OATH KEEPERS UNDER ATTACK

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The Big Green Buy Christian Parenti July 27, 2010-THE NATION.

In the wake of the BP oil spill, some captains of industry have begun calling for government leadership to spur a clean-energy revolution. In June billionaire software mogul Bill Gates visited Washington and encouraged lawmakers to pony up public subsidies to triple clean-tech R&D funding from $5 billion to $16 billion annually. Gates explained to the Washington Post that much of what is touted as free-market innovation was born of government subsidies: The Internet and the microprocessor, which were very fundamental to Microsoft being able to take the magic of software and having the PC explode, were among many of the elements that came through government research and development.And on his website Gates wrote, When it comes to developing new sources of energy, and ways to store that energy, I believe the federal government needs to play a more active role than it does today.

Gates's acknowledgment of the need for government intervention is welcome, but he and many others are stuck on innovation. The fixation on new game-changing technology is omnipresent. Think of the metaphors we use: a green Manhattan Project or a clean-tech Apollo Program. It recalls Tocqueville's observation that the American lives in a land of wonders, in which everything around him is in constant movement, and every movement seems an advance. Consequently, in his mind the idea of newness is closely linked with that of improvement.Yet according to clean-tech experts, innovation is now less important than rapid large-scale implementation. In other words, developing a clean-energy economy is not about new gadgets but rather about new policies.An overemphasis on breakthrough inventions can obscure the fact that most of the energy technologies we need already exist. You know what they are: wind farms, concentrated solar power plants, geothermal and tidal power, all feeding an efficient smart grid that, in turn, powers electric vehicles and radically more energy-efficient buildings.But the so-called price gap is holding back clean tech: it is too expensive, while fossil fuels are far too cheap. The simple fact is that capitalist economies will switch to clean energy on a large scale only when it is cheaper than fossil fuels. The fastest way to close the price gap is to build large clean-tech markets that allow for economies of scale. So, what is the fastest way to build those markets? More research grants? More tax credits? More clumsy pilot programs? No. The fastest, simplest way to do it is to reorient government procurement away from fossil fuel energy, toward clean energy and technology—to use the government's vast spending power to create a market for green energy. After all, the government didn't just fund the invention of the microprocessor; it was also the first major consumer of the device.

Call it the Big Green Buy. The advantage of this strategy is that it is something Obama can do right now, without waiting for Congressional approval to act. As such, it amounts to a real test of his will to make progress in the fight against climate change.Consider this: altogether federal, state and local government constitute more than 38 percent of our GDP. Allow that to sink in for a moment. The federal government will spend $3.6 trillion this year. In more concrete terms, Uncle Sam owns or leases more than 430,000 buildings (mostly large office buildings) and 650,000 vehicles. The federal government is the world's largest consumer of energy and vehicles, and the nation's largest greenhouse gas emitter. Add state and local government activity, and all those numbers grow by about a third again.A redirection of government purchasing would create massive markets for clean power, electric vehicles and efficient buildings, as well as for more sustainably produced furniture, paper, cleaning supplies, uniforms, food and services. If government bought green, it would drive down marketplace prices sufficiently that the momentum toward green tech would become self-reinforcing and spread to the private sector.

The good news is that despite our sclerotic, largely right-wing Congress, government agencies are turning toward procurement as a means to jump-start clean tech and cut emissions.Perhaps the most important move in this direction came in October 2009, when President Obama quietly signed Executive Order 13514, which directs all federal agencies to increase energy efficiency; measure, report, and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from direct and indirect activities; conserve and protect water resources through efficiency, reuse, and stormwater management; eliminate waste, recycle, and prevent pollution; leverage agency acquisitions to foster markets for sustainable technologies and environmentally preferable materials, products, and services; design, construct, maintain, and operate high performance sustainable buildings in sustainable locations.The executive order also stipulates that federal agencies immediately start purchasing 95 percent through green certified programs and achieve a 28 percent greenhouse gas reduction by 2020. The stimulus package passed in 2009 included $32.7 billion for the Energy Department to tackle climate change, and some of that money is now being dispersed to business and federal agencies.Already some federal agencies are installing energy management systems and new solar arrays in buildings, tapping landfills to burn methane and replacing older vehicles with plug-in hybrids and soon some all-electric vehicles. But it is the green procurement part of the executive order that is most interesting.Government has tremendous latitude to leverage green procurement because it requires no new taxes, programs or spending, nor is it hostage to the holy grail of sixty votes in the Senate. It is simply a matter of changing how the government buys its energy, vehicles and services. Yes, in many cases clean tech costs more up front, but in most cases savings arrive soon afterward. And government—because of its size—is a market mover that has already shown it can leverage money-saving deals.

