Linking the Illuminati & SARB

[Duncan]

im waiting to see whether Walmart is good for our economy in the long run or they willdo to our economy what they have done to other countries.

Todays paper Dr Rob Davies is reviewing the Walmart take over of Massmart as to whether it will be good for SA or if it will deminish our manufacturing., in which case they might just pull the plug on it.

Now wouldn't that be interesting, if that happened.

[Blurock]

By "controlled globalisation" I actually meant to address Govt who just allows any crap to be imported at the expense of our own people.

[IanF]

After 2 runins with local suppliers, I can't recommend them due to shocking service.
Item 1 printing plates. our supplier supplied us with plates which are too big and they say it is our fault, we have always ordered plates from them and only have 1 press so we can't get it wrong. Now to fix this we must takes the plates across town and wait while they cut to the correct size for us. This is the only way they are willing to help us. So I will look for another supplier.
Next our guillotine starts make strange sounds yesterday so we phone the agent the earliest they can send a technician is Monday take it or leave it. As this could be a brake lock up we will probably need spares which you have to get from the agent also now it has locked so we have to tell our customers we can't cut until Monday. Now here it is harder to change suppliers as we would need a new guillotine which is costly to replace so I have prepare the vaseline.
With service like this in Joburg no wonder stores and businesses don't want to support local businesses as they don't care.

Rant over.

[Blurock]

I agree that there are certain items that have to be imported as it can not be economically manufactured locally. However, too many businesses take a short term view and do not consider the consequences of importing. I know I am harping on textiles, but it is such a good example.


Are you still paying less for your cheap imported Chinese shirt that falls apart after the 2nd wash?

[Dave A]

due to the minimal amount of foreign investment, i think we are not as badly affected as other western countries when these stock market crashes etc occur.

This week certainly did a good job of blowing that theory out the water. Here's a story from yesterday. Ultimately the Rand lost ground on jitters around the US market, and then lost even more ground on jitters around the Euro market. Altogether it adds up to a (near as dammit) 10% loss in a week.

And if the global economy hits another slump - we're not going to have a big World Cup infrastructure spend softening the blow this time.

We got off lightly in the last round, but conditions have changed.

[msmoorad]

yes dave
i heard about the chaos in the US/European stock markets & just decided to check the exchange rate
last i remembered it was 1US$=6.7 Rands

i was very surprised to see it over R7

how can that be?
im sure you guys have an explanation but i will still continue to doubt that those reasons you provide are the actual reasons for this.

[Blurock]

If the Rand weakens by 10%, imports go up by 10%. So if you pay 10% duties, the effect is 11% added, as you now pay duties on R110 and not on R100. Support local manufacturing where you can to reduce this volatility.

[Justloadit]

With local you also have to contend with the almost daily strikes taking place somewhere, so there really is no safe haven.

[Frankincense]

10.11.11

Three years today

19000 views



''Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.'' James 3 :13



Francois

[msmoorad]

heres an article i think you guys might find interesting:

Bankers Rule the World: "The Network of Global Corporate Control"
by Stephen Lendman

