10/02/2012
Geoffrey West – Hester’s Other RBS Debt Strategy : Dump It On The Taxpayers – 2 October 2012
Slog ‘systemic’ scam allegation confirmed by RBS customers, NatWest smoke & mirrors fuel fears of impending doom.
Hester….always a warm welcome at the Treasury
Following yesterday’s piece about RBS (a) dumping the loan risk somewhere it can become an asset and then (b) scamming the customers involved for good measure, Sloggers wrote to me in droves about (c) RBS making sure the taxpayer gets lumbered with anything risky – aka, every mortgage everywhere once interest rates start to climb.
Quite a few ‘customers’ of RBS subsidiary NatWest have been receiving the letter below of late. I have the original to view, by the way, should anyone require reassurance as the the provenance here….
‘September 2012
Dear Mr & Mrs __
Changes to the legal ownership of your NatWest Mortgage
As part of our ongoing strategy to simplify our business, I am writing to inform you that we are changing the legal
ownership of your NatWest mortgage from National Westminster Home Loans Ltd to National Westminster Bank Plc by the end of December this year.Please be assured you do not need to do anything, this letter is just to inform you of the legal ownership change.
The change will have no impact on your current mortgage terms and conditions, which wai (sic) continue to apply, and there is no action for you to take.
While the change is taking place, if you apply for a further advonce (sic) or any other change to your mortgage during this period, you may find that the name of the lender changes on the agreement you receive during the processing of your application, but again you do not need to take any action.
If your account is currently in arrears, the change will not affect any arrangement we may have agreed with you. So please continue to contact us using the same telephone number and address as at present.’
There is nothing to worry about. Do not do anything. We are in control. Soon there will be another glitch, then all will be well.
Unless you’re a relatively normal taxpayer of course, in which case you should be very worried indeed. Because something called ‘Bank’ will be in line for immediate bailout – whereas something called Home Loans might not.
It’s a man’s life in banking, eh? Shift all the assets into the good bit, shift all the toxicity into the taxpayers’ retail bank bit. Then sweat the assets by defrauding the customers. And then – we call this ‘hedging’ in the bankster profession – we swap the shifted assets for cash at the bank, thus showing a healthy cash-flow to evoke widespread confidence.
Talking of fraud, other comment threads and mail confirmed the systemic nature of RBS’s ‘business model’. Examples included:
“I know of, and have spoken to, at least 35 business people, including property developers and SME owners, across the UK whose businesses have been treated in similar ways by RBS, NatWest and RBS Group’s GRG. The pattern would appear to confirm systemic abuse.”
The Times ran a piece on the case yesterday – on page ten, presumably so Boris wouldn’t be upset by it – and on the website, so nobody would see it. As ever with Newscorp, they got a few things wrong: ‘The article mentions that the developers have had one of their claims struck out by the High Court. This is incorrect’ writes my original source, adding ‘the developers have RBS internal documentary proof that the project was in fact solvent. Responding to this, RBS are claiming that it was purely a mistake. In what is a set of complex legal procedures, the developers have had their claims accepted by a judge on no fewer than six occasions.’
That the Treasury must be complicit in all this jiggery-pokery is obvious: they own the damned bank for Heaven’s sake. But in case there might be any doubt, this from a mole therein:‘I’m just dropping you an FYI email regarding the RBS scandal you wrote about today. I was working at the Treasury over the summer. Stephen Hester was in and out a number of times. Whenever I saw him he always received a hearty welcome and a firm handshake from senior officials.’Well he would, wouldn’t he? He’s busy polishing The Turd That Cannot Sell Its Name.
If you have a good RBS fraud story, give it some oxygen by sending the details to jawslog@gmail.com
UntitledZeroHedge – Religious Leaders Slam Bankers – 2 October 2012
Church of England: Bankers Should Repent
We’ve extensively documented that Jesus, his apostles, and ancient Jewish leaders would all be furious with modern bankers.
We’ve also noted that the first Christians and Jews insisted on debt forgiveness as one of their core tenants. Indeed, the founders of all of the great religions taught that forgiveness of debt is the core of spirituality.
Usury was condemned by virtually all of the world’s religions.
