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Dollars and Sense Magazine – Is there Anyone Better?

July 13, 2009 by sapplanningadmin

What Kind of Financial and Economics Reporting Do We Deserve?

The differences between conventional media and the publication Dollars and Sense on the topic of economics and the present economic crisis is stark. From the conventional media the topic of the biases and corruption of our policy shapers such as Bernake, Geithner and Summers is never brought up. According to the conventional media they are simply “public servants”; Alan Greenspan was one of the top economists when selected to head the Fed (which he never was), and Bernake is a deep thinking scholar of the depression, who is providing the best lessons from that crisis to this one. What we are not supposed to notice is that all of these economists belong to a country club of the elite and are part of interlocking directorites. The only thing deep about them is the deep corporate welfare and consistently pro-financial indusrtry approach to every single policy decision. As Larry Summers is paid $5 million a year to do a few hours a week of influence peddling for a hedge fund, and the other decision makers are similarly on the take, their first question is always the following:

“How can we further enrich investment banks in particular and the financial industry generally. Secondly, how can we spin it so it sounds good to the average person”

Every article and television debate is centered around the same philosophy. In order for the country to do well, Citibank absolutely must be able to charge 20% interest. Any deviation from this is simply the first step on the “road to socialism.” The bias is so deep that during discussions of unfair credit card practicies, the typical show moderator will offer “If we restrict what credit cards can charge, then people won’t be able to get credit.” Are we the only one’s who are insulted by the fact that the moderators on these shows seem to work for Citibank? One’s financial well being as well as sanity is almost predicated upon not watching and reading the conventional media as it has a perverting effect both on one’s knowledge level and values. If Business Week or Fortune Magazine ever had a thought opinion or glancing emotion that was not pro corporate and completely anti worker, enviroment and sustaintability, we would like to know what it was. The financial media landscape is abysmal, but we have an antidote.

Dollars and Sense (D&S) writes from the perspective of a heretical concept in our time; that the economy should actually benefit the people that work in it. D&S actually questions the official story and provides financial and economics reporting within a context of values. Not mindless repetition of catch phrases regarding “free markets,” to paper over free rides for the utlra wealthy, but actual values. For most Americans, values are taught to be important, but only in certain settings. There are the values for “us,” but then the values for GM, Monstanto and Goldman Sachs, and because they are businesses and must make a profit, they can do things no one would tolerate from us personally. How this double standard of values was developed is the topic of a different article, but Dollars and Sense does not accept the double standard.  This is one reason why their coverage and writing is so clean.

Examples

The July edition of Dollars and Sense is a perfect example of what we are describing. In this one issue they offered the following articles.

  1. Why Bernake holds all the wrong assumptions and had all the wrong teachers in his education of what happened during the depression of the 30’s. Influenced by highly doctrinal economists such as Milton Freidman, the blame for the depression is dropped squarely on the government for its monetary policy. A nuanced view of the influence of large amounts of unprosecuted fraud by business at the time is papered over. This is the first article we have seen to actually question what Bernake’s conclusions were of his scholarship on the Great Depression, rather than blindly praising it.
  2. Media criticism of an anti-worker doctrinal articles written by the Wall Street Journal on the Chrysler bankrupcy that demonstrates how internally inconsistent this author is, and how he is simply writing “on demand” for elite interests. The article also scewers the concept of a “natural bankrupcy.” A natural bankrupcty according to the elite is where taxpayer money bails out a company, the large creditors get everything, and the worker gain nothing. The WSJ is deeply offended that this is not happening. Again, unless workers get nothing, we are on the road to socialism. (socialism is terrible, just as Sweden which has a higher standard of living and better quality of life than the US does — but they are socialist)
  3. A sober analysis of the present economic crisis, that you will certainly not find in the conventional media, and why the current economic crisis has its roots in long term trends and in economic repression.

