Reverse Robin Hood

In this video Senator Bernie Sanders delivers a speech on the topic of extending the Bush tax cuts for the top earners in the US.  This is the "trickle down" theory, which predicts that dumping money onto the top of the economic pyramid will benefit the whole pyramid because the money will "trickle down" through the bottom level of the pyramid.

This is the economic policy that the "neo-conservative" Republicans are trying to extend, which includes Mitt Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan.

Senator Sanders does an excellent job of illustrating why this is a flawed model for economic recovery:  it literally takes money and benefits from the poorest, most economically insecure people in the country and gives it to the richest, most economically privileged people in the country.

Ben Swann Reports on Romney's Blackmail

The Mitt Romney presidential campaign has been consistently subversive and "shady" in their tactics for winning the hearts and minds of the United States.  Ben Swann has been on top of this story since for quite some time now, but this newest development in the story is particularly interesting.  It's interesting because it shows just how insecure the Mitt Romney campaign is.

Note that the delegates of Maine allegedly lack the proper credentials (according to the document), but this is excusable if the delegates keep quiet and do as they are told.  It may have come in a manila envelope, but this looks like blackmail to me.



Ben Swann has consistently demonstrated his value as a reporter with integrity and courage, and I highly recommend subscribing to his channel on YouTube.

How a Bill(ionaire) Becomes a Law(maker)

unPAC.org is an organization that strives to eliminate the influence of super PACs from the democratic process.  PAC is an acronym for political action committee, and it is basically a group that either supports or attacks a political candidate.

A super PAC is a group that supports and/or attacks political candidates but has access to exponentially greater funds, thanks to its contributors (which are corporations).  The formation of super PACs was made possible by the Citizens United ruling, wherein the Supreme Court decided that corporations are people just like you and me, so they can donate as much money to super PACs as they want.

The consequences of this are spelled out pretty clearly in this video:



Visit www.unpac.org to sign their petition to get the money out of politics.

The LIBOR Scandal, Part 3

Using clips from mainstream and alternative news sites, this series of videos does an excellent job of describing what is going on (and has been going on for quite some time) in the international banking community.  It also does a good job of highlighting the fact that Iceland has already taken legal action against bankers and politicians involved in the creation of fraudulent debt and loans.

Part One





Part Two





Part Three





Part Four

The LIBOR Scandal, Part 2

If you have not read my introduction to the LIBOR scandal, it may be helpful to read it before reading this post.  Click here to view it.

The LIBOR scandal is big.  In 2008 we saw the potential economic cataclysm that irresponsible bankers can cause, and as of June 27th, we have been presented with hard evidence that at least one major bank has a habit of manipulating markets and lying about its financial situation, sometimes on a daily basis.

When a story like the LIBOR scandal surfaces, it would make sense that journalists would be fighting tooth and nail to cover it.  It would make sense that the news media stations would be eager to air stories about the LIBOR scandal.  Even if they are simply trying to get high ratings and large numbers of viewers, it would be difficult to compete with a story that exposes the corruption at the very heart of the global economy.

Is this the case?  Apparently it is not.  I have checked several mainstream news media websites, and it seems that none are very interested in drawing attention to this story.  ABC, CNN, Fox and NBC have nothing on their front pages about LIBOR.

BBC UK and Telegraph UK each have a story about LIBOR on their front page, but these stories are pushed towards the bottom of the page and lack any images or videos to draw viewers in.

However if you do a search for "libor" on these news sites, there are plenty of stories that could have been presented on the front page:

...and the UK:

Why would none of the four major U.S. media outlets push this story on their front pages when they have plenty of stories available on their websites?  One possibility is that there are "gatekeepers" keep the information out of the spotlight. 

The wikipedia definition does a good job of describing what is meant by "gatekeeping" (emphasis added):

"Gatekeeping is the process through which information is filtered for dissemination, whether for publication, broadcasting, the Internet, or some other mode of communication... Gatekeeping occurs at all levels of the media structure - from a reporter deciding which sources are chosen to include in a story to editors deciding which stories are printed or covered, and includes media outlet owners and even advertisers..." (Source)

Stories in news media must run through a gauntlet of censorship before they ever make it to publication, and even if they are published, they can still be pushed into obscurity if the right (or wrong) people would rather it didn't draw much attention.

