History lesson about money

[Pasquale DiFabrizio]

Pennyworth wrote:At THE CROSSROADS Of NAFTAThe Twilight ZoneOne result of this dreadful situation is that border towns in both countries, but far more so in Mexico, have seen their economies disappear. It used to be common for borderlanders crossing over to shop, dine, visit family and friends (on both sides), see a doctor or pharmacist (the Mexican side) or just soak in a different atmosphere. Now, from Brownsville and Matamoros on the Gulf of Mexico to San Diego and Tijuana on the Pacific coast, shopkeepers on the U.S. side see only a trickle of Mexican customers. ..Nowhere does the change in border dynamics appear more striking than in Ciudad Juárez, a city of about 1.5 million across the Rio Grande from El Paso. Juárez, which in recent years has seen a string of unsolved sexual assaults and murders of young women, was once the swingin'-est town on the entire frontier. Here, at the crossroads of NAFTA, terrific literature, quality artisan crafts, foreign-owned assembly plants and dance halls galore, the erosion of border life as it existed for generations is almost complete. Juárez awoke one day last December to learn that four policemen had been killed within a half-hour, one of them decapitated. It was the worst carnage of that week, but it numbed rather than outraged. Juárez experienced more than 1,500 homicides last year, which, along with daylight carjackings, occasional kidnappings, random street robberies and plain vanilla extortion, made for a population fearful of the new year. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... nsbox1Yeah, Juarez isn't exactly Disneyland these days. Juarez is another example to me of why they should just legalize marijuana and other related drugs. Those drug dealers wouldn't be making such a profit anymore. Prohibition created guys like Al Capone. Keeping drugs illegal is creating millionaires out of these drug dealing thugs. They're having a war down there, and it's pretty much all drugs dealers doing it.

[Pennyworth]

Pennyworth wrote:Reform On Rockefeller Drugs....Since their enactment in 1973, the Rockefeller drug laws have mandated minimum sentences for drug offenses based strictly on the amount of narcotics involved in the case. They do not take into consideration circumstances such as whether this is the offender's first arrest, and they do not consider the defendant's standing in their community. Before the 2004 Drug Law Reform Act, convictions for carrying four ounces -- or selling two -- of cocaine or heroin could require the same sentence as a murder conviction. The laws were designed to punish "king pin" drug dealers but tend to punish addicts and users. ..Caitlin Dunklee of the Drop the Rock Campaign pointed to a study by the Legal Action Center that indicated that wide-ranging reform -- fully restoring judges' discretion in all drug cases and greatly expanding alternative sentencing programs to provide treatment rather than prison -- would save the state almost $268 million a year. The study took into account the effect of sending addicted individuals to community treatment programs rather than prison and maintained that would drastically reduce repeat offenses. ..http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/Al ... 5/204/2820 Published: March 4, 2009 ALBANY — The state legislature took pivotal steps on Wednesday toward repealing much of what remains of the state’s 1970s-era drug laws, which have tied judges hands and imposed mandatory prison terms for many nonviolent drug offenses. United Press InternationalGov. Nelson A. Rockefeller signed the drug laws that bear his name on May 8, 1973. This image was scanned from a file print that was hand-retouched before initial publication to suit the photoengraving methods then in use. The Assembly approved by a 96-46 vote legislation that would restore judges’ discretion in sentencing lower level drug offenders by removing laws that require a prosecutor’s consent before judges can send someone to a drug treatment program. Debate on the bill got underway late Wednesday afternoon.The same bill was introduced on Wednesday in the Senate, where Democratic leaders vowed to quickly take it up. But the task now confronting legislative leaders and Gov. David A. Paterson is to reconcile the Assembly bill — which is considered the most far-reaching of the proposals on the table now — with the governor’s plan and the bill that Senate Democrats write.Drug law reform has for years been one of the most divisive social issues debated in Albany. Bills aimed at broadly overhauling the statutes, known as the Rockefeller drug laws because former Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller championed their approval, have routinely passed the Democratic-controlled Assembly over the years, only to die in the Senate, which until this year was run by Republicans.With Democrats now in the majority in the Senate and Mr. Paterson an avowed Rockefeller reform advocate, supporters of rewriting the drug laws see this year as their best chance to pass a plan that essentially does away with mandatory sentences for drug crimes.“I think the stars are aligned,” Sheldon Silver, the speaker of the Assembly, said at a news conference on Wednesday morning. “It’s time has come.”Senate Democrats were debating the issue in a closed-door conference on Wednesday night.But before any three-way compromise is reached, several sticking points need to be resolved. Those issues include whether drug offenders who do not complete treatment would be sent to prison and whether offenders would first need to be certified as addicted before they could enter a treatment program.The State Legislature has already eliminated the stiffest provisions of the Rockefeller laws, doing away in 2004 with life sentences for drug crimes and reducing other penalties for the most serious offenses. But supporters of the Assembly plan believe that plan is an opportunity to finish what began in 2004.“It should not have taken this state 36 years to realize that mandatory sentences are a one-size-fits-all approach,” Mr. Silver said. “We cannot wait another year.”Drug law reform activists said that the legislation would be an opportunity for New York to catch up after falling behind other states that have greatly expanded their drug treatment programs as alternatives to prison.“The general theme is states are making greater effort to divert people into treatment programs, and they’re start to use prison not as a first resort but a secondary or last resort,” said Gabriel Sayegh, the director of organizing and policy for the Drug Policy Alliance Network, a national drug law reform group. “If the legislature follows through with moving toward a public health approach, New York could potentially go from having some of the worst laws in the country to having some of the best.”But district attorneys have expressed concern that the proposals currently being considered in Albany strip them of their important function as a check against judges.“We’ve achieved a balance where we’ve preserved public safety and reduced our prison population,” said Michael C. Green, the district attorney for Monroe County. “I look at that and say why do we want to take this system and make a seismic shift? My fear is that you’re going to disturb one of those trends.”http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/nyreg ... er.html?hp