Historically Correct

We performed an analysis. We want back through time on D&S’s website and checked old articles. What we found was both impressive and personally depressing. D&S is consistently correct years in advance of major economics tends. This is a record the financial media simply can not touch. The depressing part is if we had turned away from conventional media and begun reading D&S 13 years ago we would have been far better off, both from the perspective of our knowledge level, but also financially.  D&S is not only informative generally, it provides information can be acted upon. One of D&S’s greatest strengths is its ability to keep its readers away from asset bubbles. While most the people and media outlets we knew were fully engaged in the stock bubble or real estate bubble, D&S was questioning all of it. Everyone has the right to their own preference, but for us, we prefer to read publications that have actually been proven correct historically.

If you are tired of idiotic, elitist, temporarily focused and economically illiterate reporting, give D&S a try. Begin by sampling their website at http://www.dollarsandsense.org, but we highly recommend subscribing to them. The benefit of keeping way from asset bubbles is worth the subscription price many times over. Furthermore, its important to keep this independent voice healthy financially. Their magazine is a joy to read for those looking for sane financial and economics reporting.

Discosure Statement

We have done some technology advisement for D&S, but on a pro bono basis. We have no financial or other linkages with D&S.

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Jeffery Sachs Part of the Corrupt Power Structure

June 26, 2009 by sapplanningadmin

Columbia’s Fictional Bio

Jeffery Sachs’ Columbia webpage is effusive with accomplishments, committees he sits on, and presents him as both a genius and an all around great guy.



What is missing from from his resume is his work with Russia during the 1990s when he was one of the architects of Russia’s economic collapse, along with Larry Summers. Their ideas were both incredibly stupid, corrupt and damaging to Russia in a long term way that is hard to completely appreciate unless you lived through it. Jeffery Sachs now focuses on poverty reduction. This is ironic as he was so instrumental in increasing the poverty of Russians. Here is a brief explanation of Sachs involvement:

Through the late summer and fall of 1991, as the Soviet state fell apart, Harvard Professor Jeffrey Sachs and other Western economists participated in meetings at a dacha outside Moscow where young, pro-Yeltsin reformers planned Russia’s economic and political future. Sachs teamed up with Yegor Gaidar, Yeltsin’s first architect of economic reform, to promote a plan of “shock therapy” to swiftly eliminate most of the price controls and subsidies that had underpinned life for Soviet citizens for decades. Shock therapy produced more shock–not least, hyperinflation that hit 2,500 percent–than therapy. One result was the evaporation of much potential investment capital: the substantial savings of Russians. – http://www.thenation.com/doc/19980601/wedel/2

Memory

Its important to have a memory. Because Americans do not, we allow corrupt charlatans like Jeffery Sachs, Milton Friedman and Larry Summers prance around showing off their advanced degrees, while hoping we don’t notice they have been thoroughly purchased by the power structure. All of these men are more concerned with quality of their corporate funded hotel suites, their egos and prominence over the quality of their work. Having lived through it, many Russians do have a memory, many Russians do remember Sachs.

Sachs admits to no responsibility for the Russian catastrophe. When I interviewed him in November 2002, I asked him to comment on the (incontrovertible) fact that he’s viewed by scores of millions of Russians, as one journalist has put it, as either an emissary of Satan or of the CIA. He answered that he found this question “disgusting,” “perverse,” and like nothing he’s ever been asked before. The global elite leads a very insulated life. -http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Sachs.html

Its very simple. If you are a prominent person, there is no accountability. If you are Jeffery Sachs or Larry Summers, you can be wrong over and over again. You can sell out your objectivity to hedge funds, you can give terrible advice that negatively affects entire countries. In fact, Larry Summers is doing this again as an advisor to Obama….and nothing will even happen to him. Columbia University will write up web pages in your honor and your power and prestige will only grow.

References

http://www.thenation.com/doc/19980601/wedel

http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Sachs.html

http://rothkopf.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/03/13/slow_down_barack_youre_killing_us

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/dominic-lawson/dominic-lawson-jeffrey-sachs-is-wrong-once-again-rising-population-isnt-going-to-destroy-the-planet-444430.html


Posted in Corrupt Economists | Tagged , | Leave a Comment »

Obama Now Nothing But a Tool for Concentrated Power

June 23, 2009 by sapplanningadmin

Selling Out

The rapidity with which Obama has bought into every position promoted by the elite is absolutely spell binding, and makes one wonder if Obama believed a single speech he gave on the campaign trail. Obama lawyers have recently argued that Department of Justice officials that violated the constitution can not be prosecuted because anyone who works for the DOJ has complete immunity. This is the exact position of George W Bush’s lawyers! It also happens to be an illegal opinion and shocked the federal judge that had to listen to it.

