Humanity EmptyTop Down to Bottom Up

Today's politicians and political parties are more corrupt than the citizens from the biblical city of Babylon days. (https://bible.org/seriespage/5-rise-and-fall-babylon)

We the people have allowed ourselves to be governed Not by “the people for the people”, but rather by political parties for political parties for Corporations, Bankers and Unions.

Our governments have become corrupt with absolute power by controlling the appointments of supreme court judges through the political party in power at the time such appointments are made solely based on political preference for the experience of a political ideology of the political party in power at the time of such appointment. 

They (Political Parties) further control who their people puppets shall be as their party's mouthpiece to be put forward for a political party for the voters to elect to represent them, NOT the voter, Rather the various political party these party agents truly represent and seek office under.

Global trade agreements do not benefit the middle class or poor within countries but rather the political elite and their money backers’; international corporations; bankers; labour unions and political party leaders.

Do not believe me? Then look at the facts over the past 30 or 50 years. What affects the cost of homes for example. Simply put it’s PLR. Products, Labour and Regulations. 

Products of course represent material, labour wages regulations government buildings fire codes etc. 

With all these regulations by the government, the people's (purchasers) cost for insurance has not decreased, but rather greatly increased. Multinational insurance companies, of course, control those costs. 

Products also, for the most part, are now under the control of large international corporations while labour costs are controlled by, you guessed it, international unions.

In Toronto, for example, the average house cost in 1985 was $109,094. The median family income at that time was $31,965.(http://business.financialpost.com/personal-finance/mortgages-real-estate/now-and-then-do-canadian-homes-really-cost-that-much-more-than-30-years-ago)

Representing a 3.4 times income in 1985. Today the Toronto median family income is $68,110 as per  Statistics Canada with the average house price in May 2016 within Toronto for all homes was $782,051 as per TREB.(http://www.citynews.ca/2016/06/03/average-house-price-in-toronto-continues-to-rise-to-1-28m-in-may/)

Today in 2016 this represents an 11.48 times income. Keep in mind that the family median income in 1985 adjusted for inflation today represents $65,091 or 12.01 times that 1985 income adjusted for today. Thus a family’s median income since 1985 has in fact DECREASED by $3,019.

So much for free trade, political parties and your elected party puppets looking after the interest of you the voter for these past 30-plus years!

An article by Bill Bennett re: Trump

Written by the distinguished Bill Bennett PHD - Secretary of Education under Ronald Reagan Cultural studies at the distinguished and renown Heritage Foundation

