MOST SECRETIVE, POWERFUL BANK ON EARTH: BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS

ONE BANK TO RULE THEM ALL...

Bank of International Settlements (BIS), Basel, Switzerland

First unofficial meeting of the BIS Board of Directors in Basel, Switzerland, April 1930
The Bank was officially founded on May 17, 1930.

MORE POWERFUL AND MORE SECRETIVE THAN EVEN THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF) THE BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS (BIS) IS NOT EVEN KNOWN OF BY MOST OF THE WORLD.  

IN 2013, THE BIS VIRTUALLY ANNOUNCED THE COMING CRASH OF THE U.S. ECONOMY. 
AN EX-CHAIRMAN OF THE BIS WAS FORECASTING GLOBAL ECONOMIC COLLAPSE JUST RECENTLY:
FROM UK'S NEWS, 'THE TELEGRAPH',

TODAY, JUNE 24, 2016, "A former central bank chief economist warns that a deluge of global debt defaults will endanger social and political stability.

"The situation is worse than it was in 2007. Our macroeconomic ammunition to fight downturns is essentially all used up," William White, chairman of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's review committee, recently told the U.K. Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.

"Debts have continued to build up over the last eight years and they have reached such levels in every part of the world that they have become a potent cause for mischief," said White, the former chief economist of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

"It was always dangerous to rely on central banks to sort out a solvency problem ... It is a recipe for disorder, and now we are hitting the limit," he said.

"It will become obvious in the next recession that many of these debts will never be serviced or repaid, and this will be uncomfortable for a lot of people who think they own assets that are worth something," he told The Telegraph just before the recent World Economic Forum in Davos.  Economic stimulus from quantitative easing and zero rates after the last recession inflated credit bubbles and sparked a surge in dollar borrowing that was hard to control, White said.

Combined public and private debt has surged to all-time highs to 185 percent of GDP in emerging markets and to 265 percent of GDP in the OECD club, both up by 35 percentage points since the top of the last credit cycle in 2007, Evans-Pritchard explained.

White, who also chief author of G-30's recent report on the post-crisis future of central banking, said it is impossible know what the trigger will be for the next crisis since the global system has lost its anchor and is inherently prone to breakdown.

"The only question is whether we are able to look reality in the eye and face what is coming in an orderly fashion, or whether it will be disorderly,” White said.

WHITE?
BIS?
HAS ANYONE IN "ANYTOWN", USA HEARD OF THESE?
WHAT IS BIS?WELL, FOR ONE, BIS IS WHO HAS SAID THE U.S. DOLLAR IS HEADED OUT THE DOOR AS THE WORLD'S FAVORED CURRENCY. 

BIS IS ONE OF THE "MAGIC 4" (BIS, IMF, WORLD BANK AND THE U.S. FEDERAL RESERVE) WHO TODAY, ON THE HEELS OF BREXIT, ARE DOING FAKE DAMAGE CONTROL AS STOCK MARKETS GO NUTS.
YOU CAN BET THE CENTRAL BANKS ARE CELEBRATING WITH EACH OTHER OVER THE $3 TRILLION THAT GOT WIPED OFF STOCKS ON THE U.S. MARKET TODAY.
"IT'S GOOD TO BE THE KINGS!"

"The central banks are saying all the right things and they're flooding the market with liquidity so you have a more orderly move," said Frank Maeba, managing partner with Breton Hill Capital in Toronto.
The S&P 500 lost all the year's gains and suffered its largest decline since late August last year.
MSCI's global stock index plunged 4.8 per cent in the biggest slide since August 2011. The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank more than 600 points, or 3.7 per cent, to erase gains for the year, while European stocks slid 7 per cent in their worst day since 2008.
Volume in US trading topped 13 billion shares, the most this year. Volatility surged, with the CBOE's measure of anxiety jumping 43 per cent."

ALAN GREENSPAN, RIGHT ON CUE, FEIGNED CONCERN:

"Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan told CNBC on Friday the U.K. vote to leave the European Union ushers in a period that's even worse than the darkest days of October 1987.

"This is the worst period, I recall since I've been in public service," Greenspan said on "Squawk on the Street."

"There's nothing like it, including the crisis — remember October 19th, 1987, when the Dow went down by a record amount 23 percent?
That I thought was the bottom of all potential problems. This has a corrosive effect that will not go away."

(You can watch the full broadcast of Greenspan's almost humorous act on CNBC PRO)

THE RISE AND FALL OF DOMINANT CURRENCIES...

Take a look at the graph below. It shows the lifespan of dominant currencies going back 600 years. Notice that the U.S. dollar has now been the dominant currency for 88 years, about the same length of time as its predecessors:
.

IN 2013, THE BIS VIRTUALLY ANNOUNCED THE COMING CRASH OF THE U.S. ECONOMY.
REPORTED INITIALLY IN  'GERMAN ECONOMIC NEWS', IT QUICKLY MADE HEADLINES OUTSIDE THE U.S.

THIS DID NOT MAKE MAINSTREAM MEDIA HERE BUT OTHER NATIONS REPORTED IT FOR DAYS.
Published: SEPT.:09, 2013

.

The reality is that we have moved beyond recession into a deep structural crisis, one fueled by the banks’ greed and rapacity, which threatens all of our financial security.

Just as in the 1930s, parts of Europe face economic collapse.


FROM A MALAYSIAN SOURCE:

"The decision by the U.S. Federal Reserve to continue indefinitely to print money might have fallen on ”orders from above”.

The most powerful bank in the world, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has published a few days ago in its quarterly report for the possible end of the flood of money  – and at the same time described the situation on the debt markets as extremely critical.

The “extraordinary measures by central banks” – aka the unrestrained U.S. DOLLARS PRINTING – had awakened in the markets the illusion that the massive liquidity pumped into the market could solve the fundamental problems.
More on the huge rise in debt –

Debt levels of government, businesses and consumers are not sustainable.

The austerity measures in the crisis countries have not led to the situation improving.
It looks again like 2007 - only worse," the Telegraph quoted the former chief economist of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), William White.

The previous imbalances are all still there.

In addition, public and private debt ratios are in the developed countries today to 30 percent higher than they were then. "And we have a whole new problem in the emerging markets," said White, who now works as an economist at the OECD said.


The largest debt is in the US.
The US has a greater per capita debt than Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland or Spain. And this is only the beginning, because the [American] population is aging.

The government in Washington has built up $ 17 trillion debt. Approximately one third of which are in the hands of foreigners

.The world has an unease about the dollar system… President Hu of China said ‘the dollar is a product of the past.

Japan has a debt ratio of 211 percent and is on the road to financial collapse. The Japanese government must now spend more than half of their tax revenue to pay interest." 

THE BIS HAS SPOKEN, KISS THE USD GOODBYE, BECAUSE, AS FINANCIAL POWER GOES, THE BIS IS THE FEDERAL RESERVE TIMES 100...  

A UNIQUE GLOBAL FINANCIAL ENTITY...
"The BIS headquarters has high-tech sprinkler systems with multiple back-ups, in-house medical facilities, and its own bomb shelter in the event of a terrorist attack or armed conflagration.

The BIS’s assets are not subject to civil claims under Swiss law and can never be seized.

The BIS has the right to communicate in code and to send and receive correspondence in bags covered by the same protection as embassies, meaning they cannot be opened.

The BIS is exempt from Swiss taxes.
Its employees do not have to pay income tax on their salaries, which are usually generous, designed to compete with the private sector.
The general manager’s salary in 2011 was 763,930 Swiss francs, while head of departments were paid 587,640 per annum, plus generous allowances.

The bank’s extraordinary legal privileges also extend to its staff and directors.
Senior managers enjoy a special status, similar to that of diplomats, while carrying out their duties in Switzerland, which means their bags cannot be searched (unless there is evidence of a blatant criminal act), and their papers are inviolable.

The central bank governors traveling to Basel for the bimonthly meetings enjoy the same status while in Switzerland.

All bank officials are immune under Swiss law, for life, for all the acts carried out during the discharge of their duties.

The minutes, agenda, and actual attendance list of the Global Economy Meeting or the ECC are not released in any form.
This is because no official minutes are taken

The BIS’s defenders deny that the organization is secretive.
The bank’s archives are open and researchers may consult most documents that are more than thirty years old.

The BIS archivists are indeed cordial, helpful, and professional.
The bank’s website includes all its annual reports, which are downloadable, as well as numerous policy papers produced by the bank’s highly regarded research department.

The BIS publishes detailed accounts of the securities and derivatives markets, and international banking statistics.
But these are largely compilations and analyses of information already in the public domain.

The details of the bank’s own core activities, including much of its banking operations for its customers, central banks, and international organizations, remain secret.

The Global Economy Meetings and the other crucial financial gatherings that take place at Basel, such as the Markets Committee, remain closed to outsiders.

 As well as the Global Economy Meetings, the BIS hosts four of the most important international committees dealing with global banking: the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the Committee on the Global Financial System, the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems, and the Irving Fisher Committee, which deals with central banking statistics.