In the areas of the economy, Obama’s adherence to the desires of the financial industry make it appear as if he was raised a Rockefeller or Vanderbilt. See this quote from Global Research.

The story is worse than just “Pres. Obama labored, and brought forth a mouse.” He is morphing into Joe Lieberman in reaching across the aisle for Republican support – and no doubt future campaign contributions from the financial sector. There also is a touch of Boris Yeltsin in sponsoring a financial “reform” disturbingly similar to what advisor Larry Summers backed in Russia – relinquishing government power to a banking elite (the notorious “Seven Bankers” in post-Soviet Russia). The Financial Regulatory Reform proposal promotes Wall Street’s “product,” debt creation, at the expense of the economy at large, and lets financial chieftains continue to self-regulate the debt industry – and by the way, to keep all their gains from the past decade’s worth of fraudulent lending, scot-free.

Larry Summers – A One Man Economic Disaster

Larry Summers (along with Jeffery Sacks) was one of the utterly corrupt economists who eviscerated Russia by providing IMF style economic “advice.” — coming up with the brilliant idea of stripping Russia of its assets and selling them to what eventually became the oligarchs. As we know Russia never recovered after advice from American economists and consulting firms, who cleaned up — Goldman Sacks style — now doubt eating at the finest Russian restaurants, while their corrupt advice caused Russians to have to sell their family heirlooms in makeshift markets in order survive. The American economists at the time called this act of desperation the flowering of — “Russian entrepreneurialism.” — no doubt between spoonfuls of Beluga caviar. As an American society we bear a tremendous responsibility for what we did to Russia, yet almost no one even knows about it. Of course its hard to have a conscious when you don’t know history and spend most your time either in front of the TV or at the local mall. Taking responsibility for your society’s actions won’t increase your income or status…so what’s the point really?

Larry Summers and Obama Are Coming After Us Next

Larry Summers has one of worst track records of any living economist of comparable prominence, and Obama makes him the head of his Council of Economic Advisors. However, that is just one of his many jobs. He works for a hedge fund peddling influence for $5 million per year, plus god knows what other directorships and think tank boards he sits on. Because of the massive piles of money the financial industry literally throws at him, he can only represent their interests. Their objectives are simple…concentrate economic power and financialize the economy. Unless the non-elite get with it, they will suck as much out of the economy as possible….just as they did with Russia.

Conclusion

It pains us to say this, but Obama has scammed everyone who hoped he would be different. He never clearly never believed anything he was saying, and is a more suave version of George Bush — or at least 90% of him. Its clear now that no US president is running anything, but is a paid actor for an increasingly out of touch elite that pulls their string. Obama’s statements are pure rhetoric, the best thing to do when Obama begins a speech is to change the channel. If you want to be lied to, why not watch an infomercial? Now begins the long process of opposing him. It would be nice to know what democracy actually tastes like in our lifetimes. It is difficult to see why we needed to have an election to get more of the same policies — but with a prettier wrapper.


Posted in Political Responsiveness | Tagged , | 2 Comments »

Union Facts is a Farce

June 19, 2009 by sapplanningadmin

False Front Specialist

The website unionfacts.com is a false front, or AstroTurf organization that refuses to reveal its funding. Their website is essentially a web of lies, not even misrepresentations, simply lies about unions. All the old stereotypes persist on this site. They have everything except a clip from Goodfellas. This is one of the many false fronts run by the lobbyist Rick Berman who dislikes labor standards, food safety, restrictions on cigarette smoke, and pretty much anything that is good for normal people. Bergman and his unethical wife make many millions from his false fronts.

