Wednesday, September 17, 2014

FED PILOT PROJECT for Jobs in Southern California

FEDERAL RESERVE PILOT PROJECT
Keynes Economic Engine Experiment

Janet Yellen is new CHAIR of the FEDERAL RESERVE, and an avid scholar of John Maynard Keynes.  Keynes’ economic cure for deep recessions is clear. When Corporations are afraid to hire, Government must be the employer of last resort.  In California, there are over 1.37 million Unemployed.

We propose employing a FED PILOT sample of 200K jobs. This small a sample should not raise reasonable inflation fears. Yet, California could provide a vibrant model for many Cities in America.

100,000 Jobs to rebuild our Infrastructure.  We need also to hire more Women and Youth, who are often forgotten. They are the guarantors of our next generation.    

25,000 ASST. TEACHERS.   Our schools have faced traumatic cuts.
25,000 NURSE ASSTS. Low hospital Ratios are a danger to patients.
25,000 YOUTH HIRES. Job training: computers, beach and inner city.
25,000 SENIORS helping other Seniors, and Children at risk

To achieve these goals a BLUE RIBBON PANEL should meet with FED Chairwoman Janet Yellen. This Panel could consist of our uniquely, very popular Mayor, Eric Garcetti, Council Member Mike Bonin, and Congress Members from the Congressional "Progressive Caucus."

The injection of the these Jobs and salaries into the Southern California Economy will spark a consumption revival.  It should lead our entire sputtering Nation into a real recovery.

William Floyd, Council Member Mike Bonin
These are the strongly held convictions of 2500 + Democrats on the Westside (WLA, Brentwood, Pac Pal, Palms, Mar Vista, Venice, 
Marina del Rey, and Playa del Rey)
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CA.gov
EDD.ca.gov
e California
Overview - California Labor Market Information
The EDD promotes California's economic health by providing information to help people understand California's economy and make informed labor market choices.

Top Statistics - July 2014


  • Cal Labor Force: 18,579,800 - 39,500
  • Employment: 17,208,600  - 31,400 
  • We're losing jobs
Keynes said Gov’t must CREATE JOBS
  • Unemployment Rate: 7.4% 
  • (REAL Unemployment rate 16%)

    • Unemployment: 1,371,200
    • Workers and Teens hurting since 2008. 
    Desperately need:

    • Federal Pilot Project of 200,000 Jobs 
    for Los Angeles and Southern California


    Barack Obama cannot bring Jobs because of the GOP and their leader John Boehner .

    Chair Janet Yellen can and will show the good side of the Federal Reserve.



    Fuller Employment. 
    Only the FED can create 200,000 Jobs.

    Public Will Never See CIA Torture Report

    New Sparks Fly Between CIA, 

    and Senate Intelligence Committee

    Wednesday, 17 September 2014 10:21By Ali Watkins, McClatchy DC | Report
    Washington — Tensions between the CIA and its Congressional overseers erupted anew this week when CIA Director John Brennan refused to tell lawmakers who authorized intrusions into computers used by the Senate Intelligence Committee to compile a damning report on the spy agency’s interrogation program.

    The confrontation, which took place during a closed-door meeting on Tuesday, came as the sides continue to spar over the Report’s public release, providing further proof of the unprecedented deterioration in relations between the CIA and Capitol Hill.  After the meeting, several Senators were so incensed at Brennan that they confirmed the row and all but accused the Nation’s top Spy of defying Congress.

    “I’m concerned there’s disrespect towards the Congress,” Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who also serves as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told McClatchy. “I think it’s arrogant, I think it’s unacceptable.”

    “I continue to be incredibly frustrated with this director,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. “He does not respect the role of the committee in providing oversight, and he continues to stonewall us on basic information, and it’s very frustrating. And it certainly doesn’t serve the (CIA) Agency well.”

    Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said he was “renewing my call” for Brennan’s resignation.  CIA spokesman Dean Boyd said that Brennan declined to answer the Committee’s questions because doing so could have compromised an Investigation into the Computer intrusions by an Accountability board headed by former Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind.   Moreover, the (CIA) Agency’s leadership has asked the CIA Inspector General’s Office to respond to the questions, Boyd said.

    “Commencing a new, parallel investigation to compile answers to these questions could negatively impact the integrity of the ongoing Accountability Board process,” Boyd wrote in an email.

    Hours before Tuesday’s meeting in the Committee’s secure offices, the panel received a letter in which Brennan said he wouldn’t respond to written questions he’d received in January from the chairwoman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

    Director of National Intelligence James Clapper joined Brennan for the meeting, which had been expected to focus on the threat posed by the Islamic State.    But tempers flared as some lawmakers challenged Brennan on his decision not to answer Feinstein’s questions, witnesses said.

    At one point, said a person familiar with the meeting, Brennan raised his voice at Feinstein.  

    Feinstein sent the questions after Brennan told her that agency personnel investigating a security breach had searched computers her staff used in a secret CIA facility. The questions included a demand to know who ordered the intrusions and under what legal authority they were conducted.

    Brennan “shouldn’t get away with not answering questions,” said Levin. 

    “Nobody in the Executive branch should get away with not answering questions to a legitimate Legislative Inquiry.”

    Feinstein described the questions in a scathing March speech on the Senate floor. In her address, she confirmed an earlier McClatchy report about the Computer intrusions and suggested that the CIA might have violated the Law and the Separation of Powers provisions of the Constitution.

    The Committee Staff used the Computers to compile a report on the Agency’s use of Torture on suspected Terrorists under the George W. Bush administration.   Bush ended the program, in which detainees were abducted and held in secret overseas prisons, in 2006.    The CIA and former Bush administration officials deny that the interrogation Techniques, which included simulated drowning known as Waterboarding, constituted Torture.

    For its part, the CIA accused Feinstein’s staffers of removing without permission Classified documents from the Secret facility in which the Agency required them to review millions of pages of Operational cables and other Highly Classified 
    materials on the (Torture) program.

    Both sets of charges were referred to the Justice Department for criminal investigations.

    At the time, Brennan adamantly denied Feinstein’s allegations that the CIA had spied on her committee.    But in July, he was compelled to apologize to her after a review by the CIA Inspector General’s Office confirmed that CIA Personnel gained Unauthorized access to her Staff’s computers and combed through their Emails.

    The Inspector General's report also revealed that the Agency’s contention that the Staff had removed Classified documents without permission from the top-secret facility was Unfounded and based on inaccurate information.

    Levin dismissed Brennan’s defense that CIA Inspector General David Buckley was the appropriate person to answer Feinstein’s questions.

    “It may or may not be appropriate for the (CIA) IG to answer, but it’s not appropriate for Brennan to refuse to answer.     If he doesn’t know the answers, he can say so,” said Levin.

    Levin continued, “He either knows the information or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t know the answers, OK, tell us. It’d be kind of stunning if he didn’t know the answers to those questions, but if that’s what he wants to say, he should tell us.”

    In June, the Justice Department cited Insufficient Evidence and declined to launch Criminal investigations into the CIA computer intrusions or the allegation that the Staff had removed top-secret documents without authorization.

    But Levin said that the answers to Feinstein’s questions could yield new information that could prompt the Justice Department to reopen an inquiry into the CIA’s Computer Monitoring.

    The committee spent $40 million and five years compiling its more than 6,000-page report on the CIA’s Rendition, Detention and Interrogation (torture) Program.      It submitted the 500-page Executive summary to the CIA and the White House for a Declassification Review in April, but the sides have been locked in a contentious debate over how much to black out prior to its public release.

    © 2014 McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. Truthout has licensed this content. 

