div style="text-align: center;"object width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/6F992207D8B16341"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/6F992207D8B16341" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/div

div style="text-align: center;"span style="font-weight: bold;"The Dawn of the Maya (National Geographic)/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"a style="left: 341px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-08519868011256214 visible" href="http://www.youtube.com/p/31BD1C13CC04C413"/aobject width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/31BD1C13CC04C413"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/31BD1C13CC04C413" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"The Lost Gods - The Maya (History Channel)/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"a style="left: 341px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-08519868011256214 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/p/D2A31CF5B0CC24CC"/aobject width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/D2A31CF5B0CC24CC"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/D2A31CF5B0CC24CC" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"Mystery of the Maya (IMAX)/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"a style="left: 341px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-08519868011256214 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/p/8598BDA09A393154"/aobject width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/8598BDA09A393154"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/8598BDA09A393154" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"Engineering an Empire - The Maya (History Channel)/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"a style="left: 341px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-08519868011256214 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/p/928DE1EAD94F12B8"/aobject width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/928DE1EAD94F12B8"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/928DE1EAD94F12B8" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"Natural World - Secrets of the Maya Underworld (BBC)/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"a style="left: 341px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-08519868011256214 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/p/6354B26802732FB8"/aobject width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/6354B26802732FB8"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/6354B26802732FB8" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"Nova - Cracking the Maya Code/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"a style="left: 341px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-08519868011256214 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/p/57FEA233EAD0E89E"/aobject width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/57FEA233EAD0E89E"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/57FEA233EAD0E89E" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"Ancient Apocalypse: The Maya Collapse (BBC)/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"a style="left: 341px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-08519868011256214 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/p/1848F1A72184B91C"/aobject width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/1848F1A72184B91C"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/1848F1A72184B91C" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/spanbr /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Places of Mystery - Chichen Itza's Sacred Ceremonies/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"a style="left: 341px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-08519868011256214 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/p/7C60F039EB68209A"/aobject width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/7C60F039EB68209A"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/7C60F039EB68209A" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"Secrets of the ancients - Olmec Heads (BBC)/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"a style="left: 341px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-08519868011256214 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/p/925B24E8FEAFE39F"/aobject width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/925B24E8FEAFE39F"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/925B24E8FEAFE39F" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"Ancient Voices: Aztecs: Inside the Hidden Empire (BBC)/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"a style="left: 341px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-08519868011256214 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/p/D79C5ADE700D1C61"/aobject width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/D79C5ADE700D1C61"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/D79C5ADE700D1C61" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/spanbr /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Ancient Warriors - The Aztecs (Discovery Channel)/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"a style="left: 341px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-08519868011256214 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/p/7246AFC7080AB233"/aobject width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/7246AFC7080AB233"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/7246AFC7080AB233" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;" In Search of History - The Aztec Empire (History Channel)/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"a style="left: 341px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-08519868011256214 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/p/9B2DABF05DF076F7"/aobject width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/9B2DABF05DF076F7"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/9B2DABF05DF076F7" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"Unsolved History - Aztec Temple of Blood/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"a style="left: 341px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-08519868011256214 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/p/8AC5C65C6184DF41"/aobject width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/8AC5C65C6184DF41"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/8AC5C65C6184DF41" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;" Blood and Flowers - In Search of the Aztecs (BBC)/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"a style="left: 341px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-08519868011256214 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/p/5FA26B6ED356BFAA"/aobject width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/5FA26B6ED356BFAA"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/5FA26B6ED356BFAA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"Conquistadors - The fall of the Aztecs (PBS)/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"a style="left: 341px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-08519868011256214 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/p/8802EC3CA839B1CB"/aobject width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/8802EC3CA839B1CB"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/8802EC3CA839B1CB" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"Heroes and Villains - Hernan Cortes (BBC)/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"a style="left: 341px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-08519868011256214 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/p/2B40C7EE3D43713F"/aobject width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/2B40C7EE3D43713F"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/2B40C7EE3D43713F" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"Engineering an Empire - The Aztecs (History Channel)/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"a style="left: 341px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-08519868011256214 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/p/111EA69F9038E392"/aobject width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/111EA69F9038E392"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/111EA69F9038E392" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"The Aztec Massacre/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"a style="left: 341px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-08519868011256214 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/p/E8A015256D8D53A5"/aobject width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/E8A015256D8D53A5"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/E8A015256D8D53A5" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"The Last Aztec/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"a style="left: 341px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-08519868011256214 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/p/04CBA6254EC6161B"/aobject width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/04CBA6254EC6161B"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/04CBA6254EC6161B" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"What the Ancients Did for Us - The Aztecs and Maya/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;" a style="left: 341px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-08519868011256214 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/p/99392693FD5720DD"/aobject width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/99392693FD5720DD"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/99392693FD5720DD" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"a href="http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=501CF23683A4EB43"Ancient Civilizations - Fall Of The Aztec amp; Maya Empires/a (Not embeddable.)span style="text-decoration: underline;"/span/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"a href="http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=A98C9D4AAD91C490"Ancient Mysteries - The Puzzling Pyramids of Mexico/a (Not embeddable.)/spanbr /span/span/div

