May 5, 2009
Bernanke testifying @ Congress
Paul (R-TX)

A side note here: I am still going to do videos and put them up at You Tube but have been running around, improving the studio set-up and I hired a ‘director’ who teaches computer video making in college. He will be spending next weekend with me and we intend to put together a really, really hot system. I can’t wait! This is going to be immense fun. Right now, I go crazy, trying to edit things and it is stressing me out.

Ron Paul asks a very important question: what would you do if we have INFLATION without ECONOMIC GROWTH. This is all about ‘stagflation’. Bernanke has no answer. The ‘socializing of the economy’ isn’t real socialism at all. It is National Socialism of the fascist sort where the government and the financial powers unite against the working class to lower wages and control political power. Virtually none of the social benefits of the bank bail bills are percolating down to any of the working stiffs.

Bernanke says, ‘[Congress] should not dictate to the Federal Reserve, how to make monetary policy…’ because of course, with no input from the People of the United States, the Fed can create price stability???? HAHAHA. With their very lousy record [devaluing the dollar by over 90% is obviously not about price stability at all!] Bernanke should be ashamed of making such a dumb claim.

Bernanke’s helicopter drop certainly is reviving the consumerist society. For example, I am going to get $250 this month as a ‘gift’ from the Treasury. Only problem is, every penny of this wonderful gift is going straight to the local school taxes. You see, funding for our schools were cut so my taxes are going up this same amount.

The futility of all the money-spreading schemes is the same: we shift debts around but never see any productive outcome. Ron Paul, in this small video clip, doesn’t mention the need to prevent the dissolution of our workforce via outsourcing. The rest of the world waits with bated breath for the US to resume our suicidal push to destroy our own industrial base. Ron is not a high-ranking member within either party so he gets only 5 minutes or less and usually, the long-winded, say nothings he is questioning, usually blather on and on so they can eat up his alloted time span. At least he got in a few good whacks, this round.

The Washington Independent » Ron Paul’s Economic Theories Winning GOP Converts

From time to time, a few members of Congress—as many as 10, sometimes fewer—gather with Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) to eat lunch and hear from an author or expert whose opinion he thinks is worth promoting. They grab something to eat off of a deli plate. They take notes. They loosen up and ask questions.

“It’s not all that easy for the other members to get here,” Paul said in an interview with TWI, sitting just outside of his office before heading back to Texas for a few days. “It’s just that there’s so much competition. Once they get here and they get going, they all seem to enjoy it.”

A funny thing has started happening to Paul since his long-shot presidential campaign ended quietly in the summer of 2008. More Republicans have started listening to him. There are the media requests from Fox Business Channel and talk radio, where he’s given airtime to inveigh on sound money and macroeconomics. There is HR 1207 , the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009, a bill that would launch an audit of the Federal Reserve System, and which has attracted 112 co-sponsors. When Paulintroduced the Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act just two years ago, no other members of Congress signed on.

And then there are the luncheons. The off-the-record talks have brought in speakers such as ex-CIA counterterrorism expert Michael Scheuer, libertarian investigative reporter James Bovard, iconoclastic terrorism scholar Robert Pape, and George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley. Perhaps the most influential guest has been Thomas Woods, a conservative scholar whose previous books include “The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History” and “Who Killed the Constitution?: The Fate of American Liberty from World War I to George W. Bush,” and whose current book “Meltdown” has inspired Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) to question Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner about economic fundamentals.

The GOP is floundering around after doubling the US debt. Every time they control both the White House and Congress, they double the national debt. Then, when the Democrats take over, the GOP resumes screaming about balanced budgets, etc. While screaming for more Pentagon loot!

They are WORTHLESS, lying bastards. They are con men and swindles. Ron Paul isn’t that. He was once a Libertarian but clings to the GOP in the hopes, they will follow his lead. They won’t. This is a temporary holding action until they can gain power and resume their doubling of our national debt.

It is long past due for a third party to form and Ron knows this. But since the loss of power has humbled the GOP, they are now making nice/nice to the man they really don’t like because he won’t join them in looting this country. When in power, they will shove him aside, very swiftly.

Li & Fung Plans Acquisitions, Sees U.S. Economy ‘Bottoming Out’ – Bloomberg.com

Li & Fung Ltd., the biggest supplier of clothes and toys to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp., is working on “plenty” of possible deals in the U.S. as the world’s biggest economy “bottoms out.”

Despite us going off the cliff, nothing has been changed at all. The Doha Round free trade garbage continues. Walmart, which used to be all about waving the US flag and ‘buy American!’ is now a subsidiary of the Communist Party in China. Walmart is even unionized in China and not the US!

“We see a lot of opportunities in the U.S. right now to buy things that we’ve always wanted to buy, at prices that we feel are very reasonable,” Company Presiden tBruce Rockowitz said in a Bloomberg TV interview late yesterday. The company also has plans for acquisitions in Asia, he added.

HAHAHA….he claims they will buy in the US but of course, will not.

Li & Fung yesterday announced plans to raise HK$2.7 billion ($348 million) selling new shares to fund purchases. Rockowitz is signing outsourcing deals –see what I mean?—and buying rivals,—Everyone who is part of the Chinese mega machine is on a buying spree!— last month completing an agreement to supply Liz Claiborne Inc., whose brands include Kate Spade and Juicy Couture. Li & Fung made 62 percent of its HK$110.7 billion sales last year in the U.S.

62% of their PROFIT. Not sales, profits! And this is the key: profits are all about sovereign wealth, capitalism and the ability to buy up all sectors of all industries and commodity markets.

The share sale “will further strengthen Li & Fung’s existing liquidity position and equity base,” —See what I mean?—Elizabeth Allen, a vice president at Moody’s Investors Service, said in a statement late yesterday. The share placement “will have no immediate impact” on the company’s A3 ratings, Moody’s said.

Li & Fung, which also supplies Inditex SA’s Zara chain and Gap Inc., is eyeing “acquisitions and some major outsourcing deals” as prices of assets have fallen globally, Rockowitz said. The agreement to acquire Liz Claiborne’s sourcing business may boost sales by $1 billion, the company has said.

Every time I read blather about how bad things are for China, I say, ‘And who is going about the planet, buying up stuff in the middle of this vast distress sale in this depression? Ah! The communist Chinese!’

Obama Targets Overseas Tax Dodge – washingtonpost.com

President Obama yesterday announced a major offensive against businesses and wealthy individuals who avoid U.S. taxes by parking cash overseas, a battle he said would be fought with new tax laws, new reporting requirements and an army of 800 new IRS agents.

During an event at the White House, Obama said his proposal would raise $210 billion over the next decade and make good on his campaign pledge to eliminate tax advantages for companies that ship jobs abroad.