FactsUnions

The Union Facts website seems to ossilate between hardline propaganda and pure fantasy. Its hard to find anything true on the site. It would be considered a humor site….much like the Onion, except its intended to look real. Several associates and I have spend over an hour reading, sharing and laughing at this ridiculous site. It is a site that should be shared with others. It’s that stupid.

What Americans Don’t Appreciate About Unions

Americans, particularly, those below 50 years of age, are by and large totally ignorant of the place unions have had in improving working conditions. Whenever we hear a comment about how extreme unions were in terms of their demands, we always ask “compared to what?” For instance, did unions ever ask for compensation which is 500x what most workers make? Did the unions ever bleed out pensions funds the way management has on routine occasion? Has a union ever pulled out $450 million in compensation from a hospital system as executives have done several times over? No union, in the history can approach the the abuse of power, greed and corruption that is on display by executives and CEOs on a daily basis. This present financial crisis was not caused by union members — trillions in losses were primarily caused by CEOs of the financial industry. Lets observe….how many trillions of losses have been caused by union “bosses” again? What if the financial industry had been unionized? Could it have helped reduce the excesses that occurred? Could they have helped serve as a counterbalance against excessive concentrations of power by financial executives? We think its very possible they could have.

Its Time to Start Blaming Unions for the Financial Crisis

The old story, brilliantly disseminated by pro-business groups, was that unions caused manufacturing jobs to go overseas because they were so unreasonable (unlike Nicaraguan sweat shops where workers can be beaten and raped by guards, and heavy metals from industrial waste can be dumped into their shanty town drinking water). Yes, with Nike paying workers 9 cents for a shirt that sold for $35 in the US, foreign workers did turn out to be a lot more “reasonable.”  With the powerful propaganda apparatus as their disposal, why hasn’t Wall Street done a better job of laying the blame for the financial crisis on the doorstep of those evil unions. The fact that unions don’t by in large operate in finance, should not stop the industry and unionfacts.com from taking a shot at it. I am sure if they were to pay Rick Berman say $500,000, he would be happy to create a website entitled unionscausedthecrash.com.

The Video Exxon, GM, Bechtel and Wall Mart Don’t Want You To See

This is a good video which actually talks about some of the things that unions brought to workers. Of course, its not approved by “unionfacts.com.” Note to unionfacts, if you refuse to declare who your funding sources are, your credibility evaporates. If you site is created by a lobbyist, your credibility goes into negative digits.

Explanation of Union Activities on The Real News Network

References

A full description of union facts is listed here.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Union_Facts

Posted in Alternate Economic Philosophies, False Fronts | Leave a Comment »

Hoover Siphons Off Education Funds from Stanford

June 18, 2009 by sapplanningadmin

Money Trail

We have written a number of times about how the Hoover Institute is a fake research institute which writes ridiculously pro-business papers and is directed by Stanford University. However, when we saw its relationship to Stanford in terms of its funding, we viewed Hoover in a new light. This topic was brought up in the excellent book Leasing the Ivory Tower. We quote from it below.

(Martin Andersen)..is silent about the Hoover Institute’s plundering of Stanford’s dollars for non-educational programs. During 1990-1991, over $4 million from Stanford’s general funds was poured into the Hoover Institute – at the expense of educational programs.

Who is Paying for Hoover to Publish Garbage?

This brings up the question of what percentage of Hoover’s budget is covered by Stanford and what percentage is covered by donations from corrupt businesses like Exxon and Chrysler, and under which they violate the spirit of the charitable contributions tax law. Hoover’s budget is over $25 million per year and it is thought that Stanford contributes at least $5 million to it. However, this is Stanford’s money, and one wonders how they justify to students spending general funds on a non-educational think tank that mistakes PR and industry supported doctrine for research. Could this be one of the reasons tuition is so expensive? The book above describes how university research parks, industry-university “partnerships” and other non-education activities are the real reason for the increasingly expensive tuition at many universities. Only people at Stanford can do something about this. The Stanford’s Student Union has already attempted to bring up the issue of Hoover, but much more needs to be done. Hoover bangs the drum for invading Iran, eliminating public schools, fighting environmental regulation and a host of other nasty positions. It is worth asking why Stanford general funds are being used to support this despicable institution.