Complete version of a href="http://free--expression.blogspot.com/2008/11/interview-with-gore-vidal-at-his-home.html"this/a.br /br /div style="text-align: center;"object width="425" height="344"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lMPqX6k1hWEamp;hl=enamp;fs=1"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lMPqX6k1hWEamp;hl=enamp;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"/embed/objectbr //div

div style="text-align: center;"object width="425" height="344"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4Hn3TuDlrVgamp;hl=enamp;fs=1"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4Hn3TuDlrVgamp;hl=enamp;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"/embed/object/div

div style="text-align: center;"a href="http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individualamp;videoid=36080595"The Right to the City - part 1/abr/object width="425px" height="360px"param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"param name="movie" value="http://mediaservices.myspace.com/services/media/embed.aspx/m=36080595,t=1,mt=video"embed src="http://mediaservices.myspace.com/services/media/embed.aspx/m=36080595,t=1,mt=video" width="425" height="360" allowfullscreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"/embed/objectbr /br /a href="http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individualamp;videoid=36080957"The Right to the City - part 2/abr/object width="425px" height="360px"param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"param name="movie" value="http://mediaservices.myspace.com/services/media/embed.aspx/m=36080957,t=1,mt=video"embed src="http://mediaservices.myspace.com/services/media/embed.aspx/m=36080957,t=1,mt=video" width="425" height="360" allowfullscreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"/embed/objectbr //div