 The bank also hosts three independent organizations: two groups dealing with insurance and the Financial Stability Board (FSB).

The FSB, which coordinates national financial authorities and regulatory policies, is already being spoken of as the fourth pillar of the global financial system, after the BIS, the IMF and the commercial banks.

Private individuals may not hold an account at BIS, unless they work for the bank.

The bank’s opacity, lack of accountability, and ever-increasing influence raises profound questions— not just about monetary policy but transparency, accountability, and how power is exercised in our democracies.

During the war, the BIS became a de-facto arm of the Reichsbank, accepting looted Nazi gold and carrying out foreign exchange deals for Nazi Germany.

The bank’s alliance with Berlin was known in Washington, DC, and London. But the need for the BIS to keep functioning, to keep the new channels of transnational finance open, was about the only thing all sides agreed on. Basel was the perfect location, as it is perched on the northern edge of Switzerland and sits almost on the French and German borders.

A few miles away, Nazi and Allied soldiers were fighting and dying. None of that mattered at the BIS.

Board meetings were suspended, but relations between the BIS staff of the belligerent nations remained cordial, professional, and productive.
Nationalities were irrelevant.
The overriding loyalty was to international finance.

The president, Thomas McKittrick, was an American.

Roger Auboin, the general manager, was French.

Paul Hechler, the assistant general manager, was a member of the Nazi party and signed his correspondence “Heil Hitler.”

Rafaelle Pilotti, the secretary general, was Italian.

Per Jacobssen, the bank’s influential economic adviser, was Swedish.
His and Pilotti’s deputies were British.

After 1945, five BIS directors, including Hjalmar Schacht, were charged with war crimes.
[SEE "THE TOWER OF BASEL" <HERE>.]
Germany lost the war but won the economic peace, in large part thanks to the BIS.
The international stage, contacts, banking networks, and legitimacy the BIS provided, first to the Reichsbank and then to its successor banks, has helped ensure the continuity of immensely powerful financial and economic interests from the Nazi era to the present day. 

For the first forty-seven years of its existence, from 1930 to 1977, the BIS was based in a former hotel, near the Basel central railway station. The bank’s entrance was tucked away by a chocolate shop, and only a small notice confirmed that the narrow doorway opened into the BIS.
The bank’s managers believed that those who needed to know where the BIS was would find it, and the rest of the world certainly did not need to know.

The inside of the building changed little over the decades, recalled Charles Coombs.
The BIS provided the “the spartan accommodations of a former Victorian-style hotel whose single and double bedrooms had been transformed into offices simply by removing the beds and installing desks.”

The bank moved into its current headquarters, at 2, Centralbahnplatz, in 1977.
It did not go far and now overlooks the Basel central station.

 It has two linked trading rooms: at the Basel headquarters and Hong Kong regional office.

The BIS buys and sells gold and foreign exchange for its clients. It provides asset management and arranges short-term credit to central banks when needed.

The BIS is a unique institution: an international organization, an extremely profitable bank and a research institute founded, and protected, by international treaties.

Nowadays the countries represented at the Global Economy Meetings together account for around four-fifths of global gross domestic product (GDP)— most of the produced wealth of the world—according to the BIS’s own statistics.

Central bankers now “seem more powerful than politicians,” wrote The Economist newspaper, “holding the destiny of the global economy in their hands.”

How did this happen?
The BIS, the world’s most secretive global financial institution, can claim much of the credit.

From its first day of existence, the BIS has dedicated itself to furthering the interests of central banks and building the new architecture of transnational finance. In doing so, it has spawned a new class of close-knit global technocrats whose members glide between highly-paid positions at the BIS, the IMF, and central and commercial banks.

The BIS is now the world’s thirtieth-largest holder of gold reserves, with 119 metric tons—more than Qatar, Brazil, or Canada.
Membership of the BIS remains a privilege rather than a right.

The board of directors is responsible for admitting central banks judged to “make a substantial contribution to international monetary cooperation and to the Bank’s activities.”

China, India, Russia, and Saudi Arabia joined only in 1996.

The bank has opened offices in Mexico City and Hong Kong but remains very Eurocentric. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Slovenia, and Slovakia (total population 16.2 million) have been admitted, while Pakistan (population 169 million) has not. Nor has Kazakhstan, which is a powerhouse of Central Asia. In Africa only Algeria and South Africa are members—Nigeria, which has the continent’s second-largest economy, has not been admitted.

Considering the BIS’s pivotal role in the transnational economy, its low profile is remarkable.

Back in 1930 a New York Times reporter noted that the culture of secrecy at the BIS was so strong that he was not permitted to look inside the boardroom, even after the directors had left.
Little has changed.
Journalists are not allowed inside the headquarters while the Global Economy Meeting is underway.

BIS officials speak rarely on the record, and reluctantly, to members of the press. The strategy seems to work.

 The Occupy Wall Street movement, the anti-globalizers, the social network protesters have ignored the BIS.

Centralbahnplatz 2, Basel, is quiet and tranquil. There are no demonstrators gathered outside the BIS’s headquarters, no protestors camped out in the nearby park, no lively reception committees for the world’s central bankers.

As the world’s economy lurches from crisis to crisis, financial institutions are scrutinized as never before. Legions of reporters, bloggers, and investigative journalists scour the banks’ every move. Yet somehow, apart from brief mentions on the financial pages, the BIS has largely managed to avoid critical scrutiny. Until now.


The Bundesbank and the European Central Bank, two of the most powerful members of the BIS, have driven the mania for austerity that has already forced one European country, Greece, to the edge, aided by the venality and corruption of the country’s ruling class.
Others may soon follow.

The old order is creaking, its political and financial institutions corroding from within. From Oslo to Athens, the far right is resurgent, fed in part by soaring poverty and unemployment.

The European currency is threatened with breakdown, while those with money seek safe haven in Swiss francs or gold. The young, the talented, and the mobile are again fleeing their home countries for new lives abroad.

The powerful forces of international capital that brought the BIS into being, and which granted the bank its power and influence, are again triumphant.

For a staid, secretive organization, the BIS has proved surprisingly nimble.

It survived the first global depression, the end of reparations payments and the gold standard (two of its main reasons for existence), the rise of Nazism, the Second World War, the Bretton Woods Accord, the Cold War, the financial crises of the 1980s and 1990s, the birth of the IMF and World Bank, and the end of Communism.

As Malcolm Knight, manager from 2003–2008, noted, “It is encouraging to see that—by remaining small, flexible, and free from political interference—the Bank has, throughout its history, succeeded remarkably well in adapting itself to evolving circumstances.”
[VIRUSES ALSO ADAPT IN LIKE MANNER BUT SOMETIMES KILL THEIR HOST.]
WHERE DID BIS COME FROM? 

"The BIS was created out of the Hague Agreements of 1930 and took over the job of the Agent General for Repatriation in Berlin. When established, the BIS was responsible for the collection, administration and distribution of reparations from Germany - as agreed upon in the Treaty of Versailles - following World War I.
The BIS was also the trustee for Dawes and Young Loans, which were internationally issued loans used to finance these repatriations.

After World War II, the BIS turned its focus to the defense and implementation of the World Bank's Bretton Woods System. Between the 1970s and 1980s, the BIS monitored cross-border capital flows in the wake of the oil and debt crises, which in turn led to the development of regulatory supervision of internationally active banks.


HOW THE BIS OPERATES:
"The BIS does compete directly with other private financial institutions for global banking activities; however, it does not hold current accounts for individuals or governments.
At one time, private shareholders as well as central banks held shares in the BIS.
But in 2001 it was decided that the private shareholders should be compensated and that ownership of the BIS should be restricted to the central banks (or equivalent monetary authorities).

There are currently 55 member central banks.
[NOTE: SOME SOURCES SAY 60.]

The BIS's unit of account is the IMF's special drawing rights, which are a basket of convertible currencies. The reserves that are held account for approximately 7% of the world's total currency.

The BIS ensures liquidity for central banks by offering to buy back tradable instruments from central banks; many of these instruments have been specifically designed for the central bank's needs.

In order to compete with private financial institutions, the BIS offers a top return on funds invested by central banks.
 
The statutes of the BIS are presided over by three bodies: the general meeting of member central banks, the board of directors and the management of the BIS. Decisions on the functions of the BIS are made at each level and are based on a weighted voting arrangement.

Nowadays B.I.S. has government immunity, pays no taxes, has its own police and is above the law.
B.I.S. strategy requires the central banks of the 55 Member States to act independently of their home governments.

[TRANSLATION? SCREW YOUR GOVERNMENTS, IT'S ABOUT THE FINANCIAL POWER OVER ALL GOVERNMENTS AND THEIR PEOPLE.]

Regulation B.I.S.  serves the sole purpose of strengthening the international private banking system, posing a real threat to national economies.

Since governments have fallen into the trap of accepting loans in foreign currencies, foreign currency debt crisis was created.

International banks have come in the name of saving the financial vultures, and states that have become "debtor nations" under the control of IMF and BIS are obliged to redirect production export to gain currency necessary for the huge interest.