Bankers rule the world. A new Swiss Federal Institute of Technology study says so. Written by Stefania Vitali, James Glattfelder and Stefano Battiston, it's titled "The network of global corporate control," saying:
"We find that transnational corporations from a giant bow-tie structure and that a large portion of control flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions. This core can be seen as an economic 'super-entity' that raises new important issues both for researches and policy makers."
The study says 147 powerful companies control an inordinate amount of economic activity - about 40%. Among the top 50, 45 are financial firms. They include Barclays PLC (called most influential), JPMorgan Chase, UBS, and other familiar and less known names.
Twenty-four companies are US-based, followed by eight in Britain, five in France, four in Japan, and Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands with two each. Canada has one.
Moreover, "top ranked" companies "hold a control ten times bigger than what could be expected based on their wealth."
As a result, they have enormous influence over political, financial, and economic activity.
In his book titled, "When Corporations Rule the World," David Korten said they're able to transfer enormous amounts of power, wealth and resources from public to private hands with government complicity. Money power and concentrated wealth in few hands especially harm humanity.
"These forces have transformed" financial institutions and other corporate predators "into instruments of a market tyranny that is extending its reach across the planet like a cancer, colonizing ever more of the planet's living spaces, destroying livelihoods, displacing people, rendering democratic institutions impotent, and feeding on life in an insatiable quest for money" and profits as a be and end all.
Only bottom line priorities and market dominance matter, not human welfare, environmental sanity, peace, equity and justice.
Transnational giants are the dominant institution of our time - especially financial ones with money power control of everything.
They decide who governs and how, who serves on courts, what laws are enacted, and whether or not wars are waged. Corporate dominance, especially financial power, and democratic values are incompatible.
They operate ruthlessly as private tyrannies. They're predators. We're prey, and every day we're eaten alive. They do it because they can, and in America by mandate.
Publicly owned US corporations, including financial ones, must serve shareholders by maximizing equity value through higher profits. They do it by exploiting nations, people and resources ruthlessly.
Social responsibility doesn't matter. Neither does being worker-friendly, a good citizen, or friend of the earth. Bottom line priorities alone matter. Failure to pursue fiduciary responsibilities means possible dismissal or shareholder lawsuits.
Yet nothing in America's Constitution or statute laws endow corporations with their rights. They usurped them by co-opting Washington, the nation's courts, state capitals, and city halls.
As a result, over half the world's largest economies are corporations. Financial ones controlling the power of money are most dominant.
Corporate personhood enhanced their power, yet imagine. Although corporations aren't human, they can live forever, change their identity, reside in many places globally, can't be imprisoned for wrongdoing, and can transform themselves into new entities for any reason.
They have the same rights and protections as people without the responsibilities. As a result, they operate freely unrestrained, especially financial giants controlling the power of money at the public's expense.
Beginning in the late 1960s, financialization grew more dominant. Economic control began shifting from industry to finance. Corporations are now seen as bundles of assets, the more liquid the better. A new monopoly finance capitalism developed to exploit it.
FIRE sector (finance, insurance, and real estate) predators capitalized. Casino capitalism gained prominence. Today it thrives. Major players took advantage, profiting hugely from speculation, chicanery and fraud.
A burgeoning financial superstructure gained a life of its own. Today it's omnipotent, especially in America and Europe. Their business model involves grabbing everything that smells money, no matter what harm is caused.
Money doesn't buy everything, but it buys enough influence to matter. The smartest guys in the room take advantage, buying politicians like toothpaste. Democracy's just a figure of speech.
Only wealth and power matter. Enough of them turned financial giants into monsters. Whatever they want, they get, including the right to operate freely outside the law, manipulate markets, bilk investors, strip-mine nations and people for profit, and get bailed out at public expense if overreach.
Under Obama and European leaders, the worst of bad practices flourish. Foxes guard the henhouse. Inmates run the asylum. Regulators don't regulate. Investigations aren't conducted. High-level criminal fraud gets wink and nod approval. Nothing is done to curb it.
Nor do public considerations matter nor is sustained low inflation long-term growth pursued as long as bankers get paid. Today, it's issue one in America and troubled Eurozone countries.
Wall Street dominance matters most in America. In Europe, "Troika" power is omnipotent - the IMF, EU and European Central Bank (ECB). Nations trapped under euro straightjacket rules can't devalue their currencies to be more competitive, monetize debt freely, or legislate fiscal policies to stimulate growth.
Instead, they're entrapped by banker diktats demanding tribute. In other words, financial coup d'etat authority runs sovereign governments. They occupy them rapaciously, making rules, setting terms, issuing demands, and pressuring, bribing or otherwise forcing political leaders to acquiesce. If not, they're replaced.