Currently, the price gap relegates clean tech to boutique status: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom owns an electric car; SF City Hall has three electric-vehicle charging stations; nationwide there are about 55,000 electric vehicles and 5,000 charging stations. Groovy.However, back on Planet America the asphalt transportation arteries are clogged with 250 million gasoline-powered vehicles sucking down an annual $200–$300 billion worth of fuel from more than 121,000 filling stations. Add to that the cost of heating and cooling buildings, jet travel, shipping, powering industry and the energy-gobbling servers and mainframes that are the Internet, and the US energy economy reaches a spectacular annual tab of $2–$3 trillion.The clean-tech price gap is partly the result of old dirty tech's history of subsidies ($72.5 billion between 2002 and 2008), but it is also the result of the massive economies of scale that the fossil fuel industry enjoys. In other words, gas pumps and gasoline are cheaper when you buy in bulk.Closely associated with the price gap is another concept, which clean-tech developers call the valley of death. This is the time in a technology's life cycle when capital dries up, the time between a technology's initial invention and its successful application as a moneymaking commodity.A report by Ernst & Young found that a typical technological innovation—like the flatscreen TV or the cellphone—costs about $20–$100 million to invent but about $1 billion to deploy at competitive prices. Between government subsidies and capital markets, there is often enough financing available to invent new gadgets or buy into a mature and profitable business. But there is a dearth of capital for new companies trying to cross that gap between victory in the lab and victory in the market.Smith Electric Vehicles, of Kansas City, is one company that would benefit immensely if government started robust green procurement. Currently Smith, the US affiliate of a British firm that has been making electric delivery trucks for eighty years, turns out about twenty units a month. The vehicles—flatbeds, refrigerator trucks, basic box-style delivery trucks—all require components that Smith buys on the open market.If we could buy gear boxes in batches of a hundred rather than ten at a time, they could be cast to our specifications rather than each one machined. That would immediately cut the cost by 30 to 40 percent, says Smith CEO Bryan Hansel. Similar savings would be available for other inputs like steel chassis, cabs, drive shafts, suspensions and wiring harnesses, all of which are purchased from the same suppliers used by diesel- and gas-powered vehicle makers.

In March Smith received a $32 million Energy Department grant that will help it offset the cost of its trucks. But what would really give it a boost is an order of 1,000 trucks a year for the next ten years, from, say, the Defense Department or the Postal Service or the General Services Administration (GSA). If that happened, Smith's plans to open twenty more small manufacturing facilities around the country would shift into high gear.We have approached the DoD about nontactical vehicles, like trucks that are used on bases here in the US. They bought four of our vehicles for testing. So we're hopeful,says Hansel. The Defense Department has 160,000 nontactical vehicles, many of which are suitable for electrification.In other respects, the military is one of the most avid adaptors of clean technology. Of all the energy the federal government consumes, 80 percent is used by the Defense Department. The cost of delivering fuel to forward operating areas can be as high as $400 a gallon, by some estimates. And according to an Army Environmental Policy Institute report, 170 soldiers died and many more were horribly maimed just protecting fuel in combat zones during 2007. For purely strategic reasons the military is trying to free itself (at least a bit) from its clumsy and very long fossil fuel tether.Thus the military is experimenting on a large scale with green technology. Fort Irwin, in California, is building a 500 megawatt (that is big) solar power plant and is on track to become self-sufficient in electricity use within a decade. Fort Leavenworth is undergoing an energy retrofit that a Pew report described thus: energy efficiency improvements are made by a private-sector firm at no upfront cost to the Army, with resulting savings shared by the base and the contractor.The list goes on, but unfortunately most of the changes are relatively small scale.Government procurement, particularly the military's, would become significantly greener if two recently introduced bills became law. The Department of Defense Energy Security Act of 2010, introduced by Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, would require the department to derive a quarter of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025. And—good news for Smith Electric Vehicles—the bill also calls, rather ambitiously, for a full-scale conversion of the military's nontactical vehicle fleet to electric, hybrid or alternative-fuel vehicles by 2015.