And Dante’s Inferno is populated largely with usurers, misers and other “financial sinners”.
It’s not just the ancients …
The Church of England recently submitted comments to the British parliamentary commission investigating the Libor rate-fixing scandal and other recent banking misdeeds, saying that bankers should repent:
The question is not whether systems have been adequate to identify and deal with the bad apples but whether the whole orchard needs replanting.
***
The [real] question is how banking can restore its internal professional standards in ways which communicate trust both within the industry and with stakeholders throughout the community. [The Church is correct.]
***
Economic growth is a good thing but only to the extent that it is sustainable, realistic and achieved morally.
***
Restoring trust frequently requires symbolic, as well as merely effective, change to take place.
***
One insight from the Christian tradition of penitence and forgiveness is that it is often not enough to put matters back to where they were before things went wrong; some demonstration of a change of heart by means of restitution and a visibly robust refusal to let the same failings occur again, is necessary before a bad situation can be made good. Exactly what kind of action by the banks, or by the government, would be necessary to restore trust in this way would probably emerge if the debate about banking ethics were to take place openly in the public realm.
***
To achieve this is not just a matter of technical “fixes” but may require public, corporate, contrition for past failings, demonstrably robust structures to ensure that old mistakes are not repeated, and possibly some symbolic steps to assure the public that the corporate culture has changed.
The Wall Street Journal notes:
We spoke this week with the Rev. Dr. Malcolm Brown, director of the Church of England’s Mission and Public Affairs Council, from his office in Church House, a stone’s throw from Westminster Abbey in London.
[Brown told the journal:] It wasn’t that long ago that bankers believed that their job was to help people manage their money. They went into banking to serve what we call the Common Good, and they believed that their activity should be judged on how it serves the good of the people.
***
The notion of the Common Good is a very strong strand in Christian thinking. The Common Good is why you have capitalism. Adam
Smith recognized that society must be undergirded by strong moral views.
***
The Theory of Moral Sentiments makes Smith’s view very clear: that capitalism won’t achieve its ends without the things a moral sense can offer, and that if you discount your brother’s plight you’ve forgotten what capitalism is about. The structures of business and the mechanisms of capitalism need to recognize that, in the end, people need to be human to one another. To paraphrase Archbishop William Temple, self-interest prompts what justice demands.
***
George Bernard Shaw said, “All professions are conspiracies against the laity,” but in banking that has come to an extreme.
***
There’s a very great temptation just to say, “Things went wrong, we’ve put them back to where they were before, now you can forget that it went wrong, OK?” But it’s like shoplifting: Even if you put what you took back onto the shelf, you still did something wrong. Just restoring the status quo ante doesn’t give people the sense that trust has been restored. You can’t just put it back on the shelf; you have to admit that the way things were done was wrong.
The former Archbishop of Canterbury agrees:
The moral corruption of the banks is poisoning society ….
The banking sector is an important part of the network of institutions which build a civil society.
Thus evidence of corruption in our banks, and the resulting collapse of public trust in them, affects our very democracy.
***
The real crisis we are facing is not a financial but a moral one. And it is a direct result of the something-for-nothing culture which is poisoning our society.
The question we must all seek to address, then, is how we can restore public confidence in these tarnished institutions. Where the banks are concerned, the answer lies partly in simple finance — for they must do their part to help restore Britain to economic stability, having plunged us into such peril in the crash of 2008.
But the reparations that must be made go beyond balance sheets.
One of the key Christian concepts is the idea of repentance, and I firmly believe that this is not a matter merely of saying a begrudging ‘sorry’, or simply paying lip-service with no real change of heart. Repentance implies a complete turning around and making good.
***
As things stand, the banks have failed to demonstrate any sort of repentance.
***
It is hard not to conclude that institutionalised corruption is rife throughout today’s banking industry.
***
Criminal charges must be brought where there is serious malpractice and corruption. This would only be a start, but at least it would begin to restore the public’s faith in institutions which seem far more interested in profits than morals.
And it’s not just naive clergymen saying this. The fourth most powerful bishop in the Church of England – a former derivatives trader – is singing from the same hymn sheet.