Working households bear the burden through layoffs, wage and benefit cuts, higher taxes, and other austerity measures to assure bankers are paid.
According to Michael Hudson, the system:
"shift(s) planning power into the hands of high finance on the claim that this is more efficient than public regulation. Government planning and taxation is accused of being 'the road to serfdom,' as if 'free markets' controlled by bankers given leeway to act recklessly is not planned by special interests in ways that are oligarchic, not democratic."
"Governments are told to pay bailout debts taken on not to defend countries in military warfare as in times past, but to benefit the wealthiest layer of the population by shifting its losses onto taxpayers."
As a result, social inequality proliferates. A new Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report discusses the damage over the last three decades among its 34 member states. They include America, Japan, Western Europe, and others.
Titled "Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising," it discusses conditions from the early 1980s until the 2008 global economic crisis. Its impact alone left 200 million workers unemployed compounded by more imposed austerity.
Among OECD countries, the top 10% is nine times better off than the bottom 10%. America, Israel and Turkey are the most unequal industrialized nations at 14 to 1. In Britain, Japan, Italy, and South Korea, the gap is 10 to 1.
Rising inequality also affected "traditionally egalitarian countries" like Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. They went from 5 to 1 in the 1980s to 6 to 1 today. Mexico and Chile are worst off with gaps of 25 to one.
In America, the top 1% controls 20% of all income plus a far greater percent of total assets. Concentrated wealth extremes also affect European countries, following America's pattern.
The report says income inequality "first started to increase in the late 1970s and early 1980s in some English-speaking countries, notably the United Kingdom and the United States, but also in Israel."
Since the late 1980s, it's grown more widespread. At the same time, labor rights were sacrificed to benefit corporate bottom line priorities. In addition, finance capital grew omnipotent. As a result, money power rules everything.
Imposed austerity greatly impacted working households in troubled Eurozone countries and others facing economic hard times. Greece has been especially hammered by repeated layoffs, wage and benefit cuts, as well as higher taxes.
In early December, unelected Prime Minister Lucas Papademos (a former Bank of Greece governor and ECB vice president) force-fed through parliament more austerity cuts. Receiving an eight billion euro loan was conditional on doing so.
As a result, imposed measures include another five billion euros in spending cuts, 3.6 billion in new taxes, pensions cut 15%, and wages slashed more than already. In addition, more ahead is planned.
Papademos said "(t)he financial crisis in our country is not a passing storm....It will take many years" of greater worker sacrifices to assure bankers are paid.
In fact, the more wage, benefit, pension, and other cuts ordinary people bear, the weaker Greece's economy becomes from lost purchasing power with a working population heading toward serfdom in a nation no longer fit to live in.
Millions of Greeks are now impoverished. Unemployment approaches 20%. For youths between 15 and 24, it's nearly 50%. Years more imposed pain is planned to assure bankers are paid. As a result, expect Greece sooner or later to explode.
In addition, the more debt Greece assumes, the less it's able to service it, and faster it heads toward debt peonage. According to Michael Hudson, moreover, "(a) basic mathematical as well as political principle" explains that "(d)ebts that can't be paid, won't be."
In early December, unelected Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti (former EU official installed by Goldman Sachs, known to some as "three-card Monte") introduced his own austerity package.
To service Italy's $1.6 trillion debt, it includes attacking its social security pension system. In retirement, families depend on it. Nonetheless, retirement age eligibility will be raised to 66 from 58 by 2018, inflation-adjusted increases will end, and to qualify fully, workers must contribute from wages for 42 years.
In addition, value-added taxes will increase by 2%, and firing workers will be easier than ever. As in Greece, more cuts are planned, targeting workers to benefit bankers, other corporate favorites, and Italy's super-rich.
Portugal's new austerity cuts will see take-home pay down 27% since 2010. Its 2012 budget reduces spending by 4.4% of GDP by cutting healthcare and other benefits.
It also raises value added and other taxes, extends working days by 30 minutes with no added pay, and eliminates bonuses equal to two months earnings.
These measures follow earlier ones. They included cutting public sector wages 10%, eliminating four holidays, slashing overtime pay 50%, reducing pay for shift work, imposing "time banks" for greater employer flexibility over when employees must work, making firings simpler and cheaper, imposing shorter fixed-term contracts, ending rest breaks, and lowering unemployment benefits.
A Final Comment
Financial tyranny runs America and Europe. As a result, public anger grows.
Can revolutionary sparks be far behind? Expect pain levels eventually to cross thresholds of no return. Anything after that is possible, good or bad.
Hopefully a better world will emerge, free from banker occupation. It’s our only chance!
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.c...ive-news-hour/.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...t=va&aid=28235