A similar bill, introduced by Democrat José Serrano of New York, would require the Postal Service to purchase at least 20,000 electric vehicles by 2015. That goal is reasonable, and the USPS is a perfect place to start, as most of its vehicles travel in loops of less than 20 miles each day and always park in the same garage. Thus, even current battery technology is sufficient. Many other government fleets fit the same profile: they have regular routes of less than 100 miles a day and use the same parking spot each night, so they are easy and cheaper to charge because the price of juice drops at night.Right now a vehicle from Smith is about 20 percent more expensive than a standard gas or diesel truck. But the cost per mile to run an electric truck is about one-third the cost per mile of a gas- or diesel-powered one. Hansel says that with enough large orders his product will reach cost parity with dirty-tech options. When that happens, large private-sector fleets, like UPS, FedEx, Staples and Frito-Lay, will start buying electric vehicles simply because it will be the cheaper option.In anticipation of that day, Nissan is releasing the 2011 Leaf, a fully electric plug-in car. It plans to make 90,000 of them. Chevy is coming out with the Volt—10,000 of them. Will this first generation of EVs really have a market, and sufficient charging options? Who knows? But you can be sure they would if Big Government made the Big Green Buy.Buildings also use lots of energy. The US Green Building Council reports that buildings account for about 36 percent of America's total energy use and emit roughly the same proportion of greenhouse gases. But if properly constructed and managed, many buildings could actually generate energy for their own use, for vehicles or to put back into the grid.The government's building manager—its janitor, if you will—is the GSA. The GSA constructs, repairs and manages federal buildings; it buys the supplies and keeps the heat and AC on; and it buys and maintains much of the government's nonmilitary vehicle fleet. It also acts as a purchaser and contractor of sorts for most other federal agencies. The GSA is about as dull an agency as you can imagine. It has pocket-protector and brown shoes written all over it. But in the age of climate change, its brief has taken on vital importance. The implications of Executive Order 13514 have put the GSA, along with the military, at the cutting edge of the Big Green Buy.We're taking this very seriously,says Martha Johnson, administrator of the GSA. We are normally sort of overlooked, but we were thrilled, really excited, when the president gave us such prominent place in his environmental strategy.President Bill Clinton issued four executive orders on sustainable clean procurement, but they lacked specific targets or enforcement mechanisms and thus achieved very little. Our progress in general in buying these products stinks,said Dana Arnold, senior program manager at the White House Office of the Federal Environmental Executive in a recent interview with the Federal Times.

This time it may be different, and the GSA is gearing up to be the point agency in what is sometimes called Environmentally Preferable Procurement, or green supply chain management.The GSA is putting up solar arrays, buying a few electric cars and hybrids, trying to produce energy at its buildings and buying renewable energy like biomass, solar and wind power, which now account for 10.8 percent of the GSA's federal building power supply. It is also creating monitoring systems to track progress and keep federal agencies accountable.The GSA's sustainability plan requires a minimum of three percent renewable energy source for all competitive electricity supply contracts and requires that renewable energy be from a plant that was recently built in order to stimulate greater investment in the industry.The agency has reduced its own energy use by 15 percent, as measured against a 2003 baseline, and plans to reduce energy consumption in its buildings by 30 percent from that baseline by 2020. Already the GSA's building stock—mostly offices—is about 22 percent more efficient than similar private-sector buildings.In addition, the GSA is working on cutting the amount of jet travel its workforce requires and, when possible, increasing telecommuting and home-based work. It is also pressuring other agencies to shut off unused data centers—the USDA, for example, uses only between 10 percent and 20 percent of its total computing capacity, but its huge, largely empty servers run at 100 percent of power.Other federal agencies, however, are lagging far behind. It is amazing to us to find out the low level of awareness, says Linda Mesaros, a consultant for sustainable purchasing. State and local governments are also moving toward green procurement, but few have been very aggressive or ambitious.

Nor are the main pieces of energy and climate legislation focusing on procurement. The American Energy Innovation Council—which includes Bill Gates and executives from companies like Xerox, General Electric and Bank of America—is lobbying for a research plan and money and pilot programs all focused on expensive and spectacular new technology, like small fourth-generation nukes. The plan totally ignores the Big Green Buy strategy.Another group, the Electrification Coalition—made up of CEOs from FedEx, Nissan and PG&E—has published an ambitious 180-page plan for converting America's light-duty vehicle fleet to 75 percent electric miles by 2040. It also calls for radically upgrading America's old, overburdened, semi-deregulated and thus chaotic electrical grid, which loses about twice as much power in transmission as it did in the 1970s. The EC is lobbying hard and has helped shape the Electric Drive Vehicle Deployment Act of 2010, legislation being championed by Representative Ed Markey.But again, neither Markey's staff nor the EC is comfortable demanding the Big Green Buy. We don't think that is the best approach was all I could get from a Markey staffer. Instead, the EC proposes a Rube Goldberg–style scheme of geographic target areas that will receive multiple layers of consumer and industry tax credits and tax breaks—$7 billion total. That may sound big, but in the face of the climate crisis it is Lilliputian.This approach is emblematic of the intellectual poverty of the political class and business elites. The bill is entirely too clever for its own good, painfully complicated in its tinkering instrumentalism, which in the end would do very little and do it too late, like an impoverished family scrounging for dinner money on the eve of their eviction. And the Electric Drive Vehicle Deployment Act will be red meat to the climate deniers and fiscal hawks. You can almost hear the derision now: if yuppies in Berkeley want to drive funny new plug-in cars, why do we have to pay for it? Viewed broadly, there are four simple things the government can do to help close the clean-technology price gap and aid clean-tech business across the valley of death.First, it can boost R&D as Gates has requested, but that alone won't bring mass-scale green power on line.

