The Mass Strike in Action: Goldman Sachs Now Hopes for Deal and Big SEC Fine

May 29, 2010 (LPAC)—High-flying Goldman Sachs, which spent the Spring arrogantly refusing to consider a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission on numerous charges it faced, has been brought back to Earth quickly by the growing mass-strike mood in the American population.

Yesterday's London Financial Times reports that Goldman Sachs is now "hoping" to avoid the SEC's fraud charge by admitting a lesser offense, and "agreeing to a fine of hundreds of millions of dollars." Goldman now "hopes" that the SEC will find it guilty on the charge of "omitting or misstating material facts" to investors in Abacus, a mortgage derivative. If the SEC would settle on the charge of "omitting or misstating material facts," without Goldman's admitting or denying it lied to clients, that would reduce Goldman's risk of being indicted for fraud by a criminal court; Goldman's risk of being sued by its investors, and avoid further damage to its reputation (clearly wishful thinking).

The fine which Goldman is now willing to pay is said to be $250 million—among the highest ever paid by a U.S. company. Lyndon LaRouche stated earlier this week, that fines to Goldman should begin at $250 billion. In addition, the SEC could demand that Goldman compensate the investors it swindled by buying out their exposure to the Abacus deal, at a cost of another $370 million. Two months ago, Goldman maintained it did nothing wrong and wouldn't pay a penny.

SEC rules require Goldman to settle with the SEC by June 16—60 days from the SEC's filing of charges on April 16—or else file a defense. If the case goes to court, the SEC is expected to ask for a jury trial—another Pecora moment.

In another demonstration of growing mass strike, billionaire Warren Buffett, who calls derivatives "weapons of mass destruction," while using them to destroy nations, yesterday received a subpoena to appear before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission chaired by Phil Angelides, after he refused to appear voluntarily.

French Minister: EU Bailout Violates No-Bailout Clause

May 29, (LPAC)—None other than a top government official of France has announced that the Eur 440 billion European Union bailout is a violation of the Lisbon Treaty. Pierre Lellouche, the French government's State Secretary for Europe, said that the eurozone's Eur 440 billion debt guarantee scheme is a clear violation of the no-bailout clause of the Lisbon Treaty, and he compares it to a NATO-style mutual defense clause.

"It is an enormous change," Lellouche told the London Financial Times, which runs it as its lead front-page article in yesterday's issue under the banner headline, "Eurozone Bailout 'Alters EU Treaty.'" It explains some of the reticence. It is expressly forbidden in the treaties by the famous no-bailout clause. "De facto, we have changed the treaty," he added.

The Financial Times dryly observes that these "comments could go down badly in Germany."

The French daily Les Echos reported that the European Commission's spokesman for monetary affairs, Amadeu Altafaj, immediately contested Lellouche's statement, trying to deny that it is illegal.

Lellouche said German Chancellor Angela Merkel "was right" to say the EU could not be a "transfer zone" where rich members subsidized poorer ones.

The Eur 440 billion mechanism is nothing less than the importation of Nato's Article 5 mutual defense clause applied to the eurozone. "When one member is under attack, the others are obliged to come to its defense."

Rejecting claims that the Franco-Germany relationship was in trouble, he said: "The Franco-German relationship doesn't work all by itself. Going back to the Schuman declaration, that was an extremely ambitious initiative. That was only five years after the war, after the occupation, after Oradour-sur-Glane [site of a Nazi atrocity in France], after Auschwitz.

"To hold out our hands and offer a partnership of equals with Germany required a lot of vision. That's a bit what it is like today. Twenty years after reunification, there is a new generation; there is globalization, there is demographic pressure, you have a Germany that like everyone claims its national interests. I understand that totally ... Since when did we expect Germany to act as cash cow indefinitely?"

While it is not clear what the French are up to, what is clear, is that this statement will make interesting reading in the German Constitutional Court when it deliberates on the case brought before it by the five professors challenging the bailout scheme as a violation of the Lisbon Treaty.