    Regulators Flunk 11 Big Banks - Slim Down


    Dear William,
    Wall Street banks have immense power in Washington, so it's worth noting when Federal Regulators start to push back.   That's why we were pleased to see the FDIC and the Federal Reserve send the big Banks a message: they are still too big, still too complicated, and still have a long way to go in reassuring the public that the failure of one of these institutions would not cause disastrous economic damage.

    First some back story:  Under the Dodd-Frank Act each of the nation's largest Financial Institutions is required to submit a "living will" - a plan for the company to wind down its operations in the event of failure.   Advance planning for an orderly “resolution” is a crucial backstop against pressure for more government bailouts like those we saw during the 2008 financial crisis. 

    The idea here is simple:  the onus is on the big Banks to show that they are truly not ”too big to fail” – that their failure would not drag down the broader U.S. economy.

    Earlier this month, the FDIC and the Federal Reserve completed their review of 11 living wills submitted thus far. Their verdict: not good enough.  These Banks, they concluded, are still too Big and complex to fail without severe Negative impacts on the Economy.

    What happens now?  The Banks must go back to the drawing board.  Eventually, if the Regulators remain unsatisfied, they have the Authority to Break up the biggest Banks or take other steps to reduce the risk they pose to the Economy.

    This warning is just a first step. We still don’t know what will happen in the next round, or whether the Regulators will have the backbone to tell Banks that they must genuinely downsize and simplify their operations.   In fact, we don’t know nearly enough about this entire process, because so much of what the living wills say is kept secret. The public needs to be able to see more so we can hold the banks and regulators accountable.

    That’s why we need to keep paying attention, and keep calling for change. In the meantime, it's worth pausing to appreciate moves in the right direction: the FDIC and the Fed gave a failing grade for failing work. Sometimes Wall Street doesn’t get its way. We're going to keep fighting to make sure this won't be the last time.

    Lisa Donner
    Executive Director
    Americans for Financial Reform

    Foreclosure Activists Disrupt CA Bureaucrats

    Protesters say California

    too Slow in Spending

    $2 Billion to Aid Homeowners

    hsangree@sacbee.comSeptember 16, 2014 Updated 1 hour ago




    www.keepyourhomecalifornia.org 
    Two dozen protesters wearing yellow T-shirts marched through a downtown Sacramento conference room and chanted slogans Tuesday during ameeting of the California Housing Finance Agency’s board of directors.
    The members of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowermentdemanded that the agency’s Keep Your Home California program move faster in distributing $2 billion in federal aid for struggling Homeowners.
    Keep Your Home California still has about $1 billion of the money it received from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Hardest Hit Fund several years ago. It must spend that remaining amount by 2017.
    Critics say the program has been dragging its feet as more homes are lost to foreclosure.
    “What do we want? Principal reduction! When do we want it? Now!” the protesters chanted as they marched in circles around the room at the Holiday Inn on J Street, disrupting the meeting.
    Group member Jose Vega and others addressed the Board during its Public comment period. Vega, who had his own loan Payments greatly reduced, said there were Thousands of other Homeowners who are unable to qualify for aid because they owe so much more than their homes are worth.
    “The money is there. It needs to be used,” he said.
    At the meeting, CalHFA executives assured the Protesters they’d been heard, but later took issue with the group’s message.
    “We’re absolutely on track,” said Diane Richardson, head of Keep Your Home California and the housing agency’s director of legislation.
    So far the program has helped more than 43,500 homeowners and distributed $790 million in aid, with an additional $75 million in payments scheduled to be distributed, Richardson said.
    On Tuesday, Richardson gave The Sacramento Bee a copy of a letter that Tia Boatman Patterson, the agency’s new director, sent to ACCE organizers in response to their demands that Keep Your Home California do more to help struggling homeowners.
    The letter contends the program has continually adjusted its criteria since it started in 2011, in order to include more homeowners.
    Last year, for instance, Keep Your Home California loosened the rules of itsPrincipal Reduction Program, which can slash the amount borrowers owe by up to $100,000. Previous rules required applicants to prove a hardship such as adeath in the family or unemployment. After the changes, homeowners need to show only that they owe 40 percent more than their home is worth.
    “In September 2013, California was able to implement a change to PRP that made severe negative equity (on its own) a hardship indicative of imminent default,” Boatman Patterson wrote.
    Requirements that lenders modify loans – matching state principal reductions dollar for dollar – were removed.
    The letter also noted that anyone who receives unemployment benefits in California is given information about the agency’s Unemployment Mortgage Assistance program, which covers loan payments up to $3,000 a month for 12 months.
    Those changes and others have made the program more inclusive over time, officials said.
    More information about the state’s homeowner assistance programs is available www.keepyourhomecalifornia.org 
    or by calling (888) 954-5337.
    Read more here: http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2014/09/16/3851925/protesters-say-california-too.html#storylink=cpy

