The latest issue of Sharad Karkhanis's Patriot Returns features a letter from Fred Brodzinski and Stephen Peter Russell alleging that the City University of New York's incompetent union, the Professional Staff Congress, may have violated union election procedures:
"It seems that the merry krew at Bowen's Broadway Bunker may have been tampering with pending elections for HEO alternate representatives to the Delegate Assembly. Rather than putting forward the names of candidates who took the trouble to attend a nominating meeting, the New Caucus seems simply to have made up their own slate. Another example of democracy, "Dear Leader" style, perhaps?"
Karkhanis writes an assuring letter to union President Bowen:
"Let me say that I am deeply, deeply sorry if there was any misunderstanding between us regarding my absolute and undying loyalty to the New Caucus Party and the Professional Staff Congress (not that I would ever imply of course that there should be ANY difference between the two)....And how can I NOT give monumental thanks to First Vice President Steve London, the modern day Prometheus of the American Labor movement, for his great gift of unwavering loyalty and dedication to the Party."
In response to Karkhanis's anti-Professional Staff Congress newsletter, the PSC leadership, via PSC lackey "Sue" O'Malley, has filed a law suit, O'Malley v. Karkhanis. Karkhanis notes that:
"The sum of $2,000,000 is being sought in monetary damages, as is a permanent injunction prohibiting Professor Karkhanis from "making, printing, publishing and distributing wrongful statements" regarding Professor O'Malley in the future."
"Karkhanis's supporters have set up a website, freespeechcuny,. According to the site,
"On Friday, November 9th, attorneys representing Sharad Karkhanis filed, on his behalf, a formal notice of appearance in the case, along with a demand for a complaint, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York. This filing compels Susan O'Malley and her attorney to file her formal complaint, setting out in detail the factual basis for her claims, within 20 days."
The Free Speech CUNY website also defends Karkhanis's allegation that "Sue" O'Malley has supported terrorists:
"Lest anyone assume that Emeritus Professor Sharad Karkhanis has pulled his comments from thin air, the records of CUNY’s University Faculty Senate provide ample evidence to the contrary. At the April 5, 2005 plenary session of the UFS, chaired by Professor “Sue” O’Malley, the following resolution was passed:
"...We deplore the denial of due process for adjuncts in two recent cases, which in effect denies them academic freedom:
"We deplore the decision by the Central Administration of CUNY to remove Mohammed Yousry* in April 2002 from his post as an adjunct in Political Science at York College. Our disagreement with the Central Administration's decision in no way trivializes the federal charges against him, but addresses the Chancellery's refusal to initiate formal proceedings and to accord Mr. Yousry due process and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty and all legal processes are exhausted.
"We deplore the exclusion of Susan Rosenberg from any further teaching at John Jay College of Criminal Justice as a result of a decision in December 2004 by President Jeremy Travis in response to complaints by a police fraternal organization and without appropriate faculty consultation. President Travis offered no academic grounds for the exclusion, and his decision compromises the long-held academic tradition of faculty self-governance in selecting who shall teach and what shall be taught....
*On February 10, 2005 Yousry was indicted in the United States District Court, Southern District of New York, along with attorney Lynne Stewart and Ahmed Abdel Sattar, of conspiring to provide, and providing, material support to terrorism and conspiring to defraud the U.S. government, and was convicted. According to an article in The Nation, Yousry was originally scheduled to be sentenced in September 2006, but he was actually sentenced on Monday, October 16, 2006 to one year and eight months, as reported by CNN in an article that has disappeared from their archives, but which can still be read in the version cached by Google.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Savings Accounts in Foreign Currency
Jim Rogers was on Bloomberg radio on Sunday morning at 6:25 am and he was talking about the dollar declines, Helicopter Ben's humming propellers and the Chinese stock market. Two of Rogers's ideas that caught my attention were investments in agricultural commodities and in the renminbi, the Chinese currency. Unfortunately, it is inconvenient for small investors to purchase Chinese currency because of the Chinese government's low-valuation strategy. However, where you can invest easily is in various currencies through Everbank. The minimum deposits range from $10,000 to $20,000 (for the indexes). Unfortunately, Everbank does not offer renminbi cds, but they do have 15 other cds including Hong Kong.