Global Dynamic Moving Against British Interests

May 29, 2010 (LPAC)—We are now in a new, hot phase of the mass-strike process here in the United States, as Congress has gone into recess and the vast majority of Congressmen and Senators are back in their districts for the next ten days. If they want to run, they cannot hide, as the Memorial Day weekend is the kickoff for all of their re-election efforts. Obama's continuing treason—his slavish coverup for British Petroleum and his outright refusal to mobilize all the necessary resources to deal with this absolute catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico; his criminal drive to shut down the NASA manned space program, in violation of a law that he signed in 2009, barring any shutdown of Constellation in 2010; and his personal hand in killing the restoration of Glass Steagall and the banning of derivatives—has driven the American people to new heights of hatred. The mood in the country is for impeachment now.

We have got to intensify our efforts, to take charge of this new phase in the mass-strike dynamic. This weekend is key. As Lyndon LaRouche emphasized on Thursday, we are out to make a new American Revolution, to restore our Constitutional Republic, which has been destroyed by the antics of that British agent, Barack Obama, who, for the moment, still occupies the Oval Office. Where we have conveyed this message sharply, the American people have responded with enthusiastic support.

Spanish Debt Bomb Blows Up in London's Face

Precisely as Lyndon LaRouche warned six months ago, the Greek debt crisis was always a diversion from the much larger issue of the bankruptcy of the entire British monetary system. And LaRouche made clear that the break point, for Europe, would be the explosion of the Spanish debt crisis, which hits directly at the Inter-Alpha Group through Santander and the Royal Bank of Scotland. The Spanish debt bubble has now detonated, as reflected in a just-concluded IMF delegation report on its visit, earlier this week, to Spain: "The challenges are severe: A dysfunctional labor market, the deflating property bubble, a large fiscal deficit, heavy private sector and external indebtedness, anemic productivity growth, weak competitiveness, and a banking sector with pockets of weakness." After the Bank of Spain moved in to seize a regional savings bank and to merge four other banks on the verge of collapse, Fitch Ratings yesterday lowered the credit rating of Spain's sovereign debt.

The Spanish debt crisis is going to hit all of Europe, and the British pound in particular. LaRouche noted yesterday that this will make the British all the more frantic, and when they get frantic, the British puppet Obama goes berserk. Things are going to heat up very rapidly now, as Obama is already in a full "CYA" (cover your ass) mode.

After his failed effort to calm the explosive reactions to his stubborn refusal to deal with the British Petroleum disaster in the Gulf of Mexico at his Thursday press conference, Obama jumped deeper into the hole on Friday, by doing a three-hour visit to the disaster area, where he lied through his teeth, that he had done everything humanly possible to deal with the crisis. More and more Democrats are jumping all over Obama for his total failure. James Carville is doing round-the-clock TV interviews, blasting Obama; Sen. Mary Landreau has joined in the chorus, attacking the President's inaction. This is "Obama's Katrina," as even some of the media is now reporting.

The hatred of Obama is growing in intensity. The defense of British Petroleum by Obama has been a catalyst, but the key, as LaRouche emphasized on Friday, is the issue of dynamics. The mass-strike dynamic is moving globally against British interests. This is exactly what LaRouche has been saying, for the past year. The mass-strike process has gone through a maturation since August 2009, when the Congressional town hall meetings blew up over the population's hatred of the Obama Nazi health care, the Wall Street bailout, and his and the Congress's callous disregard for the plight of the growing army of unemployed and underemployed.

This mass-strike process has never abated or stagnated. It has advanced, and as the intensity has risen, there have been successive qualitative steps. LaRouche described it as like a wave function. The process has been under way since August 2009. We have clearly now entered a new phase. One key characteristic of the current phase is that, in the eyes of the vast majority of the American people, everything that President Obama does turns immediately to shit.

