Lest we forget

Banking reality check

 By Helge Nome

There appear to be many misconceptions about banking out there. A gross one is that a 10% reserve requirement means that a bank can lend out ten times more money than it has on deposit from customers. The idea of a 10% reserve is that the bank is required to have that amount of money on hand to satisfy any depositors that might want to withdraw their deposits at any given time. That, in theory, should mean that the bank is authorized to lend out an amount equal to 90% of its deposits, withholding 10% to cover statistically predictable depositor demands with a safe margin in most circumstances, (except for a bank run).

 That's the theory, and that's where it gets sneaky: A bank's consolidated balance sheet will show, as an example (for ATB Financial here in Alberta in 2008) outstanding loans as assets of $19,443,917 thousand ($19 billion) as against deposits (liabilities) of $21,175,716 thousand ($21 billion). This gives one the impression that from $21 billion in deposits an amount of $19 billion has been re-lent to borrowers. However, and this is important, double entry accounting used by the bank to generate its balance sheet records each loan made as both an asset and liability (i.e. deposit).

 So, an average Joe, like me, looking at the balance sheet believes that a bunch of people dropped off $21 billion of their money in the bank so as to earn some interest, and that the bank re-lent $19 billion of those deposits to borrowers at a somewhat higher rate of interest, thus covering its costs and hopefully some profit for the shareholders on top of that. But as we can see, that's all smoke and mirrors.

 In reality, the bank needs to have money-numbers recorded at the central bank to cover any transactions it makes with its customers because virtually all those transactions involve other banks. In reality, also, the "fractional reserve" idea only exists in textbooks and has never really been practiced. Rather, central banks have made money available to the banking system dependent upon demands from that system at any given time.

 So, in times of economic slowdown, one would expect a bank to make less money than during boom times? Right?

 Wrong!! These are today's numbers from the Royal Bank of Canada as per an article from CityNews in Toronto recorded here:

 "The Royal Bank says it had a record annual profit in 2012, including $1.9 billion of net earnings in the fourth quarter. The quarterly profit amounted to $1.25 per share of net earnings, or $1.27 per share of adjusted diluted earnings. For the full-year ended Oct. 31, RBC had $7.5 billion of net earnings. That's up 17 per cent from 2011 and equal to $4.96 per share of net earnings or $5 per share on an adjusted basis." 

 What is going on here? The economy is stagnant and the bank is making a pile of money! The only explanation I can see is that the money is being made in the "paper" (financial) sector and is not generating any real wealth other than numbers in computers.

Caroline Seniors Drop In News

November birthdays: Bob Hall, Maria Hall, Ruth Barrer, Ruby Scott, Rita Stewart, Cliff Stalwick

Report and photos by Helge Nome

The Caroline Seniors Drop In Center was the venue for the monthly pot-luck supper and meeting on November 19, the third Monday of the month, at 6pm. Having enjoyed a hearty meal members settled down to the monthly meeting, chaired by Dwight Oliver, and discussed the issues of the day:

Members chose not to accept an offer from Clearwater County to go under its insurance umbrella, in spite of some cost savings compared to the existing insurance policy. It was felt that the deductible of $5000 under the proposed new insurance plan was rather high.

Members were made aware of the need for assistance to the Shepherd's Food Bank in Caroline where donations are made to needy individuals and families both at Christmas time and during the year.

 So far, no one has come forwards to volunteer for the position of Trip Coordinator. A motion to cancel the contract for the $50/month phone line to the Drop In Center was carried as this phone never gets used. $5 membership fees for the new year are now due.

The annual Christmas dinner will be held at the Drop In Center in Caroline on Monday, December 17, at 6pm. It is a Pot Luck with the Drop-in supplying the turkey and ham. The cost is $5.00 to help with the purchases of meat and other expenses of the Drop-in. Food for the food bank would be appreciated. 