Second, it can set up a Green Bank tasked with financing clean-tech businesses as they cross the valley of death. Along with loans, the government can offer more loan guarantees, which encourage otherwise frightened private capital to invest in clean-energy start-ups. The Waxman-Markey climate bill of last year included language to do that, but nothing like it is yet law.

Third, the government can impose mandates on the private sector requiring companies to adopt electric vehicles, purchase clean energy and conserve energy. Industry already lives with numerous rules that put limits on the anarchy of production. Yet in the crazy world of American politics circa 2010, forcing green procurement mandates on business would be very difficult.So let's get real. The fourth path is the best: a robust program of green procurement is the most immediate and politically feasible thing government can do to boost the clean-tech sector. And the only number that approaches the scale of the energy economy is government spending on energy. We need to be talking not about millions or billions but trillions of dollars going in a new direction. If the government is serious about electric vehicles—then just buy them already!At one level, the mad Tea Partyers are correct: government is leviathan—a monster. But it is our monster, and with proper leadership even this government in the current climate could jump-start a clean-energy revolution.

DANIEL 7:23-24
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast(THE EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADE BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise:(10 NATIONS) and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.(BE HEAD OF 3 KINGS OR NATIONS).

EU foreign ministers approve diplomatic service
HONOR MAHONY Today JULY 27,10 @ 09:20 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU foreign ministers on Monday (26 July) gave the nod to the overall structure of the Union's new diplomatic service, paving the way for chief of diplomacy Catherine Ashton to begin making appointments to the service that will employ thousands.It is historic to be able to witness the birth, at least at the decision level, of a European diplomacy, Belgian foreign minister Steven Vanackere, whose country holds the EU rotating presidency, said following the meeting.Due to be on its feet by 1 December, the service will see Ms Ashton backed up by a secretary general - likely to be France's ambassador to the US Pierre Vimont - as well as two deputy secretaries general.Monday's decision puts to rest a lengthy period of infighting between the EU institutions on the exact balance of power within the diplomatic service but opens the door to a power struggle between member states about who should land which posts within the service.Ms Ashton is soon expected to announce a series of names for the heads of EU embassies abroad - including to prestigious countries such as China and Brazil. But appointments to key internal posts, such as the secretary general job, can only be made once the European Parliament has agreed new staffing rules, a move expected towards the end of September.Writing in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, Ms Ashton said the new European External Action Service, despite its ungainly name, has a bold and simple purpose: to give the EU a stronger voice around the world, and greater impact on the ground.

With the fight to have the service established largely over, the focus is now likely set on the extent to which member states, several of whom jealously guard their foreign policy prerogatives, will allow a coherent foreign policy to thrive.Big countries have been keen to stress the service will not impinge on their foreign policy sovereignty, a point illustrated by the extent to which they are prepared to consider closing their own embassies in certain countries and use the EU embassy.

According to France's Europe minister, Pierre Lellouche, some countries may consider saving money through using EU embassy facilities but this should not be the case for France.I am the secretary of state, and I do not speak for France [but] I think it is desirable that France continues to maintain a global network. It is one of the few countries to do so, he said, according to Le Monde.Ms Ashton alluded to the difficulties in the article: Our aim is to do foreign policy in a modern way, differently and better. Not to compete with or duplicate what our member states are doing, but to add value and play to our strength of acting as a union.Drawing staff from the European Commission, the member states' council secretariat in Brussels and national diplomats, the service is expected to have around 6,000 personnel once it is fully up and running, expected to take another two or three years.

Critics slams Europe's rescue mechanisms as a threat to social peace
ANDREW WILLIS 26.07.2010 @ 09:11 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – A member of a German quintet of professors that is currently challenging the legality of Europe's recently-devised support measures has said they threaten to create enormous tensions between EU citizens if allowed to stand. In a telephone interview with EUobserver on Thursday (22 July), Wilhelm Nolling, professor of economics at the University of Hamburg, said the idea that Greece would be able to pay back its loans to EU states was simply ridiculous, given the country's level of indebtedness and lack of competitiveness.As a result, EU citizens in lender countries would increasingly begin to question the merits of this implicit system of wealth redistribution, he predicted. A transfer union will destroy the social peace in Europe,he said.Do you think the Germans will be able to keep quiet?