This begs the question, "who would want LIBOR stories to stay off of the front pages of news media?"  The most obvious answer would be "bankers," but how much influence do bankers have over mainstream media?

In a recent article on his website, David Wilcock pointed out that a group of Swiss scientists asked a very similar question in a study they conducted using a supercomputer with access to huge databases, and their results were published last year.

The introduction to the paper explained their position:

"A common intuition among scholars and in the media sees the global economy as being dominated by a handful of powerful transnational corporations (TNCs). However, this has not been confirmed or rejected with explicit numbers. A quantitative investigation is not a trivial task because firms may exert control over other firms via a web of direct and indirect ownership relations which extends over many countries. Therefore, a complex network analysis is needed in order to uncover the structure of control and its implications." (Source)

The researchers formed a list of over 43,000 transnational corporations, using a sample of over 30 million economic actors from 194 countries in the Orbis 2007 database.  Then they made graphs to show how the ownership of these corporations overlaps.

According to the researchers, 737 TNCs control 80% of the value of the rest of the 43,000 identified TNCs.  In other words a little over 1.7% of the transnational corporate world controls 80% of its total value.  

What do they mean by control?

"...our notion of control can be related to Weber’s definition of “power”, i.e. the probability of an individual to be able to impose their will despite the opposition of the others." (Source)

Why is this significant?

"...this implies that the global financial network is also very intricate. Recent works have shown that when a financial network is very densely connected it is prone to systemic risk. Indeed, while in good times the network is seemingly robust, in bad times firms go into distress simultaneously. This knife-edge property was witnessed during the recent financial turmoil." (Source)

Which corporations are at the top of this "1.7%"?

"Notice that many actors belong to the financial sector... The interest of this ranking is not that it exposes unsuspected powerful players. Instead, it shows that many of the top actors belong to the core. This means that they do not carry out their business in isolation but, on the contrary, they are tied together in an extremely entangled web of control." (Source)

More specifically, here are the top 20 TNCs (the top 0.0004%):

Note that according to this study, Barclays is the most powerful entity in the transnational corporate world (which they defined as the ability to impose its will despite opposition).  Is it possible that Barclays, or the banking system in general, would prefer to stay in obscurity and has the right connections to use their leverage to keep LIBOR out of the news?

According to www.globalissues.org, there are eight media conglomerates in the United States, which own all of the mainstream media outlets.  These eight conglomerates are: 

• Disney (ABC)
• AOL-Time Warner (CNN)
• Viacom (CBS)
• General Electric (NBC)
• News Corporation (Fox)
• Yahoo!
• Microsoft
• Google

The website www.fair.org has a page that shows specific relationships between media conglomerates and other corporate entities through what are called "interlocking directorates." According to the page (emphasis added):

"Media corporations share members of the board of directors with a variety of other large corporations, including banks, investment companies, oil companies, health care and pharmaceutical companies and technology companies." (Source)

By interlocking their boards of directors, corporations share control of their companies with one another.  The Swiss research showed that the most powerful TNCs were financial institutions, and fair.org shows that all of the listed media conglomerates have interlocking directorates with financial institutions.  The bank at the center of the LIBOR scandal, Barclays, has interlocked with a media conglomerate called Knight-Ridder:

According to Wikipedia (emphasis added):

"Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was bought by The McClatchy Company on June 27, 2006, it was the second-largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspapers sold." (Source)

The information on fair.org may be outdated, but Barclays may have interlocked with other media conglomerates, so I will dig for more info.  In any case Barclays remains the #1 most powerful transnational corporation on the planet according to the Swiss study, and the obscurity of the LIBOR coverage in the US media is notable to say the least.

In the next section of this story, I will explore the significance of what the mainstream media has been focusing on while the LIBOR scandal has been unfolding.

Intro to LIBOR Scandal

If you have not heard about the LIBOR scandal, you are probably not alone.  The mainstream media has been relatively quiet about this story.  However there is plenty of information available on the internet if you look for it.

So what is LIBOR?