Behind all the wars and financial crises hide the bankers.

But we are manipulated by economists to believe that this phenomenon occurs naturally in the capitalist economy and a cyclicity related to the"free market mechanisms".

In fact, financial crises and wars that precede them are created and fed by bankers to squeeze huge profits, to adjust accounts to consolidate political and global dominance.

For banks, wars are the fastest way to create more debt and therefore to make more and more profit.
That is why international banks especially love war.
The Federal Reserve and other international banks are offering help by funding the wars they want to see started.

Thomas Jefferson, the father of free-market capitalism and Adam Smith noted that "funding wars by banks led to more and more wars."


ONE BANK TO RULE THEM ALL..

"The idea for an international bank had already been explored to some extent by people like the economist John Maynard Keynes.
But the idea for the bank truly took off during the Young Conference in 1929, when the Allies were attempting to exact Germany’s reparations debts for WWI. Belgian delegate Emile Franqui bought up the possibility of having a settlement organization to administer the reparations agreement, and the very next day, Hjalmar Schacht, president of the Reichsbank and chief German representative at the conference, presented a proposal to establish just such an organization.

The Bank for International Settlements would act as a lender to the German central bank in case the German currency weakened and the government found itself unable to make the reparations payment. In addition, it would give steps for how to proceed in the case of German default. According to Simmons, “if Germany did not resume payments within two years, the BIS would propose revisions collectively for the creditor governments (which would only go into effect with their approval)” and “the bank was responsible for surveillance and informing the creditor countries about economic and financial conditions in Germany.”

The U.S. State Department had wanted a settlement to Germany's reparations woes, as economic adviser Arthur N. Young observed that "a final reparations settlement [would] promote both political and economic stability in Europe, and thus tend to be of advantage to the United States.”

French Prime Minister Raymond Poincare promised the French public that the reparations would cover the country’s debts to both the U.S. and Britain, as well as cover the war damages. France was also interested in reaching an agreement on German debts, since they were developing trade interdependence with the Germans and stability was needed.

Britain also wanted to use the BIS as a means to ensure that the Germans would pay on their debts as scheduled. The Bank of England supported the creation of the BIS, wrote Simmons, “because of its potential role in stabilizing the position of the pound in the international monetary system. Britain's relatively small gold reserves made it difficult to defend the pound without international monetary cooperation and the willingness of smaller powers to hold foreign exchange as reserves instead of gold.”

The meeting took place in Baden, Germany, in October of 1929 to draw up final plans for the BIS.

The role of the BIS quickly changed with the onset of the Great Depression, when it became unable to “play the role of lender of last resort, notwithstanding noteworthy attempts at organizing support credits for both the Austrian and German central banks in 1931.”

Due to the Depression and Germany's inability to pay, the issue of reparations went off the table. The crisis was further compounded when countries like Britain and the U.S. began devaluing their currencies (i.e. printing more money).

The BIS attempted numerous times to end the exchange rate instability by restoring the gold standard, and according the bank itself, “the BIS had little choice but to limit itself to undertaking banking transactions for the account of central banks and providing a forum for central bank governors to help them maintain contact.”

During the Second World War, all operations at the BIS were suspended.

The situation again became dicey for the Bank once the guns stopped firing. Immediately after WWII, the global economic landscape had massively changed; a new system was needed, so in July, 1944 over 700 delegates from the Allied nations met in Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, NH for the 'United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference' which “agreed on the creation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and an International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (BRD), which became part of the World Bank,” where the IMF would pay attention to exchange rates and lend reserve currencies to nations in debt.

A new global currency exchange system was created wherein all currencies were linked to the US dollar and, in exchange, the US agreed to fix the price of gold at $35/ounce.
All of this meant that there would be no need for currency warfare or manipulation.

This proved a threat to the BIS.
If the IMF was to be the center of this new global financial order, what need would there be for the BIS?

Wilhelm Keilhau, a member of the Norwegian delegation, even went so far as to propose a notion to eliminate the BIS.
However, the Bank was to continue as several other European nations noted its importance to the financial matters of the European continent and soon the move to eliminate the Bank was rescinded.


Dr. Mahathir Bin Mohamad, the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, said in a speech on Sept. 26, 2008, that “in 1997-98 American hedge funds destroyed the economies of poor countries by manipulating their national currencies.”

The Reserve Bank of Australia “produced two reports in 1999 on the potentially destructive role of highly leveraged institutions such as hedge funds.”

The reports claimed that “hedge funds contributed to the instability of its exchange rate in 1998, and it described how hedge funds can have a destabilizing impact on not only the currencies of emerging economies but also on currencies such as the Australian dollar which has the eighth largest global trading volume.”

In a paper written in early 1999 after the Asian financial crisis ended, William R. White, then-economic adviser and head of the Monetary and Economic Department at the Bank for International Settlements, wrote that “many Asian-Pacific authorities (including representatives from Australia, Hong Kong and Malaysia) feel strongly that hedge funds set out systematically to destabilize their currencies and their financial markets. However, other evidence is less compelling in support of this hypothesis and, even if accepted, would not necessarily lead to the conclusion that such funds should be regulated.”

White was thus not only denying the evidence that Dr. Mohamad produced, but also the Reserve Bank of Australia, and he was effectively saying: "Even if the BIS did accept the information, so what?"

EXACTLY SO... CENTRAL BANKS OWE NO ALLEGIANCE TO ANY NATION.
THEY CREATE AND RUIN NATIONS AS THEY PLEASE, ALWAYS HAVE, ALWAYS WILL.

"The risk is that central banks have now created a monster such that markets drive the economy, if not on the way up, then certainly on the way down."

IN THE GAME OF FIAT CURRENCY, BIS RULES.

IN THE GAME OF FIAT CURRENCY, WE, THE LOWLY SERFS, LOSE EVERY TIME.

THE BEST WE CAN DO IS SOMEHOW JUST GET OUT OF THE FIAT CURRENCY GAME.


WHAT THE MARKET DOES TOMORROW, THE NEXT DAY, IS PREARRANGED BY THE CENTRAL BANKS, AND BY WHOMEVER CONTROLS THOSE BANKS...
LOOKS LIKE BIS IS THE CONTROLLER, BUT WE DON'T REALLY KNOW WHO IS BEHIND THE BIS, DO WE?
WOULD YOU TRUST SOMEONE TO KNOW WHAT THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT, REGARDING CENTRAL BANKS, WHO HAS THE FOLLOWING CREDENTIALS?
"Studied law at Yale Law School and economics at the University of Amsterdam. Worked in the US Export Import Bank of the US from 1980-1985 and in the Legal Department of the World Bank from 1986-2007.
Established the Non Governmental Organization Committee of the International Law Section of the American Bar Association and the Committee on Multilateralism and the Accountability of International Organizations of the American Branch of the International Law Association."

THE PERSON WITH THOSE CREDENTIALS IS KAREN HUDES, A WHISTLEBLOWER WHO ONCE WORKED AT THE WORLD BANK, WHO SAW AND HEARD THINGS SHE  FOUND VERY DISTURBING.

WOULD YOU BELIEVE ANY OF THE FINDINGS OF A SWISS RESEARCH GROUP WHO UNTANGLED THE MASSIVE WEB OF GLOBAL FINANCE?

"Conducted by a team of researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland.  They studied the relationships between 37 million companies and investors worldwide, and what they discovered is that there is a “super-entity” of just 147 very tightly knit mega-corporations that controls 40 percent of the entire global economy…

When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a “super-entity” of 147 even more tightly knit companies – all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity – that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network.

“In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network,” says Glattfelder.

Most were financial institutions.
The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.

But the global elite don’t just control these mega-corporations. 

According to Hudes, they also dominate the unelected, unaccountable organizations that control the finances of virtually every nation on the face of the planet. 

The World Bank, the IMF and central banks such as the Federal Reserve literally control the creation and the flow of money worldwide.

At the apex of this system is the Bank for International Settlements. 

It is the central bank of central banks.
YOU CAN READ MUCH OF WHAT WAS DISCOVERED <HERE> AND THEN DECIDE IF CENTRAL BANKS CREATED A MONSTER, OR IF CENTRAL BANKS ARE THAT MONSTER.
IN EITHER CASE... WHO OWNS THE MONSTER???







__________________




A three-part article on the BIS:
Part 1   http://www.occupy.com/article/one-bank-rule-them-all-exposing-bank-international-settlements-part-i


Part 2   http://www.occupy.com/article/bank-rule-them-all-exposing-bank-international-settlements-part-ii


Part 3   http://www.occupy.com/article/one-bank-rule-them-all-exposing-bank-international-settlements-part-iii

How the World Bank differs from the IMF - Telegraph

AMERICA'S NEW RECESSION IS IN PROGRESS

IT'S VERY SIMPLE, REALLY:  DOES AMERICA'S INCOME MATCH ITS OUTGO...DO AMERICANS MAKE ENOUGH TO STAY ABOVE WATER?

