World leaders in ‘secret society Bilderberg meeting’

A person uses a copy of the Daily Mail newspaper to shield their identity from the demonstrators and the media as they arrive at The Grove hotel, which is hosting the annual Bilderberg conference.

AP | Jun 7, 2013

IT’S a busy weekend at the luxury Grove Hotel, favoured haunt of British soccer players and their glitz-loving spouses.

More than 100 of the world’s most powerful people are at the former manor house near London for a secretive annual gathering that has attained legendary status in the eyes of anti-capitalist protesters and conspiracy theorists.

The guest list for the Bilderberg meeting includes Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde and former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. British Prime Minister David Cameron is due to drop by Friday.

The Bilderberg Group was set up in 1954 to support military and economic co-operation between Europe and North America during the Cold War.

Named for the site of its first meeting – the Bilderberg Hotel in Oosterbeek, Holland – the forum for prominent politicians, thinkers and business leaders has been held annually at a series of secluded venues in Europe and North America.

What happens at Bilderberg, stays at Bilderberg. There is no media access and the public is kept away by a large security operation. The group says that “there is no detailed agenda, no resolutions are proposed, no votes are taken, and no policy statements are issued.”

But in a move toward slightly more openness, the group now has a website, which lists attendees and key topics for discussion, including the economy, US foreign policy, “cyber warfare and the proliferation of asymmetric threats” and “major trends in medical research.”

Invitees include British Treasury chief George Osborne, Goldman Sachs chairman Peter Sutherland and Thomas Enders, CEO of aerospace company EADS.

Publication of these details has done little to ease the concerns of protesters, who sense a shadowy global elite at work in the secretive meeting.

“When 130 of the leaders from all across the West get together, and many of these are billionaires, they are people who are immensely wealthy and immensely powerful,” said Michael Meacher, a lawmaker from Britain’s Labour Party.

“And when they all get together, it’s not just to have a chat about the latest problem, it is to concert plans for the future of capitalism in the West. That is on a very different scale.”

Others go even further, putting Bilderberg at the heart of a global web of conspiracy. The protesters in Watford include US talk-radio host and September 11 “truther” Alex Jones, and former professional soccer player David Icke, who believes the world is run by a race of reptiles in human form.

Demonstrators plan to hold a “Bilderberg fringe” festival outside the hotel until the conference ends on Sunday.

A Bilderberg spokesman – reached by email since no phone number is listed – said there is nothing sinister about the gathering.

“We disclose the date, the location, the participants and the key topics of the conference,” Xander Heijnen said. “Many groups of people meet without announcing it publicly at all, without disclosing who is taking part and without giving any key topics.

“The meetings broaden the participants’ range of viewpoints, help them to gain insights and exchange views,” he said. “It seems illogical to argue that a meeting of individuals designed to give and obtain fresh insights, somehow ‘undermines democracy.'”

That message has not swayed protesters like Judd Charlton, a ventriloquist from London who showed up on Thursday to jeer at cars with blacked-out windows entering the hotel compound.

“We are basically here to bring down the parasites who are drug dealers and bank collapsers who seem to want to destroy this world,” he said.

900th anniversary exhibition on the Sovereign Military Order of Malta

gozonews.com | Jun 6, 2013

The Minister for Education, Evarist Bartolo, will on Friday morning, be officially inaugurating the exhibition ‘TUITIO FIDEI ET OBSEQUIUM PAUPERUM – the Sovereign Military Order of Malta 1113-2013,’ that has been mounted by the National Library of Malta, under the auspices of Malta Libraries, to commemorate the 900th anniversary from the foundation of the Order of St John.

The exhibition, which will be opened at 10.00am, will showcase a number of manuscripts taken from the Order’s Archives, some of which date back to just under a thousand years. The exhibition will shed light on the three phases of the Order – the epoch prior to the Knights’ arrival on the Maltese Islands, their time here, and the period after their departure, coming up to the present day. Some items of clothing directly relating to the Order will also form part of the exhibition.

To commemorate this anniversary, the National Library of Malta will also be launching two new publications.

The first of these will be a booklet relating to the Archives of the Order, in both Maltese and English, which will provide information on the Archives from its origin to the present day. It should be noted that the greater part of this Archive is in fact preserved at the National Library.

The other publication, also in Maltese and English, will offer photographs and informational snippets about each of the 28 Grand Masters who ruled Malta between 1530 and 1798. This publication should prove useful to students of Maltese history, providing an introductory guide to these historical figures which will surely serve to whet the appetite for more detailed knowledge about the lives and achievements of our islands’ rulers.

These publications will also be available from the National Library.

The exhibition will be open to the public, free of charge, from Monday to Friday during the National Library’s opening hours, until the 2nd of August.