Religious Leaders Worldwide Condemn Banking Practices
German Protestant and Catholic leaders slammed big banks for their “culture of greed”, in which “money has become akin to God”, and said:
It’s devastating that this ethos [of remembering that bankers are custodians for other people's money] can simply disappear and that people can trade with things that don’t exist.
The Pope noted:
It would in fact be decidedly inadequate to limit oneself to pursuing only maximum profit. It is necessary, rather, to always refer to the higher values of human living if one wants to help the true growth and full development of the community.
He also wrote:
It is possible for the financial accounts to be in order, and yet for the people — who make up the firm’s most valuable asset — to be humiliated and their dignity offended.
***
Besides being morally inadmissible, this will eventually have negative repercussions on the firm’s economic efficiency. In fact, the purpose of a business firm is not simply to make a profit, but is to be found in its very existence as a community of persons who in various ways are endeavoring to satisfy their basic needs, and who form a particular group at the service of the whole of society.
Profit is a regulator of the life of a business, but it is not the only one; other human and moral factors must also be considered which, in the long term, are at least equally important for the life of a business.
Rabbis have called for banks to help homeowners hold onto their homes:
The demonstration … served to remind participants at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual meeting that they have a moral responsibility to protect struggling homeowners caught off guard by the nation’s housing crisis.
Organizers invited bankers to dine with them underneath the awning Jews call a “sukkah” and hear heartfelt testimonies from those touched by the rapid decline in residential real estate.
The location of the demonstration also underscored activists’ concern that bankers and other businesses aren’t upholding the Jewish value of repairing the world.
***
Sukkot, which starts at sundown Wednesday, commemorates the period of time Israelites wandered in the desert toward the Promised Land after they were freed from slavery in Egypt.
Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann said the festival’s ancient meaning also applies to modern times. Families erect flimsy huts outside their homes to celebrate “all of that which makes our lives both livable and beautiful.” They also reflect on ways to make that a reality beyond the walls of their home and synagogue, she said.
Jews can’t ignore the circumstances that stand in the way of creating a better world for everyone, she said.
“Housing foreclosures are ripping apart one of the important pieces of fabric of family life and American life,” said Heydemann,
co-rabbi of Aitz Hayim Center for Jewish Living in Glencoe and Mishkan, an independent Jewish community in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood.
***
Jane Ramsey, executive director of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, said community organizers have witnessed families across the income spectrum affected by the economic crisis in a variety of ways.
***
“Sukkot is a very meaningful time to lift up the whole notion of shelter and, in this case, the unstable nature of housing today and the insecurity that families are feeling,” Ramsey said.
To this day, Islamic leaders prohibit the buying and selling of debt, and forbid usury.
Indeed, religious and spiritual traditions worldwide demand a reform to the banking system … so that it stops serving the handful of banking executives and starts to serve the community and the well-being of all people.
Spirit Science – DNA Activation – 2 October 2012
Uploaded on 1 October 2012 by TheSpiritScience
A popular question/discussion popping up lately is the nature of DNA Activation. How do you activate your DNA, and what does it mean to have Activated DNA at all?
DNA Activation is a reconnection of your original blueprints for life to a higher degree, and as you continue on your path of life you will connect yourself back to yourself deeper and deeper. The Answer of course lies in the connections made within the sacred space of the heart, which can be accessed by breathing, focusing on your heart (Organ & Chakra), and practicing unconditional love of ALL.
Love is not just an affection of another or a feeling you get, but a pure vibration that which everything resonates to at its core, and if one can feel from the space of the heart, one can truly know themselves. It is a choice, and if you choose to follow a path that is destructive, then you will continue to create exactly that.
Namaste! See in-video credits for credits, and please check out the video links at the end! (thanks Andrea!)
The Movie – Choice Point – Align Your Purpose – 2 October 2012
Uploaded on 26 September 2012 by oynx0
http://choicepointmovement.com
http://www.facebook.com/choicepointbethechange“Be The Change You Want To See In The World”
Choice Point is a feature-length documentary film which probes the issues of transformational change and how when one person transforms his or her own life, that person can contribute in a positive way to the shaping of the world.