 On the 20th of December there will be a special social at the Drop-in for Seniors. It begins at 12 noon with a bowl of Friendship Soup, buns, bread and a tasty dessert. Games of choice begin at 1:30 p.m. If you just want to come and visit, you are welcome. A loonie covers coffee and a treat. Come for an enjoyable afternoon. If there is enough interest this program will continue in the new year.

 

Membership is open to anyone 50 years of age and over. Dues are $5.00 a year.

The Bystrom Family Singers entertained at the Seniors Drop In:  Sharmane, Sharlene, Shawna, Sheryle and mother Louise

 New Drop In members' program introduced by Barb Proudler:

On Thursday, November 22, members are invited to a noon bowl of beef stew and biscuit, cake, ice cream and strawberry topping. A variety of games will start at 1:30pm. Joan from Unicorn will demonstrate Swedish weaving. Come join in the fun or just come and visit. The coffee is always on.

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Who will stop the Sado-Monetarists as jobless youth hits 58pc in Greece?

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Greek unemployment rose to 25.4pc in August. Youth unemployment rose to 58pc.
Under the official forecast, the economy will contract by a further 4.5pc next year, so it fair to assume that lots more people are going to lose their jobs. It is certainly not going to improve in any meaningful way for years to come.

This is what happens when you lock into the wrong currency and block the escape routes – or join a "burning building with no exits" in the words of William Hague.
Even if Greeks comply with all demands, public debt will reach 179pc of GDP next year. Perhaps there will be some sort of formula to cut debt service costs by shaving 50 basis points off interest on rescue loans, and persuading the ECB to forgo "profits" on its estimated €40 billion holdings of Greek bonds (though unrealised profits would seem be courting fate).

Yet it is hard to see how the salary and pension cuts, etc, pushed through the Greek parliament last night with enormous difficulty can do any more than buy a few months’ delay. The protests on Wednesday bordered on urban guerrilla warfare. It will not take much to cross that line.
Even if the EMU machine succeeds in keeping Greece in the system, is this any longer a remotely desirable goal? Has it not become a vicious and immoral policy in itself?

I agree with the IFO Institute’s Hans-Werner Sinn that upholding euro membership has by now become an act of cruelty. It not being done in the interests of Greeks. It is being done for the Project, by enforcers of the Project. Only by breaking free can Greece restore a minimum of economic vibrancy and national dignity.

Everything we know from labour studies is that the early twenties are crucial years, shaping lifelong career paths and earnings ten to fifteen years beyond. The worst economic crime you cannot commit is to leave 58pc of youth grinding away their days in frustration in cafés, if they can afford the coffee.
Premier Antonis Samaras issued hysterical warnings before the vote of what would happen if parliament refused to obey the EU-IMF Troika, talking of catastrophe and a collapse of Greek society. He has little credibility. His party was chiefly responsible for the grotesque mismanagement of Greece in the early EMU years. There is no necessary reason why Greece should spiral into collapse outside EMU, or why the Drachma would plummet to Third World levels.

This would happen only if the EU decided to make that happen. Why would the EU behave in such a fashion? It would have every reason to try to salvage what it could from the fiasco and demonstrate that EU solidarity is still worth something. Technically, the ECB could be instructed to defend a euro-drachma rate – let us say a 30pc devaluation – until the dust had settled.
The EIB and Commission could intervene with all kinds of investment and trade support to cushion the blow. An orderly transition is not beyond the wit of man. It would restore the basic competitiveness of the Greek economy at a stroke.

We all know the reason why this is not being done. The ideologues running monetary union cannot bring themselves to contemplate any step back in the Project, just as they would not admit yesterday in the Commission’s economic report that they have gravely misjudged the effects of fiscal tightening (the fiscal multiplier) and have therefore miscrafted their entire austerity strategy. We are not dealing with rational people. We are dealing with a religious order, and these monks are becoming an increasing danger to Europe’s societies and democracies.