 What I See Happening In a Trump Presidency

By Bill Bennett
"They will kill him before they let him be president.  It could be a Republican or a Democrat that instigates the shutting up of Trump.
Don’t be surprised if Trump has an accident.  Some people are getting very nervous:  Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett, Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton and Jon Corzine, to name just a few.
It's about the unholy dynamics between big government, big business, and big media.  They all benefit by the billions of dollars from this partnership, and it's in all of their interests to protect one another. It's one for all and all for one.  It’s a heck of a filthy relationship that makes everyone filthy rich, everyone except the American people.  We get ripped off.  We’re the patsies.  But for once, the powerful socialist cabal and the corrupt crony capitalists are scared.  The over-the-top reaction to Trump by politicians of both parties, the media, and the biggest corporations of America has been so swift and insanely angry that it suggests they are all threatened and frightened.
Donald Trump can self-fund.  No matter how much they say to the contrary, the media, business, and political elite understand that Trump is no joke.  He could actually win and upset their nice cozy apple cart.
It's no coincidence that everyone has gotten together to destroy The Donald.  It's because most of the other politicians are part of the a good old boys club.  They talk big, but they won’t change a thing.  They are all beholden to big-money donors.  They are all owned by lobbyists, unions, lawyers, gigantic environmental organizations, and multinational corporations – like Big Pharmacy or Big Oil.  Or they are owned lock, stock, and barrel by foreigners like George Soros owns Obama or foreign governments own Hillary and their Clinton Foundation donations.
These run-of-the-mill establishment politicians are all puppets owned by big money.  But there's one man who isn't beholden to anyone.  There's one man who doesn't need foreigners, or foreign governments, or George Soros, or the United Auto Workers, or the teacher's union, or the Service Employees International Union, or the Bar Association to fund his campaign.
Billionaire tycoon and maverick Donald Trump doesn’t need anyone’s help.  That means he doesn’t care what the media says.  He doesn’t care what the corporate elites think.  That makes him very dangerous to the entrenched interests.  That makes Trump a huge threat to those people.  Trump can ruin everything for the bribed politicians and their spoiled slave masters.
Don’t you ever wonder why the GOP has never tried to impeach Obama?  Don’t you wonder why John Boehner and Mitch McConnell talk a big game, but never actually try to stop Obama?  Don’t you wonder why Congress holds the purse strings, yet has never tried to de-fund Obamacare or Obama’s clearly illegal executive action on amnesty for illegal aliens?  Bizarre, right?  It defies logic, right?
First, I'd guess many key Republicans are being bribed.  Secondly, I believe many key Republicans are being blackmailed.  Whether they are having affairs, or secretly gay, or stealing taxpayer money, the National Security Agency knows everything.
Ask former House Speaker Dennis Hastert about that.  The government even knew he was withdrawing large sums of his own money from his own bank account.  The NSA, the SEC, the IRS, and all the other three-letter government agencies are watching every Republican political leader.  They surveil everything.  Thirdly, many Republicans are petrified of being called racists, so they are scared to ever criticize Obama or call out his crimes, let alone demand his impeachment.  Fourth , why rock the boat?  After defeat or retirement, if you’re a good old boy, you’ve got a $5 million-per-year lobbying job waiting.  The big-money interests have the system gamed.  Win or lose, they win.
But Trump doesn’t play by any of these rules.  Trump breaks up this nice, cozy relationship between big government, big media, and big business.  All the rules are out the window if Trump wins the Presidency.  The other politicians will protect Obama and his aides but not Trump.  Remember:  Trump is the guy who publicly questioned Obama's birth certificate.  He questioned Obama's college records and how a mediocre student got into an Ivy League university.  Now, he's doing something no Republican has the chutzpah to do.  He's questioning our relationship with Mexico; he's questioning why the border is wide open; he's questioning why no wall has been built across the border; he's questioning if allowing millions of illegal aliens into America is in our best interests; he's questioning why so many illegal aliens commit violent crimes, yet are not deported; and he's questioning why our trade deals with Mexico, Russia and China are so bad.
Trump has the audacity to ask out loud why American workers always get the short end of the stick.  Good question!  I'm certain Trump will question what happened to the almost billion dollars given in a rigged no-bid contract to college friends of Michelle Obama at foreign companies to build the defective Obamacare website.  By the way, that tab is now up to $5 billion.  Trump will ask if Obamacare's architects can be charged with fraud for selling it by lying.  Trump will investigate Obama's widespread IRS conspiracy, not to mention Obama's college records.  Trump will prosecute Clinton and Obama for fraud committed to cover up Benghazi before the election.  How about the fraud committed by employees of the Labor Department when they made up dramatic job numbers in the last jobs report before the 2012 election?
Obama, the multinational corporations and the media need to stop Trump.  They recognize this could get out of control.  If left unchecked, telling the raw truth and asking questions everyone else is afraid to ask, Trump could wake a sleeping giant.  Trump's election would be a nightmare.  Obama has committed many crimes.  No one else but Trump would dare to prosecute.  He will not hesitate.  Once Trump gets in and gets a look at the cooked books and Obama's records, the game is over.  The goose is cooked.  Holder could wind up in prison.  Jarrett could wind up in prison.  Obama bundler Corzine could wind up in prison for losing $1.5 billion of customer money.  Clinton could wind up in jail for deleting 32,000 emails or for accepting bribes from foreign governments while Secretary of State, or for misplacing $6 billion as the head of the State Department, or for lying about Benghazi.  The entire upper level management of the IRS could wind up in prison.
Obamacare will be de-funded and dismantled.  Obama himself could wind up ruined, his legacy in tatters.  Trump will investigate.  Trump will prosecute.  Trump will go after everyone involved.  That’s why the dogs of hell have been unleashed on Donald Trump.
Yes, it's become open season on Donald Trump.  The left and the right are determined to attack his policies, harm his businesses, and, if possible, even keep him out of the coming debates.  But they can't silence him.  And they sure can't intimidate him.  The more they try, the more the public will realize that he's the one telling the truth".

