Amazing Grace - Lyrics

Amazing Grace, how Sweet the Sound...

John Newton (1725-1807)

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

T'was Grace that taught my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come;
'Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far
and Grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me.
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who called me here below,
Will be forever mine.

When we've been here ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we've first begun.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

Swine and Garbage

The Swine that You Ingested for Dinner Could Have Been Eating Your Garbage

The feeding of food waste or garbage to swine and other livestock animals is a common practice throughout the world and is often concentrated around metropolitan centers. Food plate waste (formerly referred to as garbage) may be fed to other livestock species, but has most often been used as a source of feed for swine. High disposal costs and fees encourage the feeding of food/plate waste.

Food waste can be defined as any edible material or byproduct that is generated in the production, processing, transportation, distribution, or consumption of food. The primary waste products fed to swine are plate and kitchen waste, bakery waste, and food products from grocery stores. The primary sources of plate waste are restaurants, institutions, schools, and to a small degree, households. Food waste originating from restaurants, institutions, and schools has traditionally been referred to as garbage and has been regulated as such. According to the USDA there are over 2,200 licensed garbage feeders in the United States and nearly 3,000 in Puerto Rico (USDA-APHIS, VS, 1995). For the purpose of this article, the term food waste will be used to refer to all food wastes, including plate waste, kitchen or table scraps, garbage or swill and all food residuals discarded after serving.

Feeding food waste to swine has been common in the United States, especially in rural areas adjacent to major metropolitan areas. This practice has declined in recent years because of stricter federal, state, and local laws regulating animal health, transportation, and the feed usage of food waste. Although the feeding of raw (unprocessed) food waste to animals has been limited, there are still many states that allow it in some form.

M. L. Westendorf and R.O. Myer

Two Slaves for the Price of One

A sad aside is that when a woman went to work to “supplement the family income” she added nothing at all to the standard of living to the family which she was abandoning. Instead, we have seen prices and taxes increase, because of the two income family, at a rate where the family now uses the mom’s entire income just to cover the increases and they are financially worse off than they were in the 1950’s, when mom stayed at home! We have sacrificed the foundation of our society, the family, on the altar of the feminist god of unisexuality. It is absurd, destructive and suicidal but still we brainwash our children into believing that there are no differences between the sexes and that their roles should be identical. At the same time they are taught by the TV female role models, that either women dress for sex, think only of sex and are used for sex and little else or, even further from reality, women are men: evenly matched in in a fair fight, able to beat men up and are physically equal in every way. (From such stupidity has come the laws forcing lower entrance standards and thereby creating the female pseudo-soldier, the female pseudo-policeman and the female pseudo-fireman.) The mother at home is ridiculed and only the working woman has any real value. Whence has departed the dignity of the wife? Indeed it has been traded for the ridiculous and the profane and the whirlwind will be our just wage - The Chauvinist Corner.

Female Chauvinist Pig - Feminism

A Middle-Aged Princess Grows Up

On the cusp of my 45th birthday, I made the mistake of looking in the mirror. It wasn’t the bathroom mirror, it was a photo I had from graduate school. I looked at myself 20 years ago and had a startling and clear epiphany. It wasn’t a happy moment. It was a terribly sad moment. It was so sad that I involuntarily burst into tears, something I haven’t done since the dark days of my divorce.

I looked at the photo and came to the conclusion that I had made a real mess of my life. I felt the utter misery of my life come in waves of sadness, regret, anger, and loneliness. For almost an hour I cried as I looked at the photo of a younger me. I was 24 with a fresh MBA from an excellent school. I was eager to conquer the business world. I was eager to prove that women could do anything. I was so much thinner. My clothes looked stylish, almost sexy. Of course the hair style was awful but that was the 80s and such styles could be forgiven. I saw the brightness in my eyes, the sparkle of life, of the great opportunities that were open to me. The world was there for my taking and I was ready.

But somehow, some way, it never came to be. My life evolved into something painful and difficult. But until that moment when I looked at my photo from over two decades ago, I always blamed someone else. It was never my fault for the bad decisions I made. Typically, it was the fault of men - my father, my boyfriends, my husband, my boss, my sons. Never, ever was it something that I had done. When I commiserated with my women friends, they always supported me. They even supported me when I had my affair, telling me that my husband was not giving me the attention that I needed. I read the women’s magazines and every article was about how women were always strong, intelligent, morally righteous, unable to make bad decisions. Worse, I believed that any of my needs, no matter how frivolous, no matter how many times I changed my mind, no matter how miserable I made the men in my life feel, were more important than anything - motherhood, career advancement, a healthy marriage, whatever.

I hate the world for teaching me those lessons. I remember complaining about how my husband never grew up. But as the tears streamed down my face, I came to the conclusion that I had never grown up. I never learned about compromise, trust, tolerance, niceness. I was a bitch, pure and simple. I know now that being a bitch is not about strength or independence. Being a bitch is about being repellent, unpleasant, unhappy, and lonely. Being a bitch is nothing more than being a spoiled princess who is too selfish or stupid to accept the joy in life.

I had become a fat, unpleasant, middle-aged princess because I had refused to grow up. Sure, I had taken on grown-up responsibilities (marriage, career, house, motherhood) but at the core of my psyche was a 13-year-old girl who stamped her feet and whined when she didn’t get her way. Of course, I had stopped whining years ago but I simply replaced the whining with emotional manipulation and ornery bitchiness. No wonder I was still single and my two teenaged sons spent all their free time with their father.

When I was growing up, being a dilettante feminist, I swallowed the standard line that women can have it all. I wanted it all and I wanted to make no compromises, to assume no sacrifices, and to feel completely validated in all of my lifestyle choices. The biggest mistake in my late teens and early 20s was to let other women - women whom I thought to be strong, independent, and intelligent - determine which lifestyle I was to follow. I was simply too spoiled and lazy to look inward, to embrace the kind of introspection necessary to find one’s own path in life, the path that could lead to real fulfillment and happiness.

I remember college well. It was a fun time and I thought, at the time, an enlightening time. The parties were exciting, the political debates intense, the string of boyfriends and casual sexual encounters pleasant. I studied hard and I played hard. I attended the campus feminist meetings and listened to diatribes from sturdy and self-righteous peers about the evils of masculinity. I learned to scorn men when I didn’t need them for selfish reasons - study partners, shoulders to cry on, willing sexual partners. But I was never hesitant to bat my eyelashes or let my skirt ride up on my then-slender thighs if I needed something from a man. Men were handy to have around occasionally, but certainly not required, as my female peers kept insisting.

I learned that the only place for a woman was in the boardroom and that motherhood was beneath my intelligence. I “took back the night” at a few after-dark rallies with hundreds of young women eager to prove to the world that all men were rapists and potentially violent criminals.

When I got pregnant my sophomore year, it was easy to get an abortion. The campus health center was almost eager to make sure the procedure was done quickly and quietly. I never told my parents. I never told the fellow who made me pregnant. I don’t even remember his name, I only vaguely remember a wild night with the college hockey team at an off-campus party. Only now do I consider the irony of how I was attracted to college athletes in school - the type of men who liked being in control.

Pursuing my MBA once I completed my undergraduate studies was a foregone conclusion. I was destined for the board room, or so I had convinced myself. Graduate school was tough. I was competing with some very bright people, mostly men. Those men were destined for success and they knew it. But I had something that I exploited. I had my femininity and I used it ruthlessly when I had to. I tried to convince myself that the affair with my married finance professor had nothing to do with grades. Of course, finance was the most difficult course and when I managed surface at the end of the semester with a B it was hard to rationalize that the secret trysts with the professor had nothing to do with it. But the ends always justifies the means and there was no way I would not succeed. The other few women in my class were doing the same if they could get away with it. We never talked about it, but it was understood and we sometimes giggled about it and gloated that we had something the men would never have.

I met my husband that last year in graduate school. He was pursuing a degree in sociology. The chemistry with him was quite intense in the beginning. He had long hair and a motorcycle. He was the classic bohemian and I felt the need to rein him in, to make him a better man (or at least my definition of a better man). He was irresponsible and sometimes unruly but I loved him with all my heart and soul.

After graduating, I found work in a big corporation. Every day I went to work with my power suit and shoulder pads under my jacket. I walked in my sneakers and changed into work shoes when I got to the office at 7AM to put in another 12 hour day. I was married by then in a wedding straight from Modern Bride magazine. My husband had finally cut his hair after much insistence from me. He would later call it severe nagging but I got my wish so it didn’t matter.

He found work in a consumer research organization. He didn’t get paid as much as me but that didn’t matter. My income was big and growing bigger. We bought a house I found in the suburbs. He had recommended something more modest and closer to downtown where we both worked. I would have none of that. My success had to be readily visible with a big, traditional house and a big lawn. I made sure he took care of the lawn despite his resistance.

After five years, I felt the need to have babies. It wasn’t a mutual decision. I wanted babies. No, I desperately needed a baby. I felt empty inside without kids. It was a completely irrational feeling for a high-flying career woman hell-bent on being the next corporate CEO. My husband was cool towards the idea. He asked how we would balance the demands of being parents and supporting a rather expensive lifestyle. I didn’t care. My womb was empty. I had needs. Neither reason nor logic affected my needs or my feelings.

So, the first baby came. Instantly, life changed. I couldn’t put in the hours I needed to maintain my career trajectory. My husband changed as well. He quickly lost his bohemian attitudes. He sold his motorcycle and became a devoted father to our son. Of course, I had been pushing for this since we had gotten married. His words, as revealed during the divorce, were “shrill, nagging harpy who relentlessly pushed me into fatherhood”. But he loved our first son and even offered to work only part time to allow me to keep on with my career. That would not do. I was the mother, the queen, the all-knowing and wise creator of my son. My husband was clearly an incompetent boob who didn’t know a diaper from a car seat.

