Treasury AIG and Timothy Geithner

Seems like creative accounting, of discounting losses by moving "future profits" forward has rubbed off on the Treasury Department.  Read it here:

Treasury Hid A.I.G. Loss, Report Says

How Did the Banks Get Away With Pledging Mortgages to Multiple Buyers?

via Yves Smith's BLOG Naked Capitalism, by Washington’s Blog:

"I’ve repeatedly documented that mortgages were pledged multiple times to different buyers. See this, this and this."

Rest here, and the answers from "some of the leading experts on mortgage fraud – L. Randall Wray (economics professor), Christopher Whalen (banking expert with Institutional Risk Analytics), and William K. Black (professor of economics and law, and the senior regulator during the S & L crisis)"

Los Alamos Study Group, plaintiff v. US DOE et al, defendent

For those not familiar with the attempt to force NNSA and LANL into complying with NEPA.  the August press release by the plaintiff, the Los Alamos Study Group [LASG], is a good place to start. Then one can go to the LASG home page, and fill in the blanks, the attempt by NNSA/DOE to circumvent the National Environmental Policy Act, by offering a Supplement to the 2003 Environmental Impact Statement. the attempt to squash the suit, the response to the squash, etc. The complaint is here.

Do read what is required under NEPA  Council of Environmental Quality Regulations [CEQ-Regs], especially PART 1502--ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT.   

Sec. 1502.1 Purpose. eg states:

An environmental impact statement is more than a disclosure document. It shall be used by Federal officials in conjunction with other relevant material to plan actions and make decisions. 

Sec. 1502.14 Alternatives including the proposed action.

This section is the heart of the environmental impact statement. Based on the information and analysis presented in the sections on the Affected Environment (Sec. 1502.15) and the Environmental Consequences (Sec. 1502.16), it should present the environmental impacts of the proposal and the alternatives in comparative form, thus sharply defining the issues and providing a clear basis for choice among options by the decisionmaker and the public. In this section agencies shall:
(a) Rigorously explore and objectively evaluate all reasonable alternatives, and for alternatives which were eliminated from detailed study, briefly discuss the reasons for their having been eliminated. (b) Devote substantial treatment to each alternative considered in detail including the proposed action so that reviewers may evaluate their comparative merits.
(c) Include reasonable alternatives not within the jurisdiction of the lead agency.
(d) Include the alternative of no action.

On the State of Department of Defense Account

Winston Wheeler's account of the Pentagon Black Hole at the Huffington Post.
 

Quite literally, the Department of Defense (DOD) does not know what happens to the money the taxpayers give it. This has been true for decades. The money gets spent; it's gone (they're pretty sure), but the prices DOD paid, when -- if ever -- the purchases were delivered, where everything is now, and a lot more are all quite unknown to the Pentagon. This incomprehensible condition has been documented in hundreds of reports over three decades from both the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Department's own Inspector General (DOD IG). The studies are routinely sent to Pentagon managers and Congress. Once or twice a year, there will be a hearing on Capitol Hill; both Republicans and Democrats will declare themselves oh-so shocked; the DOD witnesses will say they are getting close to fixing it; outraged press releases flurry over Washington DC; a few press articles are written, and on very rare occasion, a scapegoat might get fired. Then, everyone goes back to sleep, and nothing happens. 

On the State of Teaching Economics of War and Peace;

Teaching the Economics of War and Peace

from Economists for Peace and Security

At present, even within defense and security institutions, virtually no training opportunities exist in this field, no possibilities for students, security personnel, the NGO community, or other interested parties to receive an informed overview of the economic causes and consequences of defense expenditure, how economic theory helps illuminate, formulate, and evaluate policy options.

Santa Fe Council of International Relations – Responding to a Steve Clemons Challenge

This post was written partially in accepting a challenge by Steve Clemons in his post

where he stated:

Complaining and whining about government and spending and better leadership is easy -- but actually developing sensible, workable policy frameworks and alternatives is hard. But it's what we have to do.

So what I suggest to Larry Wilkerson in his upcoming SFCIR event (and to Richard Rhodes in future book promotion events):

Be clear and honest in terms of describing what attendees can expect by attending.

And to the SFCIR I suggest:

How about hosting an event where the topic of "eliminating nuclear weapons" is actually discussed, by those that see their elimination as a serious alternative? That have actually worked to eliminate, rather than promote, nuclear weapons? An obvious participant would be Greg Mello, of the Los Alamos Study Group, whose group has filed a lawsuit against DOE, NNSA to force compliance with NEPA, and stop construction of the CMRR until an EIS has actually been performed. I would also like to be on that panel. And unlike the last panel’s insistence on a one sided viewpoint, I would even be willing to include one of the SFCIR panelists, Steve Younger. Other nuclear abolitionists in the Santa Fe area might include Scott Kovacs and Joni Arends.