“How does one make lasting positive changes?”
The film answers this most important of questions by weaving together inspirational personal stories by public figures, from sports stars to statesmen to businesspeople, with discussions by a range of experts, from scientists to philosophers, about the dynamics of change.
The Movie – Choice Point – Align Your Purpose – 2 October 2012
Uploaded on 26 September 2012 by oynx0
http://choicepointmovement.com
http://www.facebook.com/choicepointbethechange“Be The Change You Want To See In The World”
Choice Point is a feature-length documentary film which probes the issues of transformational change and how when one person transforms his or her own life, that person can contribute in a positive way to the shaping of the world.
“How does one make lasting positive changes?”
The film answers this most important of questions by weaving together inspirational personal stories by public figures, from sports stars to statesmen to businesspeople, with discussions by a range of experts, from scientists to philosophers, about the dynamics of change.
Is Psychiatry Reconsidering Its Evaluations of Spirituality?
It has been suggested on occasion that psychiatry has been influenced by the planet’s former controllers to stigmatize and discourage things like disclosure of UFO sightings and by outmoded paradigms to categorize many enlightenment experiences or the confusion that can arise from them as psychotic breakdowns, etc. These diagnoses end up in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM).
Now American Psychiatric Publishing Inc. is issuing a new study that re-examines the psychiatric evaluation of spiritual and religious experiences. Psychiatry’s paradigm has long been that of empirical materialism, which has little room for the many elevated spiritual experiences people have. Let’s hope this new study will open the profession up to experiences that spiritual seekers prize and long for. Thanks to Amy.
Book of the Month: October
Religious and Spiritual Issues in Psychiatric Diagnosis
by John R. Peteet, M.D., Francis G. Lu, M.D., and William E. Narrow, M.D., M.P.H.
Subscribers to DSM Premium and DSM Select at PsychiatryOnline.org get access to a free PDF version of a featured book EVERY MONTH from the APPI Bookstore.
October brings Religious and Spiritual Issues in Psychiatric Diagnosis: A Research Agenda for DSM-V, by John R. Peteet, M.D., Francis G. Lu, M.D., and William E. Narrow, M.D., M.P.H.
Religious and Spiritual Issues in Psychiatric Diagnosis: A Research Agenda for DSM-V examines the role of spiritual and religious considerations in the DSM revision process. The volume includes chapters on each major category of psychiatric disorder, with an analysis of the implications of religion and spirituality for their diagnosis, course, and outcome. Based on the work presented by the prominent clinicians and researchers who participated in the 2006 Corresponding Committee on Religion, Spirituality, and Psychiatry of the American Psychiatric Association, the volume addresses the spiritual and philosophical issues involved in distinguishing a psychiatric disorder from a spiritual condition.
This volume is unique in reviewing the literature on spirituality and major psychiatric disorders with the objective of clarifying where existing descriptions of diagnostic criteria and of the course and outcome of these disorders require revision. In addition, the contributors identify areas that demand further research. Only in this book can clinicians find a comprehensive treatment of this important topic, as well as features that enhance understanding and encourage future scholarship.
- Each chapter makes specific recommendations for revising the wording of the DSM, and each is followed by two commentaries that contextualize, analyze, and critique the chapter’s recommendations.
- Other chapter contributors make the case for updating the V Code for a Spiritual or Religious Problem, and discuss the place of spiritual and religious considerations in the Outline for a Cultural Formulation.
- Mental health practitioners from all disciplines who seek to practice in a more integrated, holistic fashion will find in this volume a foundation for including religious and spiritual considerations in their cases, as well as recognition and validation that these problems are worthy of clinical attention.
Psychiatry has often been viewed as hostile to religion, and the DSM has been criticized for neglecting this vital dimension of human experience. As interest in the intersection between spirituality and mental health continues to grow, Religious and Spiritual Issues in Psychiatric Diagnosis: A Research Agenda for DSM-Vwill become an ever more relevant and necessary resource for addressing these concerns in a positive, practical, and systematic way.
You can access the Book of the Month from the home page at PsychiatryOnline.