Hillary Clinton to charge ‘$200,000 a speech’… which is more than her whole YEAR’S salary as Secretary of State

Next gig: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has signed up with a talent agency and is commanding $200,000 per lecture, each of which will only last between one and two hours

Now she has signed up to earn whopping fees on the lecture circuit

Daily Mail | Feb 20, 2013

By Meghan Keneally

Hillary Clinton has wasted no time cashing in on the lecture circuit as it was revealed today that she will be charging $200,000 per speech.

The massive fee means that she will be making more from a two-hour lecture than she did in a year as Secretary of State.

The announcement that Mrs Clinton has hired a top talent agency to represent her as she begins to give paid speeches following her departure from the State Department came earlier this week, but her $200,000 asking price was only reported on Wednesday.

According to Buzzfeed, that puts her in the same league as her husband former President Bill Clinton who is so in-demand that he can command the six-figure fee.

The volume of the sum is made clear when looked at in comparison to her salary for a year as Secretary of State, which was $186,000.

Mrs Clinton is now represented by the Harry Walker Agency which is known for getting famous politicians and newsmakers plum gigs on the lecture circuit.

The venture is her first formal decision about what she is going to do now that she is no longer working, though she is widely considered to be the Democratic front runner should she decide to run for the presidency in 2016.

Her decision to attach her name to his particular New York-based agency comes as little surprise since her husband former President Bill Clinton has long been represented by the group since he left office in 2000.

The move was clearly a lucrative one, as he made $75.6million from 2001 to 2010 from speaking engagements, making $10.7million in just 2010 alone.

President Clinton is not the only big name with the agency, as his former Vice President Al Gore has been booking $175,000 gigs through their connections, and former New York City mayor and Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani regularly brings in $100,000 per event.

Former vice president Dick Cheney, former Senators Olympia Snowe and Joe Lieberman, Obama campaign strategist Jim Messina and former Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan are all represented by The Harry Walker Agency as well.

Her exact asking price has not been reported, but Politico asserts that she ‘will likely do some speeches for no fee for causes she champions, and expects to occasionally donate her fees for charitable purposes’.

While keeping mum about any future presidential plans, Mrs Clinton has said that she plans to write another book, this time about her work as Secretary of State.

Publishing house Simon & Schuster reportedly paid the former first lady an $8million advance on her first book, Living History, which she published in December 2000.

With any and all positions that she decides to take, she will have to weigh the optics of if it would look appropriate for a presidential candidate.

That said, another concern is shoring up a steady income, because it doesn’t come cheap to live like the Clintons and six-figure speaking fees will certainly help.

Though there were early reports that they might buy a house in the Hamptons area of Long Island, it appears now that they will hustle between their current residences in Washington, D.C. and Chappaqua, a quiet town in the suburbs of New York City.

She is also expected to either work with her husband’s Clinton Foundation or start her own, though no decisions about that have been made at this point.

The only thing that Mrs Clinton has publicly confirmed is that she plans to rest after a very taxing four years of traveling to 112 different countries.

As Mrs Clinton remains coy about her political prospects, her potential competitors are being very blatant in their fundraising attempts.

On the Republican side, both New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Florida Senator Marco Rubio have raised significant sums for their campaign war chests in recent weeks.

Mr Christie attended a fundraiser in his honor at Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s California home, and Mr Rubio raised $100,000 by selling water bottles with his name on them, playing on his thirst-quenching gaffe during the State of the Union rebuttal.

Vatican: Pope to enjoy immunity from presecution for his role in child rape scandal coverups

Reuters | Feb 15, 2013

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Benedict’s decision to live in the Vatican after he resigns will provide him with security and privacy. It will also offer legal protection from any attempt to prosecute him in connection with sexual abuse cases around the world, Church sources and legal experts say.

“His continued presence in the Vatican is necessary, otherwise he might be defenseless. He wouldn’t have his immunity, his prerogatives, his security, if he is anywhere else,” said one Vatican official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“It is absolutely necessary” that he stays in the Vatican, said the source, adding that Benedict should have a “dignified existence” in his remaining years.

Vatican sources said officials had three main considerations in deciding that Benedict should live in a convent in the Vatican after he resigns on February 28.

Vatican police, who already know the pope and his habits, will be able to guarantee his privacy and security and not have to entrust it to a foreign police force, which would be necessary if he moved to another country.

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Pope ‘failed to act’ on American priest who molested 200 deaf boys despite letters from bishops pleading with him to act

“I see a big problem if he would go anywhere else. I’m thinking in terms of his personal security, his safety. We don’t have a secret service that can devote huge resources (like they do) to ex-presidents,” the official said.

Another consideration was that if the pope did move permanently to another country, living in seclusion in a monastery in his native Germany, for example, the location might become a place of pilgrimage.

