Aftermath News

Entries categorized as ‘Economic Meltdown’

Egypt Calls for Establishing New World Order to Overcome Crises

July 12, 2009 · 1 Comment

Xinhua  | Jul 12, 2009

By Cao Jie 

Egyptian Assistant Foreign Minister Naela Gabr said Saturday that the world society should make joint efforts to set up a new world order to deal with various crises.

Gabr made the appeal when addressing the senior officials’ meeting of the 15th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit, which opened Saturday in Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

The current world situation is quite different from 48 years ago when the NAM was founded, with increasing population, outbreaks of epidemic and deteriorating environment, she said.

The world society should reconsider the international financial system and be more democratic in decision-making so as to avoid the global financial crisis which has hampered the economic growth of developing countries, Gabr said.

She also called for restructuring of international mechanism in health and agriculture in an effort to help overcome the crises in the two areas, referring to global spread of A/H1N1 flu and rising food prices.

Senior officials from over 140 countries gathered here to work out basic documents for the coming NAM summit, which will state the movement’s stance in the current international context on major international and regional issues like the global financial crisis, the Middle East peace process, and the Iranian nuclear issue.

The NAM has played a significant role in protecting rights and interests of its member states, and Egypt, as it will be the rotating chair of the group of pan-developing countries, will endeavor to strengthen its role in the world arena, she added.

Formally founded in September 1961, NAM groups 118 member states, which represents nearly two-thirds of the United Nations’ members, particularly developing countries. It also comprises 55 percent of the world population.

Categories: Economic Meltdown · Global Government · New World Order · Order Out Of Chaos

A Pope’s new world order: Pope Benedict XVI proposes stunningly radical approach to global economy

July 10, 2009 · 1 Comment

pope2

There’s no doubt that in urging the creation of something akin to a world government, he has established a landmark for his papacy and for Catholicism.

NY Daily News | Jul 8, 2009

Pope Benedict’s encyclical on economic justice, delivered amid the global financial meltdown, is an extraordinary document, both in its tough challenges and in the remarkably radical solutions it prescribes.

The pontiff focuses on moral dimensions of markets, globalization, consumerism, environmental protection, the role of technology, workers’ rights and more. To call the document sweeping is an understatement.

Individually, many of Benedict’s teachings are profound ethical and social statements. A few examples:

- “Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.”

- “… there is no doubt that foreign workers, despite any difficulties concerning integration, make a significant contribution to the economic development of the host country.”

- “What is meant by the word ‘decency’ in regard to work? It means work that expresses the essential dignity of every man and woman in the context of their particular society: work that is freely chosen, effectively associating workers, both men and women, with the development of their community; work that enables the worker to be respected and free from any form of discrimination; work that makes it possible for families to meet their needs and provide schooling for their children. …”

- “Financiers must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity, so as not to abuse the sophisticated instruments which can serve to betray the interests of savers.”

Cumulatively, Benedict’s diagnoses of global economic ills lead to a call for nothing short of “a profoundly new way of understanding human enterprise.”

He would move toward markets geared to “redistribute” wealth from advanced to poorer countries and sees “urgent need of a true world political authority” to, among other tasks, “manage the global economy.”

As we said, Benedict’s encyclical, titled “Charity in Truth,” is stunningly radical, notably in its prescriptions for the temporal order. There’s no doubt that in urging the creation of something akin to a world government, he has established a landmark for his papacy and for Catholicism.

Categories: Christianity · Economic Meltdown · Financial Scandals · Global Government · Globalization · New World Order · Religion · Social Engineering · Socialism · Vatican

Pope calls for a New World Order, with teeth

July 8, 2009 · Leave a Comment

VATICAN-POPE-AUDIENCE

Pope Benedict XVI arrives for his weekly general audience on July 8, 2009 at Paul VI hall at The Vatican. The pontiff called the day before and on the eve of a G8 summit in L’Aquila, for a new world body “with real teeth” to restore the global economy and prevent further disparities in a letter to Roman Catholics worldwide. Getty Images

POPE Benedict XVI has proposed a new world political authority “with real teeth”

Sydney Morning Herald | Jul 9, 2009

by Barney Zwartz

POPE Benedict XVI has proposed a new world political authority “with real teeth”, possibly in place of the United Nations, to enforce an ethical financial order and end the global financial crisis.

