November 17th, STOP THE CUTS

UK tax actionNovember 30th

Union (PCS).

Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.

PCS campaigns update November 2011

Dear Virginia Wednesday 30 November will see up to 3 million workers taking strike action in the largest co-ordinated action for a generation in the UK. PCS members will be at the forefront of this action, taking a stand against the government's unfair plans to slash public sector pensions. Even if you're not a PCS member, you can still support our campaign. Sending an email to your local MP from the PCS site is free and easy and can make all the difference. It only takes a minute, and the more emails sent, the better chance we have of winning our campaigns. Please email your local MP in support of our campaigns today. Also in this edition: Use our updated pensions calculator to see what the changes could mean for you Email the prime minister and tell him why you are striking on 30 November See what events are taking place in your local area on the day  Thank you for your support.

European debt crisis spiralling out of control

SLSiri Siri

Wow..just...wow ~ Reports that Germany and France have begun talks to break up the eurozone gu.com/p/339bf/tw via @guardian

European debt crisis spiralling out of control

Reports that Germany and France have begun talks to break up the eurozone amid fears that Italy will be too big to rescue

Larry Elliott, Heather Stewart and John Hooper in Rome · 09/11/2011 · guardian.co.uk

 

Debt crisis sets markets in turmoil amid reports of talks about the break up of the eurozone. Photograph: Jeff Spielman/Getty Images
 

Fears that Europe's sovereign debt crisis was spiralling out of control have intensified as political chaos in Athens and Rome, and looming recession, created panic on world markets.

Reports emerging from Brussels said that Germany and France had begun preliminary talks on a break-up of the eurozone, amid fears that Italy would be too big to rescue.

Despite Silvio Berlusconi's announcement that he would step down as prime minister once austerity measures were pushed through parliament, a collapse of investor confidence in the eurozone's third-biggest economy sent interest rates in Italy to the levels that triggered bailouts in Portugal, Greece and Ireland.

Italian bond yields surged through the critical 7% mark, at one point hitting 7.5%, amid concern that the deteriorating situation had moved the crisis into a dangerous new phase.

In Athens talks to appoint a prime minister to succeed George Papandreou were in deadlock, and will resume on Thursday morning. The Italian president, Giorgio Napolitano, sought to reassure the markets by promising that Berlusconi would be leaving office soon.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said the situation had become "unpleasant", and called for eurozone members to accelerate plans for closer political integration. "It is time for a breakthrough to a new Europe," she said. "Because the world is changing so much, we must be prepared to answer the challenges. That will mean more Europe, not less Europe."

The president of the European commission, José Manuel Barroso, issued a new call for the EU to "unite or face irrelevance" in the face of the mounting economic crisis in Italy. "We are witnessing fundamental changes to the economic and geopolitical order that have convinced me that Europe needs to advance now together or risk fragmentation. Europe must either transform itself or it will decline. We are in a defining moment where we either unite or face irrelevance," he said.

Senior policymakers in Paris, Berlin and Brussels are reported to have discussed the possibility of one or more countries leaving the eurozone, while the remaining core pushes on toward deeper economic integration, including on tax and fiscal policy. "France and Germany have had intense consultations on this issue over the last months, at all levels," a senior EU official in Brussels told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions.

Financial regulators across Europe were last night carefully monitoring the health of their heavily exposed banks, amid concern that the turmoil could lead to a debt default, or even the break-up of the euro.

George Osborne, just three weeks away from delivering his autumn statement on the health of the economy, believes Europe's problems are blighting the UK's growth prospects, but he will use the sell-off of Italian bonds to insist there is no alternative to his austerity plans.

Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, spent Wednesday in Brussels urging the council president, Herman Van Rompuy, and a clutch of EU commissioners to focus on growth, and not further treaty changes, warning that if Europe does not become more competitive it will end up in a spiral of perpetual decline. Both he and David Cameron are urging EU integrationists to recognise that EU Treaty changes in the next few months would be a massive distraction and no cure for the underlying economic crisis. He pointed out that they would require referendums in at least four countries.

The latest chapter in the ongoing sovereign debt crisis came as Bank of England policymakers gathered for their monthly two-day interest rate-setting meeting. The monetary policy committee announced £75bn-worth of quantitative easing last month in an effort to prevent a recession.

City analysts believe the renewed turmoil in the eurozone is pointing to a deep recession in Europe. "It's unavoidable that there will be an outright contraction in the fourth quarter of this year, and a 60%-70% chance of another decline in the first quarter of next year," said Nick Parsons, head of strategy at National Australia Bank.

Shares fell heavily on both sides of the Atlantic. The Italian stock market lost 4% of its value. The FTSE100 index of leading shares closed 106.96 points down, at 5460.38. The Dow Jones closed 389 points down at 11,780.94.

Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF, told a financial forum in Beijing that Europe's debt crisis risked plunging the global economy into a Japan-style "lost decade" of weak growth and deflation.

"Our sense is that if we do not act boldly and if we do not act together, the economy around the world runs the risk of a downward spiral of uncertainty, financial instability and potential collapse of global demand … we could run the risk of what some commentators are already calling the lost decade."

Simon Derrick, currency strategist at BNY Mellon, said: "We're at the point of asking the question, if I put my money into Italy, am I going to get it back? The fact is, there isn't a safety net." He added that the mood in the City was reminiscent of Black Wednesday, in September 1992, when the UK crashed out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

The surge in Italian bond yields was eventually capped by the European Central Bank, which intervened in the markets to buy limited quantities of Italian debt. But analysts say the ECB will eventually have to step up its action, and act as a lender of last resort to bring interest rates down to pre-crisis levels. Sony Kapoor, director of Brussels-based think-tank Re-Define, said: "We may be fairly close to the point where an existential threat to the eurozone, and hence the ECB, is on the horizon. This could easily spiral out of control."

The ECB is seen as the only institution with the firepower to rescue Italy, because the EU lacks the resources to bail out such a large economy. Ben May, of Capital Economics, said Italy would need a €650bn bailout to keep it out of financial markets for the next three years or so. "The European Financial Stability Facility will not be able to provide a bailout of this size," he said.

Officials in Brussels insisted on Wednesday there would be no rescue package for Rome, saying, "financial assistance is not on the cards". A key test will come on Thursday morning when Italy has to raise €5bn from investors on the bond market.

Economic and monetary affairs commissioner Olli Rehn ratcheted up the political pressure on Italy with a strongly-worded letter to finance minister Giulio Tremonti. In it, Rehn demanded concrete written details of how Italy will implement each of the 39 separate reform measures it has promised to undertake.

In Rome the head of state, Giorgio Napolitano, insisted that Berlusconi would be leaving office soon, and that his departure would not be the prelude to a lengthy period of political instability.