It has never been more clear how much corporations depend on We, the People for their very existence. Corporations are given the right to exist through a public charter. For public corporations, shareholders are bestowed with limited liability, and they benefit from a public system of securities regulation that gives investors confidence to invest. In the best of times, corporations benefit both from public goods (public roads and infrastructure, public investment in Ramp;D) and targeted benefits (tax subsidies, loan guarantees, and much more). In the worst of times, as we now see, the largest corporations can expect massive public support. Bloomberg reports that the United States has already committed an amazing $7.76 trillion -- more than half of U.S. GDP -- in funds for bailouts, guarantees, share purchases, insurance programs, swaps and more.br /br /Don't We, the People have the right to expect something in return?br /br /How about starting with public release of the income tax returns of all corporations above a certain size (say, $10 million in assets)?br /br /In October, a former Bush administration head of the Internal Revenue Service, Mark Everson, a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/17/AR2008101702493.html"proposed exactly that/a in the span style="font-style: italic;"Washington Post/span.br /br /Wrote Everson, "Federal tax returns include important information about corporations beyond that available in financial statements. Making corporate returns available for public inspection would provide a powerful tool to analysts who follow companies and industries, and it would help others better evaluate counterparties and risk. It would assist other federal and state regulators, who currently are prohibited from reviewing the details of federal returns. (The IRS itself is precluded from sharing returns with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department except in narrow circumstances.) Large corporations file their federal tax returns electronically, so the data can easily be shared. Information returns filed by not-for-profits are already available online."br /br /Disclosure of corporate income tax returns would help offset the intentional obscurity and complexity surrounding corporate records that has so directly contributed to the current financial crisis.br /br /It would also lead to much better tax policy. President-elect Obama has stated that he and his administration will carefully review every budget expenditure, in order to save taxpayer dollars and eliminate or curtail programs that have outlived their usefulness or never should have been started. This is a welcome commitment. Aside from cutting wasteful Pentagon spending, however, the really big ways to improve the government's balance sheet are in eliminating unfair, inefficient corporate tax loopholes, and escapes to tax havens abroad.br /br /The complexity of the tax code -- itself the product of long-term, persistent and intensive lobbying -- invites esoteric gaming by large corporations, aided and abetted by lawyers and accountants.br /br /Some tax provisions are included in the Code with almost no one other than the lobbyists who wrote them understanding what their implications will be.br /br /And some tax provisions are muscled through by powerful interests, but impose public costs not fully understood at the time of enactment, while offering minimal public benefits.br /br /If corporate tax returns were made public, citizen advocates and other monitors would be able to root out tax abuses, and rally to have them repealed. The government -- that is, the taxpayers -- would stand to recoup tens of billions of dollars, or more, to be more appropriately allocated.br /br /Corporations, naturally, would object to mandatory disclosure of their tax returns. They would claim a right to privacy. But corporations are legal fictions, not people with legitimate privacy concerns. There should be no corporate right to privacy.br /br /Corporations would also argue that disclosing tax returns would force them to reveal proprietary information. But that claim pales beside the broad public interest in gaining access to corporate returns, especially in this period of cascading mega bailouts. And, if corporations can identify some narrow and legitimate right to proprietary protection, let them do so. Then those specific areas can be excluded from disclosure.br /br /Disclosure of corporate tax returns would be administratively simple. As Everson notes, the IRS already requires that corporations file their returns electronically. And there are precedents even from the pre-digital age. Wisconsin, for example, required corporate tax returns to be disclosed, before modifying its rules several decades ago.br /br /In the first week of December, the auto industry CEOs will again appear before the Senate Banking and House Financial Services committees, to make the case for receiving billions in tax payer bailout monies. Hopefully, they will find a way to get to Washington other than by chartering their corporate jets. Chairman Chris Dodd and Chairman Barney Frank should instruct the CEOs that they should come with their corporate tax returns in hand, ready to share them with the American people. That will open the gates for a new standard of openness that should apply to all corporations.

Click above for the PDF. For a short interview on more general topics, see a href="http://www.theory-talks.org/2008/10/theory-talk-20-david-harvey.html"here/a.

span style="font-weight:bold;"Update/span: Full version of this interview a href="http://free--expression.blogspot.com/2008/11/complete-version-of-vidal-interview-in.html"here/a.br /br /div style="text-align: center;"a style="left: 348px ! important; top: 0px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-032375720276865116 visible" href="http://www.youtube.com/v/4ljd26CnB7camp;hl=enamp;fs=1"/aobject width="425" height="344"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4ljd26CnB7camp;hl=enamp;fs=1"param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4ljd26CnB7camp;hl=enamp;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"/embed/object/div

pem/emCity University of New York Graduate Centerbr /November 14, 2008br /1 hour 2 minutes/p pListen now:/p pa style="left: 0px ! important; top: 0px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-0794125334874967 visible ontop" href="http://davidharvey.org/wp-content/plugins/audio-player/player.swf"/aobject type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://davidharvey.org/wp-content/plugins/audio-player/player.swf" id="audioplayer1" width="290" height="24"param name="movie" value="http://davidharvey.org/wp-content/plugins/audio-player/player.swf"param name="FlashVars" value="playerID=1amp;bg=0xf8f8f8amp;leftbg=0xeeeeeeamp;lefticon=0x666666amp;rightbg=0xccccccamp;rightbghover=0x999999amp;righticon=0x666666amp;righticonhover=0xffffffamp;text=0x666666amp;slider=0x666666amp;track=0xFFFFFFamp;border=0x666666amp;loader=0x990000amp;soundFile=http%3A%2F%2Fdavidharvey.org%2Fmedia%2FEnigma_of_Capital.mp3"param name="quality" value="high"param name="menu" value="false"param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"/object/p pOr a href="http://davidharvey.org/media/Enigma_of_Capital.mp3"download MP3 file/a (42.7 MB)/p p(To download on a PC right-click on the above file and click ‘Save as’ or ‘Download to’. On a Mac Control-click instead of right-click.)/p