My boss saw that I was distracted with my new duties as super-mom. He looked at my productivity and knew I couldn’t perform like my single or childfree colleagues. So, I was “mommy-tracked”. They didn’t call it that then. But when a male colleague was promoted over me, I knew what was happening. I hated it. I was livid. How could I not have it all? So, I played the feminine card again, this time with a stick, not a carrot. I paid a visit to Human Resources with a veiled threat of a discrimination lawsuit. It didn’t work, of course, because it was very clear that I was putting in fewer hours with the resultant loss of productivity. It was all documented and defensible. I was furious. How dare they. I summoned up all the righteous wrath I could. I consulted an outside attorney, a ferocious female lawyer who was quite prepared to sue until she made a pass at me. Open-minded I was, but certainly not a lesbian. I let the legal issue drop and sullenly accepted my reduced role at work. After all, we had expenses to pay and my salary was certainly needed.

I watched my husband evolve from bohemian to responsible father. He was astoundingly good with our first son. Of course, at the time, I didn’t recognize that. I thought everything he did was wrong. Only I, the supreme mother, could raise our first boy. We struggled for a couple of years. It wasn’t easy. So, when I got pregnant again - unplanned by my husband, completely planned by me - the stress continued to grow. Money wasn’t tight but the pressure to maintain our lifestyle and that big house was mostly on my shoulders. I resented my husband for that. He had chosen a career he loved but the pay was not nearly as much as mine. I really had to work and with being on the mommy track, there was no way I could achieve what I had expected in my career.

We did use day-care and a part-time housekeeper. Actually, we went through eight housekeepers. They were never good enough for me. Nothing was good enough for me. My shoes didn’t fit, my clothes looked bad, the car wasn’t clean enough, my husband wasn’t up to my standards. Looking back in brutal honesty, I was a stark, raving bitch. I don’t think I said a nice word in years. I am amazed that my husband put up with me. I didn’t take him seriously, he was just a man, after all.

In my limited social life, I spent time with women like me. We were an unhappy group of 30-something moms with powerful careers. But we also smiled and pretended that life was perfect. We all had the right homes, the right cars, the right schools, the right careers. We convinced ourselves that we did have it all. Occasionally, one of us might vent some frustration at the situation. When that happened, we always had convenient scapegoats - our husbands, our bosses, our housekeepers, the schools, whatever. It was never, ever our fault because we were female.

With one son at five and the other at seven, it fell apart. Rather, it exploded. My husband just gave up. He had been supportive to me and good with the children. So, it caught me by surprise when he just gave up. I guess I should have seen it. I was always using sex as a weapon with him. If he didn’t do exactly what I said, if he didn’t bend over backwards to fulfill my every whim, he didn’t experience any kind of sexual pleasure. I remember I caught him playing with himself one night. I was furious. How could he experience sexual satisfaction without my control being somehow involved?

As a healthy woman, I did have my own sexual needs. So, rather than enjoy sex within the context of a marriage, I had an affair. It was easy. I was still somewhat attractive. There were men around. “Why not?” I easily rationalized to myself. My husband doesn’t give me enough attention, it’s all his fault. The affair was inconsequential, just some sex on weekends and on business trips. I needed it so therefore it was OK. While my husband was being a father, I was being an empowered, independent woman visiting cheap motels with a man who could give me orgasms.

The affair lasted three months. My husband never found out. He didn’t need to, he just gave up. Interestingly, he channeled his efforts into a side business as a marketing consultant. This proved to be quite lucrative for him. Within six months his income had exceeded mine. Our savings account grew substantially. “It’s for the boys’ college tuition” he told me over and over again.

I was unhappy. My career was stressful and unrewarding. My two sons were closer to my husband than to me because of all the hours I was working. He had quit his full-time job and was thriving as a marketing consultant, a job that he could do out of the house with just his computer and a phone. I felt frustrated and unfulfilled. My female friends recommended counseling. So, we gave that a try. I subtly picked a counselor whom I know would be sympathetic to me. The sessions were actually fun in a very unpleasant way. The counselor and I spent 50 minutes picking on my husband. He quietly sat there and took it, apologizing and promising to change. I didn’t have to promise to do anything. The counselor - a woman much like me - made it very clear that my needs were paramount and his needs were completely irrelevant.

Naturally, the counseling didn’t work for us. My husband retreated into fatherhood and his growing business. I contemplated another affair. Unfortunately, I was gaining a lot of weight. At a size 12, it was hard to get attractive men to look at me. My friends recommended that I consider divorce. I look back and think about my “friends” from that period in my life. They were a group of unhappy women trying so hard to validate their own, poor life decisions. I let them influence me when I should have been strong. That was an enormous mistake.

I didn’t hate my husband I just didn’t love him like I used to. I wanted a new and better life. I could raise my sons without him. I had been reading that kids really didn’t need fathers. I was feeling so unfulfilled. When I served my husband with divorce papers, he didn’t seem surprised. I had consulted with a good divorce attorney and she strongly recommended that I go for everything - house, cars, custody, alimony, child support, everything. “It’s a war and as a woman, you have to win” were her words.

The divorce was ugly and despite the fact that I did get the house, the car, the kids, child support, and the savings account that he had filled, I ultimately lost. My ex moved out, leaving me to take care of the house and kids. He moved into a very modest apartment and we agreed that he could see the boys on weekends. The court actually ordered that to happen. I was happy to force him out of their lives completely but he was rigidly insistent and that damned judge agreed.

I was single again. I was ready to date again. But at 38, dating was not like the wild times in college and graduate school when I was young, alluring, and desired by men. No, I was a single mom now. I had cut my hair short and my figure was almost past the point of no return. The kind of man I wanted to date had no interest in me. Those powerful and successful men had younger, prettier, nicer girlfriends.

The divorced men were the worst. They were either so disillusioned that they couldn’t handle a relationship or they were just hopping from bed to bed, not willing to be exclusive. I so much wanted to be swept off my feet into the arms of an attractive man to take care of me and make my troubles go away. I still thought of myself as a princess. I was still silly, stupid, and immature.

Yet the men I was attracted to wouldn’t give me a second thought. The men who did want me were totally unsuitable. It was astounding to me that I wasn’t attractive any more. So many men in college were after me. I remember mocking all the guys who approached me at parties. If they had the slightest flaw, I pushed them away, usually with a pointed insult or two. I never thought twice about the men I rejected, some of them decent and sweet when I look back on it. My girlfriends and I called them “mamma’s boys” while we let ourselves be taken by the cocky, arrogant pricks who always made us feel overpowering attraction and lust.

To make matters worse, I couldn’t fix anything in the house. My husband had tended to all those matters. My boys were pre-teens and very difficult for me to handle. They hated the fact that they could only see their father on weekends. Their grades dropped. They started having discipline problems in school. Naturally, I blamed their father. It was all his fault that we divorced and that he lived apart from them. I tried not to say bad things about him in front of my sons but the feelings were just so strong. I said terrible things about their father, especially when I was drinking, which I did a lot of back then.

If I was unhappy when I was married, I was now wretchedly miserable as a single mom looking for love again. I tried hard to convince myself that I was a strong, independent, and intelligent woman. Sometimes it worked, especially when I was browbeating subordinates at work. I actually hated my job. I made a good living, yes. Yet I had reached the zenith of my career and the board room was not one bit closer. I still felt terribly conflicted about being a good mom and being the corporate woman.

I had lots of blame to dole out. There was no way that the current state of my life was the result of my decisions. My single girlfriends all told me that, many, many times over copious cocktails in sundry singles bars. I read a lot of women’s magazines and the advice I got said pretty much the same thing - a woman is never to blame.

I tried to lose weight but it was so very difficult. When I was hungry, I simply had to eat, usually ice cream or something with chocolate. I had to buy new clothes, again, because the weight kept piling on. I was set up on a blind date and the man had the sheer audacity to say “I’m sorry, I’m just not attracted to you because of your weight.” I never thought about my own hypocrisy about trying to find a man to whom I was attracted to physically. Men must be attracted to me, I am a woman, after all.

The past few years have been kind of a blur. My ex husband had found a new love of his life and I naturally hated him for that. I tried to increase the child support payments. When that didn’t work, I tried to prevent my sons from visiting him. They fought me on this. I took out my frustrations at work. My boss threatened to fire me. Only my girlfriends gave me any support. We had boozy nights where we ate and drank too much. Frankly, we were a bunch of fat, unhappy, single women who heaped blame upon the world for the state of our lives.

So when I saw the photograph from college, the epiphany hit hard. Through the tears of anguish, rage, bitterness, and denial came the incredibly painful realization that I was responsible for my own unhappiness. I finally figured out that I had not grown up and had not truly embraced adulthood. This was six months ago.

I’ve made some profound changes in my life since then. First and foremost, I stopped blaming everyone else for my own problems. This was the hardest. For my entire life I was told - and I believed - that as a woman, I could do no wrong, that I was not responsible, that I was always the victim in some way. Over and over I had to tell myself that only I am responsible for my happiness.

Once I learned to stop blaming the world, I taught myself to be pleasant and nice. This was hard as well. I had always mistaken pleasantness for weakness. This is not the case. A new colleague at work - a woman from the South - showed me very clearly it’s quite easy to be nice and be strong at the same time.

I also dumped my girlfriends. This was easy. This group of unhappy and negative women was actually encouraging me to do stupid things like divorce a perfectly good man because of my selfish and very arbitrary feelings of the moment. I finally learned that acting solely on feelings is the realm of children, not adults. Maybe those women will finally learn that. But I doubt it.

I’m at the gym every day. After being rebuffed by so many attractive and decent guys, I decided to apply standards of real equality to the whole dating thing. After all, if I believe in physical attraction, why should not I understand that men are the same way? Being fat means not being physically attractive to many, many men so it’s up to me to do something about, not be angry with men about the situation. The weight is coming off. It’s a battle, to be sure, but it’s coming off. I’m also letting my hair grow and getting rid of that awful “mom” hair style.