Calling for more aid, a bigger role for trade unions and an economic system aimed at the common good as well as profit, the Pope said only a moral market could end the crisis and solve world poverty.

The proposals were in his long-awaited encyclical – the second-highest level of papal teaching – released in Rome yesterday morning Australian time, before the G8 leaders gathered in Italy to discuss the global crisis.

The conviction that the economy must be autonomous and shielded from moral influences had led humanity to abuse the economic process in a destructive way, the Pope said in the encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Love in Truth).

Such convictions had led to economic, social and political systems that “trample upon personal and social freedom” and could not deliver justice.

His suggested political authority would manage globalisation, revive economies, stop the crisis deepening, protect the environment and regulate worldwide migration. It would need to be universally recognised and given power to ensure compliance from all countries.

“In terms of secular politics, there’s something for both left and right to cheer, and something for them to be grumpy about,” said the respected Vatican commentator John Allen, observing that in 30,000 words the Pope never mentioned the word “capitalism”.

He said liberals would applaud the Pope’s call for robust government intervention and support for unions, while conservatives would appreciate his unyielding opposition to abortion, birth control and gay marriage, on economic as well as moral grounds.

The Pope, 82, in his third encyclical, wrote that when profit became the exclusive goal, without the common good as its ultimate end, it risked destroying wealth and creating poverty.

The world’s wealth was growing but so was inequality. Aid to developing countries also provided economic benefits to donors, he said.

The Pope said the Church did not have technical solutions, but he offered a large number of specific policy suggestions.

One was that people should be allowed to decide how to allocate a portion of their taxes that would help welfare and aid. Another was that trade unions should also work for non-members, particularly workers in developing countries.

“As society becomes ever more globalised, it makes us neighbours but does not make us brothers,” he said.

Categories: Christianity · Economic Meltdown · Global Government · New World Order · Religion · Vatican

Brazilian President: Global financial crisis creates opportunity to form a “New World Order”

July 8, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Time for ‘new world order’: Brazilian President

AFP | Jun 17, 2009

ASTANA (AFP) — The global financial crisis has reduced the differences between nations and created the opportunity to form a new world order, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Wednesday.

Speaking after a meeting with Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev in the Kazakh capital Astana, Lula called on the global community to seize on the crisis to create a fairer world for developing nations.

“I want to say that before the crisis, there were many countries which had greater significance than others, and some countries which had no significance at all,” he said through a translator.

“After the crisis, everyone has become similar. We have the possibility to create a new world order and together we should improve our relations.”

Lula arrived in Kazakhstan Wednesday following the first-ever summit between fellow developing economic powerhouses Russia, India and China — together with Brazil dubbed the BRIC nations — in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.

Nazarbayev, head of Central Asia’s largest economy, is keen to secure a larger role for his government in world affairs.

Following up on Lula’s call, the pair said in a statement following their meeting that the United Nations should open up the UN Security Council to developing nations in an effort to bolster global security.

They said that opening the organisation, which only has five permanent members, to wider membership was the only way to make the often-criticised body “more legitimate and effective.”

Categories: Economic Meltdown · Financial Scandals · Global Government · New World Order

Pope Signs New Globalization Encyclical

July 5, 2009 · Leave a Comment

VATICAN-POPE-AUDIENCE

Pope Benedict XVI waves as he leaves after his weekly general audience on July 1, 2009 at St Peter’s square at The Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI will release a social encyclical on July 7, “Caritas in Veritae” (Charity in thruth). VATICAN CITY, Jul. 4, 2009

Pope Signs New Globalization Encyclical; Tells New Archbishops To Protect Their Flocks

He has said the downturn shows the need to rethink the whole global financial system.

CBS | Jul 4, 2009

(AP)  Pope Benedict XVI signed his latest encyclical Monday, a text on ways to make globalization more attentive to meeting the needs of the poor amid the worldwide financial crisis.

The document, entitled “Charity in Truth,” is expected to be published soon.

The pope has said his third encyclical will outline the goals and values that the faithful must defend to ensure solidarity among all peoples.

Benedict has frequently spoken out on the financial crisis, urging leaders to ensure the world’s poor don’t end up bearing the brunt of the downturn even though they are not responsible for it. He has said the downturn shows the need to rethink the whole global financial system.