Hydro One sell-off a BIG CON JOB?

By: Keith M. Summers

I am not an expert on whether or not Hydro One needs new management or if we would all be better served if Hydro One were not 100 per cent owned by the people of Ontario. But I do know that for $9 billion, the new shareholders should get somewhere around 30 per cent of the company, not 60 per cent.

Why is this a bad deal?

Because it is a bad price.

Investment people — like the people who have agreed to help Queen’s Park unload its majority stake in Hydro One — value companies based upon a couple of different factors. Sometimes the value of a company is based on the value of its assets: land, factories, intellectual property, and brand name recognition. The thinking being that better management of those assets might generate higher profits. Sometimes the value of a company is based on its profitability. A stable stream of income is worth paying good money for. Some companies are valued on their assets, others are valued on their earnings; sometimes it’s a little of both.

Hydro One is a stable generator of profits. It has been profitable since it was created out of the breakup of Ontario Hydro. Its profits have grown by 6.3 per cent per year for the last 14 years. It reported earnings of $749 million for 2014 — all of which belong to the people of Ontario. You and me.

Now, we all know that the province is in debt. $284 billion. That’s the bad news. The good news is that investors love to buy government bonds. Investors are so eager to buy Ontario bonds that they compete as to who will accept the lowest interest rate. In March, bond investors lent Ontario money for 10 years at a rate of 2.1 per cent. Our average interest rate on all our existing debt is only 3.8 per cent (and falling).

So, we have some numbers to work with: 1) Hydro One earns $749 million. 2) The province pays, on average, a 3.8-per-cent interest rate on its outstanding debt and 3) the province can borrow new money at rates as low as 2.1 per cent for 10 years. So here’s the question: how much should we, as Ontarians, receive for selling this $749-million income stream?

One way to calculate it is to say that $749 million pays all of the interest on $20 billion in existing government debt at a rate of 3.8 per cent. So, to accept anything less than $20 billion in cash is a bad deal.

Another way is to say that $749 million will pay all of the interest on $36 billion of new government debt at a rate of 2.1 per cent. So, to accept anything less than $36 billion in cash is a bad deal.

The number that doesn’t make sense is $15 billion. That’s the value that the premier has put on Hydro One. (If 60 per cent is worth $9 billion then 100 per cent is worth $15 billion). That is the number that Bay Street has convinced the Premier to accept for selling a profitable and growing business that earns $749 million with an earnings growth rate in excess of 6 per cent.

Why is she doing this?

I don’t know. But I can tell you why Bay Street is pushing this deal.

Greed. In addition to buying a blue-chip electricity monopoly at a rock-bottom price, they hope to make money by “underwriting” the deal. They intend to charge us a fee for selling our Hydro One to themselves at a terrible price. And a deal of this size could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars in fees.

I have a lot of respect for investment bankers. They are the guys (mostly guys, anyway) who help companies “go public” by convincing ordinary Main Street investors to buy shares in newly public companies. That takes a lot of work and is not without some risk.

What will not take a lot of work for them and involves no risk is selling Hydro One at a ridiculous, giveaway price.

This deal is the biggest con I’ve ever seen.

Source:

Keith M. Summers is a former hedge fund manager and was convicted of fraud in 2014. He is currently serving a three-year sentence. His book, Conned: How Wall Street rips you off and How to Fight Back will be published this fall.

http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2015/05/18/why-kathleen-wynnes-hydro-one-sell-off-is-a-sellout-cohn.html

Carding, itself, can be defined as a valued public safety reason.