References

http://www.amazon.com/Leasing-Ivory-Tower-Corporate-Takeover/dp/0896085031


Posted in Corrupt Economists, Think Tanks | Tagged , | Leave a Comment »

Michael Hudson on the Propaganda of the Business Cycle

June 18, 2009 by sapplanningadmin

Deja Vu

Here we go again….every several articles or interviews that we read from Michael Hudson lead to upturning the commonly held beliefs that were inserted in our mind by our propagandized business education, business controlled media, conversation with others or all of the above.

Flimsy Sanity Interview

In this excellent interview with the Flimsy Sanity blog Hudson explains that the very concept of a business cycle was manufactured by those elite interests opposed to government regulation, in order to present economic declines as natural and self correcting. Come to think of it, this reminds us of the advice provided by “investment advisers” and CEOs that the normal investor should not sell investments in bad times, but “hold out for the long haul.” Of course, what do investment advisers and CEOs do themselves? Well, they sell out as soon as they can, using inside information to beat the masses to the sell. Its important for the non-ultra elite to remember, much of the concepts that we think are true, have been implanted in us through a very heavy propaganda effort on the part of the ultra wealthy. This explains why so many people despise unions (while turning a blind eye to executive compensation) think they can personally benefit from investing in stock, and have a natural inclination to be against regulation.

Here is the quote below.

National Bureau of Economic Research by opponents of government regulatory policy. The fantasy is that the economy oscillates in a fairly smooth and regular sine curve. But this always has been a fiction. 19th-century writers didn’t speak of economic cycles, but rather of periodic financial crises. There is a slow buildup, and a sudden plunge, so the shape is ratchet-shaped.


Posted in Deliberately False Financial Information, Economic HIstory | Tagged | Leave a Comment »

Hoover Institute Does Fake Interview With John Bolton

June 13, 2009 by sapplanningadmin

Was This Interview Produced by Bechtel or Haliburton?

We actually found this clip just by accident, but it shows the problem we have with FloraTV. This is John Bolton, who is a Bush Administration bag man being interviewed by the Hoover Institute, which is a fake research institute that sits on the Stanford campus. See more on this here.

http://counterecon.com/2009/04/17/the-hoover-institute-is-a-front-for-stanfords-political-views/

Hoover receives funding from oil interests and defense complex interests like Bechtel, that make money from no bid contracts for rebuilding countries that the US devastates with bombing and occupation. Bolton gives a long winded response, but its disingenuous. He wants Iran to be considered threat (as Iraq was a threat of course). What he does not declare is why. Its obvious that it is because Bechtel and other contributors pay him (either directly or indirectly) to say this, just as they pay the Hoover Institute to publish fake research. If Iran can be attacked, then Bechtel and Haliburton will make a mint “rebuilding it.” The new joke with our privatized military is that we turn over targeting to the contractors who will then select the buildings they most want contracts to rebuild and have them bombed. With an increasingly privatized military, Bolton and others desire a permanent war — because its profitable, not that it has a single thing to do with US national security.

Bolton: International Man of Mystery?

Why is John Bolton considered an expert on foreign policy. He is an attorney and a bulldog for the administration. He was placed as a representative to the UN by Bush to alienate people at the UN, that is to act a bulldog. He has no foreign policy background, no military background, nothing that would put him in a position to be interviewed on international topics.

_____________________________________

Conservative Experts

Who are these people the right sends as “experts?” See the list:

  • Cheney on military and torture matters (hated by the military, received 5 deferments from participating in Vietnam, send major contracts to Haliburton and lives in perpetual conflict of interest)
  • McCain on military matters (served in the military, but was one of the worst pilots in the history of the US Navy — a grand total of 5 planes crashed to his name, the final one where he was captured — would have been grounded, if his father was not an admiral)
  • Sarah Palin on energy (no need to go into this one)
  • John Bolton on foreign policy (no experience, no objectivity, corrupt)
  • Condolezza Rice on foreign policy (widely considered the worst National Security Advisor in history — was utterly dominated by Rumsfeld and Cheney, also considered one of the worst Secretaries of State in US history. A hand puppet. Holds a PhD, but her observations are so trite, it almost impossible to tell.)