I no longer read those loathsome women’s magazines nor do I watch a lot of TV. When I freed my mind from so many complete misconceptions about men, I learned that men are actually wonderful people. My sons saw my transformation. As they grow older and become men in their own right, I have stopped nagging them about “feelings” and “sensitivity” and encourage them to be men. I doubt I’ll ever mend fences with my ex husband, all I can do is hope that he finds happiness and joy in his life. I have a new respect for him, a respect born from understanding that men are very different, not worse, just different. My ex is also an excellent father, I am blessed for that.

I’ve learned to accept that my needs aren’t the center of the universe. That was actually quite liberating. No longer am I a slave to the whimsy of my often shallow emotions that can’t be reasonably fulfilled. This means I complain less. If I can’t change the situation, why complain about it? Winter is cold, my complaints about the temperature will do nothing to warm the air.

The biggest regret I have in life is being so weak as to not to have made the serious introspection until this point in my life. If I were truly strong, truly intelligent, I would have really thought about what is important to me instead of following the herd. In retrospect, clawing my up the corporate ladder was a very bad decision. Exploiting my femininity to manipulate men was even worse. I love being a woman but using sex to get what I want is no better than a man using brute strength to get what he wants.

I’m still single and dating still eludes me. There is a glimmer of hope, however, a very nice man complimented me on my smile. At 45 years old, that was the first time anyone has noticed my smile. My eldest son noticed it too, “Mom, I’ve never seen you smile until now.” Life must get better for me. That’s my responsibility, no one else's.

Corporate America for Corporate Monkeys

Corporate America Really Really Cares About Its Employees (Really) 
(June 17, 2011 - by Charles Hugh Smith)

Scrape away the Human Resource Department rah-rah about "our mission" and how much your loyalty is "valued," and what's left? A paycheck and a sucking sound.

Let's state the heretical obvious: Corporate America, you suck. We could count the ways--subverting democracy via your lobbying and campaign contributions, your sabotage of competition via regulatory capture, and so on--but what really matters is how you treat your employees.

We know: you really really care about your employees. Really. The propaganda would be laughable if it wasn't so bald-faced. Do corporate managers really believe in the Big Lie theory, that the bigger the lie, the easier it is to sell?

Here is reader C's experience of Corporate America's transition to wonderfulness and caring. An outlier or "what everybody inside knows"?

I occasionally read your postings linked to Jesse's Cafe Americain and I just want to confirm what you posted about corporate bankruptcy. ( The Bankruptcy of Corporate America) I was disappointed with the Reagan administration which imo was the beginning of the takeover of our government by corporations and elites. Still, having a new family, I was fortunate to get an union job at the big telco and now work in the belly of the beast.

At first it was a great place to work, proud of our knowledge & expertise helping customers, but after 2-3 mergers, the overlords have increased our workload 100% (shutting down depts. in other parts of the country and giving us their work), reduced benefits, monitor everything and have rolled out methods & procedures that have totally dehumanized the workforce; we're just button pushers. Nearly everyone there is now miserable and it's a soul crushing, mind-numbing existence. Sorry that I have nothing good to say about it all, just hoping & praying for it get swept away and that my preparations to be free of the system work out ok.

Correspondent K.R. recently submitted this account, and some advice for young people:

In March 2000, I was working for a fairly large biotech company in pharmaceutical development, many of my co-workers were PhD's. When I got out of my car in the company parking lot one morning I saw many of my coworkers walking back the their cars. I asked "what's the matter?" What we discovered that morning is that if your swipe card that gave you access to the building did not work you were laid off. If your card worked and the door opened, you still had a job.

Best advice I could give a young smart person? Skip the corporate rat race altogether. Do not get car payments, mortgages and all the other debts that chain you to your debt enslavement. Enrich your life, work for yourself or for an important cause. Nobody should waste their life on corporate Amerika.

The modern global corporation devotes considerable attention to creating a simulacrum of common purpose via human resource department’s empty cheerleading. But participants know it is only a hollow, cynical ritual that everyone shuffles through in order to keep their jobs. The reality in Global Corporate America is that every employee is dispensable, and their position is inherently contingent. The purpose is the deliver profits to shareholders, and the corporation buys a facsimile of loyalty and presents a façade of purpose to keep the work environment from becoming overtly depressing to the human spirit. The reason they must play this game is the profits, of course; dispirited workers aren’t very productive.

Given that 13% of global Corporate America’s revenues are pure profit ($1.67 trillion last year, or about 12% of the nation's GDP) and another significant percentage is overhead to support the grossly overpaid corporate bigwigs, a vast command-and-control structure and a costly Panzer division of crack tax attorneys to keep income taxes paid near-zero, then it’s clear that smaller enterprises could easily beat the Corporate America Plantation Store in price and service because a third of the corporate expenses are overhead needed by a massive, costly hierarchy and 13% net profit margins demanded by Wall Street and the Financial Elite owners.

Since the top 5% of households collect 72% of corporate profits and bond income and the top 10% collect 93% of the nation’s financial income, the immense profits skimmed from local communities do not flow back to the communities. They flow instead into the elite enclaves of those who own the vast majority of the nation’s financial assets.

The vaunted “efficiency” of Corporate America's cartels is largely a myth. The Plantation Store’s “edge” is not efficiency but these four factors:

1. exploitation of global wage arbitrage

2. access to cheap Wall Street financing

3. eliminating taxes and competition via capture of regulatory and legislative governance

4. a reliance on cheap oil to fuel their global strip-mining operations.

Take those away and much of global Corporate America is revealed as high-cost, uncompetitive sitting ducks awaiting slaughter by lower-cost decentralized competitors.

Local residents lose twice when global cartels collect much of the local income and send it to centralized corporate headquarters, as a percentage of the profits are spent subverting democracy with lobbying and millions of dollars in campaign contributions to political factotums. Local residents lose not only control of their income streams but of their political rights as cartels sabotage democracy by capturing regulation and elected officials.

A key feature of local enterprise is that it retains and recycles local income in the community, rather than sending it to some distant and unaccountable corporate headquarters tasked with maximizing profits globally. Thus even if local earnings decline in recessionary times, local enterprises can still thrive simply by taking some of the cartels' vast income stream and returning it to the community.

As investors, we have been brainwashed into seeing ourselves as disembodied zombies who float around the world, seeking higher returns wherever we might find them. We are disconnected from where we live, and are constantly told that our self-interest is only served by investing in fast-growing global corporations making money from goods and services generated elsewhere. Those who eschew investments in evil are mocked and derided; the only god for investors is maximizing profits, and how those profits are reaped and where they are reaped makes absolutely no difference.

This is how we end up with what we have now: a glorified Colonial Plantation Economy.

Equality in the Workplace for Men

Equality in the Workplace? Don't bet your life on it!
by NiceGuy

Women have fought a commendable battle to win 'equality' in the workplace... and the workplace is far from equal (in America).

Realize this: women swear that they are just as capable in the workplace as a man... yet they also swear up and down that a man does not know how to cook, clean or raise a kid nearly as well! That's hypocrisy: women say they just as good at doing traditional 'male' work, but swear that men are inept when it comes to traditional 'female' work! (Heh, on the same note, I know more than a few gals who say this- but have messy houses and frankly, can't cook worth shit!)

Here's another factoid about equality in the workplace: men are the victims of 98% of all job-related deaths. Men die at work in huge numbers every year! Ever been to a steel mill? Chunks of white-hot metal are flying everywhere, and typically there's not one woman on the factory floor! There are a thousand ways you can die on a construction site! Hundreds of male policemen get gunned-down every year while doing their job of protecting both men and women! Coal miners, fire-fighters- the list goes-on for miles. It's men who do the majority of the jobs at which you can get killed!

How about workplace injuries? Furniture-moving is a male-dominated industry: do you care to guess how many furniture-movers injure their backs and knees on a daily basis? Carpentry and logging are male-dominated industries- in the average lumber mill, fingers and toes can get chopped-off right and left! The 25 worst jobs in the U.S. just happen to be male-dominated by some mysterious coincidence... I've never heard any woman ever complain about the lack of female coal-miners.

What fields do women most often enter? Things like psychological counseling, education, publishing, accounting, medicine. In short, service-oriented jobs that don't involve carrying heavy loads or accidentally chopping-off a hand. Maybe I'm generalizing. Some women do work in factories after all... Why don't you go visit a local factory sometime?

I visited a local factory a few weeks before the time of writing- the factory owner is a friend of my dad. They make custom ceramic tiles. I walked-around with the foreman, and he showed me the production process. Hundreds of pounds of clay gets loaded-in to huge hoppers. The clay gets molded with large extrusion machinery, chopped-up, fired in kilns, glazed and fired again. Both men and women worked on the factory floor, but I immediately noticed: all the heavy, dangerous work was being done by men. Men were working near the blazing-heat of the 400-degree kilns. Men were loading heavy sacks of clay on catwalks and climbing on the machinery to operate it. The women were sitting at benches doing the polishing, glazing and smoothing. The men worked in hard-hat areas, while the women were clearly out of harm's way. I looked for a woman with a hazardous job, I did not see one. There were also plenty of women in the factory's administration offices doing computer-design work, accounting work and the clerical work. The most dangerous things these women ever touched on the job was sandpaper and keyboards! No wonder men die on the job so often! (P.S., there appeared to be a good safety record at this particular factory... but just imagine this type of division-of-labor multiplied a million times across the planet. And not all countries have good industrial-safety standards- I've visited some of the nicer Chinese factories, and the safety record there is not enviable. A lot of potential for male injuries globally.)

Oh, sure, you might point-out that the owner of the factory was a man- but you know what? He practically built the place with his bare hands! Do you think that's easy for any man to do? He almost went bankrupt 4 times before his business started making real money. Do you honestly think there's a smoke-filled club where a bunch of old men gather-around a table over brandy saying "Well, good old Richard is one of us- let's give him a factory or two!" (note: women are generally more risk averse and there are no "invisible" barriers keeping them from starting their own businesses. this is a fact... it is not female discrimination that veer them away from starting companies or fighting on the front lines of wars).