In any day or age and especially in these times of worldwide terrorism, coupled with the disrespect for life, law, order and discipline, a civil society’s overall public safety through policing which involves the prevention and protection of all communities is not best served through a policy of speech precondition statement (you have the right to walk away) for interaction by the police with the public within Toronto is the wrong choice for overall public safety and policing on our streets or within our communities.

Toronto's former police chief Blair should be congratulated, not bullied and harassed by the media, for standing firm on behalf of the majority of law-abiding citizens against the demands of media activists and others who continually advocate against carding and other police policies that are valuable public safety measures used in protecting the public at large in these precarious times.

Watering down by strangling the public’s essential rights to public safety by restricting the policy of carding for all, through a policy of speech precondition interaction by police is wrong.

We all enjoy the right to remain silent after being arrested for a crime. In a civil and free society, it is also our civic duty to openly cooperate and respect a non-confrontational link between police officers doing their duty as members of the community to serve and protect us all.

No individual or group has the right to claim ownership of a city or community as Shawn Micallef of the Toronto Star would have you believe. Crimes of murder, theft, sexual assault, robbery, break and enter, stolen vehicles, drug charges etc are hourly reported throughout the city and communities. 

These daily occurrences of breaking laws by individuals regardless of their skin colour are red, white, blue, purple, black, green or yellow, necessitates the occasional arbitrary stops and sometimes intrusive questions of residents on our streets. And remains a very valid policy of public safety in protecting and serving citizens, residents and tourists within Toronto.

Toronto’s pressure group activists vow to go to court if THEIR reforms for police carding practices are not implemented by duly elected officials should be a clear indication to law-abiding citizens just who is attempting to be the puppet master of policing and public safety in our communities!

Watering down by dismissing the public’s essential rights to public safety with a policy of speech preconditioning interaction by police is wrong.

Source:

http://www.thestar.com/life/2015/04/17/police-carding-policy-has-made-this-column-a-sham-micallef.html

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2015/04/15/carding-reform-should-be-left-to-torontos-next-police-chief-editorial.html

Sanctions a Cowards Declaration of War and Insincere Approach to Diplomacy

Should the USA supply arms to the Ukraine government in addition to sanctions already applied against Russia, which is itself a form of a declaration of war, could lead not only Europe but the US itself into a nuclear WW3.

The U.S. has imposed sanctions, unilaterally or with other nations, far more frequently than any other nation in the world, or any multinational body in the world, including the United Nations.

Economic sanctions violate Just War principles and do not affect a country's military power but rather directly affect a nation's citizens.

Sanctions do NOT protect the innocent lives of civilians or preserve conditions necessary for decent human existence and definitely do not secure the basic human rights of a nation's people.

Further, on the basis of proportionality, the damage inflicted by sanctions is far greater to the populace of a nation than questionable offences being avenged. And in no way do sanctions present any probability of success when the outcome of sanctions not being known shall be futile.

The EU by joining following the Americas and British sanctions against Russia have in effect declared an economic war against Russia.

Sanctions as a means of peacekeeping and international governance, effectively escape ethical analysis as we do not judge them by the same standards we judge other kinds of harm done to innocents.

Yet, concretely, the hunger, sickness, and poverty which are ostensibly inflicted for benign purposes affect individuals no differently than hunger, sickness, and poverty inflicted out of malevolence.

Using or describing sanctions as a means of "peacekeeping" or "enforcing human rights" is an ideological move, which, from the perspective of concrete national experiences throughout history is simply counterfactual.

Sanctions are, at bottom, a bureaucratized, internationally organized form of siege warfare, and should be seen, and judged, as such.

The EU and indeed the Americans perhaps have awakened the Russian sleeping bear and the world not just Europe this time is in grave danger of an all-out nuclear war, thanks to sanctions and the arming of Ukraine with USA weapons.

Additional Info 

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201415/ldselect/ldeucom/115/11502.htm

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201415/ldselect/ldeucom/115/115.pdf

The Germans should reflect on their own history concerning Greeks odious debt.