His intervention came after hurried consultations with the speakers of both houses of parliament to ensure the speediest possible approval for a package of economic reform and austerity measures agreed with the European institutions. On Tuesday evening, after losing his majority in the chamber of deputies, Berlusconi told Napolitano he would resign.

But, to prevent the economic measures being blocked by the fall of his government, he said he would only go once the package had been approved.

As concern grew that he might delay the passage of the legislation, which has become a litmus test of Italy's credibility in the markets, Berlusconi said he would insist on holding new elections and one of his ministers speculated that could be next February.

After the yield on Italy's benchmark bonds soared above 7%, taking interest rates to a level beyond which previous euro zone debt crisis victims have sought a bail-out, the president issued a statement to say the new economic measures would be "approved in the space of a few days" and that there was "no uncertainty over the prime minister's decision to resign".

Napolitano, who cannot begin consultations with party leaders until Berlusconi leaves office, said that either a new government would be formed "to take every necessary decision" or an election would be held "within the shortest time".

That would still mean a vote was not held until January. But a source close to the president stressed to the Guardian that "early elections are not a foregone conclusion."

The Rome March Of Indignant Youth, Exasperated And Furious: Two Anomalies

The Rome March Of Indignant Youth,
Exasperated And Furious: Two Anomalies

By Gaither Stewart

18 October, 2011
Greanvillepost.com

The “Black Blocs” represent a challenge to the system and the larger Occupy movement itself. And although the corporate media are already painting the violence as “reprehensible” and “unacceptable”, and many Occupy groups committed to nonviolent protest seek to distance themselves from those who choose to express their pent-up rage in more aggressive ways, “the hooded unknowns” clad in black may be simply ahead of their time.

Rome demonstrators burn a police van on October 15. Their tactics present a dilemma for the nonviolent movement that may resonate with greater force as more protesters around the world increasingly clash with a system determined to maintain business as usual while practicing selective repression and cosmetic reforms.

(Rome) Last October 15, up to 200,000 Italians marched in Rome in the name of change, under the vague aegis of the “Movement”. Young and not so young from all corners of the country marched in the direction of the huge Piazza San Giovanni where Italians traditionally hold political manifestations. October 15 was a landmark of the new Resistance spreading in Italy, on the one hand in imitation of Occupy Wall Street, on the other hand a kind of summing up of the air of not completely non-violent protest infecting the country.

Contrary to elsewhere, the state TV network, RAI 3, covered the entire half day of the events from shortly after noon until evening so that the entire nation could follow the demonstration from its beginning to its bloody end, which was the second anomaly: the transformation of a non-violent demonstration into extremely violent guerrilla warfare so that few of the marchers ever reached Piazza San Giovanni. Though there were some 120 casualties, government spokesmen seemed pleased—or disappointed—to announce that there were no deaths. To view the example of urban warfare as it happened was like viewing an insurrection.

Following the script of similar manifestations throughout the world on October 15, Rome’s planned non-violent manifestation was infiltrated by from 500-1500 violent, self-proclaimed revolutionaries who were mixed among the huge formations of singing and chanting non-violent marchers. In a well-planned and coordinated action the organized violent infiltrators overcame both police and the peaceful demonstrators alike and stormed and devastated the city center, spreading fire and destruction.

Agents provocateurs? Berlusconi’s men? Black Block? Or anarchists from the Social Centers in most Italian cities? Perhaps the identity of the masked and hooded infiltrators wearing gas masks comprises something of all. The insurrectionists are also called i Neri, the Blacks, because of their dark clothes. For the government, the October 15 violence is a revival of the air of the 1970s and 80s and the infiltrators incarnate the spirit of the terroristic Red Brigades, last century Europe’s most successful terrorist organization.

In any case, as of today the government is benefiting from the violence. Police raids and house searches are underway in cities from north to south, from Turin, Milan, Padua and Bologna to Florence, Rome, Naples and Palermo. Numerous arrests have been made, some persons facing up to 15 years prison, while loud voices demanding more stringent laws are arriving in perfect timing. The Movement fears that for the government violent and non-violent protest are considered one and the same and that a general crackdown on all organized protest is likely.

In an interview with a Rome newspaper, one of the Blacks claimed that their action had been planned for a year, their weapons—clubs and cudgels and powerful paper bombs—were hidden in the city and that some of them were trained in urban warfare by “companions” in Greece. He revealed that they were divided into two major phalanxes of 500 men each, plus a group of 300 who remained with the Movement marchers for purposes of control. The phalanxes were broken down into small battle groups of 12-15 men. “Police,” he said, “are not prepared to fight our rapid style of urban warfare.” The results bear out his claims; the Blacks attacked and burned police armoured vans and destroyed everything in their path. “This is war,” the Black from south Italy told the two journalists. “They declared the war but it is not over yet.”

Right or wrong, the Rome events of October 15 demonstrate for the world to see the other side of the coin of the meaning of resistance of which everyone should be aware. The real reality is that in Italy, deeply entrenched power is no more likely to agree to the non-violent Movement’s demands for real change—for tight control over financial institutions, for equality in the fiscal structure, for the maintenance of social programs, for employment-creating economic planning—than is Italy’s neo-fascist criminal Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi likely to resign and make way for change on a government level.

The Blacks are most likely ahead of the times; yet, in Italy, they have moved the hands of the clock ahead. They represent a growing part of society that does not believe that non-violent sit-ins will suffice to bring about the systemic change on everyone’s lips.

An anonymous pre-October 15 internet post (subsequently removed) written apparently by a Black leader reads like a call to arms and a revolutionary manifesto. Police and the National Anti-terrorism Organization read it as a Decalogue of terrorist intents. Whether authentic or a false flag plant, the manifesto warns: “Police would attack us even in the absence of our conflictual intents. All of us, revolutionaries of all tendencies, who will be present in Rome because of our anger and because of our awareness of the abyss into which they want to hurl us, definitively, all of us must do combat. We cannot stop. We must give our all in order to capture and to hold the piazza in Rome. Workers, students, marginalized people, combat!”

GAITHER STEWART serves as The Greanville Post‘s European Correspondent. His latest novel is Time of Exile, third part of the Europe Trilogy, soon to be published by Punto Press.

Let them default. The radical solution to the sovereign debt crisis.

Uploaded by NewsOnABC on Sep 15, 2011

Economist Ann Pettifor predicted the GFC. Her solution to the sovereign debt crisis is to let those countries default, then bail out the banks in return for major reforms.

Always the Bankers’ Whore Obama’s New Populist Fakery by MICHAEL HUDSON

Always the Bankers’ Whore

Obama’s New Populist Fakery

by MICHAEL HUDSON

The seeds for President Obama’s demagogic press conference on Thursday were planted last summer when he assigned his right-wing Committee of 13 the role of resolving the obvious and inevitable Congressional budget standoff by forging an anti-labor policy that cuts Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and uses the savings to bail out banks from even more loans that will go bad as a result of the IMF-style austerity program that Democrats and Republicans alike have agreed to back.