    Tuesday, September 16, 2014

    Birds Are Dying

    The Great Avian Die-Off: 

    Two Reports Point to 

    Grim Future for US Birds

    Monday, 15 September 2014 12:34By Patrick Glennon, Truthout | News Analysis
    Eastern meadowlark.Eastern meadowlark. (Photo: keeva999 )Billions to None
    Many Americans living today cannot conceive just how innumerable the passenger pigeon was. Until the late 19th century, the species' numbers were biblical in proportions. It flew in flocks up to a billion strong, stretching for hundreds of miles and blackening the sky with its immensity. For people living at the time, the prospect of such a creature becoming extinct would probably have been equally hard to conceive. 
    But it happened.
    In September 1914 - a hundred years ago this September - the last passenger pigeon died in captivity in Cincinnati. The last confirmed wild passenger pigeons were shot down over a decade earlier, in 1902. Over the course of several decades, a creature that once comprised up to 40 percent of the continental bird population ceased to be. 
    Common bird species nowadays face a similar fate - over half of them, in fact, could end up like the passenger pigeon.
    Two September reports tell a dark tale about the future of North American avian species. The State of the Birds 2014 report and the Audubon Society's Climate Reportenumerate the ongoing problems contributing to a precipitous decline in bird populations across the United States. From irresponsible management of private land to climate change, these reports draw a connection between the fate of birds and the overall well-being of the environment. Their findings - in conjunction with previous research connecting chemical contamination with declining bird populations - foretell a bleak, parallel future for humanity.
    Industrial Agriculture and Development Up, Meadowlarks and Bobolinks Down 
    Around half of US bird populations live on private land. This reality complicates the effective management and regulation of essential living spaces for habitat obligates (non-migratory birds that live exclusively in one environment). When Big Ag and private developers buy up and ravage large swaths of land, habitat obligates face a permanent loss of living space. Conservation is thus paramount for ensuring these birds' future. 
    As the State of the Birds report discusses, however, destructive practices continue unabated. Common avian species, including the meadowlark and bobolink, are witnessing the destruction of their habitats as family farms give way to industrial agriculture and suburbs continue to stretch their tentacles into hitherto untouched grasslands. Similarly, birds of the western Great Plains - such as the Sprague's pipit and chestnut-collared longspur - are threatened by overgrazing and industrial farm expansion. Arid lands have seen a 46 percent population drop in 17 different species since 1968 due to unsustainable land use and energy development. The report lists 230 different birds facing endangerment due largely to these development and land use trends.
    Climate Change: Birds Can Only Fly So Far North
    As the oceans grow warmer, the ice caps melt and governments continue to kick the climate change can down the road, birds are gradually being pushed out of their climatic ranges. The Audubon Society's Climate Report explains that global warming poses an existential threat to the nation's birds. Using the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count and the North American Breeding Bird Survey, the report outlines the "climatic suitability" (i.e., where a bird can survive in summer and winter) for individual species. The report compares this information to internationally recognized projections of climate change scenarios to detail how the climatic zone of each species will change with increasing temperatures. 
    The report states that 76 birds face "severe declines" by 2050, and that more than half of US bird species will witness a 50 percent loss of their climatic range by 2080. The American bald eagle is expected to lose 73 percent of its breeding ground by 2080. Minnesota can expect the loon - an iconic presence in the state - to disappear in the same time period. There is only so much landmass for birds to thrive in, and as the number of habitable territories shrink and drift farther north, birds will have no place to go.
    What Dying Birds Mean for the Environment - and Humanity
    Birds are a meaningful barometer for the general health of an ecosystem. They are high up on the food chain, meaning that contamination at the bottom will travel its way up the ladder. In Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962), the author connected thetransference of the pesticide DDT between the insects it was meant to destroy and the animals that ate them. By the 1980s, academic research gave birth to the theory of the"endocrine disruptor": the idea that chemicals - including the pesticide DDT and industrial chemicals, such as PCBs - were spreading throughout ecosystems and interfering with the normal function of birds' endocrine systems, significantly limiting their hormone production and debilitating their reproduction cycles. 
    Research has shown the negative effects of other chemicals on avian species: Mercury has not only stunted reproductive abilities in certain birds, but has actually altered birds' songs due to neurological damage; a single kernel of corn contaminated with neonicotinoids (insecticides that are widely used and minimally regulated) is enough to kill songbirds. The pervasiveness of human-made chemicals in the natural world manifests in these cases, and points to potential harm caused to other wildlife - including human beings. Studies have linked DDT and PCBs to neurological damage in humans, as well as to prostate and breast cancers. At the top of the food chain, people can expect chemical pollution to affect them adversely as it does predatory birds.
    The consequences of irresponsible land use and climate change will also affect more creatures than birds. Overdevelopment will lead to the destruction of entire ecosystems, along with the biodiversity that makes them work. While global warming accelerates, island nations will battle the ocean level's rise and coastal cities will be battered by superstorms. Climate change is beginning to displace people, just as it has begun to displace birds by the gradual destruction of their environments. 
    Humanity must see itself - and its fate - in the destruction of the natural world. While ensuring the future of humanity is a hugely important task, so too is the moral responsibility to cease the crimes committed against the natural world and to rectify the damages already wrought.
    Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.

