Back in the 18th century, Thomas Jefferson said, “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation then by deflation, the banks and the corporations will grow up around them, will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”

Jefferson’s words are as valid today as they were in the 18th century. For many years, the American economy has been based on an unsound system of issuing “fiat paper money” printed at will by the Federal Reserve, an organization of large private international banks that Jefferson warned us about. The Fed has kept the economy going by artificially keeping the interest rates low and by selling Treasury Bills to foreign governments like China ($500 billion) which in turn use those securities as leverage to make our government agree to trade and others deals that favor them over American citizens, workers and businesses. Very rarely is it mentioned that the Federal Reserve is actually a private entity of international bankers who have been given the power to control our monetary system. The Federal Reserve is not accountable to the U.S. Government; and yet the Federal Reserve continues to hold the reins to our monetary system often acting at the behest of large national and international private banks.

Americans have been told for years that our economy was strong and booming. Yet, we find ourselves in the middle of a financial crisis with dire predictions of a possible recession and/or depression coming from leaders in our government, Congress, Wall Street and the big commercial banks. What is the solution these Leaders are proposing behind closed doors? They want to come up with a plan to do the very thing that caused this financial crisis in the first place: they are proposing more government intervention into the free market.

Ever since the Depression, the federal government has involved itself deeply in the national housing market by developing numerous special housing programs to encourage home ownership. Government-sponsored private organizations like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were able to obtain a monopoly position in the mortgage market, especially the mortgage-backed securities market, because of the advantages bestowed upon them by the federal government mostly through government loan guarantees. By coincidence, executives from these two organizations routinely made significant bribes, I mean campaign contributions, to many members of congress to keep these advantages.

Some legislation passed by Congress, such as the Community Reinvestment Act that required banks to make loans to previously underserved segments of their communities, changed the way lending institutions approved loans. Under the threat of legal action from the U.S. Attorney General, federal legislation and policy decisions forced banks to lend to people who normally would be rejected as bad credit risks. These governmental measures, combined with manipulation of interest rates by the Federal Reserve, led to an unsustainable housing boom. The magnitude of the real estate bubble that has just exploded would never have happened without the government’s constant interference in the housing market coupled with the Federal Reserve’s actions of injecting a constant stream of easy money and credit into the U.S. economy, for all too many years.

In addition, in the last 14 months alone, the Federal Reserve, a non-government organization of private bankers, has interceded 34 times in the financial markets, primarily by providing fiat money backed by U.S. Treasury securities (government IOU's) to their friends in investment-banking firms in exchange for getting those companies’ holdings of extremely poorly performing or non-performing mortgage-backed securities.

Here’s a list of some of the more recent Federal Reserve actions in the financial markets published by Reuters:

Cost to taxpayers and the Bailout Type

$ 700 billion+ - Proposed Treasury Department legislation
$ 29 billion - Bear Stearns financing
$ 200 bilion - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac nationalization
$ 85 billion - AIG loan and nationalization
$ 300 billion - Federal Housing Administration housing rescue bill
$4 billion - Mortgage community grants
$87 billion - JPMorgan Chase repayments
$200 billion+ - Loans to banks via Fed's Term Auction Facility
$ 50 billion - Loans from Depression-era Exchange Stabilization Fund
$144 billion - Purchases of mortgage securities by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

TOTAL: $1.8 trillion+
COST PER US HOUSHOLD: $17,064+

The members of the Federal Reserve Board have essentially been bailing out their friends in private business enterprises that pay their employees exorbitant salaries while lowering the value of assets held by ordinary people (via higher inflation) and increasing the tax burden that Americans, their children and grandchildren will need to pay sometime in the future to compensate for the worthless mortgage-backed assets now held by the Fed.

For example, Fannie Mae’s previous CEO was paid a $987,000 salary in 2007, a $2.3 million bonus, and a total compensation (including stock) of $11.6 million. Not to be outdone, Congress decided on July 31, 2008 (via a new housing bill) to provide financial relief to hundreds of thousands of persons who signed mortgage agreements to live in homes that they never could afford in the first place. So the individual American taxpayers who pay their mortgages on time, live within their means and successfully manage their own financial affairs, get stuck with the bill for bailing out those who do not. This particular bill raised the national debt ceiling by $800 billion (to $10.6 trillion) and created risks for current and future taxpayers that are virtually impossible to calculate.