Very clear description of many of the sub-rip-offs of this broad-daylight mugging known as "the bailout." Also, it's interesting how a bailout of the automakers has been transformed into a gambit to break the UAW. Not surprising, but interesting, as is the coverage I've seen of the automaker bailout.

span style="font-style: italic;"Make sure to click on /spana style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimageamp;iid=i0YrUuvkygWs"this graphic/aspan style="font-style: italic;"./spanbr /br /p Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government is prepared to provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers after guaranteeing $306 billion of Citigroup Inc. debt yesterday. The pledges, amounting to half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up 15 months ago. /p pThe unprecedented pledge of funds includes $3.18 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The commitment dwarfs the plan approved by lawmakers, the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. Federal Reserve a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=FARBPMDW%3AIND" onmouseover="return escape( popwQuoteShort( this, 'FARBPMDW:IND' ))"lending/a last week was 1,900 times the weekly average for the three years before the crisis. /p pWhen Congress approved the a href="http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/hp1207.htm" target="_blank" onmouseover="return escape( popwOpenWebSite( this ))"TARP/a on Oct. 3, Fed Chairman a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Ben%0AS.+Bernankeamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Ben S. Bernanke/a and Treasury Secretary a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Henry+Paulsonamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Henry Paulson/a acknowledged the need for transparency and oversight. Now, as regulators commit far more money while refusing to disclose loan recipients or reveal the collateral they are taking in return, some Congress members are calling for the Fed to be reined in. /p p“Whether it’s lending or spending, it’s tax dollars that are going out the window and we end up holding collateral we don’t know anything about,” said Congressman a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Scott+Garrettamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Scott Garrett/a, a New Jersey Republican who serves on the House Financial Services Committee. “The time has come that we consider what sort of limitations we should be placing on the Fed so that authority returns to elected officials as opposed to appointed ones.” /p pToo Big to Fail /p pBloomberg News tabulated data from the Fed, Treasury and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and interviewed regulatory officials, economists and academic researchers to gauge the full extent of the government’s rescue effort. /p pThe bailout includes a Fed program to buy as much as $2.4 trillion in short-term notes, called commercial paper, that companies use to pay bills, begun Oct. 27, and $1.4 trillion from the FDIC to guarantee bank-to-bank loans, started Oct. 14. /p pa href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=William+Pooleamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"William Poole/a, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, said the two programs are unlikely to lose money. The bigger risk comes from rescuing companies perceived as “too big to fail,” he said. /p p‘Credit Risk’ /p pThe government committed $29 billion to help engineer the takeover in March of Bear Stearns Cos. by New York-based a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=JPM%3AUS" onmouseover="return escape( popwQuoteShort( this, 'JPM:US' ))"JPMorgan Chase amp; Co./a and $122.8 billion in addition to TARP allocations to bail out New York-based American International Group Inc., once the world’s largest insurer. /p pCitigroup received $306 billion of government guarantees for troubled mortgages and toxic assets. The Treasury Department also will inject $20 billion into the bank after its stock fell 60 percent last week. /p p“No question there is some credit risk there,” Poole said. /p pCongressman a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Darrell+Issaamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Darrell Issa/a, a California Republican on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said risk is lurking in the programs that Poole thinks are safe. /p p“The thing that people don’t understand is it’s not how likely that the exposure becomes a reality, but what if it does?” Issa said. “There’s no transparency to it so who’s to say they’re right?” /p pThe worst financial crisis in two generations has erased $23 trillion, or 38 percent, of the a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=WCAUWRLD%3AIND" onmouseover="return escape( popwQuoteShort( this, 'WCAUWRLD:IND' ))"value/a of the world’s companies and brought down three of the biggest Wall Street firms. /p pMarkets Down /p pThe a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=INDU%3AIND" onmouseover="return escape( popwQuoteShort( this, 'INDU:IND' ))"Dow Jones Industrial Average/a through Friday is down 38 percent since the beginning of the year and 43 percent from its peak on Oct. 9, 2007. The a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=SPX%3AIND" onmouseover="return escape( popwQuoteShort( this, 'SPX:IND' ))"Samp;P 500/a fell 45 percent from the beginning of the year through Friday and 49 percent from its peak on Oct. 9, 2007. The a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=NKY%3AIND" onmouseover="return escape( popwQuoteShort( this, 'NKY:IND' ))"Nikkei 225 Index/a has fallen 46 percent from the beginning of the year through Friday and 57 percent from its most recent peak of 18,261.98 on July 9, 2007. a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=GS%3AUS" onmouseover="return escape( popwQuoteShort( this, 'GS:US' ))"Goldman Sachs Group Inc./a is down 78 percent, to $53.31, on Friday from its peak of $247.92 on Oct. 31, 2007, and 75 percent this year. /p pRegulators hope the rescue will contain the damage and keep banks providing the credit that is the lifeblood of the U.S. economy. /p pMost of the spending programs are run out of the New York Fed, whose