You’ll have access to Religious and Spiritual Issues in Psychiatric Diagnosis: A Research Agenda for DSM-Vas a PDF download for the month of October.
Keshe Foundation: Geoffrey West’s Interview with M.T. Keshe Continues Tonight on Cosmic Vision News Special
Keshe Foundation: Geoffrey West’s Interview with M.T. Keshe Continues Tonight on Cosmic Vision News Special
For all those readers who have been asking about the Keshe Foundation, here is your chance to hear from the founder himself.
Part 2 of Geoffrey West’s interview with Mehran. T. Keshe, the Founder of the Keshe Foundation, continues tonight in a special broadcast of Cosmic Vision News airing on InLight radio at 5pm PST/8pm EST (Monday October 1). CVN is airing at this special time, the usual time for An Hour With An Angel, which isn’t airing this week as Linda Dillon is in transit.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/inlight_radio/2012/10/02/an-hour-with-an-angel
The show will also feature a discussion on Iranian leader, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Geoffrey will be joined by both Steve Beckow, a former member of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada – who will talk about his own personal experiences with refugees from Iran and their harrowing tales at the hands of Ahmadinejad’s regime – and myself.
The interview with Mehran Keshe – or M.T. Keshe as he is also known – is a coup for Geoff. However, as the Cosmic Vision News anchor pointed out in his introduction to Part 1, which aired last Friday on Cosmic Vision News, this is an “unusual” interview…
“Right from the start the energies were very strange and I honestly don’t know what to say about it,” Geoffrey told listeners.
“I think it is best to simply play the interview and let you, the listener, decide what to make of it”.
Having heard the interview, Mr Keshe seems to deflect most questions and actually seems to have little respect for the ordinary everyday people who have been inquiring about his technology.
Part 1 is here:
Part 2 will feature in tonight’s special broadcast of Cosmic Vision News.
That’s Cosmic Vision News Special Broadcast (
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/inlight_radio/2012/10/02/an-hour-with-an-angel
The Keshe Foundation is an independent non-profit and non-religious organization founded by nuclear engineer M.T. Keshe that aims to develop new scientific knowledge, new technologies and new solutions to major global problems like famine, water shortage, lack of electrical power supply, climate change, and disease, through the use of specially developed plasma reactors which will also give Mankind the real freedom to travel in deep Space.
You can find out more about the Foundation by heading here: http://www.keshefoundation.org/
Organized Crime Is Responsible For Up To 90 Percent Of Tropical Deforestation
Organized Crime Is Responsible For Up To 90 Percent Of Tropical Deforestation, U.N. Report Indicates
By Sara Gates, Huffington Post – October 1, 2012
With more than 80 percent of Earth’s forests already destroyed, saving the planet’s natural forests has become a prime environmental issue with activists seeking out the main sources of deforestation. The United Nations Environment Program recently released an alarming report indicating organized crime is responsible for 50 to 90 percent of illegal logging in tropical countries in the Amazon basin, Central Africa and South East Asia.
The UNEP released “Green Carbon: Black Trade” in association with international police organization Interpol. The illegal timber trade, which accounts for 15 to 30 percent of the logging industry, is estimated to net between $30 million and $100 million per year.
Taking into account the many concealment techniques used by the cartels, the report found that illegal logging rates are on the rise.
“Illegal logging is not on the decline, rather it is becoming more advanced as cartels become better organized,” the authors wrote in the report’s preface.
Yet import and export records cannot be trusted as a complete record of legal logging, as organized crime units often forge permits, hack trade databases and even bribe officials to transport the timber.
“What we’re shocked about is the sheer scale of timber that goes unaccounted for,” report author Christian Nelleman told New Scientist.
Since the practice is so profitable, criminal organizations will likely continue their illegal deforestation efforts at the expense of the environment and indigenous populations. The report calls for the creation of an internationally coordinated enforcement unit to curb the practice. Without an organized effort between countries, cartels could evade authorities, moving their base of operations from one location to the next, the report concludes.
“As long as the profits in illegal logging remain high and the risks of getting caught are very low, there is little incentive to abandon illegal practices,” the authors wrote in the report.