[Pennyworth]

ASSET CHASE....CLAUDIO GATTIPublished: April 27, 2009 With municipal bond investigations spreading to Europe from the United States, Italian authorities have seized about $300 million in assets of four global banks — JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, UBS and Depfa — whose officials have been accused of fraud. Giuseppe Aresu/Bloomberg NewsAlfredo Robledo, the Milan prosecutor, is accusing the banks of making $130 million in illicit profits over the handling of municipal bonds. The Guardia di Finanza in Milan, the financial police of Italy, took over real estate properties, bank accounts and stock holdings on Monday to assure it could collect from the banks if their officials were found guilty and the banks were held responsible. The seizures stem from the banks’ handling of a $2.2 billion municipal bond issue and related financial contracts known as swaps that Milan undertook to retire other debt in June 2005. The lead prosecutor accused the bankers of misleading the city and falsely claiming that the deal would generate savings. If all the costs had been properly included, the prosecutor said, the entire deal would have been illegal under a national law that allows restructuring of debt only if it produces a savings. Alfredo Robledo, the prosecutor in Milan, suspects the banks made $130 million in illicit profits, according to information obtained in a joint investigation by the Italian business newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore and The International Herald Tribune. He is also investigating transactions by the banks with other local Italian governments and the possibility that public officials received kickbacks. About 35 billion euros ($46 billion) in bonds were issued by local Italian governments over the last decade, mostly by the London units of large banks based in the United States and Europe. A former executive from one of the banks being investigated in Milan said that all of these could be subject to challenge.Representatives of each of the four banks declined to comment. JPMorgan is based in New York, Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, UBS in Zurich and Depfa is a unit of Hypo Real Estate in Munich. Three of the banks are also being investigated over their municipal bond practices in the United States. Officials or former officials of JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and UBS, along with the institutions themselves, are the subjects of investigations, company filings and documents filed in civil cases show.In its annual report released last month, JPMorgan Chase acknowledged parallel investigations in the United States by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission into possible antitrust and securities violations involving derivatives sold to local governments. JPMorgan said it was cooperating with the investigations and had provided documents. On both sides of the Atlantic, the banks and their executives have been accused of misleading local governments and selling officials exotic financial products known as derivatives that they did not fully understand. These derivatives, when combined with bond offerings, were presented as ways to raise cash and reduce the long-term cost of debt, but officials claim now that many of the contracts, in the form of swaps, were packed with millions of dollars in fees that were not disclosed.In his filings to a judge in Italy seeking the asset seizure, Mr. Robledo asserted that the bankers falsely claimed that the deal would save 57.3 million euros. While charging only nominal fees to show the refinancing would be beneficial, he said, the bank then hid their profits in the spread between what the city paid to the banks and what the banks gave in return on swaps contracts that accompanied the bond issue — a difference of 52.7 million euros.The original deal was rescheduled five times until October 2007 and produced an additional 48 million euros of profit for the banks.In total, the banks earned about 101 million euros in such payments over a two-year period. The largest share went to JPMorgan Chase, which the prosecutor said took in almost 45 million euros. It is too soon to tell whether the long-term cost of the deal and the swaps contracts, which carry more risk than a plain-vanilla bond offering, will be even higher. The jurisdiction of this case is in dispute. Last January, days after Milan announced that it was suing the banks in civil court, JPMorgan filed a countersuit in the High Court in London to have the claim heard there instead.In their presentations, the banks noted that they were regulated by the Financial Securities Authority in Britain, an agency similar to the S.E.C., and that their contracts were subject to British laws.But the Italian investigators argue that they have authority to investigate any fraud. British law “would be applicable to civil proceedings, not a criminal one, such as this,” said an investigator involved in the case who said he was not authorized to speak about a continuing investigation. According to the Italian magistrate, British rules may have been violated as well. Citing the opinion of David Dobell, a former British financial regulator who is now a partner in CCL, a compliance consultancy, the prosecutor claimed that the banks breached their fiduciary duties as defined by the F.S.A. when dealing with a nonprofessional customer like Milan. These and other similar transactions could be invalidated if the banks breached those duties, requiring the banks to disgorge their profits from the deals and pay damages. Beside the 10 bankers, Giorgio Porta, Milan’s general manager at the time of the deal, and Mario Mauri, then a financial adviser to the mayor, are also under investigation. The Italian prosecutor could soon request help from the British regulator in determining whether intermediary or consultant fees were paid by the banks and to whom.Claudio Gatti is an investigative reporter for Il Sole 24 Ore. He is based in New York.Next Article in Business (15 of 41) » A version of this article appeared in print on April 28, 2009, on page B1 of the New York edition. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/busin ... ref=global