president, a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Timothy+Geithneramp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Timothy Geithner/a, is said to be President- elect a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Barack+Obamaamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Barack Obama/a’s choice to be Treasury Secretary. /p p‘They Got Snookered’ /p pThe money that’s been pledged is equivalent to $24,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. It’s a href="http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/89xx/doc8971/Letter.2.1.shtml" target="_blank" onmouseover="return escape( popwOpenWebSite( this ))"nine times/a what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a href="http://www.cbo.gov/" target="_blank" onmouseover="return escape( popwOpenWebSite( this ))"Congressional Budget Office/a figures. It could pay off more than half the country’s mortgages. /p p“It’s unprecedented,” said a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Bob+Eisenbeisamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Bob Eisenbeis/a, chief monetary economist at Vineland, New Jersey-based Cumberland Advisors Inc. and an economist for the Atlanta Fed for 10 years until January. “The backlash has begun already. Congress is taking a lot of hits from their constituents because they got snookered on the TARP big time. There’s a lot of supposedly smart people who look to be totally incompetent and it’s all going to fall on the taxpayer.” /p pPresident a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Franklin+D.+Rooseveltamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Franklin D. Roosevelt/a’s New Deal of the 1930s, when almost 10,000 banks failed and there was no mechanism to bolster them with cash, is the only rival to the government’s current response. The savings and loan bailout of the 1990s cost $209.5 billion in inflation-adjusted numbers, of which $173 billion came from taxpayers, according to a July 1996 a href="http://www.gao.gov/archive/1996/ai96123.pdf" target="_blank" onmouseover="return escape( popwOpenWebSite( this ))"report/a by the U.S. General Accounting Office, now called the Government Accountability Office. /p p‘Worst Crisis’ /p pThe 1979 U.S. government bailout of Chrysler consisted of bond guarantees, adjusted for inflation, of $4.2 billion, according to a Heritage Foundation a href="http://www.heritage.org/research/regulation/bg276.cfm" target="_blank" onmouseover="return escape( popwOpenWebSite( this ))"report/a. /p pThe commitment of public money is appropriate to the peril, said a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Ethan+Harrisamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Ethan Harris/a, co-head of U.S. economic research at Barclays Capital Inc. and a former economist at the New York Fed. U.S. financial firms have taken writedowns and losses of $666.1 billion since the beginning of 2007, according to Bloomberg data. /p p“This is the worst capital markets crisis in modern history,” Harris said. “So you have the biggest intervention in modern history.” /p pBloomberg has requested details of Fed lending under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and filed a federal lawsuit against the central bank Nov. 7 seeking to force disclosure of borrower banks and their collateral. /p pCollateral is an asset pledged to a lender in the event a loan payment isn’t made. /p p‘That’s Counterproductive’ /p p“Some have asked us to reveal the names of the banks that are borrowing, how much they are borrowing, what collateral they are posting,” Bernanke said Nov. 18 to the a href="http://www.financialservices.house.gov/" target="_blank" onmouseover="return escape( popwOpenWebSite( this ))"House Financial Services Committee/a. “We think that’s counterproductive.” /p pThe Fed should account for the collateral it takes in exchange for loans to banks, said a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Paul+Kasrielamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Paul Kasriel/a, chief economist at Chicago-based Northern Trust Corp. and a former research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. /p p“There is a lack of transparency here and, given that the Fed is taking on a huge amount of credit risk now, it would seem to me as a taxpayer there should be more transparency,” Kasriel said. /p pBernanke’s Fed is responsible for $4.74 trillion of pledges, or 61 percent of the total commitment of $7.76 trillion, based on data compiled by Bloomberg concerning U.S. bailout steps started a year ago. /p p“Too often the public is focused on the wrong piece of that number, the $700 billion that Congress approved,” said J.D. Foster, a former staff member of the Council of Economic Advisers who is now a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. “The other areas are quite a bit larger.” /p pFed Rescue Efforts /p pThe Fed’s rescue attempts began last December with the creation of the Term Auction Facility to allow lending to dealers for collateral. After Bear Stearns’s collapse in March, the central bank started making direct loans to securities firms at the same discount rate it charges commercial banks, which take customer deposits. /p pIn the three years before the crisis, such average weekly borrowing by banks was $48 million, according to the central bank. Last week it was $91.5 billion. /p pThe failure of a second securities firm, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., in September, led to the creation of the Commercial Paper Funding Facility and the Money Market Investor Funding Facility, or MMIFF. The two programs, which have pledged $2.3 trillion, are designed to restore calm in the money markets, which deal in certificates of deposit, commercial paper and Treasury bills. /p pLehman Failure /p p“Money markets seized up after Lehman failed,” said a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Neal%0ASossamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Neal Soss/a, chief economist at Credit Suisse Group in New York and a former aide to Fed chief a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Paul+Volckeramp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Paul Volcker/a. “Lehman failing made a lot of subsequent actions necessary.” /p pThe FDIC, chaired by a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Sheila+Bairamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Sheila