Though the immediate effects of deforestation are well-documented — mainly, natural forests disappearing — the long-term repercussions for the planet could be severe. Carbon emissions, as a result of deforestation, have been confirmed to play a critical role in climate change.
Here’s How All Our World Leaders Will Soon Be Leading – By Example
Uruguayan President Jose Mujica getting out of his ‘presidential’ vehicle
Here’s How All Our World Leaders Will Soon be Leading – By Example
Stephen: This story gives a whole new meaning to the song “Do You Know The Way to ‘San José’?”… for it seems the people of Uruguay certainly do.
Apparently, their President, Jos̩ Mujica, is following in the footsteps of JFK and J Edgar Hoover Рand not pocketing his entire salary for self.
What a shame all the world’s leaders and, importantly, the CEOs, Chairpersons, Directors and senior executives of all the leading multinationals (who earn well beyond what any world leader ever could earn in a lifetime in politics) aren’t as unity conscious – yet. But they will be soon.
Meanwhile, I am happy to worship this “San José” – but then he wouldn’t want that either. Thanks to Geoffrey West.
Uruguayan President José Mujica Drives a Volkswagen Beetle and Donates 90% of his Salary to Charity
Posted on Thursday, September 27th, 2012 at 9:26 AM
By Adeola Adeyemo, Bella Naija – September 27, 2012
While the Nigerian leaders are being berated for refusing to declare their assets publicly and demanding astronomical pay rise to add to the already exorbitant allowances they receive, the President of Uruguay, José Mujica is getting world wide recognition and respect for donating 90 percent of his earnings to charitable causes.
He has earned what most people would call an enviable reputation as the “poorest,” or the “most generous,” president in the world. His nickname, “el presidente mas pobre” translates to “poorest president”.
The President said in a recent interview that the only big item he owns is his Volkswagen Beetle car, valued at $1,945 dollars (about N308,283) . He earns a salary of $12,500 a month (N1,981,250), but only keeps $1,250(N198,125) for himself, donating the rest to charity.
He lives in a farmhouse which is under his wife’s name, LucÃa Topolansky, a Senator, who also donates part of her salary.
The 77 year-old who has been Uruguay’s president since March 1, 2010 told El Mundo, “I do fine with that amount; I have to do fine because there are many Uruguayans who live with much less.”
It was also reported that under his stewardship, Uruguay has become known for low levels of corruption. The South American country ranks as the second least corrupt country in Latin America in Transparency International’s global corruption index.
Yahoo News reported that the President has no bank accounts, no debts, and he enjoys the companionship of his dog, Manuela. When his term is over, the President hopes to rest even more peacefully in his farmhouse, along with his wife and his inseparable dog.
There is something about leading by example. When you do, it becomes easier for other people to follow.
Here’s how it appeared on Yahoo News, although Most Generous President is a more apt monicker…
‘Poorest President’ Donates 90% of his Salary
By Claudine Zap, The Lookout – September 20, 2012
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/poorest-president-donates-90-salary-20512...
How’s this as a man of the people: The president of Uruguay, José Mujica, has earned a nickname, “el presidente mas pobre” (translation: “poorest president”).
The 77-year-old recently admitted to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo that he donates almost all of his presidential salary, making him the poorest, or, as Univision pointed out, most generous president, in the world.
El presidente explained he receives $12,500 a month but keeps only $1,250. The public servant told the newspaper, “I do fine with that amount; I have to do fine because there are many Uruguayans who live with much less.”
He and his wife—a senator who also donates part of her salary—live in a farmhouse in Montevideo. His biggest expense is his Volkswagen Beetle, valued at $1,945.
Perhaps not surprisingly, under the former guerrilla fighter, who was elected in 2010 as a member of the left-wing coalition, the Broad Front, the country has become known for being one of the least corrupt on the continent.
Mujica has no bank accounts and no debt, and he enjoys one thing money can’t buy: the companionship of his dog, Manuela.
The Uruguayan is not the first president to donate his salary. U.S. President John F. Kennedy, who came from wealth, donated his salary when in office, as did President Herbert Hoover. Hoover, who grew up poor, decided to never accept money for public service, so he could not be accused of corruption.