POTENTIAL EXPOSURE

This could be complicated for the Church, particularly in the unlikely event that the next pope makes decisions that may displease conservatives, who could then go to Benedict’s place of residence to pay tribute to him.

“That would be very problematic,” another Vatican official said.

The final key consideration is the pope’s potential exposure to legal claims over the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandals.

In 2010, for example, Benedict was named as a defendant in a law suit alleging that he failed to take action as a cardinal in 1995 when he was allegedly told about a priest who had abused boys at a U.S. school for the deaf decades earlier. The lawyers withdrew the case last year and the Vatican said it was a major victory that proved the pope could not be held liable for the actions of abusive priests.

Benedict is currently not named specifically in any other case. The Vatican does not expect any more but is not ruling out the possibility.

“(If he lived anywhere else) then we might have those crazies who are filing lawsuits, or some magistrate might arrest him like other (former) heads of state have been for alleged acts while he was head of state,” one source said.

Another official said: “While this was not the main consideration, it certainly is a corollary, a natural result.”

After he resigns, Benedict will no longer be the sovereign monarch of the State of Vatican City, which is surrounded by Rome, but will retain Vatican citizenship and residency.

LATERAN PACTS

That would continue to provide him immunity under the provisions of the Lateran Pacts while he is in the Vatican and even if he makes jaunts into Italy as a Vatican citizen.

The 1929 Lateran Pacts between Italy and the Holy See, which established Vatican City as a sovereign state, said Vatican City would be “invariably and in every event considered as neutral and inviolable territory”.

There have been repeated calls for Benedict’s arrest over sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

When Benedict went to Britain in 2010, British author and atheist campaigner Richard Dawkins asked authorities to arrest the pope to face questions over the Church’s child abuse scandal.

Dawkins and the late British-American journalist Christopher Hitchens commissioned lawyers to explore ways of taking legal action against the pope. Their efforts came to nothing because the pope was a head of state and so enjoyed diplomatic immunity.

In 2011, victims of sexual abuse by the clergy asked the International Criminal Court to investigate the pope and three Vatican officials over sexual abuse.

The New York-based rights group Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and another group, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), filed a complaint with the ICC alleging that Vatican officials committed crimes against humanity because they tolerated and enabled sex crimes.

The ICC has not taken up the case but has never said why. It generally does not comment on why it does not take up cases.

NOT LIKE A CEO

The Vatican has consistently said that a pope cannot be held accountable for cases of abuse committed by others because priests are employees of individual dioceses around the world and not direct employees of the Vatican. It says the head of the church cannot be compared to the CEO of a company.

Victims groups have said Benedict, particularly in his previous job at the head of the Vatican’s doctrinal department, turned a blind eye to the overall policies of local Churches, which moved abusers from parish to parish instead of defrocking them and handing them over to authorities.

The Vatican has denied this. The pope has apologized for abuse in the Church, has met with abuse victims on many of his trips, and ordered a major investigation into abuse in Ireland.

But groups representing some of the victims say the Pope will leave office with a stain on his legacy because he was in positions of power in the Vatican for more than three decades, first as a cardinal and then as pope, and should have done more.

The scandals began years before the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope in 2005 but the issue has overshadowed his papacy from the beginning, as more and more cases came to light in dioceses across the world.

As recently as last month, the former archbishop of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahony, was stripped by his successor of all public and administrative duties after a thousands of pages of files detailing abuse in the 1980s were made public.

Mahony, who was archbishop of Los Angeles from 1985 until 2011, has apologized for “mistakes” he made as archbishop, saying he had not been equipped to deal with the problem of sexual misconduct involving children. The pope was not named in that case.

In 2007, the Los Angeles archdiocese, which serves 4 million Catholics, reached a $660 million civil settlement with more than 500 victims of child molestation, the biggest agreement of its kind in the United States.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the pope “gave the fight against sexual abuse a new impulse, ensuring that new rules were put in place to prevent future abuse and to listen to victims. That was a great merit of his papacy and for that we will be grateful”.

See Also:  The Pope Benedict Toxic Corruption Data Dump

Silvio Berlusconi says bribes are a ‘necessary part of business’ and tells critics to ‘stop moralising’

No crime: Silvio Berlusconi, pictured during a political rally in Rome last week, defended the use of bribes in international negotiations saying they are ‘necessary’ when dealing with third world countries and regimes

Berlusconi defending bribes saying they are not criminal but ‘necessary’

The 76-year-old politician called critics ‘absurd’ and ‘masochist’
    
He said without bribes ‘you cannot be an entrepreneur on a global scale’

dailymail.co.uk | Feb 15, 2013

By Sara Malm

Silvio Berlusconi has defended the use of bribes in business saying they are necessary when securing international deals for Italian companies.