“I want to see our companies remain the most competitive in the world. But the way to make sure that happens is not to reward our companies for moving jobs off our shores or transferring profits to overseas tax havens,” Obama said, flanked by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman.

Taxes are not killing our competitive edge. The lack of markets and the inability to compete with cheaper labor and countries where the government and industry are one and the same like in South Korea, communist Vietnam, LDP-Miti-controlled Japan’s command economy spring to mind. We have to examine our trade rivals and then deal with the challenges and we can’t win, playing the ‘let’s export more and more,’ game if our PROFITS don’t match their profits.

Instead, our financial wizards are joining our trade rivals to attack our economy by importing tons of stuff. How simple is this problem? Thanks to free trade, we can’t stop even our own executives from destroying our national wealth.

Tech companies object to Obama’s plan to crack down on overseas tax havens – San Jose Mercury News

The president did not propose eliminating the current law that allows U.S. companies to indefinitely defer taxes on overseas income, which some industry leaders had feared. But his call for ending some deductions drew negative reaction from groups representing tech and other industries, which argue that the changes would make it more difficult for U.S. companies to compete abroad.

“This is a $60 billion hit on American employers that their foreign competitors won’t feel,” said Carl Guardino, CEO of the business-oriented Silicon Valley Leadership Group, referring to one of the president’s proposals. Many big tech companies in the valley, such as Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and Cisco, report that half or more of their revenue comes from overseas….

But he cited a 2004 study that found U.S. multinationals paid $16 billion in taxes on $700 billion of foreign earnings. He added: “The way we make our businesses competitive is not to reward American companies operating overseas with a roughly 2 percent tax rate on foreign profits, a rate that costs taxpayers tens of billions of dollars a year.”…

The first area is of particular concern to big tech and pharmaceutical companies, which tend to have large multinational operations. Currently, they can defer paying U.S. income taxes on revenue from overseas subsidiaries for as long as they reinvest the money abroad.

The US is going bankrupt. We have to tax someone. Or we can cut our losses by cutting Pentagon spending by about 50% if not more. And cease supporting alien nations with billions in gifts, like wealthy Israel. We can’t go on and on and on, pretending to be a sovereign wealth nation when we are not one.

The US business community makes lots of loot from the US overspending. They double the damage by refusing to pay taxes for these boons. And then threatening us with moving headquarters to alien lands, knowing full well, they and their ilk have spent lots of money, electing or controlling elected people so they support the destruction of our trade barriers which protected us from a flood of alien products.

Now, after destroying our national wealth, they want to skip out of paying for things? Figures. They have the gravy train and we have the graveyard shift.

Netherlands expresses surprise at U.S. “tax haven” accusation_English_Xinhua

The Netherlands on Tuesday expressed surprise at U.S. President Barack Obama’s qualification of the Netherlands as a “tax haven.”

The Dutch Finance Ministry reacted with astonishment to the list presented by Obama on Monday, which names the Netherlands as one of the world’s top three corporate tax havens, together with Bermuda and Ireland.

A spokesperson said the ministry is working with its U.S. colleagues to trace the origin of this misunderstanding and remove it, Radio Netherlands reported.

The spokesperson said the Netherlands has “a very average tax level.”

No one wants to be labeled a ‘tax haven’, especially the pirate islands. Ireland leeched off of the US like Israel because of a very strong pro-Ireland lobby which isn’t nearly as strong as AIPAC but is considerable. Ireland is now in economic decline due to its attempt at aping the Cayman Islands was a failure. I feel sorry for them, they did try very hard to do things right but, like Iceland, they got sidetracked and decided there was this pot of gold at the end of a magic funny money rainbow and now it is raining cats and dogs.

China Set to Lead in “New Energy” Car Production-ChinaStakes.com

50 various new energy cars were launched at the Shanghai Auto Show, which has just ended. The Chinese government is pushing forward with what it claims to be is the most ambitious development plan for a new energy vehicle. If you google “new energy vehicle” on the Internet, about 2/3 of the results would come from items describing China’s new energy vehicle plan.

In Chinas’ auto industry stimulation plan, which was released in January of this year, the government decided to allocate 10 billion yuan in the coming three years to support technology innovation in the auto industry and the development of new energy cars, hoping to increase China’s annual production capacity for new energy cars to 0.5 million, very close to China’s monthly car production volume.

We are spending billions of tax dollars to keep our dying auto industry from dying totally. While China is using the same amount to make their own industry, grow. This is a significant difference. And the government can force things to go in particular directions, too. No pussy-footing around for the Dragon!

Wind farm may be torn down to make way for nuclear site – Green Living, Environment – The Independent

Six of Haverigg’s eight turbines actually fall within the proposed footprint of the Kirksanton nuclear power station, where RWE wants to build up to three reactors. The German energy giant confirms that they would have to be dismantled if the power station were built.

The development will delight pro-nuclear anti-wind activists while dismayed environmentalists will see it as an all-too-obvious portent of a switch in government priorities from promoting wind to advancing the atom – and as proof that concentrating on nuclear will cripple renewable energy. “It beggars belief that, at a time when windpower has never been more vital to the UK, a viable wind farm is to be sacrificed on the altar of nuclear power,” said Martin Forwood of the campaign group Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment.

We will see many more nuclear power plants. These things are extremely dangerous in a politically unstable world. While Britain tears down windmills to erect nuke plants, the US, UK and Israel continue to howl like banshees at Iran for doing the same thing we do with impunity.

Britons face working until 70 to help bring public debt under control – Telegraph

The think tank said it would be all but impossible for the Government to return Britain’s total public debt to 40 per cent of gross domestic product, currently equivalent to £600billion, until 2023.

The institute said the Government had three options to bring the balance sheet back to good health. The first was to raise the state pension age, from 60 for women and 65 for men, to 70 between 2013 and 2023. Under existing plans, the state pension age is due to increase to 68 for both men and women between 2024 and 2046. The rise will generate additional tax revenues and reduce pension payment obligations. The second option was to raise the basic rate of income tax by 15p in the pound. Taxes would have to rise by as much as 8p in the pound even if the retirement age was increased, NIESR said. The final option was to cut government spending by a tenth, which would hit the NHS, education and other front-line services.

They will do this to us, too. I said, when only a teenager, ‘We will never be allowed to retire and they will work us to death and there will be two of us per bed in the hospitals.’ This is because, when I went to school, we were always ‘double sessions’ and there was a shortage of nearly everything we needed, for kids my age. I was born a the apex of the baby boom.

AIG bonuses four times higher than reported – Eamon Javers – POLITICO.com

In a response to detailed questions from Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the company has offered a third assessment of exactly how much it paid out in bonuses last year.