LIBOR is an acronym that stands for the London Inter-Bank Offer Rate.  This is the rate at which banks are able to borrow money (like an interest rate).  This is important because banks are consistently borrowing and lending money, so this gives people outside the banking industry an idea of what banks' "bills" will look like.

In order for a bank to be able to pay its "bills," it has to make income, and one source of income for banks is the interest it charges for loans.  This means that the LIBOR rate has a direct effect on the interest rates that borrowers pay to banks.

Based on how much it costs for a bank to borrow money and how much income the bank is generating, it is fairly straightforward to tell how stable a bank is -- if it is making enough money to pay all of its bills, it's stable.

That's easy enough... The problem is that banks are pretty much on the honor system, and we (non-bankers) just take their word for it that their reports are honest.  Anyone who has been paying attention to politics and the economy since about 2008 can see that banking culture considers honesty to be optional, especially when there is an opportunity to make a quick profit.

Luckily for the average person, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which is part of the U.S. Department of Justice, has been paying enough attention to notice that there may be a problem with the honor system and opened an investigation.

Last month the CFTC released a legal document that exposed one bank in particular, Barclays, for having manipulated and falsified reports regarding their cost to borrow money.

The following is from the CFTC's summary of the document:

Over a period of several years, commencing in at least 2005, Barclays PLC, Barclays Banle and Barclays Capital... repeatedly attempted to manipulate and made false, misleading or knowingly inaccurate submissions concerning two global benchmark interest rates... [London Interbank Offered Rate ("LIB OR") Euro Interbank Offered Rate ("Euribor")].

The CFTC then elaborated on what these rates are and why they are important:

LIBOR and Euribor are leading short-term interest rate benchmarks intended to reflect the costs of borrowing unsecured funds in certain interbank markets. LIBOR and Euribor are critical to financial markets worldwide. They are used to price a variety of global financial products, including U.S.-based swaps transactions and futures contracts, as well as home mortgages and commercial and personal consumer loans...

The summary then explained how Barclays was able to manipulate these rates and that it was more than a few individuals:

Barclays Bank was, and is, a member of the panel of banks that submits rates for the daily calculation and global publication of various currencies of LIB OR and Euribor...

Barclays' violative conduct involved multiple desks, traders, offices and currencies, including United States Dollar ("U.S. Dollar"), Sterling, Euro and Yen. The wrongful conduct spanned from at least 2005 through at least 2009, and at times occurred on an almost daily basis.

You can read the entire document from the CFTC's website here.

Barclays was quick to settle with the CFTC.  They reached a settlement with authorities on that same day, June 27th, for $450 million, admitting that its executives and traders did try to manipulate the LIBOR rates.

Considering that the LIBOR rate is involved in the manipulation of more than $560 trillion in loans, one might say that Barclays got off relatively easy.  However as the scandal unfolds it may be that Barclays got off easy simply because it was the first bank to face legal action.  Barclays is only one of sixteen banks that are involved in the LIBOR rate, so other banks may be involved in the case.

Visit ABC news and see their original article from June 27th here.

According to BBC news, as of July 2, the authorities are already gearing up to investigate the financial practices of other banks.  Prime Minister David Cameron called for a full parliamentary inquiry into the scandal and advised that "bankers who have acted improperly should be punished."

Royal Bank of Scotland is also being investigated for its role in the LIBOR scandal, and a whistleblower has indicated that e-mails from the Bank of England led traders and management at Barclays to believe that the manipulation of LIBOR was encouraged by the Bank of England.

See this article published by BBC news on July 2nd.

The evidence supports the idea that this scandal is much larger than one bank or even a few banks.  How far does the rabbit hole go?  A contributing editor at Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi, and the president/CEO of Better Markets, Inc., Dennis Kelleher, do a great job of explaining exactly why this is a problem with the banking system itself, not just a case of a few bad apples.

Here is the clip from Viewpoint with Elliot Spitzer:



In the next post, I will provide information related to the absence of news about this story in the mainstream media.

Bernie Sanders: America For Sale

Senator Bernie Sanders (I) has proven time and again that he is willing to stand up for the citizens of the United States, even if he stands alone. 