The former Italian Prime minister said illegal payments are vital when negotiating with ‘third world countries and regimes’.

Mr Berlusconi made the comments as a response to recent corruption scandals within several state-controlled conglomerates in Italy.

Mr Berlusconi, spoke against the arrest of Giuseppe Orsi, CEO of Finmeccanica defence group, who was taken into custody yesterday accused of paying Indian government officials to secure a helicopter contract.

The 76-year-old politician, who is running for his fourth term as Prime Minister in the country’s elections this month, said bribes are essential in international business, the Financial Times report.

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‘Bribes are a phenomenon that exists and it is useless to deny the existence of these necessary situations when you are negotiating with third world countries and regimes,’ Mr Berlusconi said in an interview with Italian State broadcaster, RAI 3.

‘These are not crimes. We are talking about paying a commission to someone in that country. Why? Because those are the rules in that country.’

The centre-right leader also defended state-controlled energy group Eni, which is alleged to have used bribes to win contracts in Algeria.

Mr Berlusconi even went as far as to suggest that putting a stop to bribery has left Italian companies out of business.

‘No one will negotiate with Eni or Enel or Finmeccanica anymore,’ he said.

‘It’s pure masochism.’

Mr Berlusconi called those who condemn financial incentives in deals outside Western democracies ‘absurd’.

‘If you want to make moralisms like that, you can’t be an entrepreneur on a global scale.’

His comments comes one year after his own bribery case was thrown out of court.

Mr Berlusconi stood accused of handing British lawyer David Mills £380,000 to lie during two 1990s trials to shield Berlusconi and his Fininvest holding company from charges related to the billionaire media mogul’s business dealings.

The Italian general elections will take place 24-25th February where Mr Berlusconi is yet again heading the People of Liberty party and hoping for a centre-right coalition.

His comments were unsurprisingly slammed by opposition politicians, who pointed out that Mr Berlusconi himself is appealing against his October tax fraud conviction while running for Prime Minister.

Just last month an Italian court granted his defense team’s request to postpone a trial for alleged wire tapping until after the elections.

Prosecutors have asked for a one-year jail sentence for Mr Berlusconi for his alleged role in the publication of wiretap transcripts in a newspaper owned by his media empire and three years for his brother Paolo, the publisher of Milan newspaper Il Giornale.

Mr Berlusconi denies all charges.

See also: The Berlusconi Toxic Corruption Data Storage Dump

Super Bowl 2013 Recap: The Illuminati Agenda Continues

vigilantcitizen.com | Feb 5, 2013

The 2013 Super Bowl featured the Sandy Hook chorus, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys, Beyoncé, a whole bunch of advertisements and, oh yeah, a football game. While things were not as overt and in your face as last year’s half time show/celebration of Great Priestess Madonna, there were nevertheless a a lot of Illuminati Agenda-pushing going on. Here’s a recap of the noteworthy elements that occurred in the 2013 Super Bowl, the TV event of the year.

The best word I can use to describe the half-time show is “Beyoncé-ish”. It was like, sooooo Beyoncé. After “singing” (kinda) at the Obama inauguration, Beyoncé was again the star of a major event. No need to say that she’s an industry favorite, a figure-head of the Illuminati music industry. As described in several articles on this site, the symbolism in her work clearly indicates who she is working for. While her half time show was not the big, pharaonic occult display of Madonna’s 2012 show, we still witnessed the mind-control symbolism that is usually part of Beyoncé’s material.

Was Beyoncé’s Super Bowl Show Hand Sign Tied To Illuminati?

The entire show focused on duality and the multiplying of personalites, two concepts that are extremely important in Monarch mind control (read the article Origins and Techniques of Monarch Mind Control if you don’t know what I’m talking about).

The first and most visible cue to the concept of duality and alter-personas is the stage itself which consists of two faces that somewhat look like Beyoncé.

The stage is made up of two faces mirroring each other, an image evoking duality and multiple personalities.

The first part of the show contained a combination of symbols and visual effects that refer to the concepts of duality and multiple personalities.

At the beginning of “Baby Boy”, Beyoncé dances in front of a black and white background (a representation of duality). Through video effects, she then “multiplies herself”.

Here we see one black silhouette (which is Beyoncé, the “core” personality) and two white silhouettes (alters personas?).

The two white silhouettes turn into real human Beyoncé look-a-likes who dance with her for a while. We then see a lot of lights flashing and confusing effects, making us wonder who is the real Beyoncé. The blurring between reality and illusion is a focal point of mind control and is aptly displayed here.

Even the saxophone girl, with her Masonic checkerboard pattern dress, conveys the concept of duality.