And the new number, offered in a document submitted to Cummings on May 1, is the highest figure the company has disclosed to date.

AIG now says it paid out more than $454 million in bonuses to its employees for work performed in 2008.

That is nearly four times more than the company revealed in late March when asked by POLITICO to detail its total bonus payments. At that time, AIG spokesman Nick Ashooh said the firm paid about $120 million in 2008 bonuses to a pool of more than 6,000 employees.

To find these documents, I have to go finger thorough lots and lots of paperwork.  But patience does pay off!  So, here is yet another story about how the Fed struggled to fund US wars while trying to keep the international trade settlements from going totally haywire.  Of course, it did go haywire and is still very much, haywire.

http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/docs/historical/martin/21_05_19680716.pdf

BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM
DRAFT–7/16/68

STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL (FR) Robert Solomon

SOUTH AFRICAN GOLD AND THE TWO-TIER SYSTEM

The Problem:

The two-tier gold system, established at the Washington meeting of March 16-17, is threatened in two ways: (1) by South Africa’s offer to sell gold to the International Monetary Fund and (2) by the desire of some European central banks to purchase gold
from South Africa for addition to monetary gold stocks.

Sounds kind of like today’s news, only in reverse!  The IMF is talking about selling its gold.  The US needed to increase its imports due to running red hot, providing equipment and drafting younger workers for its increasing wars in Vietnam and Cold War stations around the entire planet.  

 

The US was basically trying to have its cake and eat it too, in Asia.  The bloated military spending was a key element in our local economies so there was no desire to stop making more and more things ship to Asia where it could be destroyed.  Since we were building bombs, Japan was supposed to help us by making consumer stuff we could use in lieu of our own factories, making consumer goods.

The U. S. response to this problem ought to preserve the essential character of the two-tier system as the U.S. views it, while avoiding either a breakdown of international monetary cooperation or a divisive battle in the IMF over its legal obligation to purchase gold from members.

So, the IMF was legally obligated to buy gold from members?  Time to look this up!

Factsheet – Gold in the IMF:

 

The IMF holds 103.4 million ounces (3,217 metric tons) of gold at designated depositories. The IMF’s total gold holdings are valued on its balance sheet at SDR 5.9 billion (about $8.7 billion) on the basis of historical cost. As of March 31, 2009, the IMF’s holdings amounted to $94.8 billion (at then current market prices). A portion of these holdings were acquired since the Second Amendment of the IMF’s Articles of Agreement in April 1978, amounting to 12.97 million ounces (403.3 metric tons), with a market value of $11.9 billion as of March 31, 2009. As noted below, this part of the Fund’s gold holdings is not subject to restitution to members.

The IMF acquired the majority of its gold holdings prior to the Second Amendment through four main types of transactions. First, it was then prescribed that 25 percent of initial quota subscriptions and subsequent quota increases were to be paid in gold. This refers to the business of this SECRET Fed Reserve memo!  This represented the largest source of the IMF’s gold. Second, all payments of charges (i.e., interest on members’ use of IMF credit) were normally made in gold. Aha!  This is all about having an agreed basis for SETTLING INTERNATIONAL DEBTS AND CHARGES!  Third, a member wishing to purchase the currency of another member could acquire it by selling gold to the IMF. See?  Back then, dollars were NOT used to acquire other currencies, this was done in the international settlements markets run by both the IMF and the Bank for International Settlements!  The major use of this provision was sales of gold to the IMF by South Africa in 1970-71. The secret memo here is from two years earlier and it is the same topic!  And finally, members could use gold to repay the IMF for credit previously extended.

The IMF’s policy on gold today

The Second Amendment to the Articles of Agreement in April 1978 eliminated the use of gold —a full 7 years after Nixon repudiated gold as part of a set US currency value system! —-as the common denominator of the post-World War II exchange rate system and as the basis of the value of the Special Drawing Right (SDR). It also abolished the official price of gold and brought to an end the obligatory use of gold in transactions between the IMF and its members. It furthermore required that the IMF, when dealing in gold, avoid managing its price or establishing a fixed price.

HAHAHA…ah, yes, the open market for gold sales that isn’t manipulated by anyone.  Yes, there is reason for some degree of paranoia here because of the history of actions we are only now being allowed to see, this year, long, long after the events the secret memo mentions.

The Articles of Agreement now limit the use of gold in the IMF’s operations and transactions. The US was desperate to kill it and since we mainly run the IMF for our own ends, we killed it pretty good, didn’t we?  The IMF may sell gold outright on the basis of prevailing market prices, and may accept gold in the discharge of a member’s obligations at an agreed price, based on market prices at the time of acceptance. These transactions in gold require an 85 percent majority of total voting power.This is so the G7, working with the US, can avoid having the gold system reemerge.  The IMF does not have the authority to engage in any other gold transactions—such as loans, leases, swaps, or use of gold as collateral—nor does it have the authority to buy gold.

 

When this memo was written, the complete destruction of the gold/money system was barely a dark gleam in the eyes of the Federal Reserve and the US government.  Both were definitely trying to figure out some scheme whereby we would have no more gold restrictions on what we did in credit or trade markets.  Now, back to July, 1968.  I was still in Europe and more trouble was brewing there: the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia was being prepared and I was heading to Prague to give a rousing speech at the University there.

The two-tier system may be said to have both a short-term and a long-term significance.  No kidding!  For the short-run, it was intended to discourage upward pressures on the market price of gold, by saying to the market that central banks would not be contributing to the demand for gold.  HAHAHA.  And they claim, to this day, they don’t manipulate gold markets?  HAHAHA.  All the participants in the Washington meeting were in agreement that the smaller the margin by which the market price of gold exceeded the official price, the greater were the prospects for international monetary stability. And so…they manipulated the markets to get this result.  NO WONDER THIS MEMO WAS KEPT SECRET!  If the market price of gold remained relatively low, it was less likely (1) that central banks would convert foreign exchange into gold out of fear of a rise in the official price of gold and (2) that private parties would speculate on a change in relative exchange rates by moving their funds into what they regard as strong currencies.

See how we have evolved?  Today, one of the biggest speculative markets are connected to interest rate changes and variables and the effervescent, shifting changes in the FX markets!  

The longer-term significance of the Washington Agreement–and on this there is less than full unanimity among the participants–is that the two-tier system represents an important step toward diminishing the role of gold in the international monetary system.

HAHAHA.  In  1968, the true nature of the US/UK [France was VERY pro-gold, 100%] scheme for a ‘two tier system’ was clearly, to destroy the use of gold as the basis for INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS.  