Powershares has commodity index products including a DB agriculture fund.
It is unfortunate that I cannot trust the dollar now, but given the irresponsible history of the Fed, I would rather keep my savings in another currency and/or secure it through commodities tracking investments.
Powershares has commodity index products including a DB agriculture fund.
It is unfortunate that I cannot trust the dollar now, but given the irresponsible history of the Fed, I would rather keep my savings in another currency and/or secure it through commodities tracking investments.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Judge Judy's Producer Sends out Feelers Re O'Malley v. Karkhanis
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Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Abolish the Fed and Go on a Diet
The media continue to avoid the biggest story of the coming decade, the decline of the dollar. The economy is important to everyone, even more so than the Iraqi War. Unfortunately, the progressive movement of the early twentieth century, followed by the Roosevelt liberals of the 1930s and the postwar Keynesian consensus, have enfeebled public conversation about the money supply and about the economy. The macroeconomics taught in most universities is nonsensical but the public has been told that an understanding of it is necessary to participate in public conversation about the Federal Reserve Bank. This is not true. Fed policy is a political variable. But the result of all the obfuscation and pretension is enervated public participation and the facilitation of the financial community's excessive influence on monetary policy.
The result of the twentieth century's institutionalization of progressive propaganda is that banking, Wall Street and corporate lobbies have dominant influence over the country's monetary policy. The major news media are largely in synch with the financial lobby and echo the academic Keynesian propaganda which purposes to legitimize the Fed. The result is the absence of debate about a policy that grievously harms the public in the interest of "well ordered" credit markets and stock market price increases. Although comments that the stock market will almost always go up are common, no major observer has asked why (my friend Howard S. Katz is the sole exception, as far as I know). The reason is that monetary expansion or inflation reduces interest rates and so increases the value that investors place on future income streams (accountants and actuaries call this the present value of future earnings). This distortion of valuations of the future is a government subsidy similar to a welfare benefit. Few Americans believe in welfare but most have been duped into believing in this subsidy.
The absence of debate has crippled the nation's ability to formulate a coherent economic policy. Instead, backroom deals have been made with the public's money supply, and we are learning about them now, when it is too late. Sadly, the interests that are represented, such as Wall Street, are not overly ethical and have learned little from their experiences with Worldcom and Enron earlier in the decade. The Fed will hurt many Americans, much as it did in the 1970s. But the difference between a diet and inflation is that in a diet, the person who suffers pays for self-indulgence. In inflation, the investors, debtors and corporate interests who benefited from the monetary expansion are not the ones who will pay.
The policy that the financial lobby has devised is curious. Foreign investors have been convinced to hold dollars, keeping the value of the dollar much higher than it would be in a market that is not politically driven. In turn, there has been more consumption of gasoline, manufactured goods and other imports. No one knows the extent to which consumption has exceeded the nation's true market power, but it might be by a considerable amount. The result is that suburbs have been developed, large cars driven, obesity increased and jobs disappeared. Jobs have disappeared, contrary to the fundamental claim of Keynesian economics about the effects of inflation and monetary expansion, because the dollar is stronger than it should be so costs look higher here than in other countries. Americans, who were once a muscular, dynamic nation, have become a nation of fat slobs who do not work but rather stay at home watching television and weighing 400 pounds. (I include myself and have recently lost twenty pounds and have been working out four times per week. But that's only the beginning.)
A report that Lenny Rann sent me today that was written by a bearish financial analyst suggests that Wall Street and the commercial banks have acted dishonestly toward the foreign investors who have been bankrolling them and the general public. The last 25 years' increases in the stock market are largely due to these subsidies, so when news came out today that the Chinese are fed up with us and are intending to invest elsewhere, the Dow fell 360 points, better than two percent. Much like Americans' waist lines, the stock markets have flourished because of the something-for-nothing mindset that Wall Street capitalism has created.