Bair/a, is contributing 20 percent of total rescue commitments. The FDIC’s $1.4 trillion in guarantees will amount to a bank subsidy of as much as $54 billion over three years, or $18 billion a year, because borrowers will pay a lower interest rate than they would on the open market, according to Raghu Sundurum and a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Viral+Acharyaamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Viral Acharya/a of New York University and the London Business School. /p pCongress and the Treasury have ponied up $892 billion in TARP and other funding, or 11.5 percent. /p pThe Federal Housing Administration, overseen by Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Steven+Prestonamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Steven Preston/a, was given the authority to guarantee $300 billion of mortgages, or about 4 percent of the total commitment, with its Hope for Homeowners program, designed to keep distressed borrowers from foreclosure. /p pFederal Guarantees /p pMost of the federal guarantees reduce interest rates on loans to banks and securities firms, which would create a subsidy of at least $6.6 billion annually for the financial industry, according to data compiled by Bloomberg comparing rates charged by the Fed against market interest currently paid by banks. /p pNot included in the calculation of pledged funds is an FDIC proposal to prevent foreclosures by guaranteeing modifications on $444 billion in mortgages at an expected cost of $24.4 billion to be paid from the TARP, according to FDIC spokesman a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=David+Barramp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"David Barr/a. The Treasury Department hasn’t approved the program. /p pBernanke and Paulson, former chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, have also promised as much as $200 billion to shore up nationalized mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a pledge that hasn’t been allocated to any agency. The FDIC arranged for $139 billion in loan guarantees for General Electric Co.’s finance unit. /p pAutomakers Struggle /p pThe tally doesn’t include money to General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC. Obama has said he favors financial assistance to keep them from collapse. /p pPaulson told the House Financial Services Committee Nov. 18 that the $250 billion already allocated to banks through the TARP is an investment, not an expenditure. /p p“I think it would be extraordinarily unusual if the government did not get that money back and more,” Paulson said. /p pIn his Nov. 18 testimony, Bernanke told the House Financial Services Committee that the central bank wouldn’t lose money. /p p“We take collateral, we haircut it, it is a short-term loan, it is very safe, we have never lost a penny in these various a href="http://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/Forms_of_Fed_Lending.pdf" target="_blank" onmouseover="return escape( popwOpenWebSite( this ))"lending programs/a,” he said. /p pA haircut refers to the practice of lending less money than the collateral’s current market value. /p pRequiring the Fed to disclose loan recipients might set off panic, said a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=David+Tobinamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"David Tobin/a, principal of New York-based loan-sale consultants and investment bank a href="http://www.missioncap.com/" target="_blank" onmouseover="return escape( popwOpenWebSite( this ))"Mission Capital Advisors LLC/a. /p p‘Mark to Market’ /p p“If you mark to market today, the banking system is bankrupt,” Tobin said. “So what do you do? You try to keep it going as best you can.” /p p“Mark to market” means adjusting the value of an asset, such as a mortgage-backed security, to reflect current prices. /p pSome of the bailout assistance could come from tax breaks in the future. The Treasury Department changed the tax code on Sept. 30 to allow banks to expand the deductions on the losses banks they were buying, according to a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Robert+Willensamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Robert Willens/a, a former Lehman Brothers tax and accounting analyst who teaches at Columbia University Business School in New York. /p pa href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=WFC%3AUS" onmouseover="return escape( popwQuoteShort( this, 'WFC:US' ))"Wells Fargo amp; Co./a, which is buying Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia Corp., will be able to deduct $22 billion, Willens said. Adding in other banks, the code change will cost $29 billion, he said. /p p“The rule is now popularly known among tax lawyers as the ‘Wells Fargo Notice,’” Willens said. /p pThe regulation was changed to make it easier for healthy banks to buy troubled ones, said Treasury Department spokesman a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Andrew+DeSouzaamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Andrew DeSouza/a. /p pHouse Financial Services Committee Chairman a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Barney+Frankamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Barney Frank/a said he was angry that banks used the money for acquisitions. /p p“The only purpose for this money is to lend,” said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. “It’s not for dividends, it’s not for purchases of new banks, it’s not for bonuses. There better be a showing of increased lending roughly in the amount of the capital infusions” or Congress may not approve the second half of the TARP money. /p pTo contact the reporters on this story: a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Mark+Pittmanamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Mark Pittman/a in New York at a href="mailto:mpittman@bloomberg.net" onmouseover="return escape( popwSendEmail( this ))"mpittman@bloomberg.net/a; a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Bob+Ivryamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Bob Ivry/a in New York at a href="mailto:bivry@bloomberg.net" onmouseover="return escape( popwSendEmail( this ))"bivry@bloomberg.net/a. /p iLast Updated: November 24, 2008 13:26 EST/i