This is America - Debt Money

Indoctrination - Education

Indoctrination - Education

People are not being educated they're being tested for levels of obedience. School is about memorizing what you are told short term and repeating it. The bulk of how you are graded is by completely daily busy work. This is for the work force the most important quality in a worker bee actually is obedience.

(video: Ken Robinson - Changing Education Paradigms; RSA Animate)

Famous 2010 valedictory speech by Erica Goldson
June 25, 2010

This is the dilemma I've faced within the American education system. We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.
       
Some of you may be thinking, “Well, if you pass a test, or become valedictorian, didn't you learn something? Well, yes, you learned something, but not all that you could have. Perhaps, you only learned how to memorize names, places, and dates to later on forget in order to clear your mind for the next test. School is not all that it can be. Right now, it is a place for most people to determine that their goal is to get out as soon as possible.
       
I am now accomplishing that goal. I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system. Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination.

I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contest that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer – not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition – a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the extreme. While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never needed it. So, I wonder, why did I even want this position? Sure, I earned it, but what will come of it? When I leave educational institutionalism, will I be successful or forever lost? I have no clue about what I want to do with my life; I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, not learning. And quite frankly, now I'm scared.

John Taylor Gatto, a retired school teacher and activist critical of compulsory schooling, asserts, “We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness – curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids into truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then. But we don't do that.” Between these cinderblock walls, we are all expected to be the same. We are trained to ace every standardized test, and those who deviate and see light through a different lens are worthless to the scheme of public education, and therefore viewed with contempt.
       
H. L. Mencken wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not...

to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. ... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim ... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States. (Gatto)

Federal Reserve - FED - Scam

The Federal Debt As Criminal Scam, The Federal Reserve As Criminal Syndicate 
(Sept 19, 2011 - oftwominds.com)

Is the Federal debt a criminal enterprise, enabled by a criminal syndicate? Read on before you pass judgment.

Correspondent Doug laid out a compelling case that the Federal debt is fundamnentally a criminal scam, operated by the criminal syndicate of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve:

The Federal Reserve is a criminal syndicate buying debt that the government eagerly creates and sells for spending money that dumps the debt on us civilians. What perplexes me is that the scam is so simple and all the intellectuals either don’t get it or are handcuffed by mega-corporate media owners.

    The scam in simple terms...

1. Uncle Sam borrows money from The Fed, China, oil exporters, Bank of England, etc
    by selling Treasury bonds
2. You are responsible for the bonds, i.e. IOUs
3. Uncle Sam collects taxes and pays the bondholders
4. The debt is breaking us; life will not be the same in the years to come

Uncle Sam borrows all its spending money from the non-government Fed and others, and spends only borrowed dollars raised from exchanging bonds for dollars as a debt plus interest on your back.

Uncle Sam collects income taxes and funnels the money to the holders of these criminal Treasury bonds.

The Fed/Treasury is an evil axis defunding you and me: the debt is $14.5 trillion; this is our debt, not the government’s debt. The government does not generally earn money; we do. Therefore every criminal debt certificate (Treasury bond) the Treasury exchanges for cash is a debt on you and me--a promise to pay for which citizens are responsible to pay, IOUs in simple terms. If the government printed the money instead of the criminal Fed, there would be no debt.

Uncle Sam borrows bucks and you become automatically indentured to pay back the bond and pay the vig! How is this not a criminal enterprise?

More on Bond Dealers:

The FED buys bonds from all the primary dealers in an auction. The primary dealers are the same institutions that are eligible to buy from the U.S. Treasury during monthly bond auctions: banks like Goldman, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Citigroup, etc.

Here's how the process works...

- A few days in advance of the auction, the U.S. Federal Reserve provides a list of the specific bonds and amounts they'd like to buy.
- At a specific time, all the primary dealers submit their best offers to the Fed, i.e. they submit the lowest price at which they'd be willing to sell.
- The Fed buys from those dealers who offer the lowest price.

Primary dealers serve as trading counterparties of the New York Fed in its implementation of monetary policy. This role includes the obligations to: (i) participate consistently in open market operations to carry out U.S. monetary policy pursuant to the direction of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC); and (ii) provide the New York Fed's trading desk with market information and analysis helpful in the formulation and implementation of monetary policy. Primary dealers are also required to participate in all auctions of U.S. government debt and to make reasonable markets for the New York Fed when it transacts on behalf of its foreign official account-holders

List of Primary Dealers:
Bank of Nova Scotia, New York Agency
BMO Capital Markets Corp.
BNP Paribas Securities Corp.
Barclays Capital Inc.
Cantor Fitzgerald & Co.
Citigroup Global Markets Inc.
Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC
Daiwa Capital Markets America Inc.
Deutsche Bank Securities Inc.
Goldman, Sachs & Co.
HSBC Securities (USA) Inc.
Jefferies & Company, Inc.
J.P. Morgan Securities LLC
Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated
Mizuho Securities USA Inc.
Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC
Nomura Securities International, Inc.
RBC Capital Markets, LLC
RBS Securities Inc.
SG Americas Securities, LLC
UBS Securities LLC

- Federal Reserve

Are the Federal Reserve and Its Primary Dealer Banks Manipulating the Stock Market?

(by Gary D. Barnett)

After the market collapse of 2008 and 2009, where losses were generally around 55%, the markets have gone up substantially. During that same period were QE1 and QE2. This is no coincidence. Bernanke took full credit for the rise in the stock markets, and for good reason. The "Quantitative Easing" programs were structured to transfer money (out of thin air) from the New York Fed to its primary dealer banks. This is done when the Fed purchases treasury bonds from these dealers, some of which include Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan, along with 18 others. This process infuses the banks receiving this money with instant liquidity. During QE2 for example, from November 3rd of 2010 through June 30th of 2011, the New York Fed bought from its primary dealers $770 billion worth of treasuries, not the $600 billion it claimed. These banks acquired many of these treasuries during the bailouts by trading worthless securities for full value treasuries. This was, by the way, at taxpayer expense.

Muammar Gaddafi

Eugenics Program - North Carolina

Victims speak out about North Carolina sterilization program, which targeted women, young girls and blacks - Mon Nov 7, 2011 9:09 AM EST

By Michelle Kessel and Jessica Hopper - Rock Center

Elaine Riddick was 13 years old when she got pregnant after being raped by a neighbor in Winfall, N.C., in 1967.  The state ordered that immediately after giving birth, she should be sterilized.  Doctors cut and tied off her fallopian tubes.

“I have to carry these scars with me.  I have to live with this for the rest of my life,” she said.

Riddick was never told what was happening.  “Got to the hospital and they put me in a room and that’s all I remember, that’s all I remember,” she said.  “When I woke up, I woke up with bandages on my stomach.”

Riddick’s records reveal that a five-person state eugenics board in Raleigh had approved a recommendation that she be sterilized. The records label Riddick as “feebleminded” and “promiscuous.” They said her schoolwork was poor and that she “does not get along well with others.”

“I was raped by a perpetrator [who was never charged] and then I was raped by the state of North Carolina.  They took something from me both times,” she said.  “The state of North Carolina, they took something so dearly from me, something that was God given.”

It wouldn’t be until Riddick was 19, married and wanting more children, that she’d learn she was incapable of having any more babies. A doctor in New York where she was living at the time told her that she’d been sterilized.

“Butchered.  The doctor used that word…  I didn’t understand what she meant when she said I had been butchered,” Riddick said.

North Carolina was one of 31 states to have a government run eugenics program.  By the 1960s, tens of thousands of Americans were sterilized as a result of these programs.

Eugenics was a scientific theory that grew in popularity during the 1920s.  Eugenicists believed that poverty, promiscuity and alcoholism were traits that were inherited.  To eliminate those society ills and improve society’s gene pool, proponents of the theory argued that those that exhibited the traits should be sterilized.  Some of America’s wealthiest citizens of the time were eugenicists including Dr. Clarence Gamble of the Procter and Gamble fortune and James Hanes of the hosiery fortune.  Hanes helped found the Human Betterment League which promoted the cause of eugenicists.

It began as a way to control welfare spending on poor white women and men, but over time, North Carolina shifted focus, targeting more women and more blacks than whites.  A third of the sterilizations performed in North Carolina were done on girls under the age of 18.  Some were as young as nine years old.

For the past eight years, North Carolina lawmakers have been working to find a way to compensate those involuntarily sterilized in the state between 1929 and 1974. During that time period, 7,600 people were sterilized in North Carolina.  Of those who were sterilized, 85 percent of the victims were female and 40 percent were non-white. 

“You can’t rewind a watch or rewrite history.  You just have to go forward and that’s what we’re trying to do in North Carolina,” said Governor Beverly Perdue in an exclusive interview with NBC News.

While North Carolina’s eugenics board was disbanded in 1977, the law allowing involuntary sterilization wasn’t officially repealed until 2003. In 2002, the state issued an apology to those who had been sterilized, but the victims have yet to receive any financial compensation, medical care or counseling from the state. Since 2003, three task forces have been created to determine a way to compensate the victims.  Officials estimate that as many as 2,000 victims are still alive.

Riddick was one of several victims to speak at a public hearing this summer. It was the first time that many survivors had told their stories publicly and that others heard of North Carolina’s tarnished past.

“To think about folks who went in…and their doctor told them this was birth control and they were sterilized…the folks who didn’t have the capacity to make the decisions, the uninformed consent,” said Perdue.  “Those types of stories aren’t good for America and I can’t allow for this period in history to be forgotten, that’s why this work is important.”

Only 48 victims have been matched with their records, something necessary for them to eventually be compensated.  State Representative Larry Womble has been advocating for the survivors of the state’s sterilization program for nearly 10 years. He helped fight for the repeal of the state’s law.

Womble said that if the government is “powerful enough to perpetrate this on this society, they ought to be responsible, step up to the plate and compensate.”

In August, a task force created by Gov. Perdue recommended that the victims be compensated, but they were unsure how much to award the victims. Previous numbers pondered range between $20,000 and $50,000. The task force also recommended mental health services for living victims and a traveling museum exhibit about North Carolina’s eugenics program.