In particular, if monetary authorities would act upon the statement that, in view of the prospective creation of the SDR facility, the amount of gold in monetary stocks is sufficient, gold would play no significant role in the future growth of monetary reserves. OK:  Martin Jr makes it crystal clear: the goal is to have gold play NO role in the growth rate of monetary reserves!  In effect, gold would have been demonetized at the margin.

THIS LAST SENTENCE IS WHY THIS MEMO HAD TO BE KEPT SECRET UNTIL MARTIN JR DIED!  The effect of the IMF negotiations for the ‘Washington Agreement was not to balance world trade or make resolutions of fiduciary differences easier.  It was made in order to KILL GOLD AS MONEY!!!!

 

Whew. Soon, I should write about gold’s history and how the US Treasury and Federal Reserve plotted and schemed to kill gold as money.

This interpretation of the two-tier system has not been accepted by some European central banks and it is not possible at present to persuade them to accept it. I can imagine how loud the French screamed!  They had one big scare during the spring uprisings.  The last thing they wanted was inflation and a dying currency!  They were in for the gold.  In fact a public airing of this interpretation by U.S. officials’ would probably lead some European central bank officials to disagree publicly.

No kidding!  Switzerland, France: both would howl like starving wolves on the Siberian tundra!

The best the United States can do in present circumstances is to avoid an open breakdown of the Washington Agreement while seeing to it that any new policy agreements are not inconsistent with our preferred interpretation of its longer-term significance.

HAHAHA!  So, they conspired…yes, it is OK to be very paranoid here…to avoid letting DeGaulle or anyone speaking German, not to let them know the REAL purpose of US measures!  No, the LONGER-TERM SIGNIFICANCE was to be carefully AVOIDED.  But was the true goal.

Solution to Problem
It is believed, within the U.S. Government, that the best way to meet the present challenge to the two-tier system is to agree to provide through the IMF a floor price at $35 per ounce for newly-mined gold that South Africa (and other gold producers) need to sell to meet their balance of payments requirements. As another concession, South Africa would be permitted to count its gold holdings as of July 1, 1968 as monetary gold.

The US was forced to allow South Africa to pay the IMF in MONETARY gold but this was a concession.  

In exchange for these concessions —See? I didn’t even read this paragraph before commenting above and lo and behold, they use the word, ‘concession’!—, South Africa would be expected to sell newly-mined gold in the market, as its payments position requires, and to avoid special efforts to withhold such sales.

South Africa would not offer monetary gold to central banks or the IMF unless it had disposed of all of its supplies of newly-mined gold.

OK: here is another example of the increasingly desperate US trying to stop  SA from selling gold to OTHER CENTRAL BANKS.  This would cause us endless TRADE resolution problems!

Finally, South Africa would withdraw its present offer to sell gold to the Fund.

Advantages of this Solution

1. This solution provides for an accommodation with South Africa and makes it possible to end the existing uncertainties in South Africa’s dealings with the market, monetary authorities, and the IMF. The alternative proposal for ending these uncertainties—agreement on central bank purchases of some amount of newly-mined gold even when the market price is above $35–would constitute an open break with the Washington Agreement and would make it much less likely that the longer-term significance of that Agreement would be realized.
2. The proposed solution assures the market of a resumption of South African sales and prevents South Africa from choosing between market sales and sales to monetary authorities or the Fund as a way of maximizing the market price.

BINGO!!!!  The result was….NO FREE MARKETS.  Only a US-controlled market that would keep the price of gold where WE wanted it!

3. Central bank purchases of newly-mined gold continue to be precluded. Additional gold can enter the monetary system only if and when the market price falls to $35 per ounce or below. An opening of the system to additional gold in these circumstances would
clearly be consistent with the short-run significance of the Washington Agreement.

What is the meaning of #3 here?  They can sell newly minted gold only when the price is FALLING???  

Purchases by the Fund when the price is at $35 or below would not be in conflict with the objective of minimizing the margin between the official and market prices, since such purchases would occur only when this margin were zero (or negative). (It should be
noted that while the proposal would provide a floor price for sales of gold by South Africa as its payments position requires, the proposal would not put an institutional floor under the market price and would not therefore assure speculators that there is no risk at all of the
market price falling below $35.)

Additions to IMF gold holdings (and the possibility that the Fund would sell such gold to members) under this proposed solution would not be inconsistent with the desire to see a diminished emphasis on gold in the long run. HERE IT IS AGAIN!  The secret part of this secret memo!  The goal is to kill gold.  Gold would enter the official reserve circuit only if and when the market is placing a valuation on gold equal to or less than the official price. In the longer run, present expectations are that the market price is likely to rise above $35, as private non-speculative demand grows relative to supply. Thus, little gold would be bought by the Fund over the years.

See?  They expected inflation in 1968.  We already had quarters and dimes being debased with the introduction of ‘sandwich coins’. 

As time goes on, the market price will have less and less significance for the monetary system, assuming the U.S. balance of payments improves —AND THIS NEVER, EVER HAPPENED SINCE 1968!!!!—-and the SDR facility is activated. But during the present transition period, it is vital to avoid any sort of shock that would give the market price an upward push.

Sneaky chaps, eh?  Indeed!  I hope that everyone realizes, this is what real ‘research’ is: finding serious clues and then making the correct connections, tying the past with the present and figuring the future out.  There is a lot of CHAOS in the systems: for example, the Viral Kingdom is always at war with humans and indeed, all living things.  It is very clever in an evolutionary way, sneaky and difficult to control or manipulate since it is manipulating us, all the time.

Then there are other chaos systems like bin Laden turning on the CIA and going to war with it and winning nearly every round due to US weaknesses [Presidents wanting us to be attacked, etc].  Then there is the chaos of intergroup conspiracies.  The CIA, for example, is a continuous, secret conspiracy.  The Bilderberg group is a conspiracy too and equally addicted to secrecy.

Then there is AIPAC: nearly all of our ‘representatives’ bowed to the Jews running AIPAC and kissed their rings and NOT ONE BIT OF THIS IS IN THE NEWS TODAY!!!!  HAHAHA.  Yes, keeping the biggest lobbying group’s biggest meeting in DC totally out of the news, is a conspiracy and an obvious one.  By the way, Code Pink stormed the stage today and had a very visible protest.  And didn’t make the news anywhere, at all, whatsoever!  This is a conspiracy!

So it is with this secret memo: the parties are conspiring to LIE about our intentions concerning gold.  Knowing that the G10 nations mostly would be very pissed off if they  knew these secret schemes.  So much for trust.