Margaret Thatcher’s advisers were tagged Sado-Monetarists in the early 1980s but they never inflicted anything remotely close to this level of suffering. The strange silence of the Left on this is baffling. Sooner or later my Fabian friends will have make up their minds whether they are for the workers, or for the "bankers ramp" — as old Socialists like Peter Shore used to describe monetary union.

The Draghi Put has lifted the immediate financial threat, but this makes matters worse. The drip-drip of ugly economic data continues each day. The deeper structural crisis is still getting worse. Loan demand has crashed 50pc in Italy and France. Spain’s unemployment is 25.8pc and may reach 30pc next year.

Yet there is no longer any immediate catalyst or external umpire in the markets that can bring this mass civic abuse to an end. Unless the Bundestag comes to the rescue by refusing to pay for any more can-kicking, we may have to wait until internal devaluations in the Club Med bloc push jobless rates to such excruciating levels that the political system snaps.
It is the worst of all worlds.
Article source here

A different way of flying

Capacity crowd at the Crammond Community Beef Supper

Crammond Community beef supper

Photo and story by Helge Nome, Alberta West News

The Crammond Community Association hosted its annual beef supper on Saturday, November 3 in the Crammond Hall. This is a popular event that draws people from all over the west country and the proceeds help the community association volunteers maintain the hall and property on Highway 22 south east of Caroline.

The hall is a popular venue for meetings and community functions, such as the supper, and is also used by local local oil and gas companies for their functions. With ample RV parking available, the hall is used extensively for family reunions in the the summer. For more information about the hall and photos of it and the surrounding property, go here

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Caroline's ambulance service has new home

The new ambulance building is officially open - ambulance service founder Andrew Moffat, board president Dwight Oliver, operations  (and building construction) manager Yvonne Evans and board member Vern Graham

Photos and story by Helge Nome

Thirty years after having been incorporated the Caroline and District Volunteer Ambulance Association has a new home, in a recently built and just expanded building next to the post office in Caroline. The event was celebrated at an open house hosted by the association on Friday, October 26 with local early volunteers, municipal representatives and supporters present.

Conducted tours of the new facility were led by operations manager Yvonne Evans, revealing a completely "at home" atmosphere in the residential part of the building used by volunteers covering 24/7 shifts all year round. Caroline's ambulance service is one-of-a-kind in Alberta where Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics from all over Alberta volunteer to keep the service viable and an integral part of the province's emergency medical response infrastructure.

In return the volunteers are credited for the time they cover shifts in Caroline, helping to maintain their certification as medical responders, and now do so in an environment that equals that of their private homes. To boot, it happens in a small rural community in the best part of Alberta. And they are not idle here: Evans estimates that  the call tally for 2012 will be around the 500 mark. This includes patient transportation between hospitals, being part of an ambulance pool.

Service founder, and mover and shaker to get it up and running in the late 1970ies, Andrew Moffat along with wife Daphne, attended and were recognized for their contribution at a presentation in the new facility.

As the demands on the service grew over the years and fewer local volunteers were available to carry the 24/7 workload, Moffat took an innovative approach to maintaining its integrity by recruiting volunteers from other areas of Alberta in return for a very special work environment and credit for time on shift. This system has been continually expanded over the years and Caroline is now a sought after location in which to serve by ambulance service professionals from all over Alberta.

The service was recently accredited after having gone through an extensive review by Accreditation Canada, a fact that was emphasized by manager Yvonne Evans in her presentation. She also expressed her thanks to both the Village of Caroline and Clearwater County who have helped the service financially in times past when things got tight.
For more photos and commentary from the open house, go to http://albertawestphotos.blogspot.ca here

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Caroline Seniors Drop In - October update

Born in October. Front: Janice Waite, Connie Holbrook, Edna Pengelly.
Back: Dan Onysyk, Lawrence Pengelly, Gordon Neufeld, Dwight Oliver.

By Helge Nome

The Seniors Drop In host a pot luck supper every third Monday of the month at 6pm at the Drop In Center in Caroline. All welcome.
A meeting and entertainment follow the supper. Don Bouvette played his guitar and sang some of his own compositions on October 15.