 

The President and the Congress seem to be moving quickly to bail out the crooks at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the insurance giant AIG. Why are we bailing out these crooks with honest taxpayers money?

Rather than printing another $785,000,000,000. in worthless fiat money that puts each taxpayer in the hole for over ten grand, why not just give the money directly to the taxpayers instead.

Let's give the $785,000,000,000. to American taxpayers instead. Let's give 135 million American taxpayers a "citizen bailout" dividend.

To make the math simple, let's assume there are 135,000,000 bona fide U.S. taxpayers (accourding the IRS figures for 2005). Now divide 135 million taxpayers, into the $785 billion and that equals $5,800. for each taxpayer! If we have to bail out someone, isn't it better to bail out the people who are actually paying the bills. Why are we rewarding incompetence and criminal behavior with taxpayer bonuses that will go to the very crooks that caused this crisis.

I say if we are going to bail out anyone, let's give $5,800 to every American taxpayer as part of a "citizen bailout" plan. A husband and wife would get $11,600. to do with what they want!

John Wallace
NYCampaignforLiberty

At a time when our economy is struggling and unemployment for American citizens is increasing, two new anti-American worker bills have been introduced in the House of Representatives. The first bill (H.R. 5882) is designed to create 550,000 additional green cards for foreign nationals and the second bill (H.R. 5924) will make it easier for foreign nurses to come to the United States to compete with American citizens for nursing jobs and the legislation will even help pay for the foreign workers education. These bills are in addition to earlier House bills, H.R. 4088 and H.R. 5642, that are also designed to increase the numbers of foreign workers admitted to the country, at the expense of American citizens.

In August of 2008, 592,000 additional Americans were added to the official unemployment rolls. The total number of Americans who are officially unemployed now stands at 8.28 million. The current official unemployment rate (highest in 5 years) is currently 6 percent. The official unemployment rate is considerably higher for Hispanic women at 8.7% and is twice as high for Black American men at 12.3%. The last thing this country needs in tough econimic times is a large increase in foreign workers and immigration.

In these uncertain times, with so many American citizens losing their jobs, why are certain members of congress insisting on giving away 500,000+ additional American jobs to foreigners. Some House members want to increase the number of new permanent immigrants allowed into the country by using a fraudelent sceme designed to “RECAPTURE” work visas that were supposedly never used in previous years, although this turns out to be outright misinformation.

These two new bills will add a minimum of a million additional permanent immigrants, plus their families, to the United States over the next ten years. This number does not include those already being added under other immigration and visa programs. That is one million additional foreign workers, plus their families, who will be competing for jobs and wages currently held by American citizens.

Legal permanent immigrant visas are mostly comprised of two categories: family-based visas and employment-based visas. Each category has a loose limit to how many visas can be allocated in each category every year. In theory, these caps exist to protect Americans from unfair labor competition and from runaway population growth, but there are many loopholes built into the law that undermines these protections.

The law, originally written by Sen. Ted Kennedy in 1965 to increase third world immigration while limiting immigration from Western Europe, allows any unused visas from one category to automatically roll over into the other category for the following year. This guarantees that there would never be any unused visas.

The "RECAPTURE" scheme being proposed in H.R. 5882, adds a provision that essentially will count any "unused" visas twice (once to roll over into the other category and once to add that number again to the existing category). The authors of the H.R. 5882 are not "recapturing" anything. They are just devising a fraudulent anti-American Worker scheme to increase the number of permanent foreign workers and their families who can be admitted to the U.S. every year.

When it comes to importing more foreign workers into the USA, it seems that Special Interest Money from the big corporations is more important than the will of the majority of the American people. These type of imigration bills pose a danger to the economic future and well being of American citizen workers, particularly those currently unemployed, or employed as nurses, blue-collar workers and in the information technology field.