Perdue said it’s a challenge to determine how much money each victim should be given.

“From my perspective, and as a woman, and as the governor of this state, this is not about the money.  There isn’t enough money in the world to pay these people for what has been done to them, but money is part of the equation,” she said.

Riddick once sued North Carolina for a million dollars.  Her case made it all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, but the court declined to hear the case.  “I would like for the state of North Carolina to right what they wronged with me,” she said.

Some victims and their advocates have questioned whether North Carolina is procrastinating in compensating them, hoping they’ll die before a solution is reached. “It’s an ugly chapter in North Carolina’s book, we have a wonderful book, but there’s an ugly chapter,” Womble said. “We must step up to the plate and we must realize and take responsibility.”

Perdue, for her part, said that she is committed to helping the victims.

“I want this solved on my watch.  I want there to be completion.  I want the whole discussion to end and there be action for these folks.  There is nobody in North Carolina who is waiting for anybody to die,” Gov. Perdue said.

Despite the state social workers who declared Riddick was “mentally retarded” and “promiscuous”, she went to college and raised the son born moments before she was sterilized.  Her son is devoted to his mother and a successful entrepreneur.

Elaine is proud of her achievements.

“I don’t know where I would be if I listened to the state of North Carolina,” she said.

Freemasonry Religion

 (jahbulon - yet another version of nimrod and semiramis)

Freemasonry is a movement which has its origins in various secret societies of the middle ages, although it was really in the 18th century that it took on much of its present form. Freemasonry draws on all kinds of pagan religious ideas and involves honoring false deities from the Babylonian, Egyptian, and Greek pantheons. Freemasons today wield much power and influence in world affairs. The extent of this power is difficult to know from the outside. However, it is fairly certain that many of the western world's top politicians, businessmen, judiciary, clergymen (!) and media people are members of this secretive group.

Although some freemasons deny it, freemasonry is a religion. New members  may be told that it is perfectly compatible with any religion a man may choose to follow, but it becomes clear as one progresses through the various levels of freemasonry that it really is another religion. Freemasonry borrows its many of its religious concepts from ancient Babylonian religious systems, as well as from Judaism, Christianity and Hinduism. No one except the Freemasons themselves are supposed to know what actually happens in the rites of the lodge, but most of this information has already been published by people who left the movement, even some from the highest levels (31st, 32nd and 33rd degree freemasons). A lot can also be known about freemasonry by studying their own publications.

Why Do Men become Freemasons?

Many men become freemasons because they are invited to do so by colleagues who are usually further up the social scale than they are themselves. Men are led to understand that by joining the lodge they will enjoy many benefits and opportunities in society which they would not otherwise enjoy. Freemasons will almost always favor each other above someone else who is not a member of the lodge. Business opportunities, special favors, invitations to positions of influence are some of the benefits enjoyed by many devoted members of the lodge.

The Deliberate Practice of Deception

Most freemasons go no further than the Master Mason level (3rd level). However, those that press on to study for the rituals of the higher levels of the York or Scottish rites soon learn that there are mysteries which those at the lower levels are not permitted to know. In fact, they find out that those at lower levels are deliberately misled concerning the doctrine and practices of freemasonry. Those who have earned the right to know can be proud of their superiority over the rest of the ignorant masses. There is the constant lure of increased esoteric knowledge, power and influence for those who "climb the mountain" of masonic advancement. Of course this appeals to human nature. There is a strong desire in natural men for power, control, influence, recognition and secret knowledge. Freemasonry promises this to its loyal devotees. However, when we realises that deliberate deception is being practiced, we should smell a rat.

Is Freemasonry compatible with Christianity?

Many Anglican clergymen are and have been freemasons. Clergymen from other denominations are also involved. New initiates are told that Freemasonry is basically a moral movement for the betterment of humanity in which people of all religions can participate. However, it is not possible to follow the Bible and accept masonic doctrines and practices at the same time. In one of their rituals, masons kiss the Bible goodbye. The ways of Jesus Christ who taught openly and without deception are incompatible with the ways of freemasonry.

Who is the god of Freemasonry?

Lower level masons are told that masons must believe in a deity known as The Great Architect of the Universe. However, when they get to one of the mid range levels (about level 8 I believe) they are then told that the deity of freemasonry is in fact called 'Jahbulon', This name is a syncretic mixture of a [false god - Jah], the Babylonian god 'Bel' ('Baal') and the Egyptian god 'On'. The Old Testament speaks out strongly against these pagan deities (Isaiah 46 for example). The people of Israel were not even supposed to take the names of these gods upon their lips! How can this 'Jahbulon' be one and the same as the God of the Bible? Christianity declares Jesus Christ to be God in human flesh. How can Jesus be Jahbulon? The very idea is blasphemous to a Christian.

Things get worse when a freemason reaches the 31st level. At this stage, freemasons are informed that the true name of God is Lucifer. Now Lucifer is the name of the angel that fell from heaven through rebellion and became the devil, or Satan. Satan is the arch-enemy of the people of God! Freemasons claim that Lucifer is really the true god they serve. At the same time they are quick to point out that they consider Satanism to be a heresy. Yet the antipathy of freemasonry towards the true and living God of the Christians comes out clearly here, as indeed it does in other places.

Christians are instructed to "flee from idolatry". No true disciple of Jesus Christ could stay within the movement of freemasonry once he knew the facts. In fact, anyone knowing the Bible at all and wanting to respect it could not so much as go through the initiation rituals of a first level mason, since they involve horrible curses.

What to Do if you have been affected by or involved with Freemasonry

Renounce it completely. Jesus said, "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" (Mark 8:36) The social advantages of being a freemason do not compare with the advantages of being free to follow Jesus Christ in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Further, no professing Christian involved in Freemasonry can stay in the movement without deliberately living in rebellion against God, once the facts about freemasonry are clearly known.

If you have ancestors who were freemasons, or you have been involved yourself, you will need deliverance from evil spirits. These spirits have the characteristic of producing a kind of spiritual blindness in people. Its no wonder since the initiation of a first level mason involves the initiate wearing a blindfold. Even those who reach the top of the mountain of freemasonry are told that a cloud obscures the view from the top of the mountain. The connections with spiritual blindness should be obvious enough. For the sake of Christ, reconsider your position and take a stand for Christ. Put your vision and efforts into discipleship in the Kingdom of God and not in the lying system of Freemasonry.

There is no salvation except through Jesus Christ. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6).

- ChristianFaith.com

The officers of the Royal Arch Degree all put on a show, "mourning for the loss of Osiris". Does not this coincide with the "weeping for Tammuz "routine? Nimrod, the Babylonian version of the Sun god (Osiris is merely the Egyptian version of the same). Nimrod supposedly died and went on up into the Sun, to thereafter send rays of blessing back down upon the people of Babylon who worshipped him. And supposedly, Nimrod and Semiramis had a son by the name of Tammuz, who was a reincarnation of Nimrod, the Sun god. Tammuz was killed because he was trying to promote the idea of Sun Worship to a certain King. This is why, in the Mystery Religion Ceremonies, which the Masons imitate- they "mourned for Tammuz" or mourned for Nimrod -whom Tammuz was a reincarnation of. And you see- the whole idea is that Tammuz was the "coming back" of Nimrod, which was proof to them of, guess what? of Immortality of the Soul! This was their guarantee that they too could be immortal "gods".

This is why, during the Mason's Royal Arch "mystery", they all weep and mourn for the seeming loss of Osiris (Nimrod) the god. But then, according to Author Charles Heckethorn, the Sun begins to gain its meridian height and shines on the gold plate. This is symbolic, of course, of when Nimrod, after he died and went up to the Sun, seemed to go down into the ocean at night and "die" again. But then in the morning, the Sun would rise up again, as a guarantee that the Sun God was still alive, which was a guarantee of immortality of the Soul. During this Royal Arch Mystery- the Sun would shine on the plate and show the initiates that the "Lost word" or Osiris, or Nimrod, the Sun god was still around. They had found it! The lost word: JAH - BUL - ON is merely 3 different ways to say the name of their Sun god!

- ReligiousCounterfeits.org

Grand Illusion - FED

GRAND ILLUSION – THE FEDERAL RESERVE
by James Quinn
   

The average American does not know much about the Federal Reserve. The government and the Federal Reserve prefer to operate in the shadows. If the American public understood what their policies have done to their lives, they would be rioting in the streets. Most Americans believe that the Federal Reserve is part of the government. They are wrong. It is a privately held corporation owned by stockholders. The Federal Reserve System is owned by the largest banks in the United States. There are Class A,B, and C shareholders. The owner banks and their shares in the Federal Reserve are a secret. Why is this a secret? It is likely that the biggest banks in the country are the major shareholders. Does this explain why Citicorp, Bank of America and JP Morgan, despite being insolvent, are being propped up by Ben Bernanke and Timothy Geithner?

The history of National Banks in the United States has been controversial since the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution of the United States unequivocally states that only Congress has the authority to coin money, not an independent bank owned by unknown bankers.

The Congress shall have Power to coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures (Article 1, Section 8 – US Constitution)

Our most recent horrifying experience with an all powerful central bank has led to the current worldwide financial crisis. In less than one century the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States has destroyed our currency and has allowed bankers to gain unwarranted power over the country. They had the ability and opportunity to bring down the worldwide financial system. When the average American is told that the dollar has lost 95 percent of its purchasing power since the inception of the Federal Reserve in 1913, they look at you with a blank stare and start wondering whether American Idol is on TV tonight. The systematic inflation purposely created by the Federal Reserve silently robs the average American of their standard of living. The government began keeping official track of inflation in 1913, the year the Federal Reserve was created. The consumer price index (CPI) on January 1, 1914 was 10.0. The CPI on January 1, 2009 was 211.1. This means that a man’s suit that cost $10 in 1913 would cost $211 today, a 2,111 percent increase in 96 years. This is a 95 percent loss in purchasing power of the dollar.