THE ANSWER, IN BOTH CASES, IS NO.

THE GOVERNMENT'S CURRENT BIG MONEY-MAKER?
STUDENT LOANS.

DEFAULTS IN THIS AREA OF GOVERNMENT REVENUE WILL HURT. 
WHY?
Because Universities bear none of the risks [of student loans], the federal government does.

DEBT SLAVES FOR DECADES...  

"If former students cannot find employment with enough income to pay for this debt, and if they then default, or if this debt is forgiven in some manner, then lenders (mostly the government, and therefore taxpayers) eat the losses, while the university smiles all the way to the bank — when it should be the universities that eat the losses on loans of their former students. 

[ANOTHER THING THIS DEBT DOES IS PREVENT YOUNG AMERICANS FROM BUYING HOMES, SPENDING THAT MONEY BACK FOR AYTHING BUT DEBT TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.]

"This is inflation of the most pernicious kind that will haunt the US economy for years, and the Fed is blissfully blind to it.", writes Jill Mislinski at Advisor Perspectives, which runs an excellent series of analyses and updates on the topic. "
In a separate analysis, Advisor Perspectives today reported on the outstanding student loan balances for the first quarter, based on federal loans to students from the Fed’s Z.1 Financial Accounts of the United States.

At $986 billion, the outstanding student loan balances have soared 853% since Q4 2007, when the Great Recession began.

TAXES ARE THE 2nd BIGGEST FEDERAL MONEYMAKER, BUT TAX REVENUES FROM CORPORATIONS ARE AT A HISTORICAL LOSS...
ALL OVER THE NEWS, STATES ARE MOANING OVER LOSS OF SALES TAX...TEXAS, MICHIGAN, WISCONSIN, MANY OTHERS, ALL COME UP AS BEING BADLY AFFECTED BY THIS WHEN I DID A SEARCH USING "Sales tax drops again, shortfall increases".

AS WE'LL SOON SEE, CORPORATIONS ARE PAYING LESS TAXES, PERIOD, LESS IN EVERYTHING, ALL DEPARTMENTS, SO THAT'S ANOTHER STRIKE AGAINST A HEALTHY INCOME FOR UNCLE SAM.

ADDING STUDENT LOAN DEFAULTS TO THE LOWER CORPORATE TAXES OUR CONGRESS HANDED TO WALL STREET AGAIN , THE FEDS ARE LOSING MONEY ON HALF THEIR EXPECTED INCOME.

WE ARE SEEING ANOTHER RECESSION...AND IT'S ALREADY BEGUN.

THERE ARE SEVERAL INDICATORS THAT AMERICA IS BACK TO WHERE WE WERE IN 2007-2008.
FINANCIAL WIZARDS DIFFER SLIGHTLY ON WHICH IS THE MOST IMPORTANT "SIGN OF THE TIME", BUT MOST WILL LIST THE FOLLOWING.

1~ TOTAL BUSINESS SALES DROPPED AGAIN, MAKING IT 2 YEARS SINCE TOTAL SALES SAW ANY INCREASE AT ALL.
Industrial production has now declined for nine months in a row. 

We have never seen this happen outside of a recession in all of U.S. history.

NOT SINCE JULY, 2014 HAVE TOTAL SALES INCREASED AND ARE NOW AT 2013 LEVELS, ACCORDING TO THE FEDERAL RESERVE'S "FRED" WEBSITE AND THE CENSUS BUREAU.

While we read much on the "oil glut" and people lining up to buy gas-guzzling SUVs and muscle cars, it sure isn't reflected in U.S. auto sales, which hit a 13-month low back in April this year, as was reported in Bloomberg.

2~ FACTORY ORDERS AND SHIPPING ORDERS WERE DOWN, MARKING A DOWNTURN THAT HAS CONTINUED FOR THE PAST YEAR OR MORE.  

"Inventories-to-shipments ratio was 1.36, down from 1.37 in March."

The Cass Shipping Index has been falling on a year over year basis for 14 consecutive months.

3~ UNEMPLOYMENT: At the end of May (last month), the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the U.S. economy only added 38,000 jobs in May, far below the 158,000 jobs projected, and also way below what Americans need to keep up with population growth.

The employment numbers that the government released last month were the worst  in six years.

The number of jobs created in April was also revised down by 37,000 and the number of jobs created in March was revised down by 22,000.

"The number of temporary workers in the United States peaked and started falling precipitously before the recession of 2001 started.

The exact same thing happened just prior to the beginning of the 2008 recession.

So, would it surprise you to learn that the number of temporary workers in the United States peaked in December and has fallen dramatically since then?"


According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, layoffs at major firms are running 24 percent higher up to this point in 2016 than they were during the same time period in 2015.

This was the worst jobs report in almost six years, and Wall Street seemed shell-shocked over it.

Amazing, sort of, since corporate taxes dropped like a rock for big businesses and profits and cash flow were up, while corporations laid workers off or dropped jobs altogether:

"In May, 59,000 full-time jobs were lost, but 118,000 part-time jobs were gained."

"Taxes on corporate income decreased $1.7 billion in the first quarter, compared with a decrease of $32.2. billion in the 4th quarter.

Dividends increased $7.4 billion in the first quarter, in contrast to a decrease of $15.1 billion in the fourth. 
Undistributed profits increased $0.8 billion, in contrast to a decrease of $112.2 billion. Net cash flow with IVA -- the internal funds available to corporations for investment -- increased $11.8 billion, in contrast to a decrease of $101.6 billion."

GIVEN ALL THAT, I STILL CAN'T FIND A LOGICAL, SANE REASON WHY, WHEN GAS PRICES MAKE PRODUCTION AND SHIPPING LOWER, WHEN BUSINESSES ARE LAYING OFF WORKERS, HIRING ONLY PART-TIME WORKERS OR ERASING JOBS, WHEN THOSE SAME BUSINESSES ARE PAYING LESS TAXES, LESS IN FEES WHEN THEY IMPORT ANYTHING, WHEN 'INCENTIVES' AND 'SUBSIDIES (ENORMOUS AMOUNTS OF CORPORATE WELFARE!) INCREASED AGAIN FOR CORPORATE AMERICA, WHEN FOREIGN MARKETS ARE BIGGER THAN EVER, AND WHEN THE TOP 50 U.S. COMPANIES WERE JUST BUSTED HIDING OVER $1 TRILLION IN OVERSEAS BANKS, WHY AND HOW DO BIG BUSINESSES HAVE THE AUDACITY TO BITCH AND WHINE ABOUT PROFITS AND RIP AMERICANS OFF WHILE MAKING CHEAPER GOODS?

4~TAXES, FALLING TAXES JUST LIKE BEFORE THE LAST RECESSION:

"Federal tax receipts and state tax receipts usually both start to fall as we enter a new recession, and that is precisely what is taking place right now."


5~ RECESSION INDICATORS FROM MAJOR SOURCES:
> JPMorgan’s “recession indicators” have risen to the highest level seen since the last recession.

> Goldman Sachs has its own internal tracker of the U.S. economy, and it has fallen to the lowest level since the last recession.


6~ BANKS IN TROUBLE...AGAIN.
The delinquency rate on commercial and industrial loans has been rising since January 2015.

I WROTE ABOUT THIS BACK IN APRIL... “Is The Fed Preparing For The Next Financial Earthquake To Hit?”

"THE EIGHT BIGGEST BANKS IN AMERICA GOT SLAPPED ON THE WRIST FOR FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH THE REGULATIONS ESTABLISHED BY CONGRESS AFTER THE 2008 "BANKING CRISIS" AND ENSUING "RECESSION".

FIVE OF THE EIGHT ARE IN NO WAY IN COMPLIANCE AND SO, JUST AS IN 2008, THEIR CUSTOMERS ARE AT HIGH RISK OF, ONCE AGAIN, LOSING IT ALL, BUT THESE BANKS WOULD NOT SUFFER, ONLY THEIR CUSTOMERS.  

MANY ARE WARNING THAT, SHOULD THOSE FAIL TO COMPLY, AS THEY DID IN 2008, TO PROTECT DEPOSITORS, ETC, WHAT WILL ENSUE WILL BE FINANCIAL CHAOS IN AMERICA, WORSE THAN IN 2008."

Page 11 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s (FDIC) letter to JP Morgan, reveals that they have “identified a deficiency” in JPMorgan’s wind-down plan which, if not properly addressed, could “pose serious adverse effects to the financial stability of the United States.”

"The agencies have jointly determined that each of the 2015 resolution plans of Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, JP Morgan Chase, State Street, and Wells Fargo WAS NOT CREDIBLE or would not facilitate an orderly resolution under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, the statutory standard established in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. "

PRIOR TO ALL THIS, IN MARCH THIS YEAR, THE ATLANTA-BASED FEDERAL RESERVE BANK HAD DOWNGRADED AMERICA'S GDP (GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT) TO BARELY, JUST BARELY ABOVE WHAT IT WAS PRIOR TO THE 2008 CRASH... 0.1%.