    PATRICK GLENNON

    Patrick Glennon is an independent writer based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His work has been featured in Truthout, In These Times and The Occupied Chicago Tribune.

      CIA Agent - Great Depression is About to Strike America

      CIA Insider Warns: "25-Year Great Depression is About to Strike America"

      By MONEY MORNING STAFF REPORTS

      You will want to remember this date March 16, 2015.
      According to one of the top minds in the U.S. Intelligence Community, that is when the United States will enter the darkest economic period in our nation's history.
      A 25-year Great Depression.
      Does This Signal
      the End of the Dollar?

      An alarming pattern has caused many in the Intelligence Community to secretly prepare for a "worst-case scenario."
      Click here to see it....
      And alarmingly, he and his colleagues believe the evidence they've uncovered proves this outcome is impossible to avoid.
      In an exclusive interview with Money Morning, 
      Jim Rickards, the CIA's Financial Threat and Asymmetric Warfare Advisor, has stepped forward to warn the American people that time is running out to prepare for this $100 trillion meltdown.

      "Everybody knows we have a dangerous level of debt. Everybody knows the Fed has recklessly printed trillions of dollars. These are secrets to no one," he said.
      "But all signs are now flashing bright red that our chickens are about to come home to roost."
      During the discussion, Rickards shared a series of dangerous signals he fears reveals an economy that has reached a super critical state.

      One of the signals the CIA is most concerned with is the Misery Index.
      Decades back this unique warning sign was created for determining how close our country was to a social collapse. It simply adds the true inflation rate with the true unemployment rate.
      However, the Federal Reserve has repeatedly changed the way the Misery Index has been calculated over the years. Which Rickards believes is now being used to cover up the true scope of the problem.