America is no longer the nation of innovation; of Edison; of manufacturing; of new ideas; of hard work; of entrepreneurship. Rather, it is the country of investment banks; Jim Cramer's whining for lower interest rates; and selfish indifference to the effects of dishonest money.
America is going to have to go on a diet. Americans have been deceived by the Republicans as well as the Democrats. In past economic declines, the tendency has been to resort to interventionism. That is the likely result now. The problem is that the decline has been caused by intervention. The only way out is to become more athletic, to return to the kind of policies that made the US a leader. Those are policies that foster innovation, entrepreneurship and self-reliance. Regulation will kill American leadership, as will the Fed. This day is no longer far off. It is near. The Fed ought to be abolished and ought to be viewed as the source of all the pain that Americans will feel in the coming decades.
The result of the twentieth century's institutionalization of progressive propaganda is that banking, Wall Street and corporate lobbies have dominant influence over the country's monetary policy. The major news media are largely in synch with the financial lobby and echo the academic Keynesian propaganda which purposes to legitimize the Fed. The result is the absence of debate about a policy that grievously harms the public in the interest of "well ordered" credit markets and stock market price increases. Although comments that the stock market will almost always go up are common, no major observer has asked why (my friend Howard S. Katz is the sole exception, as far as I know). The reason is that monetary expansion or inflation reduces interest rates and so increases the value that investors place on future income streams (accountants and actuaries call this the present value of future earnings). This distortion of valuations of the future is a government subsidy similar to a welfare benefit. Few Americans believe in welfare but most have been duped into believing in this subsidy.
The absence of debate has crippled the nation's ability to formulate a coherent economic policy. Instead, backroom deals have been made with the public's money supply, and we are learning about them now, when it is too late. Sadly, the interests that are represented, such as Wall Street, are not overly ethical and have learned little from their experiences with Worldcom and Enron earlier in the decade. The Fed will hurt many Americans, much as it did in the 1970s. But the difference between a diet and inflation is that in a diet, the person who suffers pays for self-indulgence. In inflation, the investors, debtors and corporate interests who benefited from the monetary expansion are not the ones who will pay.
The policy that the financial lobby has devised is curious. Foreign investors have been convinced to hold dollars, keeping the value of the dollar much higher than it would be in a market that is not politically driven. In turn, there has been more consumption of gasoline, manufactured goods and other imports. No one knows the extent to which consumption has exceeded the nation's true market power, but it might be by a considerable amount. The result is that suburbs have been developed, large cars driven, obesity increased and jobs disappeared. Jobs have disappeared, contrary to the fundamental claim of Keynesian economics about the effects of inflation and monetary expansion, because the dollar is stronger than it should be so costs look higher here than in other countries. Americans, who were once a muscular, dynamic nation, have become a nation of fat slobs who do not work but rather stay at home watching television and weighing 400 pounds. (I include myself and have recently lost twenty pounds and have been working out four times per week. But that's only the beginning.)
A report that Lenny Rann sent me today that was written by a bearish financial analyst suggests that Wall Street and the commercial banks have acted dishonestly toward the foreign investors who have been bankrolling them and the general public. The last 25 years' increases in the stock market are largely due to these subsidies, so when news came out today that the Chinese are fed up with us and are intending to invest elsewhere, the Dow fell 360 points, better than two percent. Much like Americans' waist lines, the stock markets have flourished because of the something-for-nothing mindset that Wall Street capitalism has created.
America is no longer the nation of innovation; of Edison; of manufacturing; of new ideas; of hard work; of entrepreneurship. Rather, it is the country of investment banks; Jim Cramer's whining for lower interest rates; and selfish indifference to the effects of dishonest money.
America is going to have to go on a diet. Americans have been deceived by the Republicans as well as the Democrats. In past economic declines, the tendency has been to resort to interventionism. That is the likely result now. The problem is that the decline has been caused by intervention. The only way out is to become more athletic, to return to the kind of policies that made the US a leader. Those are policies that foster innovation, entrepreneurship and self-reliance. Regulation will kill American leadership, as will the Fed. This day is no longer far off. It is near. The Fed ought to be abolished and ought to be viewed as the source of all the pain that Americans will feel in the coming decades.
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