The group of German economists recently extended their legal case in Germany's constitutional court against the EU-IMF €110 billion bail-out for Greece to include the eurozone's €440 billion support mechanism and the ECB's sovereign bond purchases, the latter two announced in the early hours of 10 May. Their complaint is that they breach the EU's no-bailout clause, a ban on fiscal transfers between richer and poorer member states that many Germans feared would be inevitable when giving up the Deutsche Mark in 1999. In addition, Mr Nolling is amongst those that believe that the various support measures have bought nothing but limited time to a eurozone system that is inherently flawed.If you start with a makeshift operation you will never get to the real cause of the malaise. That cause is that a currency area of this size needs converging economies but the opposite has happened.Writing in a blog on this webiste back in February, Edin Mujagic, a monetary economist at Tilburg University, also noted these divergences had increased over the eurozone's 11-year history.Whether you take a closer look at unit labour costs, unemployment, welfare, productivity, fiscal deficits, debt and so on, the differences have increased since 1999,he wrote.

A smaller euro area?

Europe's politicians are rapidly striving to reduce these differences by devising a system of macro-economic indicators that member states would be forced to comply with.A recent European Commission paper suggested financial sanctions should be applied to states that fail to meet the grade, a system similar to the bloc's theoretical rules on debt and deficit limits.Some, however, fear this is merely too little too late, arguing that the eurozone's forefathers were blinded to the inherent economic impossibility of the project by political motivations.We need to form a new heart of the euro, France, Germany, Finland, Austria and the Netherlands, offered Mr Nolling as the only solution to overcoming divergences without using the forbidden system of fiscal transfers.All the other states should be given their freedom back. That would give them a real opportunity to increase their competitiveness through currency devaluations.It is currently impossible for them when they are 30 percent out of line. Salaries and cost structures are way out of line.At present, no one is sure when the German constitutional court will come to its decision, but a rejection by the powerful group of judges is likely to have explosive consequences.I expect the decision before the winter starts,predicted Mr Nolling. I want the court to tell the German government to stop giving money away.

Greece back under EU-IMF microscope as Asian stocks rise-EU officials arrive in Athens Monday to assess Greece's performance so far (Photo: John D. Carnessiotis, Athens, Greece)LEIGH PHILLIPS 26.07.2010 @ 09:31 CET

Asian stocks have risen on the back of easing of fears over European bank stress test results were revealed on Friday.In a filip of optimism, Japan's Nkkei 225 Stock Average had climbed 0.9 percent as of early afternoon in Tokyo, according to market reports, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index was up 0.5 percent and New Zealand's NZX 50 had gained 0.4 percent. The MSCI Asia Pacific index had risen 0.3 percent.As the results of the stress tests of European banks, which revealed just seven out of 91 had failed, were issued late Friday in Europe, this was the first chance for Asian markets to assess the fall-out.European authorities had however decided not to subject the banks to the test of seeing what would happen to them in the event of a debt default by Greece, a move that was widely criticised given that such an event is within the realm of possibility.Meanwhile on Monday (26 July), officials from the EU, IMF and European Central Bank arrive in Athens to investigate the implementation of the governing centre-left Pasok's austerity measures before a second, €9 billion tranche of eurozone-IMF bail-out agreed in May can be disbursed.Initial indications from the so-called troika, as the trio of fiscal overseers is referred to in Greece, have been approving.On the weekend, finance minister George Papaconstantinou said he expected no delays to delivery of the second tranche in September as the government had gone further than what was required with its harsh pension cuts.However, an IMF report from earlier this month noted concerns over budget gaps in public healthcare, social security, public transport and municipal governments - the very core of Greece's welfare system, already one of the weakest in western Europe.The fund suggested that Athens ratchet up its programme of privatisation and focus on setting loose government corporations. Railways and bus firms are potential targets, while the troika will also likely push for liberalisation of certain trades, including architects, notaries and lorry-drivers, according to media reports.Brussels for its part wants to see a quick and tidy deregulation of the energy sector, in line with existing EU legislation.However, eyes will also be on the country's labour movement and widespread popular resistance to the cuts. Already imposed austerity measures have produced a series of general strikes and a riot that cost the lives of three bank workers.