In the years following the creation of the Federal Reserve, inflation ran at double digit rates to finance Woodrow Wilson’s foreign intervention into World War I. The other notable period was in the years following President Nixon’s closing of the gold window in 1971. This led to rampant inflation that wasn’t tamed until the early 1980’s by Paul Volcker, the only independent courageous Federal Reserve Chairman in its history. The figures so far in the twenty-first Century seem modest. This is due partly to the methodical downward manipulation of the calculation by government bureaucrats. The period from 2010 to 2020 will show a dramatic jump caused by all of the money printing and reckless spending that is occurring today.

The average American might just conclude that prices always go up, so what’s the big deal about inflation. This is where the Federal Reserve and politicians have pulled the wool over your eyes. The CPI was 30.9 in 1964. Today, it is 211.1. This means that prices have risen 683 percent since 1964. The only problem is that your wages have not risen at the same rate, even using the government manipulated CPI. Using a true CPI figure, average weekly earnings are 64 percent below what they were in 1964. This explains why a family of five could live well with one parent working in 1964, but even with both parents working and using debt in prodigious amounts, the average family does not live as well today.

The dates February 3, 1913 and December 24, 1913 framed a year which placed our country on a downward fiscal spiral. The United States had tinkered with an income tax during the Civil War and the 1890’s, but the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. Until 1913, the U.S. government was restrained from overspending because it was completely reliant on tariffs and duties to generate revenue.

The Sixteenth Amendment changed the game forever. “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

When you give a Congressman a dollar, he’ll take a hundred billion. The initial tax rates of 1 percent to 7 percent were rather modest. That did not last long. The top tax rate reached 92 percent during the 1950s and today rates are still 500 percent to 1,000 percent higher than they were in 1913. The government is addicted to tax revenue. In 2007, they absconded $1.2 trillion in taxes from American individuals. Does anyone think that the bloated government bureaucracy spent these funds more efficiently or for a more beneficial purpose than its citizens could have? Without $1.2 trillion in individual tax revenue, Congressmen would not be able to add 9,200 earmarks to the current $400 billion Federal spending bill every year.


According to the Federal Reserve’s own website, their duties fall into four general areas:

1. Conducting the nation's monetary policy by influencing the monetary and credit conditions in the economy in pursuit of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates
2. Supervising and regulating banking institutions to ensure the safety and soundness of the nation's banking and financial system and to protect the credit rights of consumers
3. Maintaining the stability of the financial system and containing systemic risk that may arise in financial markets
4. Providing financial services to depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign official institutions, including playing a major role in operating the nation's payments system

The American public was told that the Federal Reserve would eliminate any future bank panics. From 1913 through 1920, inflation increased at more than 10 percent per year as Wilson spent vast sums during World War I and its aftermath. From the early 1920s to 1929, the monetary supply expanded at a rapid pace and the nation experienced tremendous economic growth. By the end of the 1920s, speculation and loose money had propelled asset and equity prices to unsustainable levels. The stock market crashed in 1929, and as the banks struggled with liquidity problems, the Federal Reserve cut the money supply. This was the greatest financial panic and economic collapse in American history so far - and it never could have happened without the Fed's intervention. The Fed caused the bubble with loose monetary policy. The Depression did not become Great until the Smoot Hawley Act in 1930 destroyed world trade and the raising of the top income tax rates from 25 percent to 63 percent in 1932 destroyed the incentive to earn money. Over 9,000 banks failed and a few of the old robber barons' banks managed to swoop in and grab up thousands of competitors for pennies on the dollar.

The Federal Reserve’s primary mandates were maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long-term interest rates. Their other chief function was to supervise and regulate banks to ensure the banking system is safe. Let us assess their success regarding their mandates:

• Unemployment reached 25 percent during the Great Depression; attained levels above 10 percent in 1982; and will breach 10 percent in the next year (Grade: Failure).
• Since the Federal Reserve’s inception, the dollar has lost 95 percent of its purchasing power (Grade: Failure).
• Interest rates have been anything but moderate since the inception of the Federal Reserve. They have consistently caused booms and busts by setting rates too low or too high (Grade: Failure).
• The Federal Reserve was supposed to supervise the activities of banks. Instead, under Alan Greenspan, they stepped aside and let banks take preposterous risks while giving an unspoken assurance that the Fed would clean up any messes that they caused. This total dereliction of duty gross negligence has led the greatest financial collapse in history (Grade: Failure).

Anyone who is not mad as hell at this point is not paying attention. Your tax-and-spend political leaders and your banker-controlled Federal Reserve have borrowed and spent your tax dollars, your children’s tax dollars, and their children’s tax dollars desperately attempting to prop up this bankrupt system. The unleashing of a never-ending tsunami of printed dollars by the Federal Reserve makes every dollar worth less. They have systematically created inflation that has slowly but surely reduced your standard of living. Politicians in the pocket of lobbyists, corporate interests, and bankers have used their power to tax in order to spend trillions on worthless projects in their districts to insure re-election. The combination of taxing and printing has led to a National Debt of $11 trillion.

Money Creation Glitch - Interest

Excerpt from "HOW MONEY IS CREATED, DISAPPEARS, AND WORKS, AND THE VALUES INVOLVED IN THE PROCESS" by Paul Krumm

While banks are generally credited with the creation of money, it is still the traders who go to the bank to borrow who are making the commitment to place goods or services on the market to repay their debt. So, as mentioned above, traders are still the functional creators of money, rather than the bank. As these traders place their goods and services on the market, and repay their loans, the money they issued (borrowed) is extinguished.

However as also noted above, when the loan is originated, and the money created, an additional debt, or tax is set up as interest on the loan, which must be paid to the bank mediating the money creation process. Interest creation is a functional glitch in the system, one which must be understood. When money is created in the current loan process, money with which to pay the interest is not created. Interest owed is only set up as a debt to the bank. No money is created to pay it with. As a result of this bookkeeping system the principle put into circulation is insufficient to repay the principal and interest owed. So either the trader uses money that someone else borrowed to pay his interest, or he does not pay all the principal and interest.

In the first case, someone else is in a worse position to make their payments. In the second case this trader is drawn into a downward spiral of debt. No matter how hard we try, somebody always has to lose. Because money is not created with which to pay interest, interest can never all be paid. Because traders have to pay out interest, they never have enough money for all their needs. Scarcity of money drives up prices, meaning  money becomes worth less, which we call inflation.

Economic growth masks the inflation issue, by bringing in new wealth to borrow on (monetize), creating more money with which to pay the ever increasing interest tax load. In the current system, the economy must continually grow so that there is sufficient money available to keep the system operating. This system flaw caused by interest creation is the reason why economists commonly see the need for an economics of growth, rather than sustainable, dynamic steady state (homeostatic) economics.

Total outstanding interest and total current interest due and payable increase exponentially over time. In other words, as time goes on, outstanding debt becomes larger and larger with respect to the sum of all exchanges, what we call Gross National Product (GNP) the productive capacity of our nation.  Because the overall interest load grows exponentially, it inevitably grows to be a larger and larger part of GNP. As the interest load becomes a significant portion of GNP, the system breaks down, because an ever larger portion of money is going to pay the growing interest load. A recession or depression is necessary in which some of the debt, and its interest load, is wiped out thru unpayable debts and bankruptcies. Sometimes smaller banks even fail, if too many of their clients are forced into losses and foreclosure.

Bankruptcies and bad debts move control of wealth to those who control assets and the money creation process. In the long term, inevitably all the money becomes concentrated in the hands of a very few people who control the money creation process, and the economy and culture disintegrate. This was one of the major factors that led to the disintegration of the cultures of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome.

Our Federal Government creates money by borrowing from the Federal Reserve Bank. The Federal Reserve Bank is an interesting institution. Its board of governors is appointed by the President, with confirmation by the Senate.  However its stock is owned, and the governors are paid, by the banks. Major decisions are developed by the Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve, with concurrence of the Board of Governors. The Open Market Committee is chosen by the Board of Governors. The Board of Governors consists of bankers and economists who are knowledgeable of and favorable to banking interests, so the Federal Reserve is effectively controlled by the banking industry.

Wealth Gap Widens

Social Inequality In US Hits New Record

Earlier data released by the US Census Bureau established that every section of the population outside of the top 5 percent saw their real income fall between 2000 and 2005.

According to one recent study, while real income for the bottom 90 percent of the population fell by 11 percent between 1973 and 2005, those in the top .01 percent bracket, comprising some 14,000 households with annual incomes averaging nearly $13 million, saw their take increase by 250 percent over the same period.

What emerges from the data are the effects of a long-standing social policy involving a massive transfer of wealth from working people, the great majority of the population, to a handful of the super-wealthy, who have enriched themselves at the expense of the rest of society.

This is not merely an American, but rather a global policy that has been carried out on the backs of the working class of every country. A study released last week by the Boston Consulting Group found that the world's 9.6 million millionaires-comprising just 0.7 percent of the earth's population-now control $33.2 trillion in wealth-roughly a third of all the wealth in the world. According to the study, the world's wealthiest 0.1 percent-those with $5 million or more in financial assets-now owns 17.5 percent of global wealth.

Meanwhile, half of the world's population-some 3 billion people-live on less than $2 a day.

The demagogy of the current crop of Democratic presidential candidates about defending the "middle class" notwithstanding, these policies have been enacted by Democratic and Republican administrations alike. The growth of income inequality in America has continued unbroken since 1973, spurred by the high-interest-rate, recessionary policies enacted by Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker-Democratic President Jimmy Carter's appointee-with the deliberate aim of driving up unemployment, slashing wages and unleashing a big business offensive against the working class.

By Bill Van Auken
16 October 2007

US Economy Stalled - 2011

US Economy Stalled
BBC News

The US government has released its latest set of economic growth figures - which includes a set of revisions going back all the way to 2003. The figures show that the recession - in 2008 and 2009 - was actually much worse than thought.

And on Friday, the Commerce Department said that second-quarter growth was much weaker than first thought, and revised the previous quarter down sharply - from 1.9% to 0.4%. So just what it is holding back the US economy? Deeper recession.