The H-1B visa program was originally created to assist American employers who were having trouble finding American high-tech workers for their businesses. It allowed a fixed number of foreign workers come to the United States to “temporarily” fill those positions while the American companies and the federal government invested time and money in upgrading the training of American workers to meet the new skill levels required.

Although the program was originally designed to benefit American businesses, it has now become a program that benefits foreign companies with offices in America, rather than American companies, because the majority of the H-1B visas are now going to foreign-owned companies.Data just released by the federal government shows that offshore outsourcing firms, mostly from India, dominate the list of companies awarded H-1B visas in 2007.Indian outsourcers accounted for nearly 80% of the visa petitions approved last year for the top 10 participants in the program. These statistics should set off some alarms in congress that the H-1B visa program is not working as it was intended.

According to data from the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services, Infosys Technologies and Wipro, two companies based in Bangalore, top the list of visa beneficiaries in 2007, with 4,559 and 2,567 approved visa petitions, respectively. Microsoft and Intel were the only two traditional U.S. tech companies among the top 10. Microsoft received only 959 visa petition approvals, or one fifth as many as Infosys, while Intel got only 369. How is this helping American workers and American businesses?

The H-1B work visa program was supposed to be used to bolster the U.S. economy by helping American-owned companies and American citizen workers. Under the program, American companies can use the specialty visa to hire foreign software programmers or computer scientists with rare skills in order to encourage innovation and improving competitiveness. Instead, foreign companies such as Infosys and Wipro are using our own government program to undermine the American economy by wiping out American jobs.

These foreign-owned companies are bringing low-cost workers into the U.S., training them in the offices of American business clients, and then rotating them back home after a year or two so they can provide low cost, out-sourced tech services that causes American IT workers to lose their jobs. How is this helping American workers and American businesses?

Even though over 8 million Americans are unemployed in August of 2008, incredibly some members in the House of Representatives continue to introduce legislation to help these big foreign-owned international corporations bring in an increasing number of foreign workers that will put even more Americans out of work.

Since its inception, the H-1B Visa program has been rampant with fraud. In the first half of 2006, the Programmer’s Guild, a group representing U.S. worker interests, filed over 300 discrimination complaints against companies who posted “H-1B visa holders only” ads on internet job boards. It’s obvious that these foreign-owned companies are only targeting foreign workers and undermining the system by bypassing the American worker. How is this helping American workers and American businesses?

While a bill to reduce illegal immigration (HR-4088) is stalled in Congress with the House leadership refusing to bring it to the floor for a vote, Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona) has also introduced “The Innovation Employment Act” (HR-5630) that would increase the cap of H-1B visas from 65,000 a year to 130,000 a year.In addition, there would be no cap on H-1B applications for foreign graduate students attending U.S. colleges and studying science, technology and related fields. Currently, there's a 20,000 student-a-year cap on visas for graduate students in all fields. The legislation would eventually increase the H-1B cap to 180,000 and the total number of foreigners admitted under this work and graduate education proposal could reach almost 300,000 a year.

To make matters worse for the American Citizen workers, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) has introduced the “Strengthening United States Technology and Innovation Act” (H.R. 5642), which would TRIPLE the current H-1B visa cap to 195,000 in 2008 and 2009 and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif) wants to make Rep. Smith’s increase permanent. How is this helping American workers and American businesses?

here is no real shortage of American information technology workers. It’s just that the large high-tech international companies want to turn these hard earned information technology skills into as cheap a labor commodity as possible at the American workers’ expense. On March 12th Bill Gates appeared before Congress calling for an increase in H-1B visas. Two days later, without soliciting comments from any representatives of American IT workers, Congress introduced two bills that would double or triple the H-1B base cap.

Why weren’t the representatives of American IT workers allowed to be heard? Could the average of $25 million dollars a year that members of congress receive in bribes (I mean campaign contributions) from the Computer Equipment and Services Industry, have something to do with this?

Here’s some interesting campaign contribution statistics compiled by the Center for Responsible Politics at http://www.opensecrets.org/ that shows why congress may be so eager to support the requests of the Computer Equipment and Services Industry over the American IT workers.