Here, below, is a public report from the US Treasury one year earlier.  I was preparing to go the Germany when this was published:

http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/docs/historical/martin/54_01_196709xx.pdf

THE NEED FOR INTERNATIONAL RESERVES

During the past 16 years, the fact that world imports have grown three times as fast as global reserves has been made possible to a large extent by the willingness of the United States to experience a decline in its reserves while its imports grew, as did those of other countries.

I.e.: We were draining Fort Knox of all our gold.

For the rest of the world, import trade has grown at the rate of 7.8 percent per annum and reserves at the rate of 5.4 percent per annum.

See? Gold reserves were growing slower than trade and thus, since the US was importing more than exporting, it was on the losing side of the equation. Not a good thing.

While there have been wide short-term variations in the relationship between these two growth curves, there is no period of several years in the time interval examined when the world, excluding the United States, has seen its reserves grow at less than half the rate of growth in its imports.

Post-WWII saw great commerce shifts as the US was now the global trade engine. And we wanted Germany and Japan to become very strong so we could win the Cold War. US policies, by the way, were NOT popular in Germany in 1968.

The substantial decline in U.S. reserves also explains the fact that global reserves grew at an annual rate of 2.4 percent, while outside the United States the corresponding figure was much higher, at 5.4 percent. Even at this rate, the more rapid growth in imports has meant that outside the United States reserves are equal to only about 35 percent of annual imports, and thus cover only about 4 months’ imports…

This is the data that matters! All monetary business concerning gold was all about import/export balance of trade! Gold is not a way of regulating trade. Tariffs and barriers are supposed to do this. Gold is supposed PUNISH anyone daring to run bigger and bigger trade deficits!!!! This is why it collapsed, as a system in the Great Depression, for example. When global trade collapsed, gold fell apart as a valuation system due to DECLINING PRICES. While gold was being kept stable. And the declining prices were due to monetary collapses. For example, the US dollar versus gold dropped dramatically during the Great Depression.

If it is reasonable to assume that at least half of the reserve gains should be covered by reserve losses, a very rough guide emerges to the total new reserves of all types that might be desirable: $2.5-$3.75 billion in 1970 and $3.75-$5.25 billion in 1975…

These numbers are so tiny! Our population was 100 million back then, it is 300 million today. So, the reserves should be $15 billion today? HAHAHA. But the dollar lost 90% of its value since then. Even so, the trade figures are horrific today and on top of that, our reserves have been stagnant since 1994. Even as our trade deficit soared.However, some criteria are suggested that might apply to the first activation. One of these is a tapering off in the rate of growth in international trade. Moves to tighten restraints on capital and current international transactions are other indications that new reserves might provide a useful antidote to these pressures.

Reducing trade with Germany and Japan during 1968 was impossible. The youth were agitating in all the major capitals including Japan. The US wanted political supremacy.Maintenance of excessively high interest rates in important sectors of the world’s economy, after allowance for price trends and cost-of- living increases, might also suggest the existence of reserve shortages and of competitive efforts to attract and hold reserves. This report was written the same year, our own reserves began a rapid collapse due to everyone on earth turning in dollars for gold.As to more sensitive early indicators, one must probably look to deficit countries, since this is where the first indications of reserve shortage appear. #1 deficit country: the US. Unfortunately, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of a general world shortage of reserves from individual balance-of-payments problems of particular countries. Namely, the US. Perhaps some guidance could, however, be found by observing whether restraints on foreign assistance programs and private capital movements are emerging in such countries, or whether there are indications of competitive interest rate rises.

The growing use of credit facilities instead of reserves might also provide a signal. See? CREDIT was beginning to be talked about as the basis for ‘reserves’. This is part of the philosophical system of denying the principals of CAPITALISM. Namely, debt is NOT capital. Debt is a forward loss. Capital is past profits. All of these early indicators seem difficult to evaluate with precision. Fortunately, a secular approach does not call for excessively fine tuning, in the sense that the credit facilities provide some short-term flexibility to the system in both directions, by enlarging reserves temporarily when granted and shrinking them when repayments are made. Perhaps the main task of reserve creation is to find the most satisfactory rate of secular advance rather than to overemphasize timing judgments. At the same time, a mounting list of qualitative criteria pointing to global reserve shortage would accentuate the need to be prepared with an adequate collective plan for reserve creation and to activate it in good time.

Remember the last three years [HAHAHA]? We had this legendary ‘global SAVINGS glut’. And then, mysteriously, a ‘global CREDIT shortage’! We had to restart lending, and to do this, the FUTURE savings of the US, UK and Japan were thrown into the banking system in order to re-capitalize it. The banks, of course, were so bankrupt, they couldn’t lend unless they first sold all their crummy debts to someone and the only someones on earth were the central banks of the countries DEEPEST IN DEBT and in the case of the UK and US, running massive trade deficits, too!

So, let’s go to today’s news!   

http://www.imf.org/external/np/pp/eng/2009/030409.pdf

INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND Establishment of a New Framework Administered Account for Selected Fund Activities Approved by Ross Leckow, Andrew Tweedie, and Alfred Kammer March 4, 2009 I. INTRODUCTION 1. This paper proposes the approval of an instrument for the establishment of a new framework administered account to administer external financial resources for selected Fund activities (the “SFA Instrument”). The SFA Instrument is designed to provide a more flexible platform through which the Fund may attract donor resources and meet the demand for its technical assistance (TA) and other activities. It builds on the Executive Board’s endorsement of management’s proposal that the Fund take a more vigorous and systematic approach in raising external financing.2 During a transitional period, the SFA Instrument will operate in parallel with the existing Instrument for a Framework Administered Account for Technical Assistance Activities (the “FAA”), and new subaccounts will be opened exclusively under the SFA Instrument.3 It is expected that the FAA would be phased out in due course.

The IMF is changing course, yet again. We are in another major monetary crisis. The ones created by the US are the most dangerous since the dollar is the fiat currency for settling world trade values and deals.

II. WHY IS THERE A NEED FOR A NEW INSTRUMENT? 2. External financing is playing an increasingly important role in meeting the demand for the Fund’s advice. Who is this ‘external financier’? The ZIRP Bank of Japan? OPEC? Or China? It certainly is not the US. If it is, the IMF will simply flood the world with more worthless currency that makes world trade even more unbalanced. In particular, external financing has become a critical component of the Fund’s TA program and is expected to grow in importance in the years ahead. INFLATION, HERE WE COME!!!! While internal funding has declined over the last decade, external financing has increased substantially —See? The IMF is really bankrupt. It has to go ‘external’ in order to lend to the poor—-and has allowed the Fund to maintain its TA field delivery at a constant level. Internally financed TA is expected to decline as envisaged in the Fund’s FY2009-2011 Medium-Term Budget – by about 20 percent in real terms —The value of fake US dollars is at the heart of this—- but demand for Fund TA is expected to grow, as evidenced, inter alia, by the expanding list of requests for new Regional Technical Assistance Centers (RTACs); low- and lower middle-income countries seeking to build the institutions necessary to implement growth-enhancing policies; and emerging markets and developing countries seeking to put in place more effective legal and regulatory frameworks governing the operation of their financial systems.