The problem facing Obama is obvious enough: How can he hold the support of moderates and independents (or as Fox News calls them, socialists and anti-capitalists), students and labor, minorities and others who campaigned so heavily for him in 2008? He has double-crossed them – smoothly, with a gentle smile and patronizing pattern talk, but with an iron determination to hand federal monetary and tax policy over to his largest campaign contributors: Wall Street and assorted special interests. The Democratic Party’s Rubinomics and Clintonomics core operators, plus smooth Bush Administration holdovers such as Tim Geithner, not to mention quasi-Cheney factotums in the Justice Department.

President Obama’s solution has been to do what any political demagogue does: Come out with loud populist campaign speeches that have no chance of becoming the law of the land, while more  quietly giving his campaign contributors what they’ve paid him for: giveaways to Wall Street, tax cuts for the wealthy (euphemized as tax “exemptions” and mark-to-model accounting, plus an agreement to count “income” as “capital gains” taxed at a much lower rate).

So here’s the deal the Democratic leadership has made with the Republicans. The Republicans will run someone from their present gamut of guaranteed losers, enabling. Obama to run as the “voice of reason,” as if this somehow is Middle America. This will throw the 2012 election his way for a second term if he adopts their program – a set of rules paid for by the leading campaign contributors to both parties.

President Obama’s policies have not been the voice of reason. They are even further to the right than George W. Bush could have achieved. At least a Republican president would have confronted a Democratic Congress blocking the kind of program that Obama has rammed through. But the Democrats seem stymied when it comes to standing up to a president who ran as a Democrat rather than the Tea Partier he seems to be so close to in his ideology.

So here’s where the Committee of 13 comes into play. Given (1) the agreement that if the Republicans and Democrats do NOT agree on  Obama’s dead-on-arrival “job-creation” ploy, and (2) Republican House Leader Boehner’s statement that his party will reject the populist rhetoric that President Obama is voicing these days, then (3) the Committee will wield its ax to cut federal social spending in keeping with its professed ideology.

President Obama signaled this long in advance, at the outset of his administration when he appointed his Deficit Reduction Commission headed by former Republican Sen. Simpson and Rubinomics advisor to the Clinton administration Bowles to recommend how to cut federal social spending while giving even more money away to Wall Street. He confirmed suspicions of a sellout by reappointing bank lobbyist Tim Geithner to the Treasury, and tunnel-visioned Ben Bernanke as head of the Federal Reserve Board.

Yet on Wednesday, October 4, the president tried to represent the OccupyWallStreet movement as support for his efforts. He pretended to endorse a pro-consumer regulator to limit bank fraud, as if he had not dumped Elizabeth Warren on the advice of Geithner – who seems to be settling into the role of bagman for campaign contributors from Wall Street.

Can President Obama get away with it? Can he jump in front of the parade and represent himself as a friend of labor and consumers while his designated appointees support Wall Street and his Committee of 13 is waiting in the wings to perform its designated function of guillotining Social Security?

When I visited the OccupyWallStreet site on Wednesday, it was clear that the disgust with the political system went so deep that there is no single set of demands that can fix a system so fundamentally broken and dysfunctional. One can’t paste-up a regime that is impoverishing the economy, accelerating foreclosures, pushing state and city budgets further into deficit and forcing cuts in social spending.

The situation is much like that from Iceland to Greece: Governments no longer represent the people. They represent predatory financial interests that are impoverishing the economy. This is not democracy. It is financial oligarchy. And oligarchies do not give their victims a voice.

So the great question is, where do we go from here? There’s no solvable path within the way that the economy and the political system is structured these days. Any attempt to come up with a neat “fix-it” plan can only be suggesting bandages for what looks like a fatal political-economic wound.

The Democrats are as much a part of the septic disease as the Republicans. Other countries face a similar problem. The Social Democratic regime in Iceland is acting as the party of bankers, and its government’s approval rating has fallen to 12 percent. But they refuse to step down. So earlier last week, voters brought steel oil drums to their own Occupation outside the Althing and banged when the Prime Minister started to speak, to drown out her advocacy of the bankers (and foreign vulture bankers at that!)

Likewise in Greece, the demonstrators are showing foreign bank interests that any agreement the European Central Bank makes to bail out French and German bondholders at the cost of increasing taxes on Greek labor (but not Greek property and wealth) cannot be viewed as democratically entered into. Hence, any debts that are claimed, and any real estate or public enterprises given sold off to the creditor powers under distress conditions, can be reversed once voters are given a democratic voice in whether to impose a decade of poverty on the country and force emigration.

That is the spirit of civil disobedience that is growing in this country. It is a quandary – that is, a problem with no solution. 

All that one can do under such conditions is to describe the disease and its symptoms. The cure will follow logically from the diagnosis. But the role of OccupyWallStreet is to diagnose the financial polarization and corruption of the political process that extends right into the Supreme Court, the Presidency, and  Obama’s soon-to-be notorious Committee of 13 once the happy-smoke settles from his present pretensions.

Michael Hudson is a former Wall Street economist. A Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC), he is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (new ed., Pluto Press, 2002) and Trade, Development and Foreign Debt: A History of Theories of Polarization v. Convergence in the World Economy. He can be reached via his website, mh@michael-hudson.com

Strikes and protests mount against austerity in Greece

By Christoph Dreier 
27 September 2011

“Today, it is no longer safe for us to go onto the streets,” a politician of the Greek ruling party PASOK told the Frankfurter Rundschau. “We are the government and we are alone.”

Widespread popular anger against the government in Greece has only intensified following the latest round of austerity measures. Incidents abound of politicians of both the social democratic PASOK and the conservative opposition New Democracy (ND) being pelted with eggs and on occasion stones when they show themselves in public. Angry crowds have repeatedly besieged the homes of politicians and chanted “thieves, thieves” and “Give the money back!”

According to surveys conducted by Eurobarometer, 82 percent of Greeks have lost confidence in the government and 83 percent distrust the parliament. Sixty-seven percent no longer trust the European Union. Other polls show that PASOK would today win just 15.5 percent of the vote in a new election.

The huge gulf between the working population on the one hand and the government on the other was clearly evident at a demonstration in Syntagma Square in Athens on Sunday. According to the daily newspaperEleftherotypia, thousands of homeless people, young couples with children and pensioners demonstrated peacefully against the austerity measures of the government. Referring to the “memorandum” drawn up by the “troika”—the International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Central Bank (ECB) and European Commission—they shouted, “Take the memorandum and get out of here!”

Among the demonstrators were dock workers, bank employees, employees of the DEI (electricity works), teachers and former employees of Olympic Airlines who have lost their jobs and have had their pensions reduced by 40 percent.