In Europe as well, there were some dramatic developments in the past 24 hours, beyond the Spanish debt crisis. The French State Secretary for European Affairs, Pierre Lellouche, declared that the Eur 440 billion EU bailout is a clear violation of the Lisbon Treaty. He said it was tantamount to the clause in the NATO Charter that obliged all NATO member states to come to the aid of any other state under attack. This Lellouche statement will play back into Germany, where the five professors have their suit at the Constitutional Court, charging that the bailout is a violation of the original Maastricht Treaty. Also, in Germany, this week, the leading business weekly magazine Wirtschaftswoche published a lead story on how easy it would be for Germany to leave the European Monetary Union and return to the deutschmark. Other leading German publications, including Focus magazine and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, have said much the same. This is a dramatic shift in the European dynamic, which was also reflected on Thursday in demonstrations all across France, protesting pension cuts.

In this fast-moving mass-strike situation, LaRouche's unique leadership is the single, indispensable factor, that will determine whether humanity survives and prospers, or collapses into a horrific new dark age.

Apollo Patriots Fight for America's Future

May 28, 2010 (LPAC) — The first and the last men to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong and Eugene Cernan, speaking before the House Science Committee hearing on the NASA human spaceflight plan, continued their assault on the insanity of the President's "mission to nowhere" (Cernan's words), while forcefully defending and articulating the reasons for human spaceflight, beginning with a return to the Moon.

The hearing began with testimony from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, followed by a panel featuring Armstrong, Cernan, and A. Thomas Young, a retired top aerospace executive. Bolden defended every aspect of the Obama plan to kill the Constellation program and privatize America's access to orbit, which the Committee, for the most part, publicly opposes.

In contrast, many members were visibly moved by the forthright, truthful, and impassioned testimony of the astronauts. One of the ranking members said that it was the best testimony he had heard in his 30 years on that committee; another said it was the first time he had heard a clear argument for returning to the moon. The transcript (and possibly video) of the testimony and the questions and answers that followed can be found on the Committee's website.

Armstrong said the arguments for not returning the moon — because we've "been there already" — make as much sense as the argument that we shouldn't have expanded beyond the Mississippi because Lewis and Clark had "been there already."

Cernan alluded to and reiterated points made in the joint letter from himself, Armstrong, and Apollo 13 Commander Jim Lovell on the travesty of the Obama proposal. He said more important than specific dates, is a clear commitment to exploration on behalf of future generations, beginning by following through on Constellation. Armstrong's discussion of "America's leadership in space" also transcended the typical "competition against Russia and China" mindset, emphasizing that what the U.S. does affects what other nations consider to be even possible.

After the hearing two LPAC organizers were able to briefly greet the astronauts and hand one of them a DVD with the two Moon to Mars videos on it.

Lagadeild Háskóla Íslands. Hollvinafélag.

Lagadeild Háskóla Íslands.

Stjórn Hollvinafélagsins 2009-2010:

Ragnar Tómas Árnason, formaðurEinar FarestveitHaraldur Örn Ólafsson
Sigurður GuðmundssonRagnheiður M. Ólafsdóttir Ráðgjafaráð Hollvinafélagsins
Ráðgjafaráð Hollvinafélags lagadeildar Háskóla Íslands
Allan V. Magnússon, héraðsdómari Hvassaleiti 31, 103 R
Ármann Snævarr dr. jur. Aragötu 8, 101 R
Baldur Guðlaugsson hrl. Laugarásvegi 6, 104 R
Benedikt Sveinsson hrl. Lindarflöt 5, 210 Garðabær
Dögg Pálsdóttir hrl. Bergstaðastræti 86, 101 R
Gestur Jónsson hrl. Mörkinni 1, 108 R
Guðmundur S. Alfreðsson, lögfræðingur Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and
Humanitarian Law, University of Lund,P.O. Box 1155, 221 05 LUND, Sweden
Gunnar I. Hafsteinsson hdl. Skildinganesi 58, 101 R
Gunnar Helgason hrl. Smáragötu 5, 101 R
Gunnar Thoroddsen hdl. OZ hf., Snorrabraut 54, 105 R
Helga Jónsdóttir, borgarritari Ráðhúsinu, Tjarnargötu 11, 101 R
Hjördís Edda Harðardóttir hdl. Vesturbrún 8, 104 R
Ingibjörg Benediktsdóttir, HR-dómari Hæstarétti, Dómhúsinu við Arnarhól, 101 R
Jakob R. Möller hrl. LOGOS, Borgartúni 24, 105 R
Jóhann Hjartarson hdl. Íslensk erfðagreining hf., Lynghálsi 1, 110 R
Jóhann J. Ólafsson, lögfræðingur Kleifarvegi 5, 104 R
Jóhannes Sigurðsson hrl. LOGOS, Borgartúni 24, 105 R
Jón Ingvarsson, lögfræðingur Skildinganesi 38, 101 R
Jón Sigurðsson, fv. frkv.stjóri, lögfræðingur Miðleiti 7, 103 R
Júlíus Vífill Ingvarsson hdl. Hagamel 2, 107 R
Kjartan Gunnarsson, lögfræðingur Starhaga 4, 107 R
Ólafur B. Thors, lögfræðingur Hagamel 6, 107 R
Ólöf Pétursdóttir, héraðsdómari Héraðsdómi Reykjaness, Brekkugötu 2, 220 H
Óskar Magnússon hrl. Smáraflöt 49, 210 Garðabær
Sif Konráðsdóttir hrl. Hafnarstræti 20, 101 R
Sigurmar K. Albertsson hrl. Fjólugötu 7, 101 R
Sólveig Pétursdóttir, lögfræðingur Bjarmalandi 18, 108 R
Þórarinn V. Þórarinsson, lögfræðingur Einimel 2, 107 R
Þórunn J. Hafstein, lögfræðingur Menntamálaráðuneytinu, Sölvhólsgötu 4, 150 R