Here’s how much the high-tech industries have contributed to federal campaigns:

2000 - $38.9 million
2002 - $26.7 million
2004 - $29.0 million
2006 - $18.4 million
2008 - $15.5 million (partial)

These four bills (H.R. 4088, H.R. 5642, H.R. 5882 and H.R. 5924) will do nothing to curb the fraud in the H-1B visa program and they will have serious consequences for American citizens that are employed in the fields most effected by this type of legislation. We must learn from our mistakes.

The current H-1B visa program has not served the best interests of American workers nor American companies. The current program has actually helped foreign competitors, with branch offices in the USA, hire almost no Americans and shift as many American jobs overseas as possible. How is this helping American workers and American businesses?

The current H-1B Program, as designed, is detrimental and harmful to the welfare of American workers and American high-tech businesses. It should be abolished. In it’s place and only if it is needed, H-1B type legislation should be written in a way that actually benefits American companies, American workers and American students thinking of embarking on a high-tech career.

Any new H-1B Visa legislation should be simple and have the following criteria to help Americans only:

IT MUST BENEFIT BOTH AMERICAN WORKERS AND AMERICAN COMPANIES: The H-1B Visa Program was originally designed to help American companies. Any new H-1B Visa Program should apply ONLY to American-based business entities and the H-1B visas should only be issued to foreign employees after proof is supplied that no American worker has either applied or is otherwise qualified for the position.

BENEFIT FOR AMERICAN STUDENTS: Companies that hire H-1B visa holders should pay an annual fee for each visa holder they hire to be used to fund scholarships for American citizen high school and college students interested in high-tech careers and enrolled in STEM educational programs (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) or nursing education programs.

John Wallace
New York Campaign for Liberty
http://www.nycampaignforliberty.com/

 

Back on September 25, 2007, the US House of Representatives passed the Global Poverty Act (HR 1302) that basically commits the U.S. to spending a minimum of 0.7 percent of its gross national product on foreign aid to developing countries. The bill was passed by a voice vote with no discussion of the effect this legislation will have on our sovereignty or the potential costs to the American taxpayers. Attempts are currently being made to push Senator Barack Obama’s version of the “Global Poverty Act” (S.2433) through the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, although no hearings have been scheduled.  If the Global Poverty Act is passed by both houses and signed by the President, American Sovereignty would suffer another blow by making US foreign aid spending subservient to the dictates and whims of corrupt United Nations bureaucrats.

The Global Poverty Act would require the President “to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.” While the goals of the Global Poverty Act sound laudable, the adoption of the UN supported plan will mandate the U.S. to pay 0.7 percent of its GNP in increased foreign aid spending that would add $65 billion a year to what the U.S. already spends. Over a 13-year period, from 2002 to the target year of 2015, when the U.S. is expected to meet the “Millennium Development Goals,” this will amount to $845 billion.

America is the most generous country in the world in terms of how much it spends on foreign aid, not to mention the billions of dollars donated by individual Americans through private non-profit aid organizations.   Let us continue to give the people of developing countries the aid they need, but don’t give the corrupt United Nations any legal rights to tell us to whom and how much we should give.

Most of the poverty in the third world is created by corrupt governments that are oftentimes aided by corrupt UN bureaucrats. Much of the money we donate goes never gets to people we are supposed to be helping because of this corruption. Giving any control of our foreign aid funds to the corrupt United Nations will surely enhance, rather than reduce corruption. It will aggravate the current poverty levels, rather than reduce or eliminate them.

Americans should also be aware of another stated United Nations Millennium Development Goal that if implemented, will mandate the elimination of trading in small arms. The real goal of this particular mandate is to advance a worldwide gun control movement that ultimately will supersede the laws of all nations, including our own Second Amendment, which means nothing to the globalists at the United Nations.

Americans should not discount the growing power of international law, whether through changes in the United Nations charter and UN mandates, the World Trade Organization, Global Poverty Acts, Law of the Sea Treaty or the NAFTA and CAFTA treaties which are direct assaults on America’s sovereignty. American citizens must understand that the forces behind the new world order movement and the expansion of the United Nations powers are hostile toward our Constitution and America’s sovereignty.