The arrogance and contempt of the troika representatives for the Greek population was revealed in a report in the Guardian newspaper on Saturday. The article described how a team of technical experts from the European Union descended from their bus in Syntagma Square on the way to their hotel prior to the demonstration on Sunday.

“They walk past a man curled in a fetal position at the top of Ermou, a pedestrian street that leads off the square. They pass another slumped across a cardboard sheet, his head in his hands, then a tousle-haired immigrant, arms outstretched as he murmurs: “Mr., Mr., euro, Mr.” But the men and women don't look. They walk on cheerily chatting towards their hotel.”

Completely indifferent to the suffering of the Greek people and intent on pursuing a class-war policy across Europe, the troika experts were all agreed, according to the Guardian, that “on the ground, things will get a lot worse.”

Despite the peaceful nature of the protest on Sunday, police used tear gas and truncheons to disperse the demonstrators. Even children were attacked and one woman was admitted to hospital with serious injuries.

The demonstrators denounced the police, shouting, “The junta did not end in 1973”—referring to the brutal military dictatorship of the colonels who ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. “If more of us gather they cannot scare us,” said one pensioner. She talked about her children, who had been forced to cancel their studies and are now unemployed.

Struggles are taking place all over Greece. Some 159 schools across the country have been occupied by students protesting against cuts in the education system. In the city of Patras alone 30 schools have joined the protest.

This week, taxi drivers plan to go on strike, and on Monday workers in the metro, tram and city rail system stopped work for 24 hours. In front of the Ministry of Health therapists, staff and supporters of the therapy centre for drug addicts formed a human chain to protest dramatic cuts in subsidies and personnel. Flight controllers have been working-to-rule for a number of days, resulting in delays and the cancellation of many flights.

The protests are an expression of the growing anger and desperation of Greek workers, who have already faced cuts of up to 30 percent in wages and pensions this year, while energy and food prices have soared as much as 100 percent. The troika made this “fiscal consolidation” a prerequisite for the disbursement of emergency loans needed to avert a default by Greece.

But the social cuts have only led to a deeper recession than forecast. Tax revenues have fallen, the Greek burden of debt has grown and the government has failed to meet deficit-reduction targets set by the troika. The representatives of the IMF, EU and ECB have responded by demanding further austerity measures as a precondition for releasing an €8 billion tranche of bailout funds without which Greece will go bankrupt by mid-October.

Last week, the government announced further cuts in pensions and wages and the dismissal of 30,000 civil servants. In addition, new increases in consumption taxes are being imposed.

Greece already has the lowest income levels in the euro zone (51 percent of the average). Some 80 percent of workers earn less than €1,500 per month and 61 percent less than €1,000. More than 30 percent of those under 24 are unemployed, and only a third of the unemployed receive the meagre state support of €454 a month.

These cuts are part of a general assault on the working class being carried out by the ruling elite across Europe. The crisis is being used to carry out a social counterrevolution aimed at destroying all of the past social gains of the working class.

Mass poverty is growing at one pole of society, while at the other the financial-corporate elite is adding to its vast wealth.

In 2008, the Greek government transferred 106 billion euros to the banks to save them from collapse. According to figures reported last June by the news magazine Der Spiegel, the sums salted away by Greek millionaires and billionaires in Swiss accounts amounts to €600 billion. This is twice the total public debt of Greece.

The ruling elites have already made clear to all that they are prepared to enforce their austerity program despite the opposition of workers. Prominent European politicians stressed this week that they did not exclude the possibility of an orderly bankruptcy, which would wipe out all of the remaining social benefits of Greek workers at a stroke. The police violence against peaceful protesters shows that the Greek ruling elite is preparing a shift to authoritarian forms of rule.

The confrontation between the financial elite and the workers will intensify. In this situation, the trade unions and their pseudo-left allies play a critical role in blocking a mass industrial and political movement of the working class against the PASOK government and the Greek ruling class.

The unions have done their utmost to channel the anger of workers into harmless protests and avoid any serious confrontation with the government and the European Union institutions. Now, the two major union federations, ADEDY and GSEE, have postponed any further nationwide actions until October. Once again they are calling for one-day strikes and protests, to be held October 5 and 19. This gives the Greek government breathing space to push through the new package of social attacks.

The unions have organised such “general strikes” repeatedly over the past several years in order to dissipate militant resistance and demoralize the workers. The Coalition of the Radical Left, SYRIZA, which has close links to the German Left Party, is trying to bind workers to the PASOK government by proposing a coalition government “of all progressive forces,” including PASOK and the Stalinist Communist Party of Greece (KKE). Such a government would in no way be “progressive,” but would use the bureaucracies of the trade unions and the “left” political parties to enforce the troika program against the working class.

A balance sheet recession: A balance sheet recession

Max Keiser rides againHe predicted it when it was far from obvious.

Now he's explaining it as it unfolds.

The consequences of a banking system run amok, with loans that can't be paid, and delusions held too tightly.

MUST READ: David DeGraw on US v. 400 billionaires

http://ampedstatus.org/the-richest-0-1-have-launched-a-war-on-us-its-time-to-fight-back-and-hold-these-400-billionaires-personally-responsible-for-our-economic-crisis/

The Richest 0.1% Have Launched A War On Us – It’s Time To Fight Back And Hold These 400 Billionaires Personally Responsible For Our Economic Crisis September 8th, 2011 |

Editor’s Note: The following post includes adapted excerpts from David DeGraw’s book, “The Road Through 2012: Revolution or World War III.” Release Date: 9.28.11

We have endured financial oppression for long enough. In a time of national crisis and shared sacrifice, the richest one-tenth of one percent of the population cannot continue on their merry way, living in obscene wealth and detached from reality, while the majority of the population desperately struggles to make ends meet. We are under attack, and it’s time to fight back.

I work over 60 hours a week and still barely make ends meet. Increased costs of living and thousands of dollars in medical bills have made me and my family move three times in the past three years to downsize and cut living expenses. I’m certainly not alone in this dire economic situation, tens of millions of Americans are fighting this daily war to keep their family fed and healthy with a roof over their head.

In fact, as long as I can keep up this intensive work schedule at my current income level, I’m actually better off than many Americans. Over 46 million Americans are currently relying on food stamps to feed their family, over 50 millioncan’t afford health care, 62 million have zero or negative net worth and 64% of Americans have less than $1000 saved. As the economic downturn begins to accelerate once again, the majority of the population, which has been struggling for over three years now, is going to be pushed to a breaking point.

Meanwhile, in this time of national crisis, as we keep hearing calls for “shared sacrifice,” tens of trillions of dollars are consolidated within the hands of the economic top one-tenth of one percent of the population. This unprecedented consolidation of wealth continues unabated, as we now have the most severe inequality of wealth in American history. US millionaire households now have over $46 trillion in wealth, yet only one-tenth of one percent of the population makes over $1 million per year.