The US controls the IMF. This is why there is so much pious blather there. This is a classic example. If any country needs discipline, it is the US. If any country needs to ‘develop its markets’, it is the deep in red-ink trade US system. And god knows, we just screwed up the entire planet’s financial systems!

The implementation of such a broad-based strategy to attract and use external financing will effectively require the establishment of this SFA instrument. While the Fund’s existing FAA9 has served the institution well, it is outmoded. It would be possible to amend the FAA, but the consent of each contributor to the sub-accounts established under the instrument would be required, a process which is likely to be lengthy and uncertain. The more workable approach would be to establish a new instrument that embodies the necessary features and to allow the two instruments to operate in parallel for a transitional period.

Here it is, again! In 1968, they had a dual system working in tandem. I would LOVE to see the secret memos about this proposed change in the IMF. Do they talk about fooling the US public about what currency will be used in 5 years? Are there conspirators at work here? YOU BET!

III. FEATURES OF THE NEW SFA FRAMEWORK ACCOUNT 6. The SFA Instrument will build on the structure of the FAA Instrument with a number of important enhancements to address the objectives set out above. Like the FAA Instrument, the SFA Instrument will establish and set forth the terms of governance for a framework administered account (the “SFA Framework Account”). The SFA Framework Account will function as an umbrella administered account under Article V, Section 2(b) of the Fund’s Articles and will be comprised of individual subaccounts. Expand the pool of donors. The SFA will allow sub-accounts established under the instrument to receive resources from both public sector and private sector donors. PRIVATE???? This is code for ‘pirates from various tax haven islands! Again, the mixing of public and private with the privateers looting the public treasury! Under the FAA, only governments, other official agencies of countries and international organizations may contribute resources. Contributions from nongovernmental donors are not allowed. This was to prevent piracy. This limitation excludes an important source of financing that could be used to support the Fund’s work in the future, in particular foundations that are active in low income countries.

In other words, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and the House of Rothschild will now be able to take over the IMF using government debts, cheap government banking loans at ZIRP levels to take over the IMF and then, keep ALL nations CAPTIVE so we have to pay them all a high interest rate on loans they first got from central banks at near-zero percent interest. Wow.

Authorizing Management to specify the essential terms of subaccounts will better align donor support with the Fund’s TA priorities as set forth in Resource Allocation Plans (RAPs) and Regional Strategy Notes (RSNs) and also, in turn, allow the Fund to better highlight the link between its TA strategies and donor development strategies. This flexibility will allow for topical trust funds to be designed to foster a long-term partnership framework between the Fund and a broad pool of donors, the composition of which could evolve over time and will foster operational and administrative consistency across topical trust funds.

This is what was hammered out over the course of the last year at various secret Bilderberg gatherings, Council for Foreign Relations groups, World Trade Organization and Doha Round meetings, etc, etc.  They plotted and planned and came up with a solution whereby the Federal Reserve and Bank of England could hand over their role of planetary controllers to the Real Rulers, the clique that controls the international systems.  There, they can SET RULES ON US and claim, they have no idea, who is doing these things, it is all the rules of the bankers!  And since we are deep in debt, we have to live with it.

Craig Murray – Torture and the Banality of Evil

 

May 2, 2009

War Criminals Seek Safe Haven With Lib Dems

Apparently some of the Blairite right of New Labour are in talks with Paddy Pantsdown over the possibility of defecting to the Lib Dems. As the Blairite right is well to the right of Thatcher, drove the most determined attack on civil liberties since 1818, launched a devastating illegal war on the basis of lies, and reintroduced torture as public policy, one would hope the Lib Dems would tell them where to get off.

The point of immediate dispute – the introduction of a 50p income tax rate on marginal income above £150,000 – is probably the only sensible thing Brown has done.

We have been here before. Remember Dr Death. Dr David Owen is now comfortably ensconsed in the huge Mayfair office of Uzbek billionaire gangster and convicted blackmailer Alisher Usmanov, whose extremely highly paid PR catamite Owen now is.

What has the UK has come to, when its former Foreign Secretary is the paid lapdog of the most criminal of all the Russian oligarchs!

If you were very shortsighted and in a bad light, it was possible not to realise what kind of creature Owen was before he abandoned Labour for the Liberal/Social Democrat alliance. (Although it is often forgotten now that support for Trident missiles was the shameful cause of that realignment). There can be no excuse now for the Lib Dems to ally with the Blairites.

If there are any real Liberals left in the Left Dems, as opposed to nastly little careerists, they should be in revolt over even the mention of the admission of just one Blairite. John Stuart Mill must be spinning in his grave.

 

Philippe Sands – Torture 1 of 6

Philippe Sands – Torture 2 of 6

Philippe Sands – Torture 3 of 6

Philippe Sands – Torture 4 of 6

Philippe Sands – Torture 5 of 6

Philippe Sands – Torture 6 of 6

Craig Murray – Torture 1 of 7

Craig Murray – Torture 2 of 7

Craig Murray – Torture 3 of 7

Craig Murray – Torture 4 of 7

Craig Murray – Torture 6 of 7

Craig Murray – Torture 5 of 7

Craig Murray – Torture 7 of 7

And the wars rage onwards inside countries occupied by US military.

Iraqi soldier kills 2 US soldiers, wounds 3

 

An Iraqi soldier opened fire on a U.S. military teamSaturday, killing two American soldiers and wounding three, the U.S. military said, in an attack that could sharpen worries about the extent of militant infiltration in Iraq’s security forces.

Iraqi officials described the attacker — who was killed in the gunbattle — as a soldier who also served as a Sunni Muslim preacher for his unit near Mosul, which is one of the last urban strongholds for Sunni insurgents.

Such an ambush could increase pressure on the Shiite-led government to try to root out possible turncoats and slow efforts to bring Sunni militiamen into the police and military as rewards for helping battle al-Qaida in Iraq and other insurgent factions.

 

Naturally, these various news stories of US soldiers being killed don’t make any US headlines at all.

Notice the complete absence of any reporting about US wars on CNN.  All the other papers online in the US are no different.  All the talk about loving our troops is fake.  All the talk about Obama allowing military families to choose whether these funerals appear in public have led to most asking for publicity…and not getting any at all!  Far from wanting to report about these funerals, the media cares more about a runaway 17 year old appearing on videos in vacation spots or how to have a happy marriage [don't get sent to Iraq to be shot!].  