The person [Nicholas Thompson, the grandson of Paul Nitze] who wrote the NYTimes review of Twilight wrote:

Though subtitled “Recent Challenges, New Dangers, and the Prospects for a World Without Nuclear Weapons,” Rhodes’s new book doesn’t really deliver on that last phrase…

and

How do we reduce the number of nuclear states? Will the United States ever commit to unilateral reductions and hope that Russia, and then everyone else, follows? Will weapons eventually have to be handed over to the United Nations? Should the international community centralize authority over all civilian nuclear power, since that is the habitual cover for bomb makers? There are unfortunately few people working on these questions, and the world’s shunning of the topic means that “The Twilight of the Bombs” probably doesn’t actually describe a real twilight.

BTW, Paul Nitze (the Hawk in Nicholas Thompson’s book “The Hawk and the Dove” ) wrote the famous NYTimes OpEd “ A Danger Mostly to Ourselves” where he advocated:

“The fact is, I see no compelling reason why we should not unilaterally get rid of our nuclear weapons. To maintain them is costly and adds nothing to our security.”

Strange that the panel could not find the path to eliminating nuclear weapons that the once super hawk saw so clearly.

But the composition of the panel and Upton Sinclair’s observation- “"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it” – clears that up.

We should have expected an effort to “sell” a vested interest product- the CMRR- to the public and try to counter the LASG lawsuit.

Richard Rhodes and Panel Discuss Elimination of Nuclear Weapons"- NOT

For those following nuclear weapons there was this recent forum, marketed by the Santa Fe Council of International Relations

with the Headline:

"Richard Rhodes and Panel Discuss Elimination of Nuclear Weapons"

which actually turned out to be a marketing effort for "nukes forever", why we can't ever eliminate them, and how we should be thankful for the technical expertise on "our side" protecting us from "them". Lots of talk about how to look for the bogeyman under every bed, and not a clue that what matters and keeps us safe is what is in out hearts, or how to translate that concept into workable operations.

The panel reminded me of the story of a drunk looking for his keys on his lit porch, rather than down the dark driveway,where the keys were dropped, "because he can see better there".

from the LANL site:

Expert panel
The panel, consisting of the author and former Director Browne; Damon Giovanelli, former Lab director of Physics Research; Terry Hawkins, acting director of the Lab's Office of Counterintelligence; and Steve Younger, former director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, will discuss the future of nuclear weapons. The discussion, facilitated by Jay Davis, president of the Hertz Foundation and a National Security Fellow at the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, will address issues, such as:

• the nuclear threat to the U.S.
• vulnerabilities of Western society
• challenges and risks to the U.S. and her allies as the stockpiles declines
• possible international initiatives.
  

Nothing here about "exploring world without nukes" - but then what do you expect from a panel loaded with those making a living from nuclear weapons, and excluding those that think one needs to look and understand what is in one's heart rather than in one's hidden armory? That is clueless that love is an art, and more about developing the capacity to love others, rather than making yourself "lovable" in the romance market. Are they aware that three of the ten editors in my Erich Fromm Book, the World Perspective Series, were giants in the development of the first atomic weapon- Neils Bohr, I.I. Rabi, and J. Robert Openheimer?

Do they tell the public of the nuclear abolitionists among those early scientists? Of Hans Bethe's admonition, the open letter to weapons scientists, written in 1995:

"I call on all scientists in all countries to cease and desist from work creating, developing, improving and manufacturing further nuclear weapons and, for that matter, other weapons of potential mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons."

Do these panelists think themselves smarter that Bethe? Than Joe Rotblat? Than Leo Szilard? I.I. Rabi?

At least LANL was honest whereas the Santa Fe Council of International Relations was not. Or was the Council merely duped?

"America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons." was clearly not on the table

I for one would have liked to have known that this was to be a LANL marketing effort for the CMRR before driving down from Taos and spending $20.00

“There is nothing comparable in our history to the deceit and the lying that took place as official Government policy in order to protect [the nuclear arms] industry.

P. 294 in Dan O’Neill “The Firecracker Boys”.

"More and better bombs. Where will this lead . . . is difficult to see. We keep saying, 'We have no other course'; what we should say is, 'We are not bright enough to see any other course.” -- David Lilienthal, former AEC Chairman

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair

“For as one’s thinking is, such one becomes, and it is because of this thinking that thinking should be purified and transformed, for were it centered upon truth as it is now upon things perceptible to the senses, who would not be liberated from his bondage?”

– Maitri Upanishad 6.34.4.6

"When a pickpocket meets a saint, all he sees are his pockets" --- Sri Ramakrishna