Let me be clear, I don’t fault a person for being rich. If you are great at what you do and work hard, you should be financially better off than people who slack off, are bad at what they do and don’t work hard. Almost all Americans agree with that. However, the problem we currently have is that people who are extremely bad at what they do are now all too often the people who have the most money. For example, the very people who caused this economic crisis have profited off of it and are now among the richest people in the world.

The reality of our current crisis is that we now have an aristocracy in this country that lives beyond the rule of law. They have used their wealth to rig the government and the economy. Through campaign finance, lobbying and the revolving door between Washington and the most powerful global corporations, the world’s richest people have now effectively rigged the system against hardworking Americans. This economic crisis is the result of a deliberate systemic looting engineered by the global financial elite. To attempt to dismiss this reality as some unproven conspiracy theory is to display a stunning level of ignorance.

Just look at the bailout of Wall Street: trillions of dollars in national wealth were given to the people who engaged in fraudulent activity and crashed the economy. They then used the public’s wealth to give themselves all-time record-breaking bonuses. And now, while the rich people who caused this crisis have never been richer, the government is giving them tax breaks and cutting vital programs that we need to keep our society functioning. To say that America has descended into a neo-feudal banana republic is not using bombastic rhetoric or hyperbole, it is a technical fact to anyone who spends time analyzing our current economic and socio-political condition.

As our society is incrementally and steadily deteriorating, millions of people are growing more desperate by the day. American families can no longer remain passive when under such a prolonged and ongoing economic attack. We literally can’t afford to. Clearly, this is a highly unsustainable and dangerous situation that cannot continue for much longer. A small fraction of society has systemically robbed the country and destroyed the economic future of the majority of the population. As more people realize this, and as desperate times continue, the mega-wealthy will eventually reap what they have sown.

To understand our future prospects, we just need to look at the civil unrest that is currently spreading throughout the world. The same people who robbed America have also robbed many other countries. People worldwide who have been pushed into severe poverty are rebelling because they have no other choice. It’s either fight back or let your family die a slow death. The massive protests and riots that have swept from Cairo to London are just the first wave of a tsunami of rebellion and unrest that, if the present course is not urgently and significantly changed, is sure to hit America soon.

Even the Wall Street friendly press, such as Market Watch, are publishing reports like this onefrom veteran journalist Paul B. Farrell:

“What a year. Rage in London, Egypt, Athens, Damascus….

Warning: More rage is dead ahead. Across our planet a new generation is filled with rage. High unemployment. Raging inflation. Dreams lost. Hope gone. While the super-rich get richer and richer.

Listen to that hissing: The fuse is rapidly burning, warning us. Wake up before the rage explodes in your face. This firestorm is endangering America’s future….

Super-rich addicts are destroying the American Dream for everyone. They’re destroying the American economy. They don’t care about you. Yes, they hear the ticking time bomb. They’re stockpiling cash. Don’t say you weren’t warned. The IMF sees a new collapse sweeping across the planet. Open your eyes. You’re not watching a film. This is not a metaphor. Plan now for the revolution, class warfare, market crash, economic collapse, plan for another depression.”

Contagion of Global Unrest Spreads Worldwide

Unfortunately, as we see spreading throughout the world, the blacklash by impoverished and economically disenfranchised people is already taking a violent turn for the worse. All throughout the UK, which is economically comparable to many American states, financially oppressed people have resorted to rioting and looting. While the fallout and financial loss from these riots have only been a small fraction of the economic looting global bankers have inflicted upon the British population, it is horrifying to see. The popular German news outlet Der Spiegel recently featured this article:

A Society on the Verge of a Meltdown

“The riots in London are a social Fukushima for the Western world. Should we really be surprised that an increase in wealth for just a few, accompanied by simultaneous impoverishment of the masses, could not continue unabated?…

But with all due respect, the only thing astonishing here is the actual astonishment. Who really thought it could simply go on indefinitely like this? Who believed there would be no consequences to the increase of obscene wealth for a few while impoverishment simultaneously plagued the masses. Wealth disparity is no accident….We famously learn little from history. But if we take one thing from the Weimar era it should be this: The res publica amissa, or the neglected polity, will fail in the end.”

John Pilger, an award-winning London-based journalist, summed up the riots in this report:

Damn it or fear it, the forbidden truth is an insurrection in Britain

“Such is the truth of [UK Prime Minister] David Cameron’s ‘sick society’, notably its sickest, most criminal, most feral ‘pocket’: the square mile of the City of London where, with political approval, the banks and super-rich have trashed the British economy and the lives of millions. This is fast becoming unmentionable as we succumb to propaganda once described by the American black leader Malcolm X thus: ‘If you’re not careful the newspapers will have you hating the oppressed and loving the people doing the oppressing.’”

Phil Rockstroh exposed the corporate mainstream media’s biased reporting in this article:

Life in an Age Of Looting

“According to the through-the-looking-glass cosmology of mass media elitists, when a poor person commits a crime of opportunity, his actions are a threat to all we hold dear and sacred, but, when the hyper-wealthy of the entrenched looter class abscond with billions, those criminals are referred to as our financial leaders.

Regardless of the propaganda of ‘free market’ fantasists, the great unspeakable in regard to capitalism is its wealth, by and large, is generated for a ruthless, privileged few by the creation of bubbles, and, when those bubbles burst, the resultant economic catastrophe inflicts a vastly disproportionate amount of harm upon those — the laboring and middle classes — who generate grossly inequitable amounts of capital for the elitist of the fraudster class… by having the life force drained from them by the vampiric set-up of the gamed system.”

Even in Germany, which has a better economic situation than most other European countries, people are burning luxury “fat cat” cars.

Arsonists Torch Mercedes, BMWs in Berlin Protests

“Arsonists have set fire to 26 cars in the German capital in the last two days, mainly from Daimler AG (DAI)’s Mercedes, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) and Volkswagen AG (VOW)’s Audi, police said today. That brings the total number torched this year in Berlin to at least 138, more than double the figure for all of 2010….

‘The arsonists want to hit what they say are ‘Fat Cats,’’ Berlin police spokesman Michael Gassen said. A special unit is investigating the fires as political crimes after the police received letters claiming responsibility that derided globalization, gentrification and rising rents, he said.”

Israel is another financially “better off” nation that has seen massive protests. Hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country have been protesting the “high cost of living.” Some protesters even brought out a functioning guillotine on a street named after an infamous banking family. As Washington’s Blog summed it up:

“Indeed, these pictures from Israeli protests on Rothschild Boulevard last week show that people worldwide are getting sick and tired of the wealthiest acting like despotic kings:”

This past weekend, over 430,000 people protested throughout Israel in the country’s largest demonstration ever. This week, hundreds of thousands of workers went on strike inItaly and Spain. In Greece, yet another country that has been looted by the same people that have robbed the US, they have seen increasingly violent protests. There have been many violent clashes with the police. They even blew up JP Morgan offices and have repeatedly attacked the Ministry of Finance in Athens.