The pontiff announced he had signed the document Monday, a major Catholic feast day, after celebrating a Mass during which he told new archbishops they must be models for the faithful, guiding them and protecting them as shepherds care for their flock.

Thirty-four new archbishops, including the new archbishop of New York, Monsignor Timothy Dolan, received the pallium, a band of white wool decorated with black crosses that is a sign of pastoral authority and a symbol of the archbishops’ bond with the pope.

Benedict said the archbishops should be like Christ “who as a good shepherd carried on his back humanity – the lost sheep – to bring them home.”

Benedict has been working on “Caritas in veritate,” as the encyclical is known in Latin, since 2007 but held back on issuing it so that he could update it to reflect the global economic crisis.

An encyclical is the most authoritative document a pope can issue. Benedict has written two in his four years as pope: “God is Love” in 2006 and “Saved by Hope” in 2007.

Categories: Christianity · Economic Meltdown · Financial Scandals · Global Government · Globalization · Religion · Theocracy · Vatican

‘Redneck’ town in Montana volunteers to be the new Guantanamo in bid to boost economy

June 1, 2009 · 1 Comment

PD*29162577

Hardin: The entrance to the Two Rivers Detention Center in Hardin, Montana  Photo: AP

A Wild West cattle town is desperate to boost its ailing economy by offering its jail as a new home for the inmates of Guantanamo Bay.

Telegraph | Jun 1, 2009

By Toby Harndenin Hardin, Montana

Senators and congressman from across America have insisted that their states will not accept terrorist suspects in the homeland, but the folk of Hardin, Montana (population: 3,384) are made of sterner stuff. Greg Smith, Hardin’s economic development director, volunteered its state-of-the-art prison to the federal government.

“This is a dying town,” he said. “Businesses here are struggling like there’s no tomorrow. But here is a solution that would help us, help the United States and help the world. It’s a long shot but we have to try.”

The town stands on the edge of the Crow Indian Reservation a few dusty miles from the Little Bighorn Battlefield, where Lt Col George Custer made his last stand in 1876.

It has lost most of its shops. Even its dollar store is about to close.

The prison has stood empty since it was built two years ago and is in danger of becoming a white elephant because of a bitter dispute with the Montana government, which claims it is not needed. It was designed to bring up to 150 jobs to Hardin, cost $27 million (£16.7 million) and can hold 464 inmates.

The town council voted unanimously to offer to house the inmates that Donald Rumsfeld, then Pentagon chief, famously called the “worst of the worst”, and sent a letter to the White House setting out its case.

Mr Smith said it was important not to fear terrorists. “We can’t cower to the terrorists. If the whole world’s afraid of them, haven’t they won? To me, it would be a bigger concern if it were axe murderers or rapists. The guys at Guantanamo are mainly planners. They’re not going to strap bombs to themselves – they get other people to do that jihad stuff.”

The proposal has provoked a lively debate among locals. Leo Harman, 74, has his doubts: “If a bad dude gets out, the first thing he’s going to do is look for somebody and find himself a gun.” But his brother Gerald, 68, believes locals could deal with that. “We should put up a sign: ‘If you escape, Montana rednecks are going to hang you from a tree’.”

The response from Montana’s politicians has been a resounding “No”. “We’re not going to bring al-Qaeda to Big Sky Country,” thundered Senator Max Baucus. “No way. Not on my watch.”

Categories: Bizarre · Economic Meltdown · Police State Dictatorship · Social Engineering

Secret Bilderberg Agenda to Restructure Global Political Economy

May 29, 2009 · 5 Comments

Bilderberg Plan For Remaking the Global Political Economy 2009

Market Oracle | May 26, 2009

By Global Research

Best Financial Markets Analysis ArticleAndrew G. Marshall writes: From May 14-17, the global elite met in secret in Greece for the yearly Bilderberg conference, amid scattered and limited global media attention. Roughly 130 of the world’s most powerful individuals came together to discuss the pressing issues of today, and to chart a course for the next year. The main topic of discussion at this years meeting was the global financial crisis, which is no surprise, considering the list of conference attendees includes many of the primary architects of the crisis, as well as those poised to “solve” it.