Seven banks fail to make the stress test grade-The Royal Bank of Scotland was among the banks to pass with flying colours (Photo: Wikipedia)ANDREW WILLIS
23.07.2010 @ 20:34 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Seven European banks have failed the region's stress tests, designed to assess their ability to withstand a series of worst-case scenarios such as another recession. EU policymakers will now be hoping that the news brings an end investor doubts in the sector, after Friday evening's (23 July) publication of the test results showed the vast majority of banks to have passed with flying colours.We support ... the transparency of this exercise, given the specific market circumstances under which banks currently operate, the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission said in a joint statement. One German bank (Hypo Real Estate), five Spanish lenders (Unnim, Cajasur, Diada, Espiga, Banca Civica), and one Greek bank (ATEbank) failed the test.Banks whose Tier 1 capital ratio, the main buffer used to protect against losses, fell below six percent were deemed to have failed, although authorities stressed that four percent is the current regulatory minimum. The results are broadly in line with market expectations, with most analysts predicting failures in the five to 10 range. The seven firms will now need to raise roughly €3.5 billion in additional capital between them.Where the results of the exercise indicate that individual banks require additional capital, these banks should take the necessary steps to reinforce their capital positions through private-sector means and by resorting, if necessary, to facilities set up by member state governments, said the CEBS, ECB, commission statement. None of Europe's major banks failed the tests which were conducted by CEBS on 91 firms in order to asses their ability to deal with another recession or losses on eurozone sovereign bonds.A haircut of 23.1 percent was applied to Greek debt, slightly higher than the 17 percent that had earlier been predicted. Spanish bonds were marked down by 12.3 percent, and German bonds by 4.7 percent.

Doubts remain

Doubts remain however, with some analysts prior to Friday's publication saying a 50 percent markdown on Greek bonds would be more appropriate.I see nothing stressful about this test. It's like sending the banks away for a weekend of R&R,said Stephen Pope, chief global equity strategist at Cantor, reported various media.Other analysts were critical of the fact that sovereign debt haircuts were only applied to bonds set aside for trading, and not those being held until maturity.Stock markets in the US fluctuated as investors digested the news. Europe's markets were all closed when data were released.Centre-right MEP Jean-Paul Gauzès, a key-player in European efforts to overhaul its finance sector, welcomed the results, but cautioned that legislative reform must continue.These good results should not bring us to disregard the implementation of norms, in particular as regards banks' own capital requirements,he said.

Iceland membership talks formally begin Tuesday
HONOR MAHONY 26.07.2010 @ 17:41 CET

At their last meeting before the summer break, EU foreign ministers on Monday (26 July) gave the greenlight for the start of negotiations on Iceland's membership bid.

Talks will formally begin on Tuesday. The small north Atlantic island, with a population of just 320,000, has aligned itself with many EU laws and is seen as fitting snugly with the slightly more ineffable European 'norms', but negotiations on a few key issues - such as fishing rights and its traditional whale hunting - are expected to be difficult.Iceland, whose fishing policies have largely been a success in terms of sustainability, is keen to see that its rich fishing waters are not over-fished by EU member states. The EU's common fisheries policy has led to the severe depletion of stocks in western Europe. Efforts will have to be made by Iceland, Belgian foreign minister Steven Vanackere said after chairing the meeting in Brussels.Think of environment, think of whale hunting.In addition, the UK and the Netherlands have linked actual membership with resolution of a dispute over the €3.8 billion in British and Dutch savings, lost in the banking crisis that consumed the nation in 2008.After the Icelandic Icesave internet bank collapsed two years ago, depositers in the UK and the Netherlands were compensated by their governments. The Hague and London now are demanding Reykjavik pay them back.It's clear that all the chapters need to be discussed ... When the last chapter isn't resolved, nothing is resolved, said Mr Vanackere, when specifically asked about whether the Icesave issue could stymie talks.

Icelanders themselves in a recent referendum rejected a payout plan that would have cost each household tens of thousands of euros. The disagreement has soured the population's sentiment towards the EU. Immediately after the crisis, a majority of Icelanders looked to the EU as a solution to their problems, but the bitter fight with London and the Hague has slashed support for EU membership on the island.In addition to potential controversial policy issues, there is also the increasingly negative opinion of Icelanders towards EU membership.I don't have the impression from the opinion polls that the Icelanders themselves are very favourable: that's the problem, said France's EU Minister Pierre Lellouche.Popular opinions have to be taken on board, and you have to communicate the value [of becoming an EU member], said Mr Vanackere. A June poll showed that public opposition to joining the EU has risen to 60 percent. In November last year, it was 54 percent.The negotiation process is expected to take up to 18 months. EU legislation covers 35 different areas, known as chapters, ranging from the justice and home affairs to environment, energy, social and transport policy. Through its membership of the European Free Trade Association and the Schengen border-free zone, many of Iceland's laws already comply with those of the EU.Croatia and Turkey have also opened membership negotiations with the EU. Zagreb is expected to conclude talks in 2011 while Ankara's talks are proceeding much more slowly.