Throughout the world the situation is the same: rising costs of living, rampant poverty and unemployment, lower income and increasingly dire economic prospects for the overwhelming majority of citizens, while 0.1% of the population, the people who caused this economic crisis, are richer than ever.

Unfortunately, most of the American public has been propagandized and they still do not fully comprehend this blatant reality. US corporate television “news” has blinded much of the US public to this highly volatile situation.

The saddest part is that we know how to begin fixing this problem, yet common sense steps are not being taken. We can start by breaking up the “too big to fail” banks that hold us hostage and hold their top executives accountable. We can also end the system of political bribery that allows the mega-wealthy to control our political processes through campaign finance, lobbying and the revolving door. Those are the first steps that absolutely need to be taken. Anyone who spends time researching our political and economic system will come to these obvious conclusions. These are common sense steps that are in the interests of 99.9% of the population.

However, with the US public so marginalized, confused and unaware of basic political reality, it appears these changes will not happen. Therefore, based on much empirical and statistical evidence, our society will soon descend into outbursts of rioting and violence.

Preparing for Civilian Unrest, the Crackdown in the US

Major US cities are getting ready for the blacklash by preparing their police force riot squads. New York City, the financial capital of the world, is a geographically clustered region that is home to millions of poor people – significantly large populations in highly impoverished neighborhoods are only a stones throw away from Wall Street. As this recent report reveals, the New York City Police Department is urgently preparing for unrest:

In wake of British riots, New York police prepare for unrest

“New York police anti-riot units assembled last week at a training facility on Randall’s Island to prepare for an outbreak of civil unrest similar to those that have occurred recently in Britain. The August 12 ‘mobilization exercises’ brought together police from all five of the city’s boroughs, including specialized units such as mounted police and aviation.

The riot training was held just days after the New York City Police Department (NYPD) announced the formation of a new ‘juvenile justice unit,’ which is to include detachments of cops assigned to troll Internet social media sites like Facebook and Twitter in search of any indication of impending disturbances….

The training mobilization of the NYPD, however, makes it more than clear that the ruling elite on the other side of the Atlantic is quite conscious that the conditions of social inequality, poverty, police abuse and attacks on social services and conditions that exist in both Britain and America can trigger an explosion in New York City.

In terms of income distribution, New York City, the capital of the US financial sector, is the most unequal major city in the US and is among the most unequal cities in the world. According to recent figures, the city’s top 1 percent monopolizes 44 percent of income. The city’s boundaries encompass both Wall Street, where top executives rake in salaries and bonuses amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, and the Bronx, the poorest county in the country. If it were a country, New York City would be one of the most unequal in the world, ranking between Chile and Honduras.

Sitting atop this social powder-keg is Mayor Michael Bloomberg, one of the richest of New York City’s 58 billionaires….

The combination of stark social inequality, depression-level unemployment in many city neighborhoods, ever-escalating budget cuts and relentless police harassment are creating the conditions for a social eruption in America’s largest city.”

Violence is on the rise throughout New York City. Over Labor Day weekend, 48 people were shot and killed in a rash of random shootings. New York is far from the only city in the country to be in imminent danger of mass civil unrest and increasing violence. 

Nine major US cities currently have a poverty rate over the critical threshold of 25%. As the economic downturn once again accelerates, there are many terrifying and ominous indicators. One leading indicator for unrest is youth unemployment. The percentage of young Americans who are not in the workforce, eligible workers up to the age of 24, is now at a record high of 51%.

As another example of a major US city on the edge, in Milwaukee the poverty rate is currently hovering around 30%. [Note: The graphic to the right is based on 2009 Census data. The poverty rate has increased since then.] Among African-American men in the region, 50% are now unemployed. Milwaukee has recently seen several small-scale riots, a violent flash mob riot just broke out at a local state fair.

As we have seen historically and recently throughout the world, the first phase of economic disenfranchised backlash leads to riots where people who are deeply impoverished look for the nearest person to attack or the nearest store to loot or vandalize. This eventually leads to clashes with local law enforcement – much like we have already seen in San Francisco (see below) and on a larger-scale in London. Throughout the US, as just mentioned, we have also seen the start of violent flash mobs, a trend many believe will continue to grow and occur more frequently. After this initial emotionally-driven phase, there tends to be more sophisticated acts of crime and violence directed at banks, politicians, mega-wealthy individuals and rich gated-communities, as we have started to see sporadically throughout Greece, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.

The bottom line is that we will inevitably see many more “civil disturbances” throughout the United States, and the Army, just like the NYPD, is currently preparing for such occasions. As this report from Tom Burghardt reveals:

As Economy Tanks, ‘New Normal’ Police State Takes Shape

“Civil Disturbances: Emergency Employment of Army and Other Resources, otherwise known as Army Regulation 500-50, spells out the ‘responsibilities, policy, and guidance for the Department of the Army in planning and operations involving the use of Army resources in the control of actual or anticipated civil disturbances.’ (emphasis added)

With British politicians demanding a clampdown on social media in the wake of London riots, and with the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) agency having done so last week in San Francisco, switching off underground cell phone service to help squelch a protest against police violence, authoritarian control tactics, aping those deployed in Egypt and Tunisia are becoming the norm in so-called ‘Western democracies.’”

As the excerpt above references, in San Francisco, after the police fatally shot a person, protests broke out and a police state crackdown occurred, similar to the attempts to stifle free speech in Egypt. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sums up here:

BART Pulls a Mubarak in San Francisco

“This week, EFF has seen censorship stories move closer and closer to home — first Iran, then the UK, and now San Francisco, an early locus of the modern free speech movement. Operators of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) shut down cell phone service to four stations in downtown San Francisco yesterday in response to a planned protest…

One thing is clear, whether it’s BART or the cell phone carriers that were responsible for the shut-off, cutting off cell phone service in response to a planned protest is a shameful attack on free speech. BART officials are showing themselves to be of a mind with the former president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, who ordered the shutdown of cell phone service in Tahrir Square in response to peaceful, democratic protests earlier this year. Free speech advocates have called out British Prime Minister David Cameron for considering new, broad censorship powers over social networks and mobile communication in the UK, and we are appalled to see measures that go beyond anything Cameron has proposed being used here in the United States.”

To see how far the US police state is going, the Department of Homeland Security just sent out a bulletin warning financial corporations of an upcoming non-violent protest on Wall Street this September 17th. Police are now employing unprecedented measures to stifle First Amendment rights. In another recent example, an artist who painted a picture of a JP Morgan Chase bank on fire, to symbolize the financial crisis, was visited at his home by police questioning him as a potential terrorist.