The Agenda: The Restructuring of the Global Political Economy

Before the meeting began, Bilderberg investigative journalist Daniel Estulin reported on the main item of the agenda, which was leaked to him by his sources inside. Though such reports cannot be verified, his sources, along with those of veteran Bilderberg tracker, Jim Tucker, have proven to be shockingly accurate in the past. Apparently, the main topic of discussion at this years meeting was to address the economic crisis, in terms of undertaking, “Either a prolonged, agonizing depression that dooms the world to decades of stagnation, decline and poverty … or an intense-but-shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with less sovereignty but more efficiency.” Other items on the agenda included a plan to “continue to deceive millions of savers and investors who believe the hype about the supposed up-turn in the economy. They are about to be set up for massive losses and searing financial pain in the months ahead,” and “There will be a final push for the enactment of Lisbon Treaty, pending on Irish voting YES on the treaty in Sept or October,”[1] which would give the European Union massive powers over its member nations, essentially making it a supranational regional government, with each country relegated to more of a provincial status.

Shortly after the meetings began, Bilderberg tracker Jim Tucker reported that his inside sources revealed that the group has on its agenda, “the plan for a global department of health, a global treasury and a shortened depression rather than a longer economic downturn.” Tucker reported that Swedish Foreign Minister and former Prime Minister, Carl Bildt, “Made a speech advocating turning the World Health Organization into a world department of health, advocating turning the IMF into a world department of treasury, both of course under the auspices of the United Nations.” Further, Tucker reported that, “Treasury Secretary Geithner and Carl Bildt touted a shorter recession not a 10-year recession … partly because a 10 year recession would damage Bilderberg industrialists themselves, as much as they want to have a global department of labor and a global department of treasury, they still like making money and such a long recession would cost them big bucks industrially because nobody is buying their toys…..the tilt is towards keeping it short.”[2]

After the meetings finished, Daniel Estulin reported that, “One of Bilderberg’s primary concerns according to Estulin is the danger that their zeal to reshape the world by engineering chaos in order to implement their long term agenda could cause the situation to spiral out of control and eventually lead to a scenario where Bilderberg and the global elite in general are overwhelmed by events and end up losing their control over the planet.”[3]

On May 21, the Macedonian International News Agency reported that, “A new Kremlin report on the shadowy Bilderberg Group, who this past week held their annual meeting in Greece, states that the West’s financial, political and corporate elite emerged from their conclave after coming to an agreement that in order to continue their drive towards a New World Order dominated by the Western Powers, the US Dollar has to be ‘totally’ destroyed.” Further, the same Kremlin report apparently stated that, “most of the West’s wealthiest elite convened at an unprecedented secret meeting in New York called for and led by” David Rockefeller, “to plot the demise of the US Dollar.”[4]

The Secret Meeting of Billionaires

The meeting being referred to was a secret meeting where, “A dozen of the richest people in the world met for an unprecedented private gathering at the invitation of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to talk about giving away money,” held at Rockefeller University, and included notable philanthropists such as Gates, Buffett, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, Eli Broad, Oprah Winfrey, David Rockefeller Sr. and Ted Turner. One attendee stated that, “It wasn’t secret,” but that, “It was meant to be a gathering among friends and colleagues. It was something folks have been discussing for a long time. Bill and Warren hoped to do this occasionally. They sent out an invite and people came.” Chronicle of Philanthropy editor Stacy Palmer said, “Given how serious these economic times are, I don’t think it’s surprising these philanthropists came together,” and that, “They don’t typically get together and ask each other for advice.” The three hosts of the meeting were Buffet, Gates and David Rockefeller.[5] [See: Appendix 2: Bilderberg Connections to the Billionaire’s Meeting].

Bilderberg founding member David Rockefeller, Honourary Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, Honourary Chairman and Founder of the Trilateral Commission, Chairman of the Council of the Americas and the Americas Society, former Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan.