For additional information, contact:

JOHN W. WALLACE

There's no room at the Xcel Energy Center for maverick Ron Paul, so his acolytes have packed their cars, hitched rides on "Ronvoys" and will pitch tents at Ronstock '08 in defiance of next week's GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn.

Almost 9,800 tickets had been sold for the Rally for the Republic, being held in Minneapolis, which seeks to bring together activists who are anti-war, anti-government regulation, anti-immigration, anti-taxes, anti-Federal Reserve, anti-outsourcing, pro-individual liberty, pro-civil liberties and pro-Paul.

The Ronvoys — fleets of buses and vans carrying Paul's loyalists — were to begin arriving Saturday. A few rally-goers planned to walk from Green Bay, Wis., and join up with Paul for the final miles of their Walk4Freedom. Other attendees are driving, carpooling or flying in for the convention alternative.

Paul, a Texas congressman who failed in a bid for the Republican presidential nomination, considers the rally a celebration of traditional Republican values of limited government — and a poke in the eye of the GOP. They don't plan to crash the Republican party, but to show they and their Campaign for Liberty are not going away."No matter how much our message is ignored or ridiculed, as was done in the campaign, no matter how much they did to us, it only energized our grass roots," Paul said.

The rally builds on Paul's presidential bid, in which he set a record for single-day fundraising on the Web and touched a nerve with some disaffected voters, largely in the Republican Party.

In a few Western states, Paul was a serious contender for votes, placing second ahead of Republican John McCain in Nevada and Montana. He drew 14 percent from McCain in New Mexico, a battleground state.But Paul has no speaking role at the GOP convention. He said his staff made overtures to the party, but nothing came of its efforts.

Republican Party spokeswoman Joanna Burgos said she had to research whether Paul was invited to speak when asked about a convention role for Paul."Our focus is really on this side of the river," Burgos said. "We think there's enough excitement and energy on this side." McCain's campaign spokesman did not return a phone message.Paul's faithful still hope to permeate the ranks of the establishment by winning local and state races and pulling in disenchanted party members.

There are a couple dozen Paul delegates attending the GOP convention, though some loyalists say there are more delegates who support Paul.Meanwhile, their focus is on their own political convergence in Minneapolis."We only want to cause noise in the sense of letting people know there are other movements out there that other people believe in," said Kathleen Buchholz, 28, of Denver. Unable to take time off from school for the rally, Buchholz is attending Tuesday's events, when Paul will speak. She's bypassing sleep to save on hotel costs and flying out early Wednesday.

Rally organizers reported last week they sold all 500 tickets priced at $85 each for their Real Politics Training School scheduled for Sunday. Attendees will learn political-organizing skills and "how to compete and win at the political game," organizers said on the rally Web site.

Speakers at the Paul rally include former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, tax activist Grover Norquist, former California Rep. Barry Goldwater Jr., political commentator Tucker Carlson, former two-term New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and the baby-delivering doctor supporters call Dr. Paul.A few entertainers also are joining in, such as country star Sara Evans; pop singer Aimee Allen, known for the song "Cooties" from Hairspray but whose favorite song among rally-goers is "Ron Paul Anthem"; and Texas blues guitarist Jimmie Vaughan.

Paul backers who aren't staying at the Minneapolis hotel or a budget motel for the rally planned to bunk in group cabins at Camp Ihduhapi on Lake Independence, park RVs or pitch tents at campgrounds. Many others also prepared to head to a Goodhue, Minn., dairy farm for Ronstock '08, an imitation of the 1960s Woodstock counterculture festival; organizers there say a neighbor of the farm's owner is donating a cow to feed the flock.

Sonny Thomas of Springboro, Ohio, plans to drive 12 hours to attend the rally, leaving Sunday. He was offering in a Web posting to fit one or two others in his car."I feel as one person who stands up, I have a voice and letting it be heard sends fear to the establishment," said Thomas, a gas station manager who was laid off a previous job.

By SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press Writer