It’s Time for Aware Citizens to Hold the Richest 400 Americans Personally Responsible

There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class,the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

– Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

Obviously top Wall Street executives, the Federal Reserve, members of the Business Roundtable, theAmerican Legislative Exchange Council, health insurance CEOs, war profiteering oil and private military companies, both dominant political parties, along with the Bush and Obama administrations all bare direct responsibility for our economic suffering. First and foremost, they deserve most of the blame. We need to hold them all personallyresponsible and apply mass direct action and pressure upon them.

That being said, at this urgent point in our national crisis, as the economic situation grows increasingly severe, we need to also focus on the richest 400 Americans and hold thempersonally responsible as well. We need to get in their face and call them out in a non-violent manner.

It is not my intention to demonize all 400 of the richest Americans. Some of them are well-meaning and hardworking people. However, as the primarily beneficiaries of a rigged and predatory economy, they must all acknowledge that the system that has produced their immense wealth is now overrun with corruption and society is breaking down as a result.

At this point, even the billionaires who haven’t had a direct role in creating this financial crisis need to be held responsible. As a person who has benefited so greatly, and has acquired so many resources, whether they like it or not, they are now in a position of responsibility. The richest 400 Americans have as much wealth as 154 million Americans combined, that’s 50% of the entire country. They personally have the power and wealth necessary to financially support organizations and politicians who will fight for much needed changes. If they are unwilling to put their immense power behind changing this dire situation, they too must be held personally responsible.

I’m extending an olive branch to these 400 billionaire Americans. I’m giving them fair warning. Either use your wealth and power to make urgently needed changes, or you too will end up like tyrants of the past.

Our country and our families have endured systemic financial oppression for long enough. In a time of national crisis and shared sacrifice, the richest one-tenth of one percent of the population cannot continue on their merry way, living in obscene wealth and detached from reality, while the majority of the population desperately struggles to make ends meet.

The last thing I want to see is rioting and violence. However, as we have seen throughout the world, it is evident that you cannot rob tens of millions of people of their economic security, dignity and future and expect society to continue functioning business as usual. All the gated communities and private security you can buy still won’t be enough to save you from tens of millions of desperate and enraged people.

As the economic crisis once again begins to accelerate, the overwhelming majority of Americans are hanging by a thread. When the inevitable wave of unrest hits our streets, the masses will be looking in your direction – this you can be sure of. Either start fighting for much needed changes or face the consequences of your actions, and inactions.

To paraphrase Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “The Mask of Anarchy,” we are many – you are few.

Are the 400 richest Americans going to stand and fight for America, or is history going to remember them as short-sighted, delusional, narcissistic and despotic tyrants?

The choice is theirs.

Which side of history will they be on?

From here on in, the people will be watching their every move.

We want to know what these 400 billionaires are personally doing to solve our financial crisis. In the days ahead, we will track their political activities.

Here are the 400 richest Americans according to Forbes Magazine:

1 Bill Gates 2 Warren Buffett 3 Larry Ellison 4 Christy Walton 5 Charles Koch 6 David Koch 7 Jim Walton 8 Alice Walton 9 S. Robson Walton 10 Michael Bloomberg 11 Larry Page 12 Sergey Brin 13 Sheldon Adelson 14 George Soros 15 Michael Dell 16 Steve Ballmer 17 Paul Allen 18 Jeff Bezos 19 Anne Cox Chambers 20 John Paulson 21 Donald Bren 22 Abigail Johnson 23 Phil Knight 24 Carl Icahn 25 Ronald Perelman 26 John Mars 27 Jacqueline Mars 28 Forrest Mars 29 George Kaiser 30 James Simons 31 Len Blavatnik 32 Steve Cohen 33 Edward Johnson 34 Philip Anschutz 35 James Goodnight 36 Mark Zuckerberg 37 Jack Taylor 38 Rupert Murdoch 39 Samuel Newhouse 40 Jim Kennedy 41 Blair Parry-Okeden 42 Steve Jobs 43 Andrew Beal 44 Eli Broad 45 Harold Hamm 46 Patrick Soon-Shiong 47 Pierre Omidyar 48 Eric Schmidt 49 Donald Newhouse 50 Charles Butt 51 John Menard 52 Charles Ergen 53 Richard Kinder 54 David Geffen 55 Harold Simmons 56 Ray Dalio 57 Frederik G.H. Meijer 58 Dennis Washington 59 Ira Rennert 60 Ralph Lauren 61 Sam Zell 62 Richard DeVos 63 Ray Lee Hunt 64 David Tepper 65 Richard LeFrak 66 Lester Crown 67 Leonard Lauder 68 John Paul DeJoria 69 Micky Arison 70 Bruce Kovner 71 Robert Rowling 72 Stephen Schwarzman 73 Roger Wang 74 Robert Bass 75 Charles Johnson 76 Robert Ziff 77 Daniel Ziff 78 Dirk Ziff 79 Marion MacMillan Pictet 80 Whitney MacMillan 81 Cargill MacMillan 82 Pauline MacMillan Keinath 83 Charles Schwab 84 Rupert Johnson 85 Thomas Frist 86 Ray Dolby 87 Victor Fung 88 Leonard Stern 89 Gordon Moore 90 William Koch 91 Henry Kravis 92 Henry Ross Perot Sr 93 John Sall 94 Haim Saban 95 John Sobrato 96 John Arnold 97 George Lucas 98 Ron Burkle 99 Ann Walton Kroenke 100 Daniel Och 101 William Cook 102 Robert Holding 103 George Roberts 104 Edward Lampert 105 Stephen Ross 106 Randa Williams 107 Dannine Avara 108 Milane Frantz 109 Scott Duncan 110 Paul Tudor Jones 111 John Malone 112 Steven Spielberg 113 James Jannard 114 Leon Black 115 Trevor Rees-Jones 116 Ted Lerner 117 Bruce Halle 118 Terrence Pegula 119 Stanley Druckenmiller 120 Riley Bechtel 121 Leslie Wexner 122 Kirk Kerkorian 123 Stephen Bechtel 124 Sumner Redstone 125 Barbara Piasecka Johnson 126 Ronald Lauder 127 Peter Kellogg 128 Joan Tisch 129 Philip Falcone 130 Oprah Winfrey 131 Steven Udvar-Hazy 132 David Murdock 133 Patrick McGovern 134 Stanley Kroenke 135 Timothy Headington 136 David Sun 137 Malcolm Glazer 138 John Tu 139 Edgar Bronfman Sr 140 Nancy Walton Laurie 141 Mitchell Rales 142 James Leprino 143 David Green 144 Mary Alice Dorrance Malone 145 Donald Schneider 146 William Hilton 147 Charles Dolan 148 Archie Aldis Emmerson 149 Richard Schulze 150 Mark Cuban 151 Igor Olenicoff 152 Warren Stephens 153 David Rockefeller 154 John Anderson 155 Martha Ingram 156 Donald Trump 157 Ty Warner 158 Tom Gores 159 Steven Rales 160 Richard Rainwater 161 Doris Fisher 162 Ken Griffin 163 Rodney Lewis 164 Glen Taylor 165 Julian Robertson 166 A. Jerrold Perenchio 167 David Shaw 168 Jack Dangermond 169 Nicolas Berggruen 170 Michael Milken 171 William Randolph Hearst III 172 Jeremy Jacobs 173 Henry Hillman 174 H. Wayne Huizenga 175 Robert Friedland 176 Edward Roski 177 William Wrigley 178 Ronda Stryker 179 Bill Gross 180 Stewart Rahr 181 Diane Hendricks 182 Lee Bass 183 George Mitchell 184 Sid Bass 185 Phillip Frost 186 Bennett Dorrance 187 Alfred Taubman 188 Amos Hostetter 189 Jerry Jones 190 Herbert Kohler 191 Mortimer Zuckerman 192 Phillip Ruffin 193 Gordon Getty 194 Peter Peterson 195 H. Fisk Johnson 196 S. Curtis Johnson 197 Winnie Johnson-Marquart 198 Helen Johnson-Leipold 199 Imogene Powers Johnson 200 David Rubenstein