EU commission called upon to go after corrupt defence deals
VALENTINA POP 26.07.2010 @ 09:14 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – MEPs and defence experts are calling on the EU commission to go after market-distorting, corrupt side-deals to big weapon deals between member states, such as the ones greasing Germany's submarine sales to Portugal and Greece.

As EU officials are packing their holiday suitcases in Brussels, prosecutors in Germany, Portugal and Greece are on to a hot summer, tracing the complex trails of bribes and side-contracts to the German submarines each of the southern countries signed up for at a price of over €1billion.The EU hypocrisy of allowing Greek and Portuguese governments allocate huge parts of their budget for questionable defence purchases, while they are being pressed for austerity measures to cap their deficit, already made headlines such as The submarine deals that helped sink Greece in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month.What's striking about Greece and Portugal is the inappropriateness of these purchases,Nick Witney, a defence expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations, a London-based think tank, told EUobserver.It makes no sense at all to urge austerity and at the same time encourage them to buy weapons. But where there's a nexus of security, secrecy and lack of competition, there is always an open field for corruption, he noted.Munich-based investigators in March opened a case against the German engineering group Ferrostaal, suspected of paying bribes to secure defence contracts in Portugal and Greece and of organizing bribery payments on behalf of other firms for a fee. The investigation has meanwhile spread to Portugal and Greece, and touches on former party colleagues of EU commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, who was prime minister at the time the contract was signed. Mr Barroso has denied any involvement in the alleged bribery scheme and says he had nothing to do with the negotiation of the contract, which was the responsibility of the defence minister.

Along with the acquisition per se came offset contracts to the tune of €1billion, meaning direct foreign investments from Germany and business opportunities to Portuguese companies on the German market.Under EU law, offsets are forbidden, except for the defence sector, where member states invoke a national security exemption. As it turns out, a lot of these offsets were actually existing investments. Seven Portuguese executives and three Ferrostaal representatives have already been indicted. According to the public prosecutor's office, the Portuguese state was mislead in these deals and suffered damages of at least €34 million.

According to estimates by the European Defence Agency, 25 percent of the offsets in Europe are non-military and have no direct connection with the purchase.These contracts totally violate the EU's internal market competition rules, Portuguese Socialist MEP Ana Gomes told this website.They are contracts negotiated among companies with government favouring and in total disregard of the competition rules. There are plenty of reasons why the European Commission should investigate, and make it an exemplary case to deter such behaviour from now on from any member state.So far, the commission has turned a blind eye to the non-military contracts occurring alongside large defence procurements.A new defence procurement directive which needs to be transposed into national legislation by August 2011 is set to shed more light into the way such deals are done and restrict the areas in which governments can invoke the national security exemption to internal market rules.Member states will need to prove that the offsets are necessary for the protection of security interests and not distort competition on non-military markets.During his hearings as internal market commissioner, Michel Barnier said the defence offsets bring about discriminations which contradict the [EU] treaty. While acknowledging the traditions and sensibilities, he said these procedures had to be put to an end.

But to Ms Gomes, the commission is missing an opportunity to expose a very corrupt business that involves Portuguese, German companies, government officials and military people.In a time of budget austerity and market jitters, the two submarines acquired by Portugal account for about 40 percent of its defence spending until 2023. We don't have money to equip properly our military and security forces, we are wasting this money in a very corrupt business and violating competition, Ms Gomes points out.

Voluntary code of conduct

A voluntary code of conduct adopted by all member states except Romania last year meanwhile puts some limits on offsets, such as for the value of these contracts not to surpass 100 percent of that of the actual purchase.Apart from being voluntary, the code has also come under fire for lacking any reference to corruption, despite the fact that the defence sector is one of the most prone to this phenomenon, according to Transparency International.We would have hoped EU agencies required high standards, but this is not the case, Mark Pyman, the watchdog's defence expert told this website.He also said that market-distorting deals ranging from refrigerator factories to advertising companies are clearly a question of internal market for the EU commission to investigate.We need clear guidance how governments conduct and audit offsets and an EU framework putting transparency at the core,he concluded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS3H6Cakwpw&feature=player_embedded
Why Oath Keepers are Under Attack: Stewart Rhodes Oath Keepers
Oath Keepers July 27, 2010

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes during the first annual Oath Keepers Conference in October 2009. http://www.youtube.com/my_playlists?p…
Meet David Berry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyaxEw…
Meet Eddie & Ada Gilbert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49GPAK…
http://stewart-rhodes.blogspot.com/