One of the most telling facts of the set of revised figures is the new insight it gives into the extent of the recession. "At the time, we were thinking that the numbers weren't as bad as what we seeing," says Carl Riccadonna, an economist at Deutsche Bank in New York. "Now we know that the recession was deeper than we thought."

While the length of the recession - when the economy was shrinking - stayed the same, the contraction in real terms from the peak to the nadir was 5.1% - one percentage point more than thought. Businesses can't hire until consumers start spending, but people won't spend unless they're sure they have jobs”

Carl Riccadonna Economist, Deutsche Bank Trillions were committed to bailing out the economy at the time - and the US economy is still in a hangover from the heady growth of the mid-2000's.

The anaemic growth in the US economy is simply explained, according to Mr Riccadonna. "It's the weakness in consumer spending," he says. "The numbers are picking up half as well as they normally do in a recovery." Consumer spending accounts for 70% of the US economy. Add to that, in a remarkable change in habits, people are saving more.

The savings rate has gone from zero at the height of the economic boom to about 6% now - which is billions of dollars being diverted from the economy and set aside. With interest rates at record lows in the US, meaning that savers are getting little return, this illustrates how nervous US consumers are now of spending their money. Especially on expensive one-offs, like a new house.

"You have all these longer-term problems, like a particularly poor labour market, very tight lending conditions and the housing market in a double-dip, with [property] prices still falling," says Paul Dales, an economist at Capital Economics.

In the second quarter, for example, personal consumption only rose at an annualised rate of 0.1% from the previous three months. Proof of that is exports have remained strong. Exports rose at an annualised rate of 6% in the second quarter. Last year, they rose 11.3% from 2009. So the weakness is due to Americans themselves. Why? Perhaps because the number of jobless remains stubbornly high.

Economic Reports Indicate U.S. Economy Heading Down
seekingalpha.com

Default notices on U.S. home mortgages rose 33% in July. Retail sales and food services rose only 0.0% -- adjusted for inflation they were negative. The CPI inflation measure for August came in at 0.4%, almost as high as it was in July. Weekly jobless claims rose again this week, coming in at 428,000. All are pointing to an economy in trouble.

The Great Recession began in the housing market after subprime loans started to default in large numbers in 2007. The U.S. economy will continue to have difficulties until all the excesses are ringed out of house prices. Government policy has instead been geared toward stabilizing the market with temporary fixes. The Federal Reserve instituted a number of programs to funnel money into the mortgage markets to protect the banks that had too much exposure to real estate loans and the Obama administration has created programs like HAMP (Home Affordable Mortgage Program) to lower the foreclosure rate. Banks themselves have avoided or delayed foreclosures as long as possible because they don't want the properties on their books. All the government's efforts have certainly slowed down the rate of foreclosures and that may ultimately be all that they accomplish. A 33% increase of foreclosure notices in July indicates a new wave of foreclosures is likely next year.

Meanwhile, U.S. retail sales are declining if you take inflation into account. Retail sales increased strongly with rising home prices in the first years of the 2000s, but after the housing market turned south they have yet to recover. They have been held up by trillion dollar plus annual federal budget deficits, Federal Reserve money printing, and government stimulus programs including the "Cash for Clunkers" gift to the auto industry. Despite all of these efforts, retail sales and food services were up 0.0% in July (the same 0.0% for jobs created in August). The mainstream media reported 0.1%, but this is only the retail sales component of the report. The report is not adjusted for inflation, so even if retail sales rose 10% a year, but inflation was also 10%, there would be no actual growth (although that is not the story you would get from mainstream news sources).

The Companion Bible - EW Bullinger

Please get yourself a copy of the Companion Bible by E. W. Bullinger. His major works include: A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament; Figures of Speech Used in the Bible; Numbers in Scripture; Primary editor of The Companion Bible. If you do not have a copy of this Bible on hand, boy, you are missing out!

Pg 146  (Bullinger was criticised harshly and more louder as the more he wrote and he says...)  God's prophets were men who could never swim with the stream, they were never popular, they could never make popularity their aim,  they could never look on success as their end. And it is the same today with God's spokesmen and witnesses... If any of you do not believe it, try it! Be a faithful witness for God; dare to stand alone with him, and you will soon see that you will have to "suffer persecution"... In a letter written in 1908 Bullinger shared with a friend his manner of dealing with those who opposed him... "I have long said "Lord I am going to delight myself in Thee and in thy Word and Thou must look after all who oppose themselves. I will try and instruct them (in meekness) but Thou canst deal with them as I can not and may not." From that time I have enjoyed great peace. Some opponents He has chastized. Some he has turned into my closest friends and zealous defenders!!

Pg 41 the story was told by a close friend: "At the time of his ordination in 1861, Dr, Bullinger was still a stranger to that vital experience known as  conversion. This took place during his first curacy. There was, among those attending the church, a godly lady who was in the habit of expressing her opinion on the sermons preached.  Feeling interested in knowing what she had said after a week night sermon which he delivered in the absence of the Vicar, he (Bullinger) was surprised to learn that her only comment had been "poor blind young man". These words led subsequently to his conversion, for they set him to thinking, and he went on his knees to ask God to show him if he was indeed blind. Ond of his regrets in after life was that this lady died without ever knowing the result of her words.

His ministry thenceforth bore abundant evidence of his faith in the Gospel as "the power of God unto salvation to evryone that believeth". With this new experience came the profound a0nd abiding reverence for the Word of God which so notibly characterized all his sermons and writings. For him the Book became the Supreme authority. He was often heard to advise his audience not to believe anything simply because he said it, but to search th Bible for themselves." (kind of sounds like what PM has been saying for years).

Pg 78 "Bullinger's opposition to the British and Foreign Bible Society's open policy of accepting versions other than the Authorized Version was often quite forceful. In a reply to a demand from a Mr Knapp, for an apology during a correspondancee later printed in the Portsmouth Times, Bullinger wrote: "If in my zeal and jealousy for that Word I have said anything that may wound Mr. Knapp, I beg him to pardon me.They are the words of a friend. I Prefer to put my confidence in God rather than in noblemen or committeemen, however eminent, but I am not become thier enemy because I tell them the truth."

Pg 80 ( Bullinger was looking at Gen 3:15 where the Vulgate currupted the last part to read "she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel"  Of this he made a comment of what I call Mary worship, he wrote;) "I can produce evidence from pope, archbishop, abbot, and priest, besides a number of Romish books to show that this text thus currupted, is universally referred to the Virgin Mary, and made the ground of transforming to the creature the glory belonging to the Creator. "  (oops I forgot to capitalize the religious titles)

Pg 86-89 (is about Bullingers introduction to C.D. Ginsburg who was commissioned to translate the Bible into Hebrew, later to compose the work on the Massorah (appendix 30 in CB) and the same is who Bullinger references to in The Companion Bible.

Pg 103 (contains Bullingers stand against "scientific theories" so prevalent by the late 1890s and by Bullys thoughts here the same can be said of todays so called scientists. I love this quote)   " Instead of making the Bible agree with science, science must agree with the Bible. If it does not, it is only because it is "science falsly so-called," and not real science. Scientianis the Latin word for knowledge. Whereas very much of what goes by the name of "science" today is not science at all. It is only hypothesis! Read man's books on this so-called science, and you will get tired of the never ending repitition of such words as "hypothesis," "conjecture," "This is the reason that such theories, which are falsely dignified by the same name as science, are constantly changing. We talk  of the "science of Geology," or of "Medical Science"; but read books on geology or medicine, for example, written fifty years ago, (about 1840) and you will find they are now quite "out of date."

But truth cannot change. Truth will never be "out of date." What we know can never alter! This of itself proves that the word science is wrongly used when it is applied only to hypotheses, which are merely invented to explain certain phenomena. It is not for such theories that we are going to give up facts. It is not for conjectures that we are going to abandon truth..."

Pg 129 (Bullinger did a work called "Things to come ". It was a monthly publication that he did, and I quote "From the first issue in July 1894 to his death in 1913, Bullinger continued to leave his imprint on "The things to come." He wrote what he felt to be the truth regardless of the opositions of others, and he never shrank from a fight. The possibility of being misunderstood had long since ceased to worry him. He expressed his feelings in the following answer to one correspondant:

"...it may be well to say that, when writing, it is absolutely impossible to guard against all the various ways in which words can be misunderstood. If we were to attempt to do this we might do nothing else, and never get forward at all." And to another person he wrote: "you ask "whether any important Theologian or writer endorses or agrees with Things to come." We really can not tell you, as it does not matter in the least whether they do or not. The all important question is-Does "Things to come" agree with the Word of God, for there and there only "important writers" "spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

Pg 134 "The Word of God may, in one respect, be compared to the earth. All things necessary to life and substenance may be obtained by scratching the surface of the earth: but there are treasures of beauty and wealth to be obtained by digging deeper into it. So it is with the Bible. "all things necessary to life and godliness" lie upon its surface for the humblest of saint; but, beneath that surface are "great spoils" which are found only by those who seek after them as for "hid treasures."

Pg 140-141 (Bullinger and Ginsburg went into the Vatican library in 1899. on the cieling was paited some scenes of interest Bullinger wrote...) "In the first, that of the council of Nicaea (325ad) no prelate or potentate occupies the chair. The Bishop of Rome and the Emperor Constantine both decline to preside, and the Bible is placed on the chair. In the succeding pictures man becomes more and more insignificant. In the second it is (The Bible) by the side of the chair; and it gets smaller and smaller; until, at the Council of Trent (1545), it nvanishes altogether. This is (though doubtless undesigned) a fitting symbolical representation of the relations between the Church and the Bible! As the one increases in authority, the authority of the other decreases."

On his tombstone has his 3 favorite verses and they are Phill 3:10 "that I may know him and the power of his resurection"  Psalms 119;162 "I rejoice at thy word as one that findeth great spoil"   And  of course we all knew this had to be one ... 2 Timothy 2:15 "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."