Burma signs deal to recover buried WWII Spitfires

Sixty Brand New Spitfires – Still in Their Shipping Crates – Buried in Burma All of These Years

This is a dream come true for old plane rebuilders, to have so many of these with all original parts. Air shows of the future could have squadrons of Spitfires buzzing the field...Jim W. Dean.
Read article here

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Towards a Western Retreat from Syria

Where NATO has failed to make war, the CTSO is preparing to make peace. The Secretary General of the Organization Nikolay Bordyuzha is setting up a peacekeeping force of 50,000 men, ready to be deployed in Syria.

by Thierry Meyssan

 

The Syria war drags on. Continuing it has become too expensive and too dangerous for its neighbors. Russia, which aims to re-establish itself in the Middle East, is trying to show the United States that it is in their best interest to allow Moscow to resolve the conflict.
The military situation in Syria is turning against those in Washington and Brussels who hoped to change the regime there by force. Two successive attempts to take Damascus have failed and it has become clear that that objective cannot be achieved.


On July 18th, an explosion killed the leadership of the Council of National Security, signalling the beginning of a vast offensive during which tens of thousands of mercenaries descended on the Syrian capital from Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq. After several days of pitched battles, Damascus was saved when the fraction of the population hostile to the government chose out of patriotism to assist the National Army rather than bid welcome to the forces of the FSA.

On September 26, al-Qaeda jihadists were able to penetrate the interior of the Defense Ministry, disguised as Syrian soldiers and carrying false papers. They intended to detonate their explosive vests in the office of the joint chiefs of the military but did not get close enough to their target and were killed. A second team attempted to take over the national TV station to broadcast an ultimatum to the President but were not able to reach the building as access was blocked moments after the first attack. A third team targeted government headquarters and a fourth was aimed at the airport.

In both cases, NATO coordinated the operations from its Turkish base in Incirlik, seeking to provoke a schism at the core of the Syrian Arab Army and rely on certain generals for the purpose of overthrowing the regime. But the generals in question had long been identified as traitors and marginalized from effective command. In the aftermath of the two failed attacks, Syrian power was reinforced, giving it the internal legitimacy necessary to go on the offensive and crush the FSA.
Read remainder of article here

Battery trick

Madrid protests against new austerity measures

Hmm.....

Hegemony and Propaganda: The Importance of Trivialisation in Cementing Social Control

By Colin Todhunter

 

 Knowledge in modern societies has expanded to the point whereby specialisms and sub-specialisms are the norm. It is just not possible for one person to have in-depth knowledge of every discipline. We must rely on others to convey such knowledge, usually in relatively simplistic terms. Most of us have to take at face value many of the ideas and concepts that we are bombarded with in this age of instant, mass communications and information overload.

 

 People tend to like simplicity. In many instances, not possessing sufficient expertise on matters, they require it. They require easily manageable packages of knowledge, and these packages become taken for granted stocks of ‘common sense’ knowledge that enable them to cope, however faulty or misrepresented that ‘knowledge’ may be.
Politicians and the media also recognise people’s need for simplicity. And here lies the problem, particularly in an increasingly complex and confusing world. In order to rally the masses around certain ideas and to make things ‘simple’ for them, both politicians and the media have to a large extent taken their cue from Edward Bernays, the father of advertising, propaganda and public relations. This is where simplicity morphs into manipulation.
Bernays knew how to manipulate groups of people and get the masses hooked on the products and messages of modern society. We are now all subjected to this type of manipulation each and every day by the incessant bombardment of commercials.
It was the late US academic Rick Roderick who noted the trend towards the banality, simplification and trivialisation that the ad industry excels in is now prolific throughout society. He referred to a rampant phenomenon of important issues and problems being reduced to a fad of some kind through continuous repetition. For example, political debates that are seemingly in deadlock like gay rights and abortion issues, although important, have become almost a pointless debate. The same few points are being thrown around so often that they’ve almost become a fad. This doesn’t mean that the issues themselves aren’t important; it just means that they’ve been reduced to something resembling sound-bite debates.
Continue reading article here