[tec0]

I see a lot of “power control and political this and political that...” Yet they have no real power...

These people have billions making more billions and by the sound of things they make more money then what the world can consume in a 100 or so years. There driving power it seems is to keep everyone as slaves and keep technologies antiquated.

This is what I don’t see posted on every conspiracy wall.

Question: How to become a partner in their business machine?
Answer: The classic answer is "they don’t need us..."

That is the point I am making here. If these people don’t need us. If they are truly this powerful then why not just get rid of all of us. What is the point in keeping us around if we are so useless to them?

What is the point in keeping nearly 7.8 billion people around knowing that they probably only need like a very controllable 100 million slaves around?

Now you will say but they are slowly whipping us out. Bull$h!t! Why do it slowly? If you hit hard and fast with the technology and power you claim they have. We will all be dead in hours not months not years!

Then they can simply walk in establish a new world order and get on with it. But they don’t... The truth is that your conclusions are fictional. Fact is big companies exists. Do you think for one moment they will tolerate any kind of strike or disobedience form anyone if they had this kind of power?



Wakeup...

[Blurock]

All through the ages there has been dominance of some kind. Empires come and go; ,the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Dutch and Brits all had their turn. In more modern times the power is shifting from the west to the east. Dictators are overthrown in Africa, Arabia and the Eastern countries. Even one party states such as Myanmar and China are experiencing some moderate change.

In business it is exactly the same. The laws of nature dictates that the strongest will survive. That is why the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer. Just as the big corporations (I do not always agree with their moral approach) I network with people who can assist me in growing my business by referrals, advice or by creating a positive market perception etc. I do not believe in conspiracy theories. I realise that if I do not get off my butt, somebody else will get to the customer before me.

My business exists to satisfy a specific market need. I will only get rich if I do it really well, in fact I have to do it better that the next guy. If I don't, I am history.

[tec0]

All through the ages there has been dominance of some kind. Empires come and go; ,the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Dutch and Brits all had their turn. In more modern times the power is shifting from the west to the east. Dictators are overthrown in Africa, Arabia and the Eastern countries. Even one party states such as Myanmar and China are experiencing some moderate change.

In business it is exactly the same. The laws of nature dictates that the strongest will survive. That is why the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer. Just as the big corporations (I do not always agree with their moral approach) I network with people who can assist me in growing my business by referrals, advice or by creating a positive market perception etc. I do not believe in conspiracy theories. I realise that if I do not get off my butt, somebody else will get to the customer before me.

My business exists to satisfy a specific market need. I will only get rich if I do it really well, in fact I have to do it better that the next guy. If I don't, I am history.

I agree with this statement. The truth is if business had the power to truly enslave the human race just in the name of profit it would have been done by now. If they want to maximise profit get rid the red-tape. Yet as powerful as these people claim themselves to be they can’t even get rid of red-tape and BS pollution taxes?

They cannot even get rid of unions!!! If they had the power this world would have been a different place. It might even be a better place where all of us would be able to survive....

[Miro Bagrov]

There is always squabbling over SARB's shares. I think the reason is that everyone thought that they were going to make killing from them back in the day. The real truth is that all government institutions are either not out to make a profit, or they do not know how to.
SARB actually (in my mind) never needed investors. It has enough government funding. Either way, when they unlisted and also announced that they will not pay out to shareholders any retained earnings, the investors started to complain instead of admitting that this was not a good investment.

[tec0]

Know what... I had a 3 page rant laid out for this post. It would have touched the conspirators core believe and discredited it to the point where I hoped to expose the propaganda and paint a picture of what conspirators are responsible for and why.

I wanted to point how green organizations left thousands starving. How cults left thousands to die because there rights to doctors, contraception and even the care of their families where denied.

I wanted to point out how bad the world will get if we don’t trust our banks anymore and the list goes on and on. But I realised that conspirators will simply give it a glance not even read it and ignore it or poop-out another lie to discredit my facts claiming "they" know the undocumented truth.

So go for it...

All one can do is to ignore conspirators.