ins & outs' of unemployment compensation, they separated us into (2) groups: those that they could help get a job and those that they were not equipped to assist and it kinda went like this: those of you that make $60k or over don't have to attend our required programs like the others. All you have to do is submit your weekly status to our online website. Good Luck and Good Bye.

I would have to say that we are at a crossroads right now, and somebody will have to make the tough decisions to get us out of this mess and get us back on track. The 'root cause' finger is currently pointed at Globalization and rightly so. Since the USA is the largest basket for consumers in the world, we should have the upper hand you would think. Or maybe the 'needs of the few out weigh the needs of the many?' Interesting concept.

When searching for the lost Holy Grail one only has to ask this simple question: "Who does it serve?". If a case can be presented that confirms Globalization is actually good for us --- then lets have that debate out in the open on the floor. Otherwise, we need to change our strategy and course to recover and build on what we have lost and put a barricade over the opening of that lurid, dangerous mine that leads to nowhere.

I am sorry, as an American, I do not desire my country to be turned into a 3rd World country for anybody's gain. And most 3rd World countries are defined by the simple fact that they have little or no middle class income populations in their economies. Is this the path we want for ourselves and our children and their children's children?

In closing I would have to say that this being my 4th recession, that I have never witnessed the utter and complete failure of our country's pillars of support to illustrate the lack there of. And one of the critical pillars is the media. When government of the people, for the people stray, the burden falls on our abundance of free press to get the message out to that entity and enable them to focus on our issues and get them back on track.

I am sorry, once again to say, that the only media I see waving the flag for us lost souls in America is CNN, thanks to Lou Dobbs, Wolf Blitzer, and the many fine producers working for us and CNN.

Regards,
M

PS: Just few suggestions to anybody that might be listening,

Unemployment Disability from Social Security - Wasn't the charter of Social Security Administration intended to provide 'Social Security' to the American people during times of adversity? If so, then for those of us that have paid in to the system generously without 401k's or have exhausted such plans, should we not be eligible for disability due to the current economic adverse conditions and provide the means to add fuel to this economy? Top Economic advisors think so.

Make the Phone Ring with Career Professionals - In the words of 'supply and demand': when demand is high you can afford to wait for the phone to ring, but once it doesn't ring anymore, you need to pick up the phone and make some calls to your customer base and rally them to your supply. For the high skilled, high income professionals, headhunters are their life-line to their next career move. Since the fall of the stock market and such, these headhunters went bankrupt or adapted to low producing ventures. Networking is KING in today's job market -- without it you are drifting around like a satellite in outer space, much like the adventures of the old TV show, Lost in Space.

Therefore, I would recommend that the DOL hire these headhunters as consultants, set goals, and measure the effectiveness of the program and produce results. The current scheme of the Lottery or Bingo style job market game is not very productive in the short-term period we have. We need results and we need it now. How are we gonna pay the deficit down and provide Social Security with the funds to service the ever looming baby boom massive retirement on the horizon making ZERO to 1/3 to 1/2 of our normal income? This does not compute. Make a list of those unemployed middle to upper income workers, descending by years out of work, and then one by one aggressively market them and place them wherever they may land.

Shutdown the Iraq Program - we simply can't afford it right now. With or without face it really doesn't matter because at home in America, we are unemployed, transitioning empty faces in a crowd, slowly our life forms are becoming ghosts that can only haunt the living -- we have very little else to do, or offer, or contribute.
----- Original Message -----
From: Robert Reich
To: mmasters@ispwest.com
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2004 4:45 PM
Subject: RE: Forum 2004 - A Skilled Workforce: A stronger Economy

Mike,

Many thanks, and thanks for your ideas, too.

Bob Reich

America First! The Vision and Structure at a Glance

2004-05-30T08:10:00.000-05:00

I believe that the America First! organization should be structured very much like our current govt, with a little tweak here and there and a slice there.

Currently, our fed govt is structured into (3) independent branches: Executive, Legislative, & Judicial all enclosed by our constitution.

I would suggest this structure for America First!

 Board Members (Judicial)
 President, Cabinet, & Staff (Executive)
 State & County Advocates (Legislative)

Board members would serve for life, just like our Supreme Court fellas have it. However, the board dictates the vision and mission of the organization to the Executive fellas, and they have the power to replace anybody in the Executive branch.