div style="text-align: center;"a style="left: 348px ! important; top: 0px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-01285397288621727 visible" href="http://www.youtube.com/p/30E168DEEC549683"/aobject width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/30E168DEEC549683"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/30E168DEEC549683" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/divbr /br /a href="http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticlePrint/19749"Here's a longer, written version/a.

a href="http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_infoamp;products_id=61333-1"1994 State of the Union/a (bad sound)br /br /a href="http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_infoamp;products_id=101985-1"Gore Vidal Interview, 1998/abr /br /a href="http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_infoamp;products_id=153647-1"Gore Vidal Interview, 1999/a (bad sound)br /iibr /a href="http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_infoamp;products_id=171764-1"Dreaming of War: Blood for Oil/a/i/ibr /a href="http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_infoamp;products_id=192249-9"br /Gore Vidal Interview, 2006/a (badly synched, but sound is fine)br /br /I've opened up a href="http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/hcl/modules/osTicket/view.php?e=tarnopol@cox.netamp;t=664953"a ticket/a with C-SPAN's tech support to get these three fixed, especially the 1994 and 1999 ones, which are substantial.

Click the title for the unembeddable video. This roundtable occurred two days after a href="http://free--expression.blogspot.com/2008/01/origins-of-norms-place-of-value-in.html"this lecture/a by Daston.

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div style="text-align: center;"div style="text-align: left;"Another excellent report from American News Project:br //divbr /object width="511" height="501"param name="movie" value="http://www.americannewsproject.com/player.swf"/paramparam name="wmode" value="transparent"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="FlashVars" value="autoStart=falseamp;p_u=http://www.americannewsproject.com/node/181amp;b_u=http://www.americannewsproject.com/amp;title=Bank Eat Bank: Bailout Encourages Mergersamp;vd_id=paulsonmergesbanks"/paramembed src="http://www.americannewsproject.com/player.swf" flashvars="autoStart=falseamp;p_u=http://www.americannewsproject.com/node/181amp;b_u=http://www.americannewsproject.com/amp;title=Bank Eat Bank: Bailout Encourages Mergersamp;vd_id=paulsonmergesbanks" width="511" height="501" wmode="transparent" allowfullscreen="true"/embed/object/div