As in the aftermath of World War II, the Allies, remembering the disastrous consequences of German reparations after the First World War, did not insist on their pound of flesh as Germany and the EU does now with Greece. 

The entire Nazi public debt, amounting to over 600 per cent of German GDP, was written off.

Further the German Federal Republic itself, after 1989, did not condemn former East Germany to austerity as a remedy for its fictitious communist economy. Instead, Chancellor Helmut Kohl allowed the eastern states to exchange their nearly worthless Ostmarks for Deutsch Marks at the inflated rate of 1 to 1, and then poured the equivalent of more than a trillion Euros into the reconstruction of the eastern economy.

Germany lived well beyond its means during the Nazi era, plundering the rest of Europe as well. If Germany had practised what they are now preaching for Greece, Germany today would be a much poorer country.

So now let’s couple Greek budget and tax reform with a large infusion of funds for economic modernization and public improvements in the spirit of the Marshall Plan and how it helped Germany after WW2?

Not with more funds but by writing down the Greeks EU debit by half so today and in the future Greeks young and old, instead of looking at 40 per cent unemployment, could gain productive jobs. 

And the entire Greek economy would gain a big macro-economic boost and a path to greater competitiveness within the EU. 

Similar to how Germany handled the East Germany unification bailouts and relief.

Most importantly, the EU would gain the moral authority to work with Greeks on politically awkward reforms. It’s one thing to grudgingly tolerate technocrats who are bleeding you dry in order to satisfy bankers—quite another to work with development specialists who come to Greece bearing gifts.

As has been said the EU and the ECB could call it the Merkel plan, so that Chancellor Angela Merkel might be remembered not as the jackbooted German who destroyed Greece but as the wise European leader who tempered austerity with sensible mercy.

The time is here for the IMF, World Bank and ECB to immediately recognize and understand that Greece, like other poor countries or developing ones, that have enormous unsustainable odious debts, has very little capacity to repay such a debt.

Further, it is morally and economically appropriate for Greek to refuse and question or recognize the legitimacy of this odious debt forced upon the Greek people and their economy.

Greece its government and citizens must not be held in this position of having to borrow more just to service debt, and no longer be asked to service such a debt when it has little to no trade surpluses.

The one way to keep Greece and the EU economically and financially together and for Greece to get out from under its debt is similar to that of how Germany got out of its debts after World War 2.

The current Greek repayable amount must be reduced by 50% and stretched out over 35 years. Also, such a new agreement must state that repayments on this reduced loan are due only when Greece has a trade surplus and that repayments be limited to 5% of export earnings.

This would give the E U countries, the Euro Zone central bank and all creditors a powerful incentive to import Greek goods and thus greatly assisting Greece's new reconstruction. 

 http://www.neweconomics.org/blog/entry/the-ecbs-quantitative-easing-programme

The Greek Peoples Odious, Enormous and Unsustainable Debt.

The IMF, World Bank and ECB must immediately recognize and understand that Greece, like other poor countries or developing ones that have enormous unsustainable odious debts have very little capacity to repay such a debt.

Further it is morally and economically appropriate for Greece to refuse and question or recognize the legitimacy of this odious debt forced upon the Greek people and their economy.

Greece its government and citizens must not be held in this position of having to borrow more just to service debt. And no longer be asked to service such a debt when it has little to no trade surpluses on an annual basis.

The only way for Greece to get out from under its debt is similar to that of how Germany got out of its debts after World War 2

The current Greek repayable amount must be reduced by 50% and stretched out over 35 years. Also, such a new agreement must state that repayments on this reduced loan are due only when Greece has a trade surplus and that repayments be limited to 5% of export earnings.  

This would give the E U countries, the EU central bank and all creditors a powerful incentive to import Greek goods and thus greatly assisting Greece's new reconstruction. 

Article

http://www.euractiv.com/sections/euro-finance/germany-presses-new-greek-leaders-maintain-reforms-311572