Vets are good for flag waving regimes and talking all pious about sacrifice is fun if the media supports treason in high places.  Indeed, conning people into patriotic frenzies while at the same time, opening the door to aliens so they can control our government…. thank you, America’s media giants!  Some of whom aren’t Americans.  And this includes the NYT which is now half-owned by a double alien [moves about the planet, belonging to more than one country].

Gunfight Breaks Out as Iraqi Soldiers Try to Arrest Trade Officials – NYTimes.com

 

The gun battle occurred Wednesday, when anticorruption officials accompanied by Iraqi soldiers went to the ministry’s headquarters in the Mansour district of Baghdad to carry out arrest warrants on corruption charges against nine officials.

Only the minister’s spokesman, Muhammad Hannoun, was arrested. The others fled after a 15-minute firefight between the military and the minister’s security detail, according to the head of Iraq’s public integrity commission, Rahim al-Okaili.

 

When the US conquered Germany and Japan, both sought hard to prevent corruption and periodically have to clean house.  But most nations we conquer instantly go into mega-corruption and then, demand we give them mega-money so they can have super-mega-corruption.  Afghanistan and Iraq are the super-duper-double-mega-corruption places that suck down billions and billions of future tax dollars—while ambushing us.

Iraq’s government has to be corrupt since it is a puppet regime.  The US is also a puppet regime which is why a country that is in the top ten per capita incomes on earth, Israel, gets to suck down tens of billions in US aid.  And can vote more money whenever they feel like it while boasting openly about how they have taken over DC and turned our President and Congress into their puppets!  

All puppet regimes are corrupt, by definition.  This is why DC is so corrupt.  And why cleaning it up means cleaning up the lobbyists on all sides who are corrupting it.  This is one thing Obama certainly has already failed to change!  

So, the puppets in DC sent many billions to Iraq and Afghanistan so they can also be corrupt. The corrupt military/industrial corporations need to skim billions for themselves so they can live in big houses, drive expensive foreign cars and have many fashion model mistresses.  

It is obvious that Iraq, far from being turned into a tame pet on an Israeli leash, is a seething caldron of violence that is on the verge of exploding, literally, under our foolish feet.

Kabul’s new elite live high on West’s largesse – Asia, World – The Independent

 

Vast sums of money are being lavished by Western aid agencies on their own officials in Afghanistan at a time when extreme poverty is driving young Afghans to fight for the Taliban. The going rate paid by the Taliban for an attack on a police checkpoint in the west of the country is $4, but foreign consultants in Kabul, who are paid out of overseas aids budgets, can command salaries of $250,000 to $500,000 a year.

 

The high expenditure on paying, protecting and accommodating Western aid officials in palatial style helps to explain why Afghanistan ranks 174th out of 178th on a UN ranking of countries’ wealth. This is despite a vigorous international aid effort with the US alone spending $31bn since 2002 up to the end of last year.

 

Look at the photos at this story!  They spent millions of dollars, building a modern mall that is fancier than any of the malls in the Albany, NY region????  How insane is that????  The US spent billions building the world’s biggest embassy in Bagdad.  I’m sure the Iraqis will have fun using that when we are forced into bankruptcy.

US aid is being abused because we are not there to protect or save the Afghanis.  We are there for geopolitical reasons totally detached from either the US or Afghanistan.  The people who dragged us into Afghanistan and who are milking us for profit are the military/industrial corporations run by former US and Pentagon officials and who swear allegiance to other countries, not the US.

A real patriot wouldn’t view war as an excellent opportunity for looting….the home base.

Sri Lanka rejects evidence of civilian bombings:  this headline is also one that is being ignored by a lot of US professional screamers who are always yelling about Tibet and Darfur.  This Buddhist war against Hindus shows exactly how peaceful both really are.  Buddhism is no more peaceful than Christianity.  There are no ‘peace’ religions.  There are empires and there are ethnic tribal wars.

There is no propaganda value to talking about the Tamil Tigers.  They don’t perform some other function.  The hysteria about Tibet is all about breaking up China.  The hysteria about Darfur was all about distracting everyone from looking at Gaza.  And the bad guys were all Muslims and thus, good bad guys.  

The US is going bankrupt.  Building expensive shopping malls in Afghanistan or building fancy embassies in Iraq are bankrupting us.  Giving one of the richest nations on earth billions in free aid is bankrupting us.  All these things need to be addressed by our President who is also, bankrupting us.  The Pentagon has to have its budget cut to Chinese levels because it is also bankrupting us.  And we have to clean house, here.  

The chances of a major event rises by the day.  It isn’t a question of it ever happening: this is obvious, it will and must happen.  The only question is, the actual time frame.  Pinpointing earthquake events is extremely tricky.  This is why we have to assume it can happen any time and take whatever possible preparations we can, to deal with this.

Maps of Recent Earthquake Activity in California-Nevada

Here is a Google satellite map showing close up, where today’s quakes were located. Right next to the ocean.  To the upper right corner, there is a hot springs.  Throughout California, there are these hot springs which signal a potential tectonic stress point.

SAN ANDREAS FAULT ZONE

LENGTH: 1200 km 

550 km south from Parkfield; 650km northward 
NEARBY COMMUNITY: Parkfield, Frazier Park, Palmdale, Wrightwood, San Bernardino, Banning, Indio 

LAST MAJOR RUPTURE: January 9, 1857 (Mojave segment); April 18, 1906 (Northern segment) 
SLIP RATE: about 20 to 35 mm per year 
INTERVAL BETWEEN MAJOR RUPTURES: average of about 140 years on the Mojave segment;recurrence interval varies greatly — from under 20 years (at Parkfield only) to over 300 years
PROBABLE MAGNITUDES: MW6.8 – 8.0 
San Andreas Fault Zone — San Gorgonio Pass Area: 

The San Gorgonio Pass area is fairly complex, geologically speaking. Here the San Andreas fault interacts with other faults (most notably the San Jacinto fault zone and the Pinto Mountain fault) and thereby becomes somewhat fractured, over the distance extending from just north of San Bernardino to just north of Indio, some 110 kilometers (70 miles). Because this deformation has been going on for well over a million years, ancient and inactive strands of the San Andreas fault can be found here. Other faults in this area are have been “reawakened” recently after being dormant for hundreds of thousands of years. There is even evidence to suggest that there is no active, continuous main trace of the San Andreas fault going all the way through the pass, not even at depth — implying that the San Andreas fault may currently be in the process of creating a new fault path through this area! This could also mean that a single, continuous rupture from Cajon Pass to the Salton Sea (a stretch of the San Andreas that has not ruptured in historical times) is unlikely to occur. Fault rupture mechanics are still not well understood, however, and the discontinuity could prove to have little effect on tempering a major earthquake on this southern stretch of the San Andreas fault zone. 