Why does the right consistently present people of so little natural capability and so little background and present them as experts?

_____________________________________

Aside from lacking international qualifications or intellectual capability,  he is compromised by his closeness to large defense contractors who like to attack countries so they can gain contracts.

FloraTV

The fact that FloraTV does not state the funding or biases of its interviews, significantly debases their credibility. They do this in economics and politics, and merely present the “ideas” of elite interests. FloraTV is a joke. If you want to know what the most corrupt people are thinking and what they want, head over to http://fora.tv/fora/showthread.php?t=258. Their tagline itself is a joke. It reads “feed your inner genius.” We have a better tagline for Flora  – “Indoctrinate Your Inner Mental Midget.”

Posted in Intellectual Fraud | Tagged | Leave a Comment »

Michael Hudson On Debased Economics

May 28, 2009 by sapplanningadmin

Understanding a Historical Perspective

Unlike most economists, Michael Hudson actually knows the history of economics. Understanding this he can see how economics has changed and actually become perverted to simply service the interests of concentrated capital. In this article..

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13702

…he describes and area of study that has lost its way.

Unfortunately for us – and for reformers trying to rescue our post-Bubble economy – the history of economic thought has been suppressed to give the impression that today’s stripped-down, largely trivialized junk economics is the apex of Western social history. One would not realize from the present discussion that for the past few centuries a different canon of logic existed. Classical economists distinguished between earned income (wages and profits) and unearned income (land rent, monopoly rent and interest). The effect was to distinguish between wealth earned through capital and enterprise that reflects labor effort, and unearned wealth from appropriation of land and other natural resources, monopoly privileges (including banking and money management) and inflationary asset-price “capital” gains. But even the Progressive Era did not go much beyond seeking to purify industrial capitalism from the carry-overs of feudalism: land rent and monopoly rent stemming from military conquest, and financial exploitation by banks and (in America) Wall Street as the “mother of trusts.”


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Intermediaries the Heart of Darkness?

May 19, 2009 by sapplanningadmin

64t.jpg

Money for Nothing

Wanting to make money from essentially matching supply and demand is a hallmark of the unethical person. These types of jobs do little else but match supply and demand.

  • Stock Brokers
  • Real Estate Agents
  • Recruiters
  • Automotive Dealerships

Education

The logic many of them use to justify their existence is that they educate their clients. However, what type of education can a client expect to get from someone who’s only objective is to sell them something that they have access to?

Free Markets

The issue is that even with the arrival of computers, intermediaries strive to do business “the old fashioned way.” A the same time they speak about the importance of free markets. Here are some ways intermediaries interfere with markets:

Conclusion

People who are attracted to intermediary roles are looking for easy money and are essentially dishonest. If real economics were applied then we would actually use technology to reduce the need for intermediaries and create more efficient economy. The rule is simple, the money that is given to intermediaries above and beyond their contribution is both taken from the individuals who actually work, and decreases the efficiency and increases the costs of buyers and sellers coming to mutually agreeable transactions. If people are curious how to improve any economy, the answer is simple – reduce the costs of intermediaries through  the creation of public on-line databases. Place the important information in the public domain, so that no one owns it.

Posted in Capitalism | Leave a Comment »

Stanford has a Taste for Facsism – and Condi

May 4, 2009 by sapplanningadmin

condi2

Stanford seems to be trying to monopolize the acquisition of people who are both evil and consistently wrong. They recently re-hired Condoleeza Rice as a professor and set her up as a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute. Largely regarded as “a hand puppet” with very few original ideas, and willing to repeat almost any false or idiotic line of reasoning, its hard to see what type of actual “research” she will be producing at either Stanford or at Hoover. Actually, its likely most of her research will be ghost written for her and she will just need to sign her name to Hoover’s drivel. She is extraordinarily subordinated to power and will do anything to support it no matter how twisted or illegal. Her main role now is as an apologist for illegal activities of the outlaw administration that she was once a part of. She does not think waterboarding is torture and believes 9-11 justifies all of the illegal activities undertaken by the US military and law enforcement that followed the event.  If laws were enforced equally, she would now be facing criminal prosecution. She is considered one of the weakest heads of the State Department in US history, and the weakest National Security Adviser by a very wide margin. For all of these reasons, she is a perfect fit for the Hoover Institute.