This is my old, private blog that is now sadly neglected since I have launched Oath Keepers, which has truly taken off like a rocket, leaving me no time for personal blogging – not that I’m complaining. the Oath Keepers mission is very important, and worth the time and effort.Go here: http://oathkeepers.org/oath/

However, if you want to see what prompted me to finally launch Oath Keepers, there are several posts on this blog that show my thinking.Back in 2006 I wrote several scathing criticisms of the Bush Administration’s absurd and dangerous claims of nearly unlimited executive war powers. Those articles built on my research at Yale Law School (where I won the Miller Prize for best paper on the Bill of Rights).One of the most common refrains I get from Obama supporters is where were you when Bush was violating the Constitution.Well, I was right here. Read this:
http://stewart-rhodes.blogspot.com/

OATH KEEPERS is a non-partisan association of Military, Veterans, and peace officers who will honor their oaths to defend the Constitution, will NOT just follow orders, will stand for liberty, and will save the Republic, so help us God. Our motto is:
Not on Our Watch!

SUMMARY LIST OF ORDERS WE WILL NOT OBEY:
1. We will NOT obey orders to disarm the American people.
2. We will NOT obey orders to conduct warrantless searches of the American people
3. We will NOT obey orders to detain American citizens as unlawful enemy combatants or to subject them to military tribunal.
4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a state of emergency on a state.
5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty.
6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.
7. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.
8. We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people to keep the peace or to maintain control.
9. We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies.
10.We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances.Read the full declaration at http://oathkeepers.org

DOCTOR DOCTORIAN FROM ANGEL OF GOD
then the angel said, Financial crisis will come to Asia. I will shake the world.

JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.

EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.

REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all,(WORLD SOCIALISM) both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM

WORLD MARKET RESULTS
http://money.cnn.com/data/world_markets/
CNBC VIDEOS
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15839263/site/14081545/?tabid=15839796&tabheader=false

HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS TUE JULY 27,2010

09:30 AM +1.52
10:00 AM +15.06
10:30 AM +16.88
11:00 AM +10.90
11:30 AM -11.12
12:00 PM -0.07
12:30 PM +30.50
01:00 PM +10.67
01:30 PM -5.14
02:00 PM +8.25
02:30 PM +24.60
03:00 PM +11.28
03:30 PM +23.24
04:00 PM +12.26 10,537.69

S&P 500 1113.84 -1.17

NASDAQ 2288.25 -8.18

GOLD 1,159.10 -24.00

OIL 77.58 -1.40

TSE 300 11,716.70 -29.40

CDNX 1396.28 -7.18

S&P/TSX/60 684.83 -1.00

MORNING,NEWS,STATS

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow +38 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -31 points at low today.
Dow +53 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,173.80.OIL opens at $79.35 today.

AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -31 points at low today so far.
Dow +53 points at high today so far.

WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -31 points at low today.
Dow +53 points at high today.

GOLD ALLTIME HIGH $1,260.90 (NOT AT CLOSE)

H.R. 5741 Slave bill now in Committee
Rob Dew Infowars.com July 26, 2010

Slavery has a new name: Mandatory Service, introduced July 15th 2010 by Charles Rangle.H.R. 5741 will give the president the authority To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, to authorize the induction of persons in the uniformed services during wartime to meet end-strength requirements of the uniformed services, and for other purposes.Barely a year after introducing H.R. 1444, which was supposed to form a Congressional Commission on Civic Service to study methods of improving and promoting volunteerism and national service, and for other purposes, Congress has upped the ante. Anyone between 18 and 42 will be eligible for a two year commitment of civilian or military service. With more college graduates working for the fast food industry, a depression era unemployment rate and less people retiring; the government will have plenty of eligible able bodies to move into the slave ranks.This echos the sentiment of President Obama who asked Congress in Febuary 2009 to send him a bipartisan bill in the spirit of national service. His Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel outlined a similar plan in his book The Plan.But even Emanuel aims low looking at only 18 to 25 year olds for three months of compulsory service. Under this new legislation nearly all, able bodied Americans will be sentenced to two years of forced labor. The infrastructure is already in place for those unwilling to participate in mandatory service and now the army is looking to fill it’s ranks with Interment/Resettlement Specialists.

There are very few loopholes to opt of out national service, even CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS (SEC. 109) will be forced to choose the mandatory option of A. noncombatant service (as defined by the President) or B. national civilian service. It seems the congressional commission on civic service will no longer be needed thanks to the hard work of a suspected Congressional tax cheat from New York.The slavery bill is currently in debate in the House Committee on Armed Services chaired by Rep Ike Skelton a democrat from Missouri. Those who oppose mandatory slavery should contact Rep. Skelton. Many bills die in committee and this bill should meet the same fate.