The Legislative branch would fulfill the role as the ADVOCATES for the people and lift them up in the true spirit of AMERICA FIRST! This branch would have a State Speaker for each state and County Advocates for each county within each state. These advocates would be responsible for surveying the local hearts & minds and getting the job done at the local level and coordinate AMERICA FIRST! issues with state & local govt officials; face to face.

The Executive branch would be required to poll the State Speakers on issues and status; weekly. Their mission would be to lobby Congress and the White House and Corporate America in the best interests of AMERICA FIRST!

All members will collaborate together using top of the line secure collaboration software and the people we serve will have access to all members via public forum software. This will assist in benchmarking and providing the organization with a balance scorecard system to measure our success by the people for the people.

Each branch member would earn whatever corresponding govt official earns to level the playing field; therefore, the President would be paid $200K per year. State Speakers would be paid $150K (estimating Senate payroll figures) per year. County Advocates receive equal pay as their County Executive receives. Thus providing a fair and balanced and transparent leadership structure.

Okay, that is the structure. Now, what do we do with it?

AMERICA FIRST! will compete with the govt and the banking industry on all levels. We are going to duplicate every economic development & recovery program that the govt has, programs that actually work, and we are gonna do it better, quicker, and smarter… like the speed of sound: Mach II.

We are going to empower Americans of all walks of life to move to the middle and up. However, unlike govt’s pandering methods, we will focus and prioritize them from the top down based on value and revenue impact to the economy.

Our Vision will rid the McJobs and Wally World power grip on the young adult population. AMERICA FIRST! will provide a comprehensive hand up, apprenticeship program to this segment and return these jobs back to teenagers, and most of all: buildup the middle class.

Our Vision will rescue the retired that are now having to work at grocery stores to pay for their medications by providing them access to capital & career placement and start their own businesses or whatever.

Our Vision will finally provide relief and recovery for the upper & middle class American by providing them too the access to capital & career placement and start their own businesses or whatever.

Our Vision will provide business recovery expertise on a fee, pro bono, or barter basis by our membership network.

Our Vision will shape and improve AMERICA’s trade agreements and trade balances both internally and globally. This oversight will counteract large global & domestic monopolies and influences, and provide alternative solutions to serve the best interests of the United States, fairly.

All five pieces of this vision as outline above can not be achieved without COACHING & BUSINESS CONSULTING PROFESSIONALS. Personalization: Time, attention, and care lacks in today’s career placement govt programs. AMERICA FIRST!’s primary goal is to empower our HUMAN CAPITAL and end the career opportunities & placement practices of the past: The Lottery & Bingo methods. AMERICA FIRST! will provide the network and influence to improve the quality of life for all Americans by whatever means possible --- to be the force to breakdown these barriers. If that means a State Speaker needs to call on a few corporate leaders to assist in the placement of an individual --- so be it! Even if that means the President of AMERICA FIRST! needs to make a few calls or communiqués to hard to reach opportunities --- he will be required to do so!

Funding for AMERICA FIRST! will come by (3) sources: Foundations, Donations, & Venture Capital agreements. The first two are obvious; therefore, I will describe what my vision is for Venture Capital funding.

AMERICA FIRST! will use it’s leverage to underwrite local business loans and in turn will receive partnership percentage of the startup business for whatever period of time agreed between both parties. By using this method, AMERICA FIRST! will not tie up financial resources that can be better spent elsewhere; however, I would strongly urge that proper risk management assessments and accrues to be maintained and supervised at all times.

Basically, this is another example of AMERICA FIRST! competing with one the govt programs, SBA, which lacks speed and might.

If all of these initiatives have the opportunity to converge, then AMERICA FIRST! will be the catalyst and the centerpiece for much of the job/business creation/retention of the 21st century AMERICA. Members that are service providers can assist our clients that are in need. Apprentice candidates can be utilized by our members and our clients or even by us.

This isn’t rocket science folks, it’s just pure common sense. We need to rollback the damage that has been done, salvage what we can, and plant a new field of dreams.

My Email MoveOn.Org, Thursday, May 27, 2004 10:33 AM

2004-05-30T07:59:00.000-05:00

----- Original Message -----
From: Michael L. Masters
To: webmaster@moveonpac.org
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2004 10:32 AM
Subject: Re: What do you think about Iraq?