Recent Earthquakes – Map for 119-35

This US Geological Survey map shows how the two biggest quakes today in California are related to each other.  Neither is on an major fault.  The major faults are obviously accumulating a tremendous amount of stress which is translated into shakes at nearby points.  Let’s look closer at the smaller quake near Bakersfield:

San Andreas Fault Map – Zoom In on the Fault! – GEOLOGY.COM

Looking closer, we see this is near farmlands and is in the mountains.  There are huge geological differences between the flat farmlands and the mountains associated with the San Andreas Fault.  

Here is a satellite photo showing the San Andreas Fault and how it runs exactly parallel to the sandy desert strip on the other side of the twisted, tormented mountains that are on the eastern side of the San Andreas.

There are various guesses where this next mega earthquake event will begin.  I want to point out some interesting features of the San Andreas. One is, the several hot springs that lie on or near the slip/strike zone.  Below is a close up of a very interesting intrusion of some very complex geological features near San Bernandino.  Notice the Arrowhead Springs Hot Lake location.  Directly below it and obviously the path of most water flows, is where the San Andreas passes through some pretty conflicting geological masses.  

Here is a super close-up where the red arrow is pointing.  One of the more amazing features of the San Andreas Fault is how straight it is for much of its length.

Another hot springs is near where the San Andreas makes one of its few bends.  This is where the Salton Sea depression begins.  Of course, this fault can break nearly anywhere along its length.  It can break in the middle and waves of energy move in opposite directions, it can break in one spot and move northwards, for example.  The whole thing can go out, all at once or just a tiny fragment.

No one can tell which of these events will happen or when they will happen.  One thing is certain, these things have an excellent fashion of being inevitable.  So the sane thing to do, if one wishes to live in very active geological zones, is to be prepared.  California is a ‘dry’ state in that one can’t expect water to always be there, it has to be transported, often over hundreds and hundreds of miles.

And nearly all of the transmission of water is across the San Andreas.  And any disruption of any of these systems will have tremendous effects on the milling millions who live, totally dependent, on this water delivery system.  The very most important thing all people in California must do, especially in the much drier southern half, is have lots and lots and lots of potable water stored somewhere safe and accessible.  

California’s Water System–Facts

 

• California’s communities, farms and businesses rely on water from a variety of sources. Surface water projects, which capture and deliver rain and snow runoff, provide a major portion of the state’s total water supply. The projects include more than 1,000 federal, state and local reservoirs and hundreds of miles of canals and pipelines.
  
• Two of the most important projects are the federal Central Valley Project (CVP) and the State Water Project (SWP). The CVP and SWP bring water from Northern California through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta for delivery to users in the San Joaquin Valley, parts of the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California.
  
• Key water projects and the amount of water they deliver: 
   
  • Central Valley Project (federal). Delivers about 7 million acre-feet (MAF) per year. Constructed in 1930s – 1950s.
  • State Water Project (state). Delivers about 2.3 MAF / year. Constructed in 1960s – early 1970s.
  • All-American Canal (local). Delivers 3 MAF / year. Constructed in 1930s.
  • Colorado River Aqueduct (local). Delivers 1.2 MAF / year. Completed in 1941.
  • Los Angeles Aqueduct (local). Delivers 200,000 AF / year. Completed in 1913.
  • Mokelumne Aqueduct (local). Delivers 364,000 AF / year. Completed in 1929. Second aqueduct completed in 1949.
  • San Francisco Hetch Hetchy Project (local). Delivers 330,000 AF / year. Completed in 1923.

 

Much of the population growth was in the dry, sunny southern half of the state, the part that needs water delivery the most.  And it is the part most vulnerable to water delivery disasters if there is a mega earthquake event.  Many of these canals are quite old.  And some have failed in previous earthquakes.  We know it takes time to fix these things, too.  So having a water supply of more than two weeks is recommended. Below is an article from today’s news in California:

Officials celebrate project to cut water loss on All-American Canal – Los Angeles Times

Running through an obscure strip of isolated Imperial County, the All-American Canal rarely gets the attention of the other ditches that have shaped Southern California.

The Los Angeles Aqueduct, which brings water from the Owens Valley; the Colorado River Aqueduct, which supplies coastal Southern California; and the California Aqueduct, which brings water from Northern California, are near major population areas.

The All-American Canal brings copious amounts of Colorado River water to turn 500,000 acres of desert into some of the most productive farmland in the world.

As California struggles with drought, the 82-mile channel could be key. So on Thursday, water officials gathered at the canal to celebrate what they called a rare example of cooperation in the often contentious arena of water politics.

“This event is a big deal,” said Karl Wirkus, deputy commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, whose motto is “Managing Water in the West.”

At a patch of desert 35 miles east of El Centro and barely 50 yards north of the metal fence that separates the United States and Mexico, officials of several sometimes warring water agencies came together to celebrate the nearly completed project to line 23 miles with concrete to prevent seepage. The section was considered the leakiest part of the earthen canal.

The project is part of an agreement under which the Imperial Irrigation District, the canal’s operator, grudgingly agreed to sell some of its mammoth share of the Colorado River to water-deprived San Diego County. The cost of the $300-million project was split between the state government and the San Diego County Water Authority.

 

 

We look at the sun shining, they are happy, the temperature is balmy…the sort of grim determination we in the far northeast feel is missing in Southern California.  Up here, we know that winter will come.   Those of us, like myself, who have to heat our homes with wood, spend the sunny, happy summer, grimly cutting up, chopping and stacking huge piles of firewood for the inevitable winter.

Frankly, I find living in this sort of situation rather stressful.  But then, peopl

Thinking ahead, considering how to keep the firewood dry during the summer and also, accessible if we have a tremendous amount of snow, is life and death.  But since this process is annual, we find it pretty easy to shoulder the burdens and do all the preparations for winter.  But preparing for a once-every 100 years event is trickier.  People feel foolish if they store lots of water and worry about things.

For example, when I lived in California, I would sometimes go through really slow traffic snarls just so I could avoid the McArthur double decker section of highway in Oakland, California.  I drove on it exactly once and announced, ‘This thing will collapse in an earthquake,’ and never used it again.  It didn’t collapse while I was living there. It happened 10 years after I left.  But it happened and this is the difference between our weather wariness here in the north and the lack of wariness in California: we have a calendar to rely on that goes by the month and day.