Showing posts with label Usury. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Usury. Show all posts

Thursday, 6 October 2011

THE OCCUPY WALL STREET MOVEMENT ... coming to somewhere in Australia near you

I am sure that even people who are not on Twitter have heard of #OccupyWallStreet and the variations of it that have sprung up across the USA and Canada. Now, comes a declaration from here.  I am sure that what is happening in the USA will, more than likely, find itself replicated in Australia in spite of economic conditions being less severe than those experienced in the USA.

People are tired -

  • of the wealthy having a dominant say and getting their way
  • of insurance companies who won't pay up when natural disaster strikes
  • of career minded politicians across all parties who are poll and business driven - not people sensitive
  • of in your face alcohol, gambling and sexual services
  • of the little losses of amenity in life eroding what was once a carefree Australian life
Please Networkers, feel free to add to the list of what you are tired of and what would get you off your behinds to protest outside a bank, a parliament, council offices, corporate establishments.  The list above is just to get you started.


Declaration of the Occupation of 

New York City

What follows is the first official, collective statement of the protesters in Zuccotti Park:

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

  • They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
  • They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
  • They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one's skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
  • They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
  • They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
  • They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
  • They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
  • They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
  • They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
  • They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
  • They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
  • They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
  • They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
  • They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
  • They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.
  • They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
  • They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.
  • They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
  • They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
  • They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
  • They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
  • They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
  • They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*
To the people of the world, We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!

NationofChange has been an unfiltered media resource for the Occupy Wall Street movement even while the mainstream media has ignored, censored, and undermined the progress of the people.
Rather than delivering consumers to advertisers NationofChange works tirelessly to deliver people to one another.
Make a secure, tax-deductible donation to NationofChange today, and help sustain this vital service to the community.

Wednesday, 3 November 2010

Banking transparency to prevent profiteering: a job for a voters' putsch? First in line, the People's Tank



Last Friday, I published the post below. After yesterday's double trouble, I am moving it up the blog calendar, in case you missed it, and adding additional comments.
~~~

 Last week's post, was initiated by Joe Hockey's wish list on what should be done with Australian banks. I found Joe's position reasonable enough in spite of the Government and other voices getting stuck into him.

Then came yesterday morning's announcement by the Reserve Bank of Australia (Oz's equivalent of the USA's Fed) to put up interest rates ever so slightly.  This was not appreciated by retailers (here and here) or by small business. Then in stepped the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.  The bank, when it was publicly owned before privatization by the Australian Labor Party, used to be referred to by many Australians as "the people's bank".  This morning, in an interview with Red Symons on the ABC's  Radio 774, Stephen Keen, Associate Professor in the Schools of Economics and Finance at the University of Western Sydney,  referred to the CBA, rather wittily I thought, as "the people's tank".  Considering the unilateral barging in and jacking up of interest rates by the CBA, a rather apt title.

The CBA's action has caused somewhat of an uproar, it should be said. Nothing has been heard from the ANZ CEO who lashed out at Joe Hockey last week.  The Treasurer says he will be adopting some of Joe's suggestions.  So much for 'economic Hansonism'.


Miss Eagle reckons that Joe has got braggin' rights on this one - 

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

I have on occasions reminded people of (or sounded off about) usury.  Please see here, here. I have published another contributor's thoughts here. Usury is a very old profession. Perhaps the world's third oldest? Why else have the Abrahamic religions railed against it? Usury is not about to disappear from our midst but people still suffer from its burden as we now see around the world. The burden is carried in both 'civilised' and 'uncivilised' parts of the world.  In the 21st century, the usurers in the 'civilised' parts of the world carry great power - in spite of shortcomings being there for all to see by way of sub-prime mortgage exposures and the Global Financial Crisis.

Australia is supposedly a democracy - although there have been some cracks and fissures evident in recent times. Freedom of speech can be a thing of value.  Yet one has to query what is happening when Joe Hockey's wish list in regard to banking in Australia is received like this. In addition, we have to keep a watching brief on the reaction of the two major parties: Julia Gillard and her reference to economic Hansonism (fancy elevating Pauline to the role of proponent of an economic program or system!) and the fright taken by Hockey's own party and leader. After all, we have seen the close attention paid to the middle and big miners. Are bankers to get the same treatment?  Clearly, if banking reform and transparency is to be urged, the parties - no matter how much they might bleat about their reformist tendencies - will have to be propelled onward by consumers, by voters.

In short, Networkers, if the bankers are to truly have the cold, clear light of transparency brought upon them it will be up to us to push bankers, political parties, and independents on the subject.

As Networkers will realise, I carry a torch for neither the Liberal Party nor Joe Hockey.  But let's be honest.  Have a read of Joe's wish list.  As an ordinary consumer or small business person (the bottom part of the economic food chain, don't you think?), do you see anything improper or unintelligent about what Joe is actually asking?  Should we go looking for Reds under the beds based on Joe's wish list?  I think not.

I remember years ago attending a function in Queensland in the company of a then member of Queensland's Legislative Assembly who had come from a financial background.  We ran into a local ANZ bank manager.  Now this was a time when, under Keating, interest rates were going up and up yet Keating put a lid on certain housing loan interest rates: a case of 22% versus 13%.  Keating, behind the scenes, apparently was trying to bring the banks into line and, so the bank manager reported, he issued a threat.  The banks would behave themselves or Keating would blow the whistle on them.  Apparently, many a bank manager was encouraging business to put a bed in their commercial premises and the bank would conveniently deem the loan to be housing and not commercial!

It seems to some of us that banks are not the greatest contributors to the science or philosophy of ethics.

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