From: Mike Masters

To: Wes Boyd, Joan Blades, Carrie Olson, & Peter Schurman

RE: You are Close -- now Take It to the Limit

Your recent newsletter said,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

----- Original Message -----
From: Wes Boyd, MoveOn.org
To: Mike Masters
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 8:44 PM
Subject: What do you think about Iraq?

Dear MoveOn Member,
Yesterday, President Bush tried to respond to mounting criticism of his management of the crisis in Iraq. The American people were looking for a sign that Bush understands the situation and is adapting American policy to the realities on the ground. But in this speech, the administration just repackaged failed U.S. policy as a five-step plan. They obviously don't get it. We've got to do better.

First, of course, we're demanding accountability from the Bush administration. We're demanding a change in leadership at the Pentagon. Without this change, nothing in U.S. policy will change. But the problem remains: even with new leadership, how do we get out of this disastrous situation?

Most of the people we've talked with share two conflicting instincts: (1) that the U.S. occupation must end before Iraq can move forward but (2) that we have a responsibility to the Iraqi people to protect them from a descent into civil war. The Bush administration has failed to project any plan ending the U.S. occupation, and instead is focusing on an almost meaningless June 30th turn over of "soveriegnty." Recently, two mainstream policy analysts, James Steinberg and Michael O'Hanlon, made an interesting proposal in a Washington Post Op Ed, a call to "set the date" for the end to the U.S. occupation. We've attached the Op Ed below.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is my suggestion for the direction of an actionable PAC to assist the BIG PICTURE from a previous posting of mine to a candidate for the US Senate,

Too cut fed spending is not necessarily the object of the game, even though it is always in the frontal lobe of the Republican mantra. Currently, they have reversed this so called sin by spending more than they have in order to prop up our economy & sustain military operations. Never lose sight of the power of the military complex and supporting industry providers. Just visit LBJ's grave and ask him his historical experience with this group.

Fed spending should be a proportional percentage of GDP. When times are good we invest and save; other times we are forced to cut back. I believe President Clinton followed this concept very well and look back to what he achieved.

Therefore, please look back at Fed spending and GDP values and calculate the % of the cost of doing business since 1901. You might be amazed!

Also, keep in mind that we have a disadvantage/advantage with our superpower status & required assets to sustain this status; whereas, most countries ( competitors ) don't have/need this added value. This upper hand is very costly and threatens our ability to be competitive in the new globalization game.

My Therodore Roosevelt Diplomacy imitation wrote:
"As far as International TRADE goes, here is my two cents:

You wanna talk about trade agreements with the United States, meet me on an Aircraft Carrier, yours or mine?

A Superpower who has saved the globe many times over has more value than the race to the bottom, sir!.

THANK GOD! our Aircraft Carriers were out to sea during Pearl Harbour or it would have truly been the scene in Belushi's film, 1941!

Aircraft Carriers and B-52s, ahhhh....do you got MILK? do you have any of these tools to protect yourself? Otherwise, take it or leave it!

Protectionism? Ah.... this is our home ball field and these are our rules.

Play poker with these boys, like my fellow colleage NIXON did with Russia & China, and call their BLUFF!

Who owns the airwaves of this Country? Who owns the telecommunications infracture of this Country?

I don't know much about this Information Age thing, but I do know enough to know that our so called friends overseas are using our technology against US!; therefore, I say:

PULL THE PLUG ON CHINA AND INDIA, RIGHT NOW!. You want to compete with us, compete with your own infrastructure.

WE NEED A PRESIDENT OF THE 21ST CENTURY, NOT A DOOR STOPPER!

I'm tired now. I am going to rollover in my grave and dream of a better tomorrow.... "

After listening to our beloved TR speak to us from the grave, wouldn't we conclude this simple fact from his message?

Due to our role as the World Care Giver & Superpower, and all of the trappings that go with it, how on earth do you expect this entity to compete with those that do not carry such a burden?

Therefore, our currently GLOBALIZATION policy is a plan for failure.

The NEXT STEP is: What do we do about it? Create Govt competition on all levels regarding ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT & RECOVERY: AMERICA FIRST! ( PLEASE SEE ATTACHMENT FOR DETAILS)

Regards,
M

PS: If you're focus does not include Economic Development & Recovery, can you please help me attain access to $100s of millions of foundation funds that are out there for such an entity?