In his recent report, America For Sale, Senator Sanders listed twenty-three billionaire influences that are contributing money to politicians, therefore "buying" allegiance and doing so under complete secrecy due to the Supreme Court ruling on the Citizens United case.  The US government has decided to institutionalize secrecy, and Bernie Sanders has taken it upon himself to provide transparency: 

From the article:

1. Sheldon Adelson worth nearly $25 billion... willing to spend a “limitless” amount of money... to help defeat President Obama in November.

2. The Kochs (David, Charles, and William) worth a combined $103 billion... pledged to spend about $400 million during the 2012 election season...

3. Jim Walton $23.7 billion... donated $300,000 to super PACs in 2012.

4. Harold Simmons $9 billion... donated $15.2 million to super PACs this year.

5. Peter Thiel $1.5 billion... donated $6.7 million to Super PACs this year.

6. Jerrold Perenchio $2.3 billion... $2.6 million to super PACs this year.

7. Kenneth Griffin $3 billion... $2.08 million to super PACs in 2012.

8. James Simons $10.7 billion... $1.5 million to super Pacs this year.

9. Julian Robertson $2.5 billion... $1.25 million to super PACs this year.

10. Robert Rowling $4.8 billion... $1.1 million to super PACs.

11. John Paulson, the hedge fund manager who made his fortune betting that the sub-prime mortgage market would collapse, is worth $12.5 billion... donated $1 million to super PACs.

12. Richard and J.W. Marriott $3.1 billion... $2 million to super PACs this year.

13. James Davis $1.9 billion... $1 million to super PACs this year.

14. Harold Hamm $11 billion... $985,000 to super PACs this year.

15. Kenny Trout $1.2 billion... $900,000 to super PACs this year.

16. Louis Bacon $1.4 billion... $500,000 to super PACs this year.

17. Bruce Kovner $4.5 billion... $500,000 to super PACs this year.

18. Warren Stephens $2.7 billion... $500,000 to super PACs this year.

19. David Tepper $5.1 billion... $375,000 to super PACs this year.

20. Samuel Zell $4.9 billion... $270,000 to super PACs this year.

21. Leslie Wexner $4.3 billion... $250,000 to super PACs this year.

22. Charles Schwab $3.5 billion... $250,000 to super PACs this year.

23. Kelcy Warren $2.3 billion... $250,000 to super PACs this year.

Read the full article here.

Journalism: PR in Disguise

This article from the New York Times describes the level of control that interviewees have over journalists' published content.  Though it is troubling that journalists are admittedly forced to be public relations correspondents in disguise, the silver lining is that the New York Times is coming forward with this story to make people aware of the low quality of information that is being published (even in their own publication). Hopefully this article foreshadows a shift in the integrity of mainstream media.

From the article:

"...The push and pull over what is on the record is one of journalism’s perennial battles. But those negotiations typically took place case by case, free from the red pens of press minders. Now... politicians and their advisers are routinely demanding that reporters allow them final editing power over any published quotations.

Quote approval is standard practice for the Obama campaign, used by many top strategists and almost all midlevel aides in Chicago and at the White House — almost anyone other than spokesmen who are paid to be quoted. (And sometimes it applies even to them.) It is also commonplace throughout Washington and on the campaign trail.

...And Romney advisers almost always require that reporters ask them for the green light on anything from a conversation that they would like to include in an article.

From Capitol Hill to the Treasury Department, interviews granted only with quote approval have become the default position. Those officials who dare to speak out of school... shroud even the most innocuous and anodyne quotations in anonymity by insisting they be referred to as a “top Democrat” or a “Republican strategist.”...

“We don’t like the practice,” said Dean Baquet, managing editor for news at The New York Times. “We encourage our reporters to push back. Unfortunately this practice is becoming increasingly common"...

The White House held such a briefing after the Supreme Court’s health care ruling last month with officials... But when reporters asked to quote part of the conversation, even anonymously, they were told no. Even the spokesmen were off limits."

Read the full article here.

Introduction

Hello and welcome to KeenFo! I created this blog to compile news and other information that is either glossed over or ignored in mainstream media outlets. I will also create original posts whenever I find a story that begs for more research. I hope everyone will find this page to be a convenient source of valuable information that sparks deep thought and discussion. Without further adieu, I will get to work and start posting content :)