Interesting both as a window on our likely/possible future and as a window into how defense types think:br /olliMinistry of Defence, UK: a href="http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/MicroSite/DCDC/OurPublications/StrategicTrends+Programme/"span style="font-style: italic;"The DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme 2007 - 2036/span/a/liliNational Intelligence Council, US: a href="http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html"span style="font-style: italic;"2025 Global Trends, Final Report/span/a/li/ol

While the liberal intelligentsia was swooning over Barack Obama during his presidential campaign, I counseled “prepare to be disappointed.” His record as a Illinois state and U.S. Senator, together with the many progressive and long overdue courses of action he opposed during his campaign, rendered such a prediction unfortunate but obvious.br /br /Now this same intelligentsia is beginning to howl over Obama’s transition team and early choices to run his Administration. Having defeated Senator Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Primaries, he now is busily installing Bill Clinton’s old guard. Thirty one out of forty seven people that he has named so far for transition or appointments have ties to the Clinton Administration, according to Politico. One Clintonite is quoted in the span style="font-style: italic;"Washington Post/span as saying – “This isn’t lightly flavored with Clintons. This is all Clintons, all the time.”br /br /Obama’s “foreign policy team is now dominated by the Hawkish, old-guard Democrats of the 1990,” writes Jeremy Scahill. Obama’s transition team reviewing intelligence agencies and recommending appointments is headed by John Brennan and Jami Miscik, who worked under George Tenet when the CIA was involved in politicizing intelligence for, among other officials, Secretary of State Colin Powell’s erroneous address before the United Nations calling for war against Iraq.br /br /Mr. Brennan, as a government official, supported warrantless wiretapping and extraordinary rendition to torturing countries. National Public Radio reported that Obama’s reversal when he voted for the revised FISA this year relied on John Brennan’s advice.br /br /For more detail on these two advisers and others recruited by Obama from the dark old days, see Democracy Now, November 17, 2008 [span style="font-style: italic;"ed., see a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/17/as_obama_reiterates_call_to_close"here/a and a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/20/agents_of_change_or_hawks_clintonites"here/a/span] and Jeremy Scahill, AlterNet, Nov. 20, 2008 “a href="http://www.alternet.org/audits/107666/this_is_change_20_hawks,_clintonites_and_neocons_to_watch_for_in_obama%27s_white_house/?page=entire"This is Change? 20 Hawks, Clintonites and Neocons to Watch for in Obama’s White House./a”br /br /The top choice as White House chief of staff is Rahm Emanuel—the ultimate hard-nosed corporate Democrat, military-foreign policy hawk and Clinton White House promoter of corporate globalization, as in NAFTA and the World Trade Organization.br /br /Now, recall Obama’s words during the bucolic “hope and change” campaign months: “The American people…understand the real gamble is having the same old folks doing things over and over and over again and somehow expecting a different result.” Thunderous applause followed these remarks.br /br /“This is more ‘Groundhog Day’ then a fresh start,” asserted Peter Wehner, a former Bush adviser who is now at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.br /br /The signs are amassing that Barack Obama put a political con job over on the American people. He is now daily buying into the entrenched military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned Americans about in his farewell address.br /br /With Robert Rubin on his side during his first photo opportunity after the election, he signaled to Wall Street that his vote for the $750 billion bailout of those speculators and crooks was no fluke (Rubin was Clinton’s financial deregulation architect in 1999 as Secretary of the Treasury before he became one of the hugely paid co-directors tanking Citigroup.)br /br /Obama’s apologists say that his picks show he wants to get things done, so he wants people who know their way around Washington. Moreover, they say, the change comes only from the president who sets the priorities and the courses of action, not from his subordinates. This explanation assumes that a president’s appointments are not mirror images of the boss’s expected directions but only functionaries to carry out the Obama changes.br /br /If you are inclined to believe this improbable scenario, perhaps you may wish to review a href="http://counterpunch.org/gonzalez10292008.html"Obama’s record compiled by Matt Gonzalez at /aspan style="font-style: italic;"a href="http://counterpunch.org/gonzalez10292008.html"Counterpunch/a/span.

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