Bank of America is expected to reduce staffing in its consumer banking division by as many as 8,000 more jobs....announced just last week (June 15).

WHEN MAJOR BANKS BEGIN TO WOBBLE, LOOK OUT FOR A FALL.

7~ ANOTHER HOUSING BUBBLE RIPE TO EXPLODE...

According to the New York Times: “Many say the sudden surge in hyperprice homes – often built and sold by speculative investors – is the ultimate bubble signal.”

And when was the last time this sort of pile-up happened? In 2007 and 2008, just as the housing market was beginning to spiral down and as the Financial Crisis was beginning to mature.

So now, the same signs are popping up once again.

While overall home prices were still soaring in the first quarter, at the top 5% of the housing market, the bubble has begun to deflate, with prices down 1.1%, according to Redfin.
In some cities, the very top end is starting to take some hits, including in Manhattan where a luxury condo boom has turned into a glut, and where prices have begun to sag. "
Read…  Another Condo Bubble Bites the Dust


Sooner or later, with wages stagnant for many renters, market resistance starts kicking in. And this may now be happening in the first few cities, and a mega-landlord is preparing for a downturn.
Read…  "It Starts: Apartment Glut in San Francisco " AND New York City.

"The Atlanta Fed’s “sticky-price” CPI – “a weighted basket of items that change price relatively slowly,” as it says –  rose 2.6% for the 12-month period, the hottest increase since April 2009.

Based on the surveys, the BLS figured the “owners’ equivalent rent” rose 3.3% year over year. That measure accounts for 24.2% of CPI. It is always ludicrously low. It’s the simplest way of hiding the impact of soaring housing costs, and the simplest way of keeping CPI artificially low. 

For the component “rent of primary residence,” renters are asked what they’re currently paying in rent. Even if they’ve lived in a rent-controlled apartment for 20 years and pay just a fraction of market rent, it becomes part of the statistics, and not the rent that a new renter pays.

So “rent of primary residence” – however understated it may be – rose 0.4% from April and 3.8% from a year ago, the biggest year-over-year increase since January 2008:

Over the longer term?
In the five-and-a-half years since September 2010, the index for rent, understated as it is, has risen 18.5%:

8~ FOREIGN INVESTORS ARE UNLOADING U.S. DEBT.
Last month, foreign investors dumped U.S. debt at the fastest pace ever recorded…

"Foreign investors sold a record amount of U.S. Treasury bonds and notes for the month of April, according to U.S. Treasury Department data, as investors priced in a few more rate increases by the Federal Reserve this year.

Foreigners sold $74.6 billion in U.S. Treasury debt in [APRIL], after purchases of $23.6 billion in March.

April’s outflow was the largest since the U.S. Treasury Department started recording Treasury debt transactions in January 1978."
ADD IT ALL UP, STEP BACK AND LOOK AT IT.
Simply put, Americans are taking on more debt AGAIN: student loans, credit cards, auto loans, etc, just like before.

And just like before their income has not risen to match the new debt.
Adjusted for inflation, the federal minimum wage peaked in 1968 at $8.54 (in 2014 dollars).
Since it was last raised in 2009, to the current $7.25 per hour, the federal minimum has lost about 8.1% of its purchasing power to inflation.

Nearly half (48.2%) of the 3 million hourly workers who were at or below the federal minimum in 2014 were ages 16 to 24. An additional 22.4% are ages 25 to 34, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics; both shares have stayed more or less constant over the past decade.
GET IT?
PRICES KEEP RISING, WAGES DON'T.
BUT AMERICAN WORKERS GO DEEPER IN DEBT.

JOBS KEEP MOVING OVERSEAS OR TURN INTO PART-TIME JOBS OR JUST DISAPPEAR.
THE PRICE OF OIL DROPS AND WALL STREET GOES INSANE.

AMERICA KEEPS FIGHTING "TERROR" FROM HERE TO ALPHA CENTAURI AND BEYOND, TO THE TUNE OF BILLIONS TO TRILLIONS OF AMERICAN DOLLARS THAT THE GOVERNMENT REALLY DOESN'T HAVE, UNLESS IT CAN KEEP ROBBING SOCIAL SECURITY, KEEP COLLECTING TAXES FROM WORKERS, LOANS FROM UNEMPLOYED STUDENTS, AND PRINT ENOUGH MONOPOLY MONEY TO MAKE IT SEEM LIKE ALL IS ALMOST OKAY.

IT'S ALL A BIG RUSE, A LIE, A CON-GAME, AND WHEN THIS NEW RECESSION GETS ROLLING, AMERICANS WON'T KNOW WHAT HIT THEM, BUT IT WILL BE WORSE THAN BEFORE, WORSE THAN ANYTHING WE'VE EVER SEEN HERE.

WE CAN DO ALL WE CAN TO PREPARE FOR IT, BUT CAN WE DO ENOUGH TO SURVIVE IT? 

NOT LONG AGO, THE FED's EX-CHIEF LIAR, ALAN GREENSPAN, TOLD FOX "NEWS" THAT AMERICA COULD, AT ANY TIME NOW, BECOME LIKE VENEZUELA, WHERE THE ECONOMY IS IN RUIN AND PEOPLE ARE OUT HUNTING PIGEONS TO EAT.

THAT MAY BE THE ONLY TRUTH GREENSPAN EVER TELLS...
AND NOT ONLY WILL OUR WORTHLESS POLITICIANS BE UNABLE TO STOP IT, MOST OF THEM HONESTLY DON'T GIVE A DAMN THAT IT'S HAPPENING, SO LONG AS THEY CAN KEEP GETTING AMERICANS TO VOTE THEM BACK IN OFFICE.

U.S. VETERANS FINAL BATTLE : DEPLETED URANIUM

THE ABOVE ASKS THE QUESTION:

"HOW MANY NAGASAKI BOMBS EQUAL THE RADIATION IN THE 2003 IRAQ WAR?"
ANSWER: 250,000 NAGASAKI BOMBS.

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: LET ME DIRECT THE ATTENTION OF ALL WHO READ HERE TO THE COMMENTS LEFT BELOW THIS BLOG ENTRY BY A MAN WHO WAS THERE, WHO WITNESSED IT FIRST-HAND, AND WHO NOW SUFFERS THE CONSEQUENCE OF "D.U."

WE OWE THAT  MAN AND ALL WHO WERE SIMILARLY AFFECTED THE CHANCE TO TELL US WHAT REALLY HAPPENED, WHAT SO MANY ARE STILL GOING THROUGH.
WE OWE THEM ALL EVERY FIGHTING CHANCE WE CAN GIVE THEM TO LIVE, AND TO MAKE SURE NO MORE GO THROUGH WHAT THEY HAVE.  ~ Waninahi, The Hemlock Tea Room]




"Any soldier now in Iraq who has not inhaled lethal radioactive dust is not breathing."

Most Americans have no idea that depleted uranium munitions used by the U.S. military are causing one of the greatest environmental nightmares in the history of the world. In fact, most Americans have no idea what depleted uranium even is.

So what exactly are depleted uranium munitions?
They are essentially "dirty bombs" made from nuclear waste.

Depleted Uranium is a waste product of the nuclear enrichment process.
Despite claims that depleted uranium is much less radioactive than natural uranium, the truth is that it actually emits about 75% as much radioactivity as natural uranium.

Depleted uranium is both chemically toxic and highly radioactive.
In laboratory tests it severely damages human cells, causes DNA mutations and has other carcinogenic effects..

Depleted uranium poisoning has been linked to a vast array of illnesses and diseases including severe skin rashes, intense muscle and joint pain, major birth defects, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, brain tumors and just about every type of cancer. Depleted uranium also replaces calcium in the body, thus destroying both teeth and bones.

Award-winning journalist Will Thomas wrote:

“As the last Gulf conflict so savagely demonstrated, GI immune systems reeling from multiple doses of experimental vaccines offer little defense against further exposure to chemical weapons, industrial toxins, stress, insect repellent and radiation left over from the last war. This is a war even the victors will lose.”
A single particle of DU lodged in a lymph node can devastate the entire immune system according to British radiation expert Roger Coghill.

THE DISCOVERY OF DU IN IRAQ...
Army health physicist Dr. Doug Rokke was dispatched to the Middle East to salvage DU-contaminated tanks after Gulf War I.

His Geiger counters revealed that the war zones of Iraq and Kuwait were contaminated with up to 300 millirems an hour in beta and gamma radiation plus thousands to millions of counts per minute in alpha radiation. Rokke recently told the media:
“The whole area is still trashed. It is hotter than heck over there still.
This stuff doesn't go away.” 

Rokke and his clean-up team were issued only flimsy dust masks for their dangerous work.
Of the 100 people on Rokke's decontamination team, 30 have already “dropped dead.”

Rokke himself is ill with radiation damage to lungs and kidneys.
He has brain lesions, skin pustules, chronic fatigue, continual wheezing and painful fibromyalgia.

Rokke warns that anyone exposed to DU should have adequate respiratory protection and special coveralls to protect their clothing because, he says, you can't get uranium particles off your clothing.