At the meeting, “participants steadfastly refused to reveal the content of the discussion. Some cited an agreement to keep the meeting confidential. Spokesmen for Mr. Buffett, Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Gates, Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. Soros and Ms. Winfrey and others dutifully declined comment, though some confirmed attendance.”[6] Reports indicate that, “They discussed how to address the global slump and expand their charitable activities in the downturn.”[7]

The UK newspaper The Times reported that these “leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population,” and that they “discussed joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change.” Interestingly, “The informal afternoon session was so discreet that some of the billionaires’ aides were told they were at ‘security briefings’.” Further, “The billionaires were each given 15 minutes to present their favourite cause. Over dinner they discussed how they might settle on an ‘umbrella cause’ that could harness their interests,” and what was decided upon was that, “they agreed that overpopulation was a priority.” Ultimately, “a consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat,” and that, “They need to be independent of government agencies, which are unable to head off the disaster we all see looming.” One guest at the meeting said that, “They wanted to speak rich to rich without worrying anything they said would end up in the newspapers, painting them as an alternative world government.”[8]

The Leaked Report

Bilderberg investigative reporter Daniel Estulin reportedly received from his inside sources a 73-page Bilderberg Group meeting wrap-up for participants, which revealed that there were some serious disagreements among the participants. “The hardliners are for dramatic decline and a severe, short-term depression, but there are those who think that things have gone too far and that the fallout from the global economic cataclysm cannot be accurately calculated if Henry Kissinger’s model is chosen. Among them is Richard Holbrooke. What is unknown at this point: if Holbrooke’s point of view is, in fact, Obama’s.” The consensus view was that the recession would get worse, and that recovery would be “relatively slow and protracted,” and to look for these terms in the press over the next weeks and months.

Estulin reported, “that some leading European bankers faced with the specter of their own financial mortality are extremely concerned, calling this high wire act “unsustainable,” and saying that US budget and trade deficits could result in the demise of the dollar.” One Bilderberger said that, “the banks themselves don’t know the answer to when (the bottom will be hit).” Everyone appeared to agree, “that the level of capital needed for the American banks may be considerably higher than the US government suggested through their recent stress tests.” Further, “someone from the IMF pointed out that its own study on historical recessions suggests that the US is only a third of the way through this current one; therefore economies expecting to recover with resurgence in demand from the US will have a long wait.” One attendee stated that, “Equity losses in 2008 were worse than those of 1929,” and that, “The next phase of the economic decline will also be worse than the ’30s, mostly because the US economy carries about $20 trillion of excess debt. Until that debt is eliminated, the idea of a healthy boom is a mirage.”[9]

According to Jim Tucker, Bilderberg is working on setting up a summit in Israel from June 8-11, where “the world’s leading regulatory experts” can “address the current economic situation in one forum.” In regards to the proposals put forward by Carl Bildt to create a world treasury department and world department of health under the United Nations, the IMF is said to become the World Treasury, while the World Health Organization is to become the world department of health. Bildt also reaffirmed using “climate change” as a key challenge to pursue Bilderberg goals, referring to the economic crisis as a “once-in-a-generation crisis while global warming is a once-in-a-millennium challenge.” Bildt also advocated expanding NAFTA through the Western hemisphere to create an American Union, using the EU as a “model of integration.”

The IMF reportedly sent a report to Bilderberg advocating its rise to becoming the World Treasury Department, and “U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner enthusiastically endorsed the plan for a World Treasury Department, although he received no assurance that he would become its leader.” Geithner further said, “Our hope is that we can work with Europe on a global framework, a global infrastructure which has appropriate global oversight.”[10]

Full Story

Categories: Cover-ups · Economic Meltdown · Financial Scandals · Global Government · Globalization · Illuminati · Order Out Of Chaos · Social Engineering · Thinktanks

Jobless Spaniards sell off their kidneys to transplant tourists

May 10, 2009 · Leave a Comment

London Times | May 10, 2009

By Matthew Campbell

A MACABRE traffic associated with poor countries in Asia and Latin America has sprung up for the first time in western Europe as the credit crunch reduces Spaniards to selling organs to “transplant tourists”.

Spanish “kidney for sale” advertisements have proliferated recently on the internet as people struggle to make ends meet in a country whose 17% unemployment rate is the highest in Europe.

Sergio, a 42-year-old welder and father of four, said he had received an offer of £20,000 from a German couple who needed his kidney for their five-year-old son. If tests showed them to be compatible, an operation would be performed in a “third country” since such transactions are illegal in Europe.

“Apparently, there’s a waiting list of at least five years for a kidney in Germany,” he told a television programme, “but in five years the kid will be dead.”

Just to advertise a human organ for sale is illegal in Spain and other sellers sounded nervous when contacted last week on the telephone by The Sunday Times.