Lesið svo siðareglur Lögmannafélags Íslands !

http://www.lmfi.is/logmenn-og-thjonusta/log-og-reglur-um-logmenn/sidareglur-logmanna/

Obama Runs Cover for BP in News Conference

May 28, 2010 (LPAC)—After coming face-to-face with a new level of popular revolt against him in San Francisco on Tuesday, May 25, where he was forced for the first time to confess that he is being hounded by the "mustache," Obama called his first press conference in 309 days to try to regain initiative.

But what he did will only speed his ouster from office. Everything he said only covered over the criminal negligence BP has shown since the spill began, by his repeatedly and falsely claiming that the Federal government has been solely responsible for the response. "The American people should know that from the moment this disaster began, the federal government has been in charge of the response effort.... But make no mistake, BP is operating at our direction. Every key decision and action they take must be approved by us in advance...." And so forth.

Even when a reporter confronted him with BP's lies and asked, "How can you believe anything they say?" Obama refused to criticize his British masters at BP.

Obama repeatedly claimed that he and his administration had been on a total emergency mobilization from the first moment of the spill, even though everyone in the Gulf area, at least, knows quite the opposite. Elements of the give-and-take highlighted Obama's own criminal negligence in the matter, as when he was asked why he had not pursued Louisiana Gov. Jindal's suggestion for coastal sand-bar barriers. Obama's answer indicated that Jindal's proposal was submitted to a lackadaisical two-week feasibility-study, rather than the overnight study and action which a real President would have ordered and enforced.

While repeatedly claiming to have been on top of the response from the first minute, Obama was unable to say whether the top oil-drilling regulator at the Interior Department, Elizabeth Birnbaum, had resigned, or whether his own administration had fired her! He said that he had been unable to ask Secretary Salazar, because Salazar was testifying before Congress. When a NY Times reporter said she just couldn't believe that answer, an exasperated Obama shouted, "Oh, come on!"

Obama's "Unified Command" Protects BP Destruction in the Gulf

May 28, 2010 (LPAC)—The Obama Administration's "Unified Command" front group for the interests of BP/Halliburton/TransOcean, is doing all it can to spread destruction throughout the Gulf of Mexico, by stalling and blocking any full-scale disaster response to the April 20 oil rig explosion. The following are four obvious areas:

*Stall-out on building coastal barriers. As of May 26, the Unified Command still had not expedited approval of a request made May 11 by Louisiana authorities to conduct a crash construction of a string of berms—sand barriers—along the state's coastline to fend off the in-spread of oil slick.