Backgrounder:

Dear B & M,

I am sorry if I offended anybody. Am I trying to start a new party? No. I am trying to build up a non-profit organization to compete with the system and steer it into the right direction.

This org would be more action oriented than discussing policy issues. This org would hopefully pick up the slack where everyone has left off when it comes to middle class economic development & recovery issues.

Our current form of entitlements are paid for by the middle class; however, we are not qualifed to access these entitlements unless we race to the bottom. What kind of deal is that?

We need to network and heavily from the local on up to the national stage and put America First! What does this mean?

Mr. & Mrs. Middle Class has been laid off. Most likely there whole career path has evaporated. They most like hold degrees too. What are they to do when they come to the fork in the road: left is "experienced required" and right is "Sorry. You are over-qualified."? Make another path....

This org should facilitate or grant funds for these people to launch their own businesses with business development, coaching, consulting, etc. Local banks have reps having lunches & dinners with the big guys trying to land $10-100k business loans. Walk in and asked them for anything less and they laugh and ask you if have a track record of success? Forget it.

Therefore, how hard would it be for this org to [i]underwrite[/i] these loans with local banks? This org should move at the speed of sound to empower the millions of lost, unemployed middle class folks and leapfrog the SBA program.

B & M, people are losing their lives, their healthcare, their minds, their homes, and many of these people have families with children. Does anybody get on national TV anymore and say, "I feel your pain?" and "Here's what I am going to do now...".

I first got involved with forums after reading a very touching story by an airline pilot with 30 years experience. I was shocked and deeply saddened by his tortured soul; therefore, I found him on a pilot forum. What is a pilot to do when there are no pilot jobs in the entire US airspace?
Can you picture a pilot being accepted for an office job, a waiter, a carpenter? This guy finally got lucky and landed something 1/2-2/3's his salary in ENGLAND! This is nuts!

I just met a nice elderly gentleman just the other day at my local One Stop WIA center. My God, he had to be 65 years old and he was just laid off from Bellsouth after working 27 years as a wiring guy in the switching room. Who's gonna hire him at his age? Retrain? Retrain to what?

As far as treading on your Party goes, the org in question would contribute to your org and has no desire to confront the political process. It's desire will be to respond to actionable items and pick those other orgs that are inline with the org's vision and support them.

This is truly amazing stuff that I learned about in 2003. Religious groups form constantly using this fundraising path from Corporate foundations -- it's huge! Why not duplicate and put those funds to better use than basket weaving?

This org needs to have influencial members on the board in order to attract more and more foundation approvals. Some candidates that I would consider out the shoot could be: Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Warren Buffett, Lee Iaacoca, Jack Welch, Bill Gates, George Soros, etc...

I would be happy to answer any of your questions regarding my post that you thought were confusing.

I personally have been involved in this demise way before anybody knew it was coming down. My company knew the recession was forming in the summer of 1999. We didn't feel the effects until 6 months or so later due to the nature of our business. My company was the largest specialized carrier in North America that hauled 80% of the infrastructual needs of US, Canada, & Mexico for clients like Department of Defense, Boeing, Siemens, Westinghouse, General Electric, etc...

The day finally came when I was being asked to help with another downsizing effort and I simply refused and said, "look here instead!" My company at it's height was a $450M company that employed 6,000 people; nationwide. In 2000 we were a $350M company that employed 3,000 people. After the dot.com bust in the summer of 2000, I saw the writing on the wall for IT and that's when I stepped up to the plate and took on my senior management team and in the end... outlasted all of them except for (2). When the bondholder's took over my company in Dec 2000, I was lucky enough to intervene and stop their attempt at liquidating the company scheduled for Feb 2001. All it took was top hat dancing, a history lesson, some facts & figures, and a bunch of truth. They wanted their $80M back and that was all they came for, I must have had something on the ball that's value balanced with a $80M investment.

Unfortunately, it got worse and worse due to the lack of access to capital during this pre-recessionary period and when 9/11 happened it was all downhill from there. We laid off 2,000+ people and closed down 2/3rds of our business in September and my final official day was the day that George Harrison of the Beatles died.

I lost my rose colored glasses somewhere along the way...

Again, my intent is not to offend, but reach for actionable organizations.

Regards,
M