—

201 Robert Rich 202 Lynn Schusterman 203 William Conway 204 Daniel D’Aniello 205 Walter Scott 206 Ted Turner 207 Steve Wynn 208 Alan Casden 209 Wilbur Ross 210 Michael Jaharis 211 James Cargill 212 Austen Cargill 213 Marianne Liebmann 214 Jeffrey Hildebrand 215 Reyes J. Christopher 216 Reyes Jude 217 Frederick Smith 218 Albert Ueltschi 219 Jess Jackson 220 Israel Englander 221 Neil Bluhm 222 Dean White 223 Austin Hearst 224 Phoebe Hearst Cooke 225 George Hearst Jr 226 David Hearst Jr 227 Fred DeLuca 228 David Bonderman 229 Peter Buck 230 Jim Davis 231 James Coulter 232 Marc Benioff 233 Jerry Speyer 234 Kelcy Warren 235 Jeff Greene 236 Charles Munger 237 Stanley Hubbard 238 Clemmie Spangler 239 Michael Ilitch 240 Clayton Mathile 241 Bradley Hughes 242 Louis Bacon 243 John Catsimatidis 244 Thomas Siebel 245 Henry Samueli 246 Alec Gores 247 Alexander Rovt 248 Randal Kirk 249 Thomas Kaplan 250 Craig McCaw 251 Isaac Perlmutter 252 Barbara Carlson Gage 253 George Argyros 254 Ted Forstmann 255 Thomas Pritzker 256 Marilyn Carlson Nelson 257 William Connor 258 Michael Heisley 259 Leandro Rizzuto 260 Bharat Desai 261 Ken Fisher 262 S. Truett Cathy 263 Glenn Dubin 264 Stephen Mandel 265 Manuel Moroun 266 John Marriott 267 John Doerr 268 Wilma Tisch 269 Bernard Marcus 270 Edward DeBartolo 271 Leon G. Cooperman 272 S. Daniel Abraham 273 Edward Bass 274 Richard Peery 275 Richard Marriott 276 George Lindemann 277 Joe Jamail 278 Robert Kraft 279 Henry Nicholas 280 Thomas Friedkin 281 Min Kao 282 Penny Pritzker 283 David Gottesman 284 Charles Brandes 285 Brad Kelley 286 Norman Braman 287 Anita Zucker 288 Drayton McLane 289 Kavitark Ram Shriram 290 Roger Penske 291 John Arrillaga 292 Michael Price 293 Robert McNair 294 Gerald J. Ford 295 Romesh T. Wadhwani 296 John Pritzker 297 T. Boone Pickens 298 Anthony Pritzker 299 Jay Robert (J.B.) Pritzker 300 Gary Michelson 301 Thomas Peterffy 302 Joseph Craft 303 Henry Ross Perot Jr 304 James Irsay 305 Dustin Moskovitz 306 Ron Baron 307 Jonathan Nelson 308 Christopher Goldsbury 309 Thomas Lee 310 John Morgridge 311 Billy Joe McCombs 312 Carl Berg 313 Vinod Khosla 314 Michael Moritz 315 James Kim 316 Stephen Bisciotti 317 Pat Stryker 318 Evgeny (Eugene) Shvidler 319 James Pritzker 320 Linda Pritzker 321 Karen Pritzker 322 Jean (Gigi) Pritzker 323 Daniel Pritzker 324 Richard Hayne 325 James Dinan 326 Ray Davis 327 Richard Chilton Jr 328 Marc Lasry 329 Leon Charney 330 Herbert Simon 331 John Fisher 332 Scott Cook 333 Arthur Blank 334 Charlotte Colket Weber 335 Richard Scaife 336 Bernard Saul 337 David Duffield 338 Sheldon Solow 339 Barry Diller 340 Tom Golisano 341 Alfred James Clark 342 Alfred Mann 343 Gary Magness 344 Meg Whitman 345 Todd Wagner 346 Jon Stryker 347 Joseph Mansueto 348 Aubrey McClendon 349 Malone Mitchell 350 Thomas Barrack 351 Johnelle Hunt 352 Henry Swieca 353 Joshua Harris 354 Marc Rowan 355 C. Dean Metropoulos 356 Alan Gerry 357 Kenneth Adams 358 Peter Sperling 359 Jerry Yang 360 David Filo 361 Alexander Knaster 362 Howard Marks 363 Bruce Karsh 364 Eduardo Saverin 365 Kenneth Langone 366 Peter Lewis 367 William Moncrief 368 Sidney Kimmel 369 Hope Hill van Beuren 370 Nelson Peltz 371 Alexander Spanos 372 Edmund Ansin 373 Dan Snyder 374 Kenny Troutt 375 Steven Roth 376 Steve Case 377 Irwin Jacobs 378 Frank Fertitta 379 Matthew Bucksbaum 380 Peter Thiel 381 William Macaulay 382 John Sperling 383 Tom Benson 384 Elaine Wynn 385 Patrick Ryan 386 John Edson 387 William Ford Sr. 388 Donald Hall 389 Herbert Allen 390 Michael Krasny 391 George Joseph 392 Arturo Moreno 393 Samuel Wyly 394 John Brown 395 Darwin Deason 396 Nicholas Pritzker 397 Lorenzo Fertitta 398 Thomas Secunda 399 Jeffrey Lurie 400 Tamara Gustavson

---

- David DeGraw is the founder and editor of AmpedStatus.com. His long-awaited book, The Road Through 2012: Revolution or World War III, will finally be released on September 28th. He can be emailed at David[@]AmpedStatus.com. You can follow David’s reporting daily on his new personal website: DavidDeGraw.org