[ChristophMessner]

When the jurisdiction is much too slow or bribed to haunt, then the pillory is necessary.

[Pasquale DiFabrizio]

Pennyworth wrote:ASSET CHASE....CLAUDIO GATTIPublished: April 27, 2009 With municipal bond investigations spreading to Europe from the United States, Italian authorities have seized about $300 million in assets of four global banks — JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, UBS and Depfa — whose officials have been accused of fraud. Giuseppe Aresu/Bloomberg NewsAlfredo Robledo, the Milan prosecutor, is accusing the banks of making $130 million in illicit profits over the handling of municipal bonds. The Guardia di Finanza in Milan, the financial police of Italy, took over real estate properties, bank accounts and stock holdings on Monday to assure it could collect from the banks if their officials were found guilty and the banks were held responsible. The seizures stem from the banks’ handling of a $2.2 billion municipal bond issue and related financial contracts known as swaps that Milan undertook to retire other debt in June 2005. The lead prosecutor accused the bankers of misleading the city and falsely claiming that the deal would generate savings. If all the costs had been properly included, the prosecutor said, the entire deal would have been illegal under a national law that allows restructuring of debt only if it produces a savings. Alfredo Robledo, the prosecutor in Milan, suspects the banks made $130 million in illicit profits, according to information obtained in a joint investigation by the Italian business newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore and The International Herald Tribune. He is also investigating transactions by the banks with other local Italian governments and the possibility that public officials received kickbacks. About 35 billion euros ($46 billion) in bonds were issued by local Italian governments over the last decade, mostly by the London units of large banks based in the United States and Europe. A former executive from one of the banks being investigated in Milan said that all of these could be subject to challenge.Representatives of each of the four banks declined to comment. JPMorgan is based in New York, Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, UBS in Zurich and Depfa is a unit of Hypo Real Estate in Munich. Three of the banks are also being investigated over their municipal bond practices in the United States. Officials or former officials of JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and UBS, along with the institutions themselves, are the subjects of investigations, company filings and documents filed in civil cases show.In its annual report released last month, JPMorgan Chase acknowledged parallel investigations in the United States by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission into possible antitrust and securities violations involving derivatives sold to local governments. JPMorgan said it was cooperating with the investigations and had provided documents. On both sides of the Atlantic, the banks and their executives have been accused of misleading local governments and selling officials exotic financial products known as derivatives that they did not fully understand. These derivatives, when combined with bond offerings, were presented as ways to raise cash and reduce the long-term cost of debt, but officials claim now that many of the contracts, in the form of swaps, were packed with millions of dollars in fees that were not disclosed.In his filings to a judge in Italy seeking the asset seizure, Mr. Robledo asserted that the bankers falsely claimed that the deal would save 57.3 million euros. While charging only nominal fees to show the refinancing would be beneficial, he said, the bank then hid their profits in the spread between what the city paid to the banks and what the banks gave in return on swaps contracts that accompanied the bond issue — a difference of 52.7 million euros.The original deal was rescheduled five times until October 2007 and produced an additional 48 million euros of profit for the banks.In total, the banks earned about 101 million euros in such payments over a two-year period. The largest share went to JPMorgan Chase, which the prosecutor said took in almost 45 million euros. It is too soon to tell whether the long-term cost of the deal and the swaps contracts, which carry more risk than a plain-vanilla bond offering, will be even higher. The jurisdiction of this case is in dispute. Last January, days after Milan announced that it was suing the banks in civil court, JPMorgan filed a countersuit in the High Court in London to have the claim heard there instead.In their presentations, the banks noted that they were regulated by the Financial Securities Authority in Britain, an agency similar to the S.E.C., and that their contracts were subject to British laws.But the Italian investigators argue that they have authority to investigate any fraud. British law “would be applicable to civil proceedings, not a criminal one, such as this,” said an investigator involved in the case who said he was not authorized to speak about a continuing investigation. According to the Italian magistrate, British rules may have been violated as well. Citing the opinion of David Dobell, a former British financial regulator who is now a partner in CCL, a compliance consultancy, the prosecutor claimed that the banks breached their fiduciary duties as defined by the F.S.A. when dealing with a nonprofessional customer like Milan. These and other similar transactions could be invalidated if the banks breached those duties, requiring the banks to disgorge their profits from the deals and pay damages. Beside the 10 bankers, Giorgio Porta, Milan’s general manager at the time of the deal, and Mario Mauri, then a financial adviser to the mayor, are also under investigation. The Italian prosecutor could soon request help from the British regulator in determining whether intermediary or consultant fees were paid by the banks and to whom.Claudio Gatti is an investigative reporter for Il Sole 24 Ore. He is based in New York.Next Article in Business (15 of 41) » A version of this article appeared in print on April 28, 2009, on page B1 of the New York edition. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/busin ... =globalI'm sorry, Pennyworth, but I just find it hard to believe that bankers would just deceive like that. JUST KIDDING!!!!! LMAO I think they're a bunch of greedy pigs!