Alberto, an unemployed construction worker in Valencia with two small children, said he was afraid of ending up on the street because he could no longer pay his mortgage.

“The bank is on my back,” he said. “If I could think of some other way of raising the money, believe me, I would.”

His biggest fear was that he might fall into the hands of professional traffickers who might operate on him without paying.

He said the price of £150,000 was negotiable but he wanted at least half of the money up-front before going under the knife. He said he had not yet received any offers.

Spanish medical experts said that prices in Spain were much higher than in countries outside Europe. For instance, a kidney can be acquired in Pakistan or Brazil for £1,000. Transplant tourism has been thriving in many Asian and South American countries for years.

Some buyers might prefer a kidney from Europe in the belief that it is healthier than one from the Third World. However, a doctor in a hospital outside Europe would have to perform the operation, said Rafael Matesanz, director of Spain’s national transplant office.

“In general, transplant tourists prefer a complete package,” he added.

This did not stop Edgar, a 44-year-old mechanic who lost his job in August last year, from placing an advertisement for his kidney on the internet in the hope of paying off debts of £90,000.

Kidney problems affect about 10% of the global adult population and there are 2m new cases of renal failure each year. Sufferers can die within a few weeks unless they receive a kidney transplant or undergo dialysis, an expensive procedure for cleansing the blood.

The World Health Organisation estimates that about 70,000 kidney transplants are performed each year, of which 20% are carried out on the black market in countries including China, Pakistan, Egypt and Colombia.

Facua, a Spanish consumers’ association, has recently reported dozens of internet organ advertisements to the police and an investigation has been opened in Seville into a man who offered a kidney for sale. The practice is likely to grow, however.

“The explanation most often given is economic necessity,” said Ruben Sanchez, a spokesman for the association.

“In a time of economic crisis such as the one we are living through, we think it will be a growing phenomenon.”

Categories: Dehumanization · Economic Meltdown · Social Degeneration

Obama budget allocates $130 billion for 2 wars

May 10, 2009 · Leave a Comment

AP | May 7, 2009

By PAULINE JELINEK

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s proposed defense budget includes $130 billion for the nation’s two wars, a figure that may not be enough.

And his Democratic allies in Congress are threatening to set conditions that must be met before that money is handed out.

Obama sent to Congress on Thursday details of his proposed $664 billion Pentagon spending plan for the budget year starting in October. It includes $534 billion for base defense programs and $130 billion for overseas operations, including the wars he’s ramping down in Iraq and ramping up in Afghanistan.

The budget aims to cover what the Defense Department needs “to fight the wars we are in today and the scenarios we are most likely to face in the years ahead, while at the same time providing a hedge against other risks and contingencies,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in a statement released in Washington as he traveled in Afghanistan.

The $130 billion for overseas missions included $65 billion for Afghanistan and $61 billion for Iraq — the first time spending for the seven-year-old Afghan campaign has surpassed the one in Iraq.

“This request is where you’re going to first see the swing of not only dollars or resources but … capability from the Iraqi theater into the Afghanistan theater,” Navy Vice Adm. Steve Stanley, director of force structure for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference.

A Pentagon summary of the budget request said the war spending proposal “is intended to fund all currently known requirements for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the entire fiscal year.”

But it hedged by also saying the plan is the “administration’s best estimate of needs at this time.”

Although officials hope not to have to go back to Congress for more, “the administration reserves the right to seek additional funds in the event that there are significant changes in the security situation” or in the number of troops needed in either of the wars, it said.

Under pressure from Congress to develop ways to measure progress in Afghanistan, officials have said the administration is readying benchmarks to gauge security, governance and economic development there. The effort comes as lawmakers warn that Congress may try to condition budget approval for the Afghanistan war on whether improvements are being made on a number of fronts.

Lawmakers frustrated with the Bush administration adopted their own set of measures to judge progress in the Iraq war, leading some to suggest that they would do the same for Afghanistan unless the Obama administration acts promptly to set its own.

The benchmarks are expected to measure levels of violence, improvements in the Afghan security forces, counternarcotics efforts, agricultural programs, economic development and services for the Afghan people.

Categories: Economic Meltdown · Obama · Perpetual War · Taxation

Economic casualties pile into tent cities

May 8, 2009 · Leave a Comment

For the economic homeless, the American ideal that education and hard work lead to a comfortable middle-class life has slipped out of reach.