This afternoon, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal went on an aerial tour of the oil-fouled coast, especially near Grand Terre, where the state has begun some berm construction, thanks to an existing wetlands restoration permit. But approval has been held up for an all-out coastal protection mobilization.

For example, after Hurricane Katrina, a plan for berm construction was ready-to-go, for coastline protection of Plaquemines Parish, to protect against storm surges, which would also work against oil slicks. It was costed out at $350 million, to cover the dredges, sand, labor, etc., but the go-ahead has been stalled by lack of approval from the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department, under the Unified Command.

In fact, what is required is a full mobilization for berms and coastal work all along the Gulf states—under expanded Army Corps of Engineers and related leadership, with brigades of civilian recruits wherever possible. But instead, the Unified Command has engaged in Alice-in-Wonderland quibbles about whether berm protection of Louisiana coastline, would not just divert the slicks to Mississippi, and so on.

* Boom operations limited. Instead of widespread use of boom operations to soak up the oil—hard booms, snare booms and sorbent booms (made from a material that sponges up oil, and repels water)—de-limited boom operations have been conducted, on a smaller scale defined by BP as "effective." Mark Salt, BP spokesman for boom work, insists that current labor, vessels and supplies of sorbent boom are sufficient—a stance upheld by the Unified Command, over the objections of the governors and coastal authorities of the Gulf states. Therefore, locals and volunteers are scrambling, one bayou at a time, to see what they can seal off. BP is paying prison labor, slave wages, to work on this.

What is actually required is a mass-scale mobilization.

* 17 nations offered aid, 14 rejected! So far, the support of only three nations—out of 17 offers—has been accepted by the Obama/BP Unified Command—marine engineers from Norway, help from Mexico, and aircraft from Canada. When confronted on this at the hearing in the House Natural Resources Committee, BP America President LaMar McCay said that, the Unified Command is in charge of what to accept or reject; and McCay denied the charge that the reason for refusing aid, is because BP would be responsible for expenses connected to donated mariners, vessels and other spill-fighting forces.

* Cat fight over dispersants. Instead of a policy and mobilization, EPA's Lisa Jackson and BP are sparring over how much and what kind of chemical spill products to be using. So far, BP has sprayed 800,000 gallons of Corexit 9500 on the sea surface, and more subsea. This week, 100 vessels, mostly fishing boats, have been taken out of service on oil spill containment (they were hired on, since fishing is kaput), after crew members developed illnesses from oil and chemicals. BP has not provided them any protective gear.

Germany Moves Against British Empire: Government Plans to Forbid All Naked Short Sales

May 27, 2010 (LPAC) — On May 25, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble presented a "discussion draft" on the prohibition of ALL naked short sales in Germany, which was sent out to banks and economic groups. This public pre-announcement is quite unusual, and seems to be designed to create a favorable public mood for government measures — in particular, since Geithner is descending on Germany now.

Thursday, there will be a hearing of experts, and the German cabinet will take up the matter on June 2nd. The aim of the new law is "to prohibit any transactions which could threaten the stability of the financial markets." The measure will forbid all naked short sales of state bonds and of all stocks and their derivatives traded in Germany, not just ten bank stocks as is the case now. Moreover, a two-tier "transparency system on short sales positions" will be introduced. In the first phase, Baffin (the German banking regulatory agency) must be informed, and in the second stage, higher volume short sales have to be made public. Also, the asset trading law (Wertpapierhandelsgesetz) will prohibit unsecured CDS on EU countries' debt, and currency derivatives on the euro, if they do not serve real deals, which have to be secured.

The text of the draft paper says: "It is forbidden to execute unsecured short sales in stocks or debt titles, which have been issued by central governments, regional governments and local governments of those EU member-states which use the euro as legal currency, and which have been admitted to national trade [in Germany] in the regulated market and introduced into trade."

This comes after German Economics Minister Bruederle, on Tuesday, rejected EU President's Van Rompuy's plans to issue joint eurobonds. Bruederle said this would set the wrong incentives; Germany would not support ideas for turning the Eurozone into a transfer union. Of course, this is what in fact happened last week when the Bundestag agreed to the euro rescue package, which the government had agreed upon after massive pressure from the EU level.