Dr. Rokke confirms that the Pentagon lies about DU dangers and is criminally negligent for neglecting medical attention needed by DU- contaminated vets.

He predicts that the numbers of American troops to be sickened by DU from Gulf War II will be staggering.

As they gradually sicken and suffer a slow burn to their graves, the Pentagon will -- as it did after Gulf War I -- deny that their misery and death is a result of their tour in Iraq.

Dr. Rokke's candor has cost him his career.

Dr. Asaf Durakovic, a professor of nuclear medicine at Georgetown University, is a former army medical expert.

He told nuclear scientists in Paris last year that tens of thousands of sick British and American soldiers are now dying from radiation they encountered during Gulf War I.

He found that 62 percent of sick vets tested have uranium isotopes in their organs, bones, brains and urine.

Laboratories in Switzerland and Finland corroborated his findings.

As with Dr. Rokke, Dr. Durakovic's radiation studies on Gulf War I vets were not popular with U.S. officials.

Dr. Durakovic was reportedly told his life was in danger if he continued his research.
He left the U.S. to continue his research abroad.

In other studies, some sick vets were found to be expressing uranium in even their semen.
Their sexual partners often complained of a burning sensation during intercourse, followed by their own debilitating illnesses.


AND THEN DEFORMED BABIES WERE BORN TO SOME OF THESE VETS.
BABIES WITH BIRTH DEFECTS ARE STILL BEING BORN TO RETURNING TROOPS FROM THE MIDDLE EAST, BOSNIA, AND ANYWHERE DEPLETED URANIUM MUNITIONS WERE USED.

BUT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT AND MILITARY STILL DENY THESE BABIES ARE VICTIMS OF DU.

ABOVE, Army National Guard Specialist Gerard Darren Matthew tested positive for uranium contamination after he returned from Iraq.
He suffered constant migraine headaches, blurred vision, blackouts and a burning sensation whenever he urinated. Shortly after he returned home, his wife became pregnant.
When his daughter, Victoria Claudette, was born on June 29 she was missing three fingers and most of her right hand.
The family believes the deformities are a result of the depleted uranium contamination.

The Daily News headlined the story "The War’s Littlest Victim."

THESE STORIES ARE REPEATED BY THOUSANDS, FAR MORE THAN THE VA REPORTS.

"MYSTERY ILLNESS" MAY BE WHAT THE VA CALLS IT, BUT WHEN DEFORMED BABIES ARE BORN TO MEN EXPOSED TO DU, THINGS CHANGE.

EVERYBODY KNOWS WHAT CAUSES THE BIRTH DEFECTS SEEN IN NEWBORNS OF VETERANS RETURNING FROM THE MIDDLE EAST....
RADIATION!  

THEIR DNA WAS DAMAGED BY DEPLETED URANIUM.
THE DAMAGE IS BEING PASSED ON TO THEIR OFFSPRING.

TINY INNOCENT VICTIMS OF THE GULF WAR
[IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE, PLEASE READ THE ARTICLE AT THE LINK ABOVE]

"When our soldiers risked their lives in the Gulf, they never imagined that their children might suffer the consequences--or that their country would turn its back on them.

Hundreds of families with children born with birth defects face official stonewalling--and a frightening future.

There's no guarantee that Gulf War babies will get government help. As it stands, a soldier's children receive free medical care only as long as a parent remains in the service."

MEET JAYCE HANSON (pictured above) , BORN TO  GULF WAR VETERAN PAUL HANSON,  WHO WAS EXPOSED TO DEPLETED URANIUM.

"Jayce is very bright," says Paul.
"He doesn't realize his limitations. But when he grows up and says, 'Why am I not like everybody else?' we'd like to be able to explain it to him."

"He's a problem solver," says his father, Paul.
Jayce suffers from a syndrome similar to that of the thalidomide babies of the 1950s. But his mother, Connie, took no drugs.

Now three years old, Jayce was born with hands and feet attached to short, twisted stumps.
He also had a hole in his heart, a hemophilia-like blood condition and underdeveloped ear canals.

Doctors recently amputated his legs at the knees to make it easier to fit him with prosthetics.

"He'll say once in a while, 'My feet are gone,'" says his mother, Connie, "but he's been a real trouper."

Clustering is the term epidemiologists use when an ailment strikes one group of people more than others--and the phenomenon can be a key indicator that something more than chance is causing birth defects.

The Association of Birth Defect Children (ABDC) says it has found the first cluster of defects in the offspring of U.S. Gulf veterans: 10 babies with severe Goldenhar's syndrome, a condition that usually strikes one in 26,000, according to ABDC executive director Betty Mekdeci.

(Another case has surfaced in Britain, where 600 vets complain of Gulf-related illness.)

The ABDC, which has gathered data on 163 ailing Gulf War babies so far, is tracking four more possible clusters--of victims of hypoplastic left heart syndrome, of atrial-septal heart defect, of microcephaly and of immune-system deficiencies.

Significantly, not one of the parents in the ABDC survey has a family history of these types of birth defects. Or as Mekdeci puts it, "There have been no relatives with funny ears."

The difficulty in proving conclusively whether clusters are occurring is that no one--not Mekdeci, not the Pentagon--knows how many babies have been born to Gulf vets.

The Defense Department's own survey of 40,000 birth outcomes, initial results of which are due in late October, is the largest study yet, but far from complete since it relies on data only from military hospitals.

The Pentagon's Dr. Joseph says the forthcoming report will include "by far the best and most comprehensive information available."

Maybe it will, but many still question whether Defense Department scientists are really seeking the hard answers.

Earlier this year Dr. Joseph told LIFE that, although trained as a pediatrician, he was entirely unfamiliar with "Goldhavers or Gold Heart--whatever."

"WHATEVER"?
IT'S GOLDENHAR'S SYNDOME, YOU PUTZ!

It's precisely that kind of response that enrages veterans with afflicted babies.
WE MAY NEVER KNOW HOW MANY BABIES BORN WITH DEFORMITIES TO RETURNING GULF WAR VETS HAVE BEEN DAMAGED BY DEPLETED URANIUM.
SOME VETERANS MAY NOT YET BE AWARE OF WHAT THEY WERE EXPOSED TO, OR THAT IT CAN CAUSE SUCH BIRTH DEFECTS.

HOW MANY VETERANS MIGHT CHOOSE NOT TO TAKE THE RISK OF HAVING CHILDREN IF THEY HAD ACCESS TO TESTS FOR DU AND WERE INFORMED?

THEY SHOULD AT LEAST BE GIVEN THAT OPTION, THAT CONSIDERATION BY OUR GOVERNMENT.

U.S. air attacks against Iraq since 1993 have undoubtedly employed nuclear munitions.

 Videos and photos of grotesquely deformed Iraqi infants born since 1991, hospital records of birth defects before 1991 and afterward, even the UN's  W.H.O. statistics  are overwhelming proof of radiation in utero, and show an increase so high as to have shocked all who compared the two eras.

Like those born to Gulf War I vets, many babies born to troops deployed to Iraq more recently are being born, and will be born, also afflicted with hideous deformities, neurological damage and/or blood and respiratory disorders.

But, on every turn, our veterans are having to literally fight for their lives, battle the VA and the federal government to get the medical help they and their spouses and children need.

Those with whom they are engaged in this final battle are the very same ones who sent them into that 'hot zone' of nuclear contamination KNOWINGLY, who now DENY that depleted uranium is the cause of their suffering and death.

IT'S AGENT ORANGE ALL OVER AGAIN.
GOVERNMENT AND MILITARY DENIAL.

IT'S THE SAME DENIAL BY GOVERNMENT AGENCIES AND THE MILITARY THAT OUR VETERANS FACED AFTER THEY WERE USED AS GUINEA PIGS FOR ATOMIC BOMB TESTS AND DEADLY EXPERIMENTAL VACCINES BEFORE AND DURING WORLD WAR II.

MANY OF THOSE VETERANS ALSO DIED FIGHTING THAT FINAL BATTLE WITH DEPLETED URANIUM AFTER LIVING THROUGH WARS THEY SERVED IN.

THEY ANSWERED THEIR NATION'S CALL TO SERVE, FOUGHT BRAVELY, BUT THEN WERE ABANDONED WHEN THEY NEEDED HELP IN RETURN...HELP TO LIVE. 

FROM NBC NEWS:

 Veterans of Iraq wars battle Pentagon over depleted uranium

"A shell coated with depleted uranium pierces a tank like a hot knife through butter, exploding on impact into a charring inferno.
Added to tank armor, it repels artillery assaults.

It also leaves behind a fine radioactive dust with a half-life of 4.5 billion years.

Depleted uranium (DU) is the garbage left from producing enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and energy plants.

The U.S. has an estimated 1.5 billion pounds of it, sitting in hazardous waste storage sites across the country, meaning it is plentiful and cheap as well as highly effective."

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!

"The Navy uses prime fishing grounds off the coast of Washington state to test fire DU ammunition.