Read More

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Former Treasury Secretary Geithner to join Council on Foreign Relations

Reuters/Reuters – Outgoing U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner arrives for the presidential inauguration on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington January 21, 2013. REUTERS/Win McNamee/Pool

Reuters | Feb 6, 2013

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is set to join the Council on Foreign Relations as a distinguished fellow, the New York-based policy think tank said on Wednesday.

Geithner stepped down as President Barack Obama’s treasury secretary on January 25, handing the reins temporarily to his deputy, Neal Wolin. Obama’s pick to succeed Geithner, former White House chief of staff Jack Lew, is awaiting congressional confirmation.

Geithner was the head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank before becoming treasury secretary in 2009. He had previously served at the U.S. Treasury during President Bill Clinton’s administration and had held a senior post at the International Monetary Fund.

“His coming to CFR only strengthens our capacity to produce thoughtful analysis of issues at the intersection of economic, political, and strategic developments,” CFR President Richard Haass said in a statement.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Vicki Allen)

Boys will be boys, says Afghan President Karzai of Prince Harry’s comparing killing to a video game

Prince Harry should be allowed to make mistakes, Afghan President says

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has dismissed Prince Harry’s comparison of war to video games – claiming “young men make mistakes”.

telegraph.co.uk | Feb 4, 2013

By Hayley Dixon

The 28-year-old Army captain gave “candid” descriptions of killing Taliban as he returned from a 20 week tour of Afghanistan, which some politicians in the country described as a propaganda victory for the enemy.

But speaking to ITV News and The Guardian President Karzai, who has a long-standing friendship with Prince Charles, refused to add his voice to the backlash.

The Prince claimed that his prowess on computers had helped him with on the battlefield, and described taking insurgents “out of the game”.

President Karzai, who described The Prince of Wales as “a very fine gentleman”, said of the furore: “Prince Charles is a great representative of Britain and the British ways of life. Prince Harry is a young man, we do give exits to young men when they make mistakes.”

When pushed on the issue he replied: “As I said, he’s a young man, and young men do make mistakes talking, while behaving, all of us have gone through that period, so let’s drop it there.”

His comments came as St James’s Palace announced that Harry is to pay a visit to Lesotho and South Africa at the end of the month for a three-day trip on behalf of his charity Sentebale.

He will spend the first two days privately, visiting Sentebale programmes throughout Lesotho, and on the final day will carry out public engagements in the Maseru district of Lesotho and then attend the Sentebale Gala Dinner in Johannesburg.

The last time the third in line to the throne was in Lesotho was in June 2010 when he took his brother, the Duke of Cambridge, to see Sentebale’s work as part of their first joint overseas trip.

President Karzai, who has not had a holiday in 12 years, is visiting the UK for a trilateral meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron, and Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari.

He used the trip to condemn the recent insider attacks against British and American troops, describing it as “a serious breach of hospitality”.

But he also echoed comments he made four years ago that between the country was safer between 2002 and 2006 than it is now.

He said: “Schools were open in Helmand and life was more secure. But I am not going to blame.”

He said he “appreciated” the sacrifices of the British forces and the contributions they made to the country, adding: “Whatever happened is the past, and now we are looking forward to the future.”

He now wants to move forward in the peace process, to make it something “tangible” for the people who no longer want guns in their communities, and to bring to an end three decades of suffering.

The idea foreign troops would completely pull out of the country was a “Utopian state of mind” but would ultimately fail as the country needs to rebuild itself with the help of the international community, he said.

In ten years time the situation in the country is expected to have improved three fold. President Karzai added: “A good future lies ahead of us but we need to work for it, and work hard for it.”

Who Runs The World? Solid Proof That A Core Group Of Wealthy Elitists Is Pulling The Strings

theeconomiccollapseblog.com | Jan 29, 2013

By Michael

Does a shadowy group ofobscenely wealthy elitists control the world?  Do men and women with enormous amounts of money really run the world from behind the scenes?  The answer might surprise you.  Most of us tend to think of money as a convenient way to conduct transactions, but the truth is that it also represents power and control.  And today we live in a neo-fuedalist system in which the super rich pull all the strings.  When I am talking about the ultra-wealthy, I am not just talking about people that have a few million dollars.  As you will see later in this article, the ultra-wealthy have enough money sitting in offshore banks to buy all of the goods and services produced in the United States during the course of an entire year and still be able to pay off the entire U.S. national debt.  That is an amount of money so large that it is almost incomprehensible.  Under this ne0-feudalist system, all the rest of us are debt slaves, including our own governments.  Just look around – everyone is drowning in debt, and all of that debt is making the ultra-wealthy even wealthier.  But the ultra-wealthy don’t just sit on all of that wealth.  They use some of it to dominate the affairs of the nations.  The ultra-wealthy own virtually every major bank and every major corporation on the planet.  They use a vast network of secret societies, think tanks and charitable organizations to advance their agendas and to keep their members in line.  They control how we view the world through their ownership of the media and their dominance over our education system.  They fund the campaigns of most of our politicians and they exert a tremendous amount of influence over international organizations such as the United Nations, the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO.  When you step back and take a look at the big picture, there is little doubt about who runs the world.  It is just that most people don’t want to admit the truth.