Very convenient in this respect is the public and institutional pressure building upon EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, for his close personal ties to Spiros Latsis of Eurobank, who received probably the biggest single EU bailout for government bonds in the Greek "rescue package."

While still far from the Glass-Steagall reform needed for the whole system, the German steps go in the right direction, as Helga Zepp-LaRouche pointed out in her most recent statements, in which she also noted the growing press chorus (as in FAZ most particularly) for Germany quitting the euro and going back to the deutschmark, including blasting the "Political Euro Cartel."

The pace-setter for this change in Germany clearly has been the BueSo campaign for a return to the DM and to global Glass-Steagall measures, which in the last week of the recent N.R.W. state election campaign was pointedly escalated with a 100,000 leaflet distribution. Stay tuned.

 

Who is Really Out to Blow up the Korean Peninsula?

May 3, 2010 (LPAC)—We are headed for a major potential crisis on the Korean peninsula in the immediate hours ahead, and Lyndon LaRouche has posed the question: Who is really behind this crisis?

The sudden war danger on the Korean peninsula began a month ago with the sinking of the South Korean Navy ship, Cheonan. An ongoing investigation into the explosion that split the ship in half and killed 46 sailors, has been conducted by the South Korean government, with international expert assistance, including from the U.S. Navy. Yesterday, South Korea's Minister of Defense, Kim Tae-Young, was interviewed on KBS national television, and vowed, those responsible for killing our soldiers must pay the price. An unnamed U.S. diplomat, interviewed this weekend in the Korean press, asserted that it is all but certain that the North Koreans carried out the attack. There is widespread speculation about the motives, if, indeed, the North Koreans did actually carry out the attack. According to senior South Korean government officials, the attack, if premeditated, may have been in retaliation for a naval confrontation that occurred in 2008, in which the North Koreans came out on the losing end.

On Friday, South Korean President Lee traveled to Shanghai, where he met with Chinese President Hu Jin-tao. The naval incident was the number one topic of discussion in their brief meeting. On Tuesday, in an unprecedented event, President Lee will chair a meeting with all of the top South Korean military commanders. The situation is on a hair-trigger, to say the least, despite statements from officials in the Blue House that there is no desire for a military confrontation with the North.

It is in precisely this context that LaRouche posed his question. "This is not just North Korea," LaRouche said. "What is it? I believe that the authorship of this crisis is elsewhere. It has the smell of the British. Why? Because their operations are always aimed at creating perpetual chaos. I am looking at chaos, not revenge, as the driving motive behind the engineering of this crisis. And the chaos factor is only coming from one location, globally: From the British. Clearly, there are some intermediaries involved here, but only the British Empire has a strong motive, history, and capacity for provoking permanent chaos," LaRouche said.

THE NEW AMERICA

 

Sökkti Þýskaland S-Kóreska skipinu?

Merkel Plans To Extend Ban on Naked, Short-selling of Derivatives

May 26, 2010 (LPAC)—In a move that already has the British Financial Times upset, German Chancellor Merkel has announced plans to extend the ban on naked short selling of some securities and ten stocks (that shook up the financiers last week), to cover all stocks listed in the Federal Republic of Germany. The move is part of a general crackdown on financial-market speculation, which Germany believes has gone on for too long without EU or G20 regulation. (Naked short-selling derivatives mean you don't actually have to possess, or promise to borrow, the security you are short-selling.)

People briefed on the matter said the Government was following through on a promise to turn last Tuesday's temporary ban into more permanent legislation. The Cabinet could sign off on a bill this June. The proposals would also be extended to certain euro currency derivatives, and would make more transparent who was selling short and in what volume.

This latest step is likely to draw the ire of the British imperial monetarists. Next week, U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will be visiting Germany, and one ranking member of his staff has already thrown a public fit against Germany for taking the measures, which show a certain Executive spine. In the United States, British puppet Barack Obama used every dirty trick in the books to make sure that no anti-derivatives' steps be taken in the "Dodderer" financial regulation sham.

 THE NEW AMERICA