      "Today you rarely hear the gGovernment talk about the Misery Index with the public," Rickards said. "The reason is they may not want you to know the truth. And the truth is, the Misery Index has reached more dangerous levels than we saw prior to the Great Depression. This is a signal of a complex system that's about to collapse."
      Frightening: Single chart reveals which banks could collapse (and how soon). If your life savings is in a major bank, please look at this now.

      During the shocking interview Rickards revealed the 5 dangerous "flashpoints" the Intelligence Community is closely monitoring that they believe will unleash this catastrophe.
      And he also described how it would all unfold.

      "I expect the first phase will appear as a nearly instantaneous 70% stock market crash. From the outside, nobody will see it coming." Rickards explained.

      "Once it becomes clear that it's not a flash crash - it's a systemic meltdown in the economy itself, that's when the gravity of the situation will sink in. And there will be no digging out from it.
      "$100 trillion is a conservative estimate for the damage. A lot can happen over 25-years as our country struggles to recover from this."

      Editor's Note: Money Morning has released their exclusive interview with Jim Rickards to the public. And it's a must-see for every American who is concerned about our country and their financial security. Click here to view it.

      Along with his CIA responsibilities, Jim Rickards has spent more than 3 decades on Wall Street 
      as a leading international investment banker, hedge fund manager, and as the Architect behind the technology nicknamed “the brains” of the NASDAQ.
      This unique skillset has placed him at the center of some of the most important events in recent history.
      For instance, Rickards helped negotiate an end to the Iranian Hostage Crisis in the early 1980s.
      Then, in the late 1990s, despite being one of its most outspoken critics, the Federal Reserve called on him to step in to prevent a $1.25 trillion Wall Street meltdown during the Long Term Capital Management crisis.
      And after 9-11, the CIA tasked him with tracking down potential terrorist insider trading that took place prior to the attacks.
      Over 2X More Dangerous
      Than The Great Depression

      Does this chart prove a 70% stock market crash is imminent? 
      Click here to continue...
      .
      This led to him helping lead a sensitive operation called Project Prophecy.

      The Mission was to use the financial markets to predict pending National Security threats from terrorists, rival nations, and from internal weaknesses lurking inside our economy.
      The System he built through Project Prophecy proved its accuracy on August 7, 2006, when it detected the warning signs of an impending terrorist attack.
      Three days later, in London, a plot to blow up 10 U.S. passenger jets was thwarted. And 24 Pakistani extremists were arrested.
      However, Rickards now warns that the next attack is going to come from within. And he is not alone in his fears.
      Recently, a sensitive report containing the consensus view of all 16 branches of the U.S. Intelligence Committee surfaced.
      It revealed that these agencies have already begun to jointly estimate the impact of "The fall of the dollar as the global reserve currency."

      Details of Government's
      "Day After Plan" Emerge

      Warning: Emergency measures have already been put "in play" for this 25-year Great Depression.
      Click here to continue....
      And our reign as the leading superpower being annihilated in a way "equivalent to the end of the British Empire in the post-World War II period."

      The nightmarish endgame presented in this report involved "a worldwide economic breakdown and an extended period of global anarchy."
      And Jim Rickards believes we can no longer stop this, we can only prepare for it.

      "Look at it this way. Americans are standing at the bottom of a very tall mountain - Mt. Everest, Mt. Kilimanjaro...they look up and see an avalanche barreling down.

      Determining the one snowflake that started this chaos shouldn't be our focus. Recognizing the severity of the situation and moving to safety should be," Rickards explained.
      The question we should all be asking ourselves now is "what if he's right?"

      Editor's Note: For a limited time, you can view Rickards' interview and claim a free copy of his New York Times best selling book, The Death of Money. Click here to continue...