USA TODAY | May 6, 2009

By Emily Bazar

PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Jim Marshall recalls everything about that beautiful fall day.

The temperature was about 70 degrees on Nov. 19, the sky was “totally blue,” and the laughter from a martini bar drifted into the St. Petersburg park where Marshall, 39, sat contemplating his first day of homelessness.

“I was thinking, ‘That was me at one point,’ ” he says of the revelers. “Now I’m thinking, ‘Where am I going to sleep tonight? Where do I eat? Where do I shower?’ “

The unemployed Detroit autoworker moved to Florida last year hoping he’d have better luck finding a job. He didn’t, and he spent three months sleeping on sidewalks before landing in a tent city in Pinellas County, north of St. Petersburg, on Feb. 26.

Marshall is among a growing number of the economic homeless, a term for those newly displaced by layoffs, foreclosures or other financial troubles caused by the recession. They differ from the chronic homeless, the longtime street residents who often suffer from mental illness, drug abuse or alcoholism.

For the economic homeless, the American ideal that education and hard work lead to a comfortable middle-class life has slipped out of reach. They’re packing into motels, parking lots and tent cities, alternately distressed and hopeful, searching for work and praying their fortunes will change.

“My parents always taught me to work hard in school, graduate high school, go to college, get a degree and you’ll do fine. You’ll do better than your parents’ generation,” Marshall says. “I did all those things. … For a while, I did have that good life, but nowadays that’s not the reality.”

Tent cities and shelters from California to Massachusetts report growing demand from the newly homeless. The National Alliance to End Homelessness predicted in January that the recession would force 1.5 million more people into homelessness over the next two years. Already, “tens of thousands” have lost their homes, Alliance President Nan Roman says.

The $1.5 billion in new federal stimulus funds for homelessness prevention will help people pay rent, utility bills, moving costs or security deposits, she says, but it won’t be enough.

“We’re hearing from shelter providers that the shelters are overflowing, filled to capacity,” says Ellen Bassuk, president of the National Center on Family Homelessness. “The number of families on the streets has dramatically increased.”

‘A change in the population’

Pinellas Hope, the tent city run by Catholic Charities here since December 2007, has been largely for the chronically homeless, some of whom suffer from mental illness or struggle with drugs or alcohol.

About 20% of its 240 residents became homeless recently because of the economic downturn, says Frank Murphy, president of Catholic Charities, Diocese of St. Petersburg.

“We’re seeing a change in the population. … We’re seeing a lot more that are just plain losing their jobs and their homes,” says Sheila Lopez, chief operating officer of the charity. “A lot are either job-ready or working but have lost their home because they were laid off, or their apartment, and now can’t go to work because they’re not shaven, they’re not clean, they’re living in a car, or they’re living on the street.”

The charity plans to expand the tent city and build an encampment in a neighboring county, an idea that has drawn objections from nearby homeowners and businesses.

Communities elsewhere are facing similar pressures:

• In Massachusetts, a record number of homeless families need emergency shelter, says Robyn Frost, executive director of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless. In mid-April, there were 2,763 families in shelters, including 655 in motels because the shelters were full, an increase of 36% since July, she says.

“We have a high number of foreclosure properties, and many of them are multifamily apartments,” Frost says. “We were seeing a great number of families being displaced.”

• Reno officials shut down a tent city in October after making more shelter space available, but new encampments are popping up along the Truckee River and elsewhere, says Kelly Marschall of the Reno Area Alliance for the Homeless.

The homeless include “a startling number of first-time homeless,” she says. “We asked them what industries they were involved in. The majority were talking about construction, the housing industry, real estate. There was a direct correlation to the housing market crash.”

• In Santa Barbara, Calif., 84 men and women sleep in their cars, trucks or recreational vehicles in 17 parking lots around the city, says Jason Johnson with the New Beginnings Counseling Center, which runs the RV Safe Parking Program. The city, which allows the use of three municipal lots at night, supports the program, says city parking superintendent Victor Garza. Last May, there were 58 participants and no waiting list. Now 40 people are waiting.

“People’s last refuge has become their vehicle,” Johnson says.

Full Story

Categories: Economic Meltdown