Multiplying Europe's fiscal suicide

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard


The entire EU austerity plan is based on a false premise. This disastrous error is now clear beyond any reasonable doubt.
The Teuto-Calvinists believe – or profess to believe, since much of their dogma is national self-interest dressed up as theory – that the fiscal multiplier is around 0.5.
That is to say, fiscal retrenchment worth 1pc of GDP will cut output by half as much, or around 0.5pc over two years. There is pain, but at least there is gain.
This is based on the IMF's analysis of fiscal crises over the decades.
Well, it has not worked out like that. Ireland has contracted at nearly seven times the speed, Spain four times, and Greece three times.
Read article here

Cynthia McKinney On Leadership

 

By Paul Craig Roberts

Those who have followed the Republican campaign for the presidential nomination and current contest between Romney and Obama know that the United States has no political leadership in Washington.
Billions of dollars have been spent on political propaganda, but not a single important issue has been addressed. The closest the campaign has come to a political issue is which candidate can grovel the lowest at the feet of Israeli prime minister Netanyahu. Romney won that contest. But for the rest, well, it is like two elementary school children sticking their tongues out at one another.
The question of US political leadership has been on my mind for some time. I can remember when political leadership still existed and when bipartisan cooperation could be mustered on enough issues to keep the country and the government functioning.
But no more. It might have been Newt Gingrich who, as Speaker of the House, destroyed bipartisan cooperation by making war on the Democratic Party, warfare that Karl Rove has taken to a new height.
When a country loses leadership, how does a country get leadership back? This is an important question. Without leadership, there is only violence. Once the Romans lost their republic, there was no one to lead them and they were ruled by violence. Will this be our fate?
These thoughts were in my mind when I happened to hear Cynthia McKinney speak. Here was a leader, a person with sufficient fire, knowledge, and compassion for others. Cynthia McKinney served six terms in the House of Representatives as a Democrat from Georgia. In 2008 she was the Green Party’s candidate for president. As a US Representative, Cynthia McKinney defied the cowardly Nancy Pelosi and introduced articles of impeachment against President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Keep reading article here

Museum fundraiser coming up

Log cabin at the Danish Museum in Dickson

Volunteers at the Royal Danish Museum at Dickson seek to preserve the past on their site set in the woods south of Dickson. This includes both pagan and Christian history from Europe and settlement history in Canada. You can support their cause by attending the upcoming bazaar:

Tables available for our upcoming event, $35 per table. Julestue Christmas Bazaar, Saturday, November 3, 2012 - 10 AM - 4 PM at the Spruce View Hall. Call Joanne-403-227-4917

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The good old days: Buddies - French President Sarkozy and Gaddafi

The good old days: Buddies - British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Gaddafi

Editor: The following article sheds light on the world of "real politik"

Libya: How Many Dirty Western Hands?

By Felicity Arbuthnot

 

 

Oh what a tangled web they weave

When first they practice to invade

A sovereign nation and deceive

The world about their dark crusade.

 Michael Leunig, Poet, Cartoonist, 1945

This weekend a detailed article (i) suggested that a: “French secret serviceman, acting on the express orders of the then President Sarkozy, is suspected of  ”the murder of Colonel Quaddafi”, on 20^th October last year.
Whilst bearing in mind that the NATO-backed insurgents now in power, who have near destroyed much of Libya, de-stabilised, terrorized and hope to carve up Libya’s resources for their, rather than the country’s benefit, have every reason to wish to disassociate themselves from the butchery of Colonel Quaddafi’s terrible death, the new allegations illuminate interesting points.
The French assassin, it is claimed, infiltrated the mob rabidly manhandling the Colonel, and shot him in the head.
“The motive, according to well placed (Libyan) sources”, was to prevent any chance of interrogation into Sarkozy’s links with Colonel Quaddafi.
Read article here

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