The ultra-wealthy don’t run down and put their money in the local bank like you and I do.  Instead, they tend to stash their assets in places where they won’t be taxed such as the Cayman Islands.  According to a report that was released last summer, the global elite have up to 32 TRILLION dollars stashed in offshore banks around the globe.

U.S. GDP for 2011 was about 15 trillion dollars, and the U.S. national debt is sitting at about 16 trillion dollars, so you could add them both together and you still wouldn’t hit 32 trillion dollars.

And of course that does not even count the money that is stashed in other locations that the study did not account for, and it does not count all of the wealth that the global elite have in hard assets such as real estate, precious metals, art, yachts, etc.

The global elite have really hoarded an incredible amount of wealth in these troubled times.  The following is from an article on the Huffington Post website…

Rich individuals and their families have as much as $32 trillion of hidden financial assets in offshore tax havens, representing up to $280 billion in lost income tax revenues, according to research published on Sunday.

The study estimating the extent of global private financial wealth held in offshore accounts – excluding non-financial assets such as real estate, gold, yachts and racehorses – puts the sum at between $21 and $32 trillion.

The research was carried out for pressure group Tax Justice Network, which campaigns against tax havens, by James Henry, former chief economist at consultants McKinsey & Co.

He used data from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, United Nations and central banks.

But as I mentioned previously, the global elite just don’t have a lot of money.  They also basically own just about every major bank and every major corporation on the entire planet.

According to an outstanding NewScientist article, a study of more than 40,000 transnational corporations conducted by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich discovered that a very small core group of huge banks and giant predator corporations dominate the entire global economic system…

An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

The researchers found that this core group consists of just 147 very tightly knit companies…

When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a “super-entity” of 147 even more tightly knit companies – all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity – that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. “In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network,” says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.

The following are the top 25 banks and corporations at the heart of this “super-entity”.  You will recognize many of the names on the list…

1. Barclays plc
2. Capital Group Companies Inc
3. FMR Corporation
4. AXA
5. State Street Corporation
6. JP Morgan Chase & Co
7. Legal & General Group plc
8. Vanguard Group Inc
9. UBS AG
10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc
11. Wellington Management Co LLP
12. Deutsche Bank AG
13. Franklin Resources Inc
14. Credit Suisse Group
15. Walton Enterprises LLC
16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp
17. Natixis
18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc
19. T Rowe Price Group Inc
20. Legg Mason Inc
21. Morgan Stanley
22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc
23. Northern Trust Corporation
24. Société Générale
25. Bank of America Corporation

The ultra-wealthy elite often hide behind layers and layers of ownership, but the truth is that thanks to interlocking corporate relationships, the elite basically control almost every Fortune 500 corporation.

The amount of power and control that this gives them is hard to describe.

Unfortunately, this same group of people have been running things for a very long time.  For example, New York City Mayor John F. Hylan said the following during a speech all the way back in 1922…

The real menace of our Republic is the invisible government, which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy legs over our cities, states and nation. To depart from mere generalizations, let me say that at the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller-Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as the international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes.

They practically control both parties, write political platforms, make catspaws of party leaders, use the leading men of private organizations, and resort to every device to place in nomination for high public office only such candidates as will be amenable to the dictates of corrupt big business.

These international bankers and Rockefeller-Standard Oil interests control the majority of the newspapers and magazines in this country. They use the columns of these papers to club into submission or drive out of office public officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques which compose the invisible government. It operates under cover of a self-created screen [and] seizes our executive officers, legislative bodies, schools, courts, newspapers and every agency created for the public protection.

These international bankers created the central banks of the world (including the Federal Reserve), and they use those central banks to get the governments of the world ensnared in endless cycles of debt from which there is no escape.  Government debt is a way to “legitimately” take money from all of us, transfer it to the government, and then transfer it into the pockets of the ultra-wealthy.

Today, Barack Obama and almost all members of Congress absolutely refuse to criticize the Fed, but in the past there have been some brave members of Congress that have been willing to take a stand.  For example, the following quote is from a speech that Congressman Louis T. McFadden delivered to the U.S. House of Representatives on June 10, 1932…

Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks. The Federal Reserve Board, a Government board, has cheated the Government of the United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the national debt. The depredations and iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board has cost this country enough money to pay the national debt several times over. This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of the United States, has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through the defects of the law under which it operates, through the maladministration of that law by the Federal Reserve Board, and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it.