 In January, 2003, Washington State Rep. Jim McDermott chastised the Navy:

"On one hand you have required soldiers to have DU safety training and to wear protective gear when handling DU...and submarines must stay clear of DU-contaminated waters.
These policies indicate there is cause for concern....

On the other hand the Department of Defense has repeatedly denied that DU poses any danger whatsoever.
There has been no remorse about leaving tons of DU equipment in the soil in foreign countries, and there appears to be no remorse about leaving it in the waters of your own country."
The Department of Defense (DOD) is a runaway pollution monster.

The General Accounting Office (GAO) found 9,181 dangerous military sites INSIDE the  USA that will require billions to rehabilitate.

The GAO reports that DOD has been both slothful and deceitful in its clean-up obligations.

The Pentagon is now pressing Congress to exempt it from all environmental laws so that it may pollute and poison free from liability.

BUT THEY ARE LIBEL!

The Royal Society of England published data showing that battlefield soldiers who inhale or swallow high levels of DU can suffer kidney failure within days.

Any soldier now in Iraq who has not inhaled lethal radioactive dust is not breathing.

In the first two weeks of combat, 700 Tomahawks, at a cost of $1.3 million each, blasted Iraqi real estate into radioactive mushroom clouds.

Millions of DU tank rounds litter the terrain.

Cleanup is impossible because there is no place on the planet to put so much contaminated debris.

 A SOLDIER'S FATE...

Herbert Reed says he unknowingly breathed DU dust while living with his unit in Samawah, Iraq.

He was med-evaced out in July 2003, nearly unable to walk because of lightning-strike pains from herniated discs in his spine.

Then began a strange series of symptoms he'd never experienced in his previously healthy life.

Since he left a bombed-out train depot in Iraq, his gums bleed.
There is more blood in his urine, and still more in his stool.
Bright light hurts his eyes.
A tumor has been removed from his thyroid.
Rashes erupt everywhere, itching so badly they seem to live inside his skin.
Migraines cleave his skull.
His joints ache, grating like door hinges in need of oil.

There is something massively wrong with Herbert Reed, though no one is sure what it is.
He believes he knows the cause, but he cannot convince anyone caring for him that the military's new favorite weapon has made him terrifyingly sick.

In the sprawling bureaucracy of the Department of Veterans Affairs, he has many caretakers: an internist, a neurologist, a pain-management specialist, a psychologist, an orthopedic surgeon and a dermatologist.

He cannot function without his stupefying arsenal of medications, but they exact a high price.

"I'm just a zombie walking around," he says.

It takes at least 10 minutes and a large glass of orange juice to wash down all the pills, and, four hours later, he will swallow another 15 mg of morphine to cut the pain clenching every part of his body.
He will do that twice more before the day is done.  

Back in Iraq, he walked point near thousands of shells and hundreds of tanks coated with the radioactive, chemically toxic metal that is nearly twice as dense as lead.

‘We all felt sick’
At Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C, he ran into a buddy from his unit.

And another, and another, and in the tedium of hospital life between doctor visits and the dispensing of meds, they began to talk.

"We all had migraines. We all felt sick," Reed says.
"The doctors said, 'It's all in your head.' "

Then the medic from their unit showed up.
He too, was suffering.
That made eight sick soldiers from the 442nd Military Police.

But the medic knew something the others didn't.

Dutch marines had taken over the abandoned train depot dubbed Camp Smitty, which was surrounded by tank skeletons, unexploded ordnance and shell casings.

They'd brought radiation-detection devices.
The readings were so hot, the Dutch set up camp in the middle of the desert rather than live in the station ruins.

"We got on the Internet," Reed said, "and we started researching depleted uranium."

Then they contacted The New York Daily News, which paid for sophisticated urine tests available only overseas.

TEST RESULTS

Reed, Gerard Matthew, Raymond Ramos, Hector Vega, Augustin Matos, Anthony Yonnone, Jerry Ojeda and Anthony Phillip all have depleted uranium in their urine, according to tests done in December 2003, while they bounced for months between Walter Reed and New Jersey's Fort Dix medical center, seeking relief that never came.

The analyses were done in Germany, by a Frankfurt professor who developed a depleted uranium test with Randall Parrish, a professor of isotope geology at the University of Leicester in Britain.

"When we first asked to be tested, they told us there wasn't one," Reed said.
"They've lied to us all along."   The veterans, using their positive results as evidence, have sued the U.S. Army, claiming officials knew the hazards of depleted uranium, but concealed the risks.

The Department of Defense says depleted uranium is powerful and safe, and not that worrisome.

The VA's testing methodology is safe and accurate, the agency says.
More than 2,100 soldiers from the current war have asked to be tested; only 8 had DU in their urine, the VA said.

"The Department of Defense takes the position that you can eat it for breakfast and it poses no threat at all," said Steve Robinson of the National Gulf War Resource Center, which helps veterans with various problems, including navigating the labyrinth of VA health care.

"Then you have far-left groups that ... declare it a crime against humanity."

Several countries use it as weaponry, including Britain, which fired it during the 2003 Iraq invasion.

An estimated 286 tons of DU munitions were fired by the U.S. in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991.
An estimated 130 tons were shot toppling Saddam Hussein.

Depleted uranium can enter the human body by inhalation, the most dangerous route; by ingesting contaminated food or eating with contaminated hands; by getting dust or debris in an open wound, or by being struck by shrapnel, which often is not removed because doing so would be more dangerous than leaving it.

Inhaled, it can lodge in the lungs. As with embedded shrapnel, this is doubly dangerous -- not only are the particles themselves physically destructive, they emit radiation.

Animal research shows side-effects.

There are several studies on how it affects animals, though their results are not, of course, directly applicable to humans.

Military research on mice shows that depleted uranium can enter the bloodstream and come to rest in bones, the brain, kidneys and lymph nodes.

Other research in rats shows that DU can result in cancerous tumors and genetic mutations, and pass from mother to unborn child, resulting in birth defects.

Iraqi doctors reported significant increases in birth defects and childhood cancers after the 1991 invasion.  

Iraqi authorities "found that uranium, which affected the blood cells, had a serious impact on health: The number of cases of leukemia had increased considerably, as had the incidence of fetal deformities," the U.N. reported.

Depleted uranium can also contaminate soil and water, and coat buildings with radioactive dust, which can be carried by wind and sandstorms.

In 2005, the U.N. Environmental Program identified 311 polluted sites in Iraq.

Cleaning them will take at least $40 million and several years, the agency said.
Nothing can start until the fighting stops.

NO long-term human studies
Fifteen years after it was first used in battle, there is only one U.S. government study monitoring veterans exposed to depleted uranium.

Number of soldiers in the survey: 32.
Number of soldiers in both Iraq wars: more than 900,000.

The study group's size is controversial, far too small, say experts.

32 OUT OF 900,000 AND THAT WAS WRITTEN IN 2003.
THERE ARE MANY MORE EXPOSED TO DU TODAY!

Critics also say the VA has downplayed participants' health problems, including not reporting soldiers who developed cancer, and others who developed brain or bone tumors.

So for now, depleted uranium falls into the quagmire of "Gulf War Syndrome", from which no treatment has emerged despite the government's spending of at least $300 million.
OR SO THEY SAY.  

About 30 percent of the 700,000 men and women who served in the first Gulf War still suffer a baffling array of symptoms very similar to those reported by Reed's unit.

Depleted uranium has long been suspected as a possible contributor to Gulf War Syndrome, and in the mid-90s, veterans helped push the military into tracking soldiers exposed to it.

But for all their efforts, what they got in the end was a questionnaire dispensed to homeward-bound soldiers asking about mental health, nightmares, losing control, exposure to dangerous and radioactive chemicals.

But, the veterans asked, how would soldiers know they'd been exposed?

 Radiation is invisible, tasteless, and has no smell.

And what exhausted, homesick, war-addled soldier would check a box that would only send him or her to a military medical center to be poked and prodded and questioned and tested for months?

It will take years to determine how depleted uranium affected soldiers from this war.


"DEPLETED URANIUM IS JUST LIKE AGENT ORANGE AND ATOMIC TESTING ON SOLDIERS...DENIED"

After Vietnam, veterans, in numbers that grew with the passage of time, complained of joint aches, night sweats, bloody feces, migraine headaches, unexplained rashes and violent behavior; some developed cancers.

It took more than 25 years for the Pentagon to acknowledge that Agent Orange — a corrosive defoliant used to melt the jungles of Vietnam and flush out the enemy — was linked to those sufferings.

It took 40 years for the military to compensate sick World War II vets exposed to massive blasts of radiation during tests of the atomic bomb.
The Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, comprised of scientists, physicians and veterans advocates, has a single standard to judge all research and all efforts to treat Gulf War Syndrome patients :
Have sick soldiers been made better?

The answer, according to the committee, is no.

"Regrettably, after four years of operation neither the Committee nor (the) VA can report progress toward this goal," stated its December 2005 report.

"Research has not produced effective treatments for these conditions nor shown that existing treatments are significantly effective."