- fig tree cafe post

History - New International Version NIV

The New International Version is an English translation of the Christian Bible. Published by Zondervan in the United States and by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK, it has become one of the most popular modern translations in history.

The New International Version project was started after a meeting in 1965 at Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, Illinois, between the Christian Reformed Church, National Association of Evangelicals, and a group of international scholars. The New York Bible Society (now Biblica) was selected to do the translation. The New Testament was released in 1973 and the full Bible in 1978. There are a couple of very rare 1973 editions which are signed by a few of the translating committee members which were released before the other 1973 and 1978 editions. It underwent a minor revision in 1984. A planned 1997 edition was discontinued over inclusive language. A revised edition titled Today's New International Version released a New Testament in March 2002 with the complete Bible was published February 2005.

Keith Danby, president and chief executive officer of Biblica, once known as the International Bible Society, said they erred in presenting past updates, failed to convince people revisions were needed and "underestimated" readers' loyalty to the 1984 NIV. A new revision was released 2011.

The core translation group consisted of fifteen Biblical scholars. The translation took ten years and involved a team of up to 100 scholars from the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The range of those participating included many different denominations such as Anglicans, Assemblies of God, Baptist, Christian Reformed, Lutheran and Presbyterian.

The translation is a balance between word-for-word and thought-for-thought. Recent archaeological and linguistic discoveries helped in understanding traditionally difficult passages to translate. Familiar spellings of traditional translations were generally retained.

According to the Christian Business Association, the New International Version has become the most popular selling English translation of the Bible, having sold more than 215 million copies worldwide.

N. T. Wright has written: "When the New International Version was published in 1980, I was one of those who hailed it with delight. I believed its own claim about itself, that it was determined to translate exactly what was there, and inject no extra paraphrasing or interpretative glosses…. Disillusionment set in over the next two years, as I lectured verse by verse through several of Paul's letters, not least Galatians and Romans. Again and again, with the Greek text in front of me and the NIV beside it, I discovered that the translators had another principle, considerably higher than the stated one: to make sure that Paul should say what the broadly Protestant and evangelical tradition said he said. …[I]f a church only, or mainly, relies on the NIV it will, quite simply, never understand what Paul was talking about."

In 1973, they [International Bible Society] published the New International Version New Testament. Translation costs were nearly double the initial estimate. They sold their New York City building, and board members mortgaged their homes to finance the translation. Despite sacrificial giving from staff, board, and donors, they ran out of funding. In 1975, Zondervan agreed to sponsor the remaining work in return for commercial rights to sell the NIV Bible. NIV royalty income has enabled Biblica to expand its Scripture distribution worldwide and has provided millions of people with free or highly subsidized Scriptures.

- wikipedia

Zondervan went public in 1976, issuing stock on the NASDAQ. Following the success of the NIV Bible, the company began to acquire other businesses. In 1980 religious music publisher John T. Benson Company was purchased, making Zondervan the second largest producer of religious recordings in the United States. In the early 1980s other acquisitions included religious publishers Chosen Books, Francis Asbury Press, and Fleming H. Revell Company, and a specialty bindery, Tapley-Rutter Company.

Zondervan's business, while based on the apparently steady and predictable religious book market, was actually more tenuous than it appeared. In 1979 there were difficulties related to the bookstore chain, resulting in unexpected losses. Though sales and profits more than doubled within the next five years, with annual revenues in 1983 of $93 million, in 1984 accounting irregularities hid losses of several million dollars. These were ultimately attributed to poor inventory control and unanticipated expenses such as unrecoverable publishing advances, but the company's chief financial officer was dismissed and Zondervan was sanctioned by the Securities and Exchange Commission. A lawsuit from a disgruntled New Jersey investor followed, eventually settled out of court for $3.6 million in 1989.

Just before the discovery of its financial problems, Zondervan had chosen James Buick as its chief executive, replacing Pat Zondervan's successor, Peter Kladder, who had been with the company since 1956. Buick, a former executive of Brunswick Corporation, immediately had his hands full. Zondervan posted losses for the next several years following the bookkeeping debacle, and in 1986 a hostile takeover attempt was organized by British financier Christopher Moran. After months of wheeling and dealing, including a visit from Moran to Pat Zondervan and an emergency prayer session held by employees, the company's board reached an agreement with its stockholders to seek a third-party buyer. Not long afterwards, Moran began quietly selling off his shares. The stock price, which had been driven up by the takeover attempt, plummeted when Moran's selloff was discovered. Many investors were angry and when the company was finally sold over a year later for $56.7 million to Harper & Row, other lawsuits were initiated on behalf of investors who felt the board had accepted an unfairly low price. During the course of the takeover attempt, Zondervan had also sold off its Revell and Chosen Books subsidiaries, and had closed a Grand Rapids-based printing operation.

Harper & Row (which soon merged with British religious book company Collins Publishing to become HarperCollins) was owned by News Corporation Ltd., headed by Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch's other interests included the Fox film and television studios and several tabloid news publications. Zondervan employees and the company's chairman emeritus expressed concerns that the publisher's traditional religious, evangelic focus would be changed as part of a more aggressive pursuit of profits, much as they had also worried about Moran's intentions several years earlier.

In January 2005 Zondervan was once again in the news with its TNIV after initiating a $1 million advertising campaign and approaching Rolling Stone magazine with an ad for the "hip" bible. Rolling Stone, long the bastion for free speech and often outrageous content, refused the ad, believing its audience would not appreciate a Bible advertisement. News of the refusal sent shockwaves throughout the magazine's readership and beyond. As Rolling Stone faced angry readers and advertisers, Zondervan benefited from numerous publications clamoring to show their political correctness and carry ads for the TNIV. In the end, Rolling Stone caved and Zondervan had a plethora of media outlets for the controversial TNIV. Other Zondervan hits during the year included a glossy, new edition of the NIV for women that looked more like an issue of Glamour or Vogue, and Rick Warren's still popular The Purpose-Driven Life, which remained on both the Christian and mainstream bestseller lists.

- answers.com

Zondervan Corp., once a respected Christian publishing firm, Grand Rapids, Michigan, became a public company via a big initial public stock offering some 15 years ago. This was about the same time the NIV Bible was published by an outfit in New York called the International Bible Society, which financed the project. They then gave Zondervan Corp. the exclusive rights to the publication of the NIV version of the Bible.

After the initial offering, the stock's price rose moderately but later the price fell sharply and many investors lost money. In 1985, a New Jersey investor filed a lawsuit which said he was induced to buy Zondervan stock because of false statements the company made to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In 1989 it was widely reported in the press: "Zondervan Corp. of Grand Rapids, Michigan, reached a $3.57 million out-of-court settlement with investors who contend they lost money when irregularities were found in the religious publisher's financial records."

By 1988, Zondervan, suffering from declining sales, was in financial trouble as a result of expanding too fast in the early 1980's. In July 1985, the Wall Street Journal reported, "In 1978, the company introduced the New International Version of the Bible, which is the market leader in Bible sales--in the past two years several investors have bought and sold stakes in Zondervan, sparking speculation that the company had found a buyer. In May an investor group had made a $10.50 a share offer, but the two sides couldn't reach an agreement."

Then, aggressive media magnate Rupert Murdoch bought Zondervan for $56.7 million or $13.50 per share. Zondervan's stock jumped $4.25 per share on the announcement. Murdoch, an international world citizen who started in Australia, was building a media empire via his company, News Corp. The following month, the tycoon Murdoch gobbled up the nation's largest circulation magazine, TV Guide, also Seventeen, and Good Food magazines plus the Daily Racing Form on a $3 billion cash binge which was the second largest media deal ever. The seller was Walter Annenberg, 80-year-old Jewish publishing partriarch, who privately owned Triangle Publications whose lucrative national magazine distribution business takes not only their magazines to newsstands but also many others including Reader's Digest."

In recent years Murdoch has built a media empire worldwide with revenues over $10 billion (64 percent in U.S.A., 19 percent in United Kingdom and 17 percent in Australia and the Pacific Basin). Holdings include Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., Fox Broadcasting Co., Fox Television Stations, Inc., Harper-Collins, TV Guide, and FSI (multi-page free standing inserts each week in 390 local Sunday newspapers). Also owned in the United Kingdom are The Times, The Sunday Times, Today, Sun and News of the World. These account for one-third of all national newspapers sold in the U.K. market with the latter two having the largest daily and Sunday circulations respectively in the English-speaking world. Also 50 percent owned is British Sky Broadcasting Ltd., the leading U.K. direct-to-home satellite television broadcasting service. News Corp. is also the largest newspaper publisher in Australia.

This year expansion into Asia commenced with purchase of 66 percent interest in Star Television, the Hong Kong satellite TV company that broadcasts to 38 nations, mostly in the Middle and Far East. Also purchased were Chinese newspapers. Recently News Corp. signed six cable channels that will carry News Corp's programming beginning around mid-1994, enabling the company to reach 25 percent of all U.S.households.

In October 1992, News Corp. sold $850 million notes and bonds plus $313 million common stock (over $1 billion total) with $25.5 million in underwriting fees to the offering syndicate headed by Merril Lynch, including Allen and Co., Citicorp Securities, Donaldson, Lufkin, and J.P. Morgan Securities.

A News Corp.'s division active in the United States is Harper-Collins engaged in the educational texts markets via its Scott, Foresman School Division which publishes educational programs for school grades kindergarten through twelve, and the Harper-Collins College Division which publishes in most major disciplines in the college curriculum from the introductory level through graduate courses. The subsidiary directed at the Christian evangelical market is Zondervan Corp., holder of the valuable exclusive rights to the NIV-Bible. In the U.K., Harper-Collins' religious division publishes the Good News Bible, hymnals, and liturgical works. News Corp., American Depository Receipts (ADR's), listed on the New York Stock Exchange, symbol NWS, had a low this year of $36 per share, a high of $63 and is currently trading around $52. The Co. has long-term debt of $7 billion (about 63 percent of capital) and is ranked by Value Line as "below average" for safety....

- Jay Klopfenstein (The Christian News)