Sadly, most Americans still believe that the Federal Reserve is a “federal agency”, but that is simply not correct.  The following comes from factcheck.org…

The stockholders in the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks are the privately owned banks that fall under the Federal Reserve System. These include all national banks (chartered by the federal government) and those state-chartered banks that wish to join and meet certain requirements. About 38 percent of the nation’s more than 8,000 banks are members of the system, and thus own the Fed banks.

According to researchers that have looked into the ownership of the big Wall Street banks that dominate the Fed, the same names keep coming up over and over: the Rockefellers, the Rothschilds, the Warburgs, the Lazards, the Schiffs and the royal families of Europe.

But ultra-wealthy international bankers have not just done this kind of thing in the United States.  Their goal was to create a global financial system that they would dominate and control.  Just check out what Georgetown University history professor Carroll Quigley once wrote…

[T]he powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations.

Sadly, most Americans have never even heard of the Bank for International Settlements, but it is at the very heart of the global financial system.  The following is from Wikipedia…

As an organization of central banks, the BIS seeks to make monetary policy more predictable and transparent among its 58 member central banks. While monetary policy is determined by each sovereign nation, it is subject to central and private banking scrutiny and potentially to speculation that affects foreign exchange rates and especially the fate of export economies. Failures to keep monetary policy in line with reality and make monetary reforms in time, preferably as a simultaneous policy among all 58 member banks and also involving the International Monetary Fund, have historically led to losses in the billions as banks try to maintain a policy using open market methods that have proven to be based on unrealistic assumptions.

The ultra-wealthy have also played a major role in establishing other important international institutions such as the United Nations, the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO.  In fact, the land for the United Nations headquarters in New York City was purchased and donated by John D. Rockefeller.

The international bankers are “internationalists” and they are very proud of that fact.

The elite also dominate the education system in the United States.  Over the years, the Rockefeller Foundation and other elitist organizations have poured massive amounts of money into Ivy League schools.  Today, Ivy League schools are considered to be the standard against which all other colleges and universities in America are measured, and the last four U.S. presidents were educated at Ivy League schools.

The elite also exert a tremendous amount of influence through various secret societies (Skull and Bones, the Freemasons, etc.), through some very powerful think tanks and social clubs (the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group, the Bohemian Grove, Chatham House, etc.), and through a vast network of charities and non-governmental organizations (the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the World Wildlife Fund, etc.).

But for a moment, I want to focus on the power the elite have over the media.  In a previous article, I detailed how just six monolithic corporate giants control most of what we watch, hear and read every single day.  These giant corporations own television networks, cable channels, movie studios, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, music labels and even many of our favorite websites.

Considering the fact that the average American watches 153 hours of television a month, the influence of these six giant corporations should not be underestimated.  The following are just some of the media companies that these corporate giants own…

Time Warner

Home Box Office (HBO)
Time Inc.
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
CW Network (partial ownership)
TMZ
New Line Cinema
Time Warner Cable
Cinemax
Cartoon Network
TBS
TNT
America Online
MapQuest
Moviefone
Castle Rock
Sports Illustrated
Fortune
Marie Claire
People Magazine

Walt Disney

ABC Television Network
Disney Publishing
ESPN Inc.
Disney Channel
SOAPnet
A&E
Lifetime
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Buena Vista Theatrical Productions
Buena Vista Records
Disney Records
Hollywood Records
Miramax Films
Touchstone Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Pixar Animation Studios
Buena Vista Games
Hyperion Books

Viacom

Paramount Pictures
Paramount Home Entertainment
Black Entertainment Television (BET)
Comedy Central
Country Music Television (CMT)
Logo
MTV
MTV Canada
MTV2
Nick Magazine
Nick at Nite
Nick Jr.
Nickelodeon
Noggin
Spike TV
The Movie Channel
TV Land
VH1

News Corporation

Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Fox Television Stations
The New York Post
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Beliefnet
Fox Business Network
Fox Kids Europe
Fox News Channel
Fox Sports Net
Fox Television Network
FX
My Network TV
MySpace
News Limited News
Phoenix InfoNews Channel
Phoenix Movies Channel
Sky PerfecTV
Speed Channel
STAR TV India
STAR TV Taiwan
STAR World
Times Higher Education Supplement Magazine
Times Literary Supplement Magazine
Times of London
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
20th Century Fox International
20th Century Fox Studios
20th Century Fox Television
BSkyB
DIRECTV
The Wall Street Journal
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Interactive Media
FOXTEL
HarperCollins Publishers
The National Geographic Channel
National Rugby League
News Interactive
News Outdoor
Radio Veronica
ReganBooks
Sky Italia
Sky Radio Denmark
Sky Radio Germany
Sky Radio Netherlands
STAR
Zondervan