We have written how Stanford uses a fake research institute which, because Stanford has a fascist political agenda, it uses to publish fake and non-peer reviewed research.

http://counterecon.com/2009/04/17/the-hoover-institute-is-a-front-for-stanfords-political-views/

We have charted their hires and have observed a consistent authoritarian and fascist leaning in the type of people they bring into the Hoover Institute as “senior fellows.” Their previous pro-torture hire was Donald Rumsfeld.

http://counterecon.com/2009/02/05/stanford-lowers-itself-by-having-the-hoover-institute/

The Hoover Institute or the Torture Institute?

Rumsfeld proved such an embarrassment and public image problem that he has been removed from the Hoover website. Other people who have been employed by Hoover as “senior fellows” include Milton Friedman, who was, through his support of Augusto Pinochet, apparently either unconcerned with torture or strongly in favor of it. One of Milton Friedman’s main concepts was to have societies in such a devastated state that they were finally ready for his form of “economic shock therapy.” This is well documented in Naomi Klein’s book “The Shock Doctrine.” Friedman’s economic philosophy centered on stripping away protections for individuals and privatizing the most basic services like water management (as was done in Equador and Bolivia by Bechtel and has been roundly internationally condemmed) and then increasing the price to exhorbinant levels and letting those who cannot afford it do without.

http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/world/latin-america/water-privatization/ecuador/letter-to-bechtel-concerning-guayaquil-ecuador

Friedman had a term for this, it was called “market liberalization.” Concentrated power has an entire economic nomenclature for what is more generally termed corruption or fraud. Friedman was such an effective for promoter of corporate pillage that he worked for Hoover for decades.

Who Else Works for Hoover?

Other people employed by Stanford-Hoover include global warming deniers and other freinds of Exxon. Hoover is a lobbying and public relations firm masquerading as a think tank, and they are working behind the scenes to undercut environmental rules, public education and helping to promote war. Stanford is extremely proud of their creation and the top adminstrators and fund raisers see it as a great accomplishment. All of this is to increase the wealth of their major contributors who pre-define the research results they want published by Hoover. As with other neocons, they have been beating the drum for attacking Iran, ostensibly because they are close to developing one of something that we have a hundred thousand of (a nuclear weapon). They of course also have something else Hoover’s donors have in interest in – oil. Because of this the neocons, Condi included, would like to bring them “democracy.” As we find the time, we will be looking into the background of other Hoover Institute fellows.

Addendum

Bechtel has been a major recipient of no bid contracts in both Latin America and Iraq. It is also likely that Bechtel is a contributor to Hoover. Bechtel shares many associations with Hoover, the most prominant being George Schultz who was both a Senior Fellow at Hoovers and sat on the Bechtel board of directors. George Schultz was mentored by Milton Friedman and was famous for promoting the concept that Nicaragua was a was mortal threat to the United States, and was an architect behind US policy towards the country that lead to torture by the CIA and by US backed Nicaraguan security forces. Many of these were organized out of Honduras and was managed by the US Embassator to Honduras, John Negroponte who has such a strong record of supporting and coordinating torture for US interests under Reagan, that he was the natural selection of George W Bush to be the Embassator to the United Nations. Negroponte is also a personal freind of both George Schultz. That makes the following list:

  • Condoleeza Rice
  • John Negroponte
  • George Schultz
  • Milton Friedman
  • Donald Rumsfeld

That is five people, four of which are strongly in favor of and assoicated with torture, and one who is has coordinated torture and who is strongly associated with both Rice and Schultz.

References

http://www.democracynow.org/2005/2/18/promoting_the_ambassador_of_torture_bush

Posted in Intellectual Fraud, Think Tanks | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment »

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