[Pennyworth]

bunny.......http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Lam ... graphyPaul Mellon was the son of Andrew W. Mellon, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1921 to 1932; and brother of Ailsa Mellon-Bruce. He attended Choate, now Choate Rosemary Hall, and graduated from Yale University, where he became a member of the prestigious Yale secret society Scroll and Key and served as vice-chairman of the Yale Daily News. He was always loyal to his alma mater, donating two residential colleges and the Yale Center for British Art. After graduating from Yale he went to England to study at Clare College, Cambridge receiving a BA in 1931, while his father served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James from 1932 to 1933.Scroll And Key......http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scroll_and_Key

[Pennyworth]

David Rockefeller NWO Operative....It is ironic, as Daniel Estulin points out, that America’s fledgling democracy established the Logan act in 1799 to protect itself from Americans fostering foreign associations to intrude in our affairs. Named after Dr. George Logan, a pro Republican and prescient Quaker from Pennsylvania, it has remained almost unchanged and unfortunately unused since its passage, though it reads with great relevance in the shadows of the New World Order’s operatives . . .It states, “Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.”Most notably, they include the multi-billionaire David Rockefeller and ex-Secretary of State and war criminal Henry Kissinger. The Rockefeller family, influence, and fortune constitute the very hub of the Bilderberg Group. Its various spokes connect to international finance, economics, media, science, world health, politics, public works, any phase of life and death you can think of.Together they form the wheel of the New World Order, rolling towards a vast collectivist society in which free nation states are subsumed under the Bilderberg Big Brothers, most notably Rockefeller, with an expanded UN military force, supported by taxes on oil at the wellhead to maintain order and security.http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish ... 4772.shtml

[Pennyworth]

The Rockefeller family wields enormous power, even though its reigning patriarch, David, will be 94 on June 12 and surely near the end of his dominance. However, for years "the Rockefellers (led by David) gained great influence over the media. (With it) the family gained sway over public opinion. With the pulse of public opinion, they gained deep influence in politics. And with this politics of subtle corruption, they are taking control of the nation" and now aim for total world domination.http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman010609.htm

[Pennyworth]

Pennyworth wrote:The Rockefeller family wields enormous power, even though its reigning patriarch, David, will be 94 on June 12 and surely near the end of his dominance. However, for years "the Rockefellers (led by David) gained great influence over the media. (With it) the family gained sway over public opinion. With the pulse of public opinion, they gained deep influence in politics. And with this politics of subtle corruption, they are taking control of the nation" and now aim for total world domination.http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman010609.htmEXCERPT FROM ABOVE ARTICLE:Steps Toward a North American Union-- the October 4, 1988 Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the US and Canada, finalized the previous year;-- at the 1991 Bilderberg meeting, David Rockefeller got governor Bill Clinton's support for NAFTA if he became president;-- on January 1, 1994, with no debate under "fast-track" rules, Congress approved WTO legislation;

[Pennyworth]

Just a note:This also belongs on the NWO thread..both threads are intertwining