CBS Corporation

CBS News
CBS Sports
CBS Television Network
CNET
Showtime
TV.com
CBS Radio Inc. (130 stations)
CBS Consumer Products
CBS Outdoor
CW Network (50% ownership)
Infinity Broadcasting
Simon & Schuster (Pocket Books, Scribner)
Westwood One Radio Network

NBC Universal

Bravo
CNBC
NBC News
MSNBC
NBC Sports
NBC Television Network
Oxygen
SciFi Magazine
Syfy (Sci Fi Channel)
Telemundo
USA Network
Weather Channel
Focus Features
NBC Universal Television Distribution
NBC Universal Television Studio
Paxson Communications (partial ownership)
Trio
Universal Parks & Resorts
Universal Pictures
Universal Studio Home Video

And of course the elite own most of our politicians as well.  The following is a quote from journalist Lewis Lapham…

“The shaping of the will of Congress and the choosing of the American president has become a privilege reserved to the country’s equestrian classes, a.k.a. the 20% of the population that holds 93% of the wealth, the happy few who run the corporations and the banks, own and operate the news and entertainment media, compose the laws and govern the universities, control the philanthropic foundations, the policy institutes, the casinos, and the sports arenas.”

Have you ever wondered why things never seem to change in Washington D.C. no matter who we vote for?

Well, it is because both parties are owned by the establishment.

It would be nice to think that the American people are in control of who runs things in the U.S., but that is not how it works in the real world.

In the real world, the politician that raises more money wins more than 80 percent of the time in national races.

Our politicians are not stupid – they are going to be very good to the people that can give them the giant piles of money that they need for their campaigns.  And the people that can do that are the ultra-wealthy and the giant corporations that the ultra-wealthy control.

Are you starting to get the picture?

There is a reason why the ultra-wealthy are referred to as “the establishment”.  They have set up a system that greatly benefits them and that allows them to pull the strings.

So who runs the world?

They do.  In fact, they even admit as much.

David Rockefeller wrote the following in his 2003 book entitled “Memoirs”…

“For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure — one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”

There is so much more that could be said about all of this.  In fact, an entire library of books could be written about the power and the influence of the ultra-wealthy international bankers that run the world.

But hopefully this is enough to at least get some conversations started.

So what do you think about all of this?  Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below…

Bill Gates added $7billion to his wealth in 2012 alone (and that’s AFTER he gave away $28million)

Baby you’re a rich man: Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates increased his wealth by $7billion this year, despite giving away $28million

Microsoft founder Bill Gates named by Bloomberg as wealthiest tech billionaire with estimated $62.7billion net worth

dailymail.co.uk | Jan 3, 2013

By Beth Stebner

Despite giving away a staggering $28million dollars in 2012, Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates increased his wealth by $7billion this year.

And with a new net worth around $62.7billion, the 57-year-old Seattle native was named the richest tech billionaire by Bloomberg’s annual Billionaire’s Index.

But Facebook wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg slipped down on the list after losing $5.2billion, and now sits as only the tenth richest billionaire.

Bill Gates interview: I have no use for money. This is God’s work

According to Bloomberg’s Billionaire’s Index, which was published yesterday, Mr Gates earned some of his $7billion this year from a spike in Microsoft stocks, which went up 2 percent this year.

In addition, Business Insider reports that the philanthropist, who has given a sizable endowment to the Bill and Melina Gates Foundation, has capitalized a company called Cascade Investments.

In a report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it was revealed that Mr Gates owns shares in companies like Coca-Cola and tractor company John Deere & Co.

Mr Zuckerberg, however, was one of the few billionaires on the list that suffered a loss.

The 28-year-old Facebook founder lost $5.3billion after his company went public in May, due in part to a botched IPO and over-hype on the stock’s initial worth.

Last week, the California resident also donated nearly $500million in stock to a Silicon Valley charity, his largest donation to date that also breaks the largest single philanthropic donation to education in 2012.

Beneficiary Silicon Valley Community Foundation said they were ‘thrilled’ by the gift aimed at funding health and education issues. The non-profit which works with donors to allocate their gifts.

Despite Mr Gates’ wealth, which appears to be growing at an exponential rate, Mexico’s Carlos Slim still remains the world’s richest man.

According to Bloomberg, the world’s billionaires added a collective $241billion to their net worth’s.
Mr Gates was born in Seattle in 1955. In 1975, he dropped out of Harvard to found Microsoft with a childhood friend.

He received an honorary doctorate from the institution in 2007.