And so time marches on, as do soldiers going to, and returning from, the deserts of Iraq.

At 54, Herbert Reed is a veteran of two wars and a 20-year veteran of the New York Police Department, where he last served as an assistant warden at the Riker's Island prison.
He was in perfect health, he says, before being deployed to Iraq.  

According to military guidelines, he should have heard the words 'depleted uranium' long before he ended up at Walter Reed.

He should have been trained about its dangers, and how to avoid prolonged exposure to its toxicity and radioactivity.

He says he didn't get anything of the kind.
Neither did other reservists and National Guard soldiers called up for the current war, according to veterans' groups.

Reed and the seven others from his unit hate what has happened to them. It is something no VA doctor can explain; something that leaves them feeling like so many spent shell rounds, kicked to the side of battle.

But for every outspoken soldier like them, there are MORE silent veterans like Raphael Naboa, an Army artillery scout who served 11 months in the northern Sunni Triangle, only to come home and fall apart.

Now 29, he's had growths removed from his brain.
He has suffered a 'light' stroke.

He has mentioned depleted uranium to his VA doctors, who say he suffers from a series of "non-related conditions."
He knows he was exposed to DU.

"A lot of guys went trophy-hunting, grabbing bayonets, helmets, stuff that was in the vehicles that were destroyed by depleted uranium. My guys were rooting around in it. I was trying to get them out of the vehicles."

No one in the military talked to him about depleted uranium, he said. His knowledge, like Reed's, is self-taught from the Internet.

Unlike Reed, he has not gone to war over it.

He doesn't feel up to the fight.
There is no known cure for what ails him, and so no possible victory in battle.

He'd really just like to feel normal again. And he knows of others who feel the same.

"I was an artillery scout,which are folks who are in pretty good shape.
Your Rangers, your Special Forces guys, they're in as good as shape as a professional athlete.

"Then we come back and we're all sick."

They feel like men who once were warriors and now are old before their time, with no hope for relief from a multitude of miseries that has no name."
Along with the ABDC and Defense Department surveys, more than 30 other studies of Gulf vets and their children are underway.

One that is no longer ongoing, by the Senate Banking Committee, folded last year when committee chair Don Riegle retired.

Of the 400 sick vets who had already answered committee inquiries, a startling
65 percent reported birth defects or immune-system problems in children conceived after the war.

DU doublespeak

The U.S. military insists that DU on the battlefield is not a problem.

Colonel James Naughton of the U.S. Army Material Command recently told the BBC that complaints about DU “had no medical basis.”

The military's own documents belie this.

A 1993 Pentagon document warned that “when soldiers inhale or ingest DU dust they incur a potential increase in cancer risk.”

A U.S. Army training manual requires anyone who comes within 25 meters of DU-contaminated equipment to wear respiratory and skin protection.

The U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute admitted: “If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences.” 

The Institute also stated that, if the troops were to realize what they had been exposed to, “the financial implications of long-term disability payments and healthcare costs would be excessive.”

For pragmatic reasons, DOD chooses to lie and deny.


IT ISN'T JUST IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN...
Between 1995-2000, the U.S. and NATO fired DU missiles, bullets and shells across the Balkans, nuking the peoples of Serbia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

As DU munitions were slammed into chemical plants, the environment became hideously toxic, also endangering the peoples of Albania, Macedonia, Greece, Italy, Austria and Hungary.

By 1999, UN investigators reported that an estimated 12 tons of DU had caused irreparable damage to the Yugoslavian environment, with agriculture, livestock and air water, and public health all profoundly damaged.

Scientists confirm that citizens of the Balkans are excreting uranium in their urine.

 In 2001, a Yugoslavian pathologist reported that hundreds of Bosnians have died of cancer from NATO's DU bombardment.
Many NATO peacekeepers in the Balkans now suffer ill health.

Their leukemia, cancers and other maladies are dubbed the "Balkans Syndrome."
Coghill predicts that DU weapons used in Balkans campaign will result in at least 10,000 cases of fatal cancer.

WHAT ABOUT OUR TROOPS?
HOW MANY OF THEM AND/OR THEIR SPOUSES, THEIR CHILDREN WILL SUCCUMB TO DU?

WHY SHOULD THEY, AFTER SURVIVING DEPLOYMENT, HAVE THIS FINAL ENEMY TO FACE AND ALSO HAVE TO FIGHT FOR MEDICAL HELP FROM THE VERY GOVERNMENT THAT CAUSED THIS?

"SUPPORT OUR TROOPS"?
DO WE?







======================

SOURCES:

[PLEASE NOTE: AS I WAS MAKING THIS LIST FROM THIS BLOG WHICH I BEGAN ALMOST A YEAR AGO, I NOTICED SOME BROKEN LINKS, DEAD-ENDS, SO I HAVE FOUND OTHER SITES THAT CARRIED THE SAME STORY AND YOU MAY FIND PERHAPS A HALF-DOZEN LINKS THAT TAKE YOU ELSEWHERE THAN IS STATED, BUT SAME ARTICLES.]

~ DEATH BY SLOW BURN: AMERICA NUKES ITS OWN TROOPS


~ Depleted Uranium And The Iraq War’s Legacy Of Cancer

Depleted uranium was used in Iraq warzone weaponry, and now kids are playing in contaminated fields and the spent weapons are being sold as scrap metal.


~”Depleted Uranium Symptoms Match US Report As Fears Spread,” Peter Beaumont, The Observer (UK) 1-14-01, www.guardianlimited.co.uk .
~“Gulf War Illnesses Affect 300,000 Vets,” Ellen Tomson, Pioneer Press, www.pioneerplanet.com .
See also American Gulf War Veterans Association at www.gulfwarvets.com .


~“Research on Sick Gulf Vets Revisited, “New York Times, 1-29-01;


~“Tests Show Gulf War Victims Have Uranium Poisoning,” Jonathon Carr- Brown and Martin Meissonnier, The Sunday Times (UK) 9-3-02.


~“The Tiny Victims of Desert Storm, Has Our Country Abandoned Them?,” Life Magazine, November 1995;


~ “Birth Defects Killing Gulf War Babies,” Los Angeles Times, 11-14-94;


~“Depleted Uranium -- The Lingering Poison,” Alex Kirby, BBC News Online, 6-7-99.


~US Army Environmental Policy Institute: Health and Environmental Consequences of Depleted Uranium in the U.S. Army, Technical Report, June 1995.


~“Dying of Thirst,” Fred Pearce, New Scientist, 11-17-2001.


~ “Hundreds Died of Cancer After DU Bombing -- Doctor,” Reuters, 1-13- 01.


 ~”Depleted Uranium Threatens Balkan Cancer Epidemic,” BBC News, 7- 30-99.


 ~”Cancer Rates Soar From US Military Use of DU On 'Enchanted Island,'” www.telegraph.co.uk , 2-5-01;


~“Navy Shells With Depleted Uranium Fired in Puerto Rico,” Fox News Online, 5-28-99.


~“The Fallon, NV Cancer Cluster And a US Navy Bombing,” Jeffrey St. Clair, CounterPunch.org , 8-10-02.


~ “DU Shells Are Made of A Potentially Lethal Cocktail of Nuclear Waste,” Jonathon Carr-Brown, www.sunday-times.co.uk , 1-22-01.

 ----------------------------


RELATED ARTICLES, BUT NOT ALL ABOUT DEPLETED URANIUM....SOME ARE ABOUT WHY WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE EAST IN THE FIRST PLACE:

 ~Wall Street Journal, 8-16-90: The CIA supported the Baath Party and installed Hussein as Iraqi dictator in 1968.
~“United States Dual-Use Exports to Iraq and Their Impact on the Health of Persian Gulf War Veterans,” Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, 1992, 1994;


~“US Government, 24 US Corps Illegally Helped Iraq Build Its WMD,” Hugh Williamson in Berlin, Financial Times, 12-19-02;


~“Full List of US Weapons Suppliers To Iraq,” Anu de Monterice, coachanu@earthlink.net,
12- 19-02.

~Report on effects of "low-level" radiation.
http://www.pilgrimwatch.org/health1.html

~ “The Bush-Cheney Drug Empire,” Michael C. Ruppert, Nexus Magazine, February-March 2000;

~The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, Alfred W. McCoy, Lawrence Hill & Co., revised edition due May 2003;


~Drugging of America, Rodney Stich, Diablo Western Press, 1999;

~“Blood for Oil, Drugs for Arms,” Bob Djurdjevic, Truth In Media, April 2000, www.truthinmedia.org


~ Compromised, Clinton Bush and the CIA, Terry Reed and John Cummings, S.P.I. Books, 1994;


~“The Crimes of Mena, Gray Money,” Ozark Gazette, 1995, www.copvcia.com .)


 ~ “Bush Sr.'s Carlyle Group Gets Fat on War and Conflict,” Jamie Doward, The Observer (UK), 3-25-03;

 ~“Remember: Bush Planed Iraq War Before Taking Office,” Neil Mackay, The Sunday Herald (UK) 3-27-03