United States Once with World's Largest Percentage of College Graduates, Now we Rank 14th

Fareed Zakaria is one of the very few in the mainstream press that not only criticizes what's going on in our society but has solutions:

The answer is pretty clear. Only five years ago, American infrastructure used to be ranked in the top 10 by the World Economic Forum. Now we're 24th. U.S. air infrastructure has gone from 12th in the world to 31st - roads from eighth to 20th.

The drop in human capital is even greater than the drop in physical capital. The United States used to have the world's largest percentage of college graduates. We're now number 14, according to the most recent OECD data, and American students routinely rank toward the bottom of the developed world in international tests.

The situation in science education is more drastic. Even with the increase in college attendance over the past two decades, there were fewer engineering and engineering technologies graduates in 2009 (84,636) than in 1989 (85,002). Research and development spending has risen under Obama, but the basic trend has been downward for two decades. In percentage terms, the federal share of research spending - which funds basic science - is half of what it was in the 1950s.

In other words, the big shift in the United States over the past two decades is not a rise in regulations and taxation but a decline in investment - in physical and human capital. And investment is the crucial locomotive of long-term growth. In our interview, Michael Spence, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, pointed out that the United States got out of the Great Depression because of the spending associated with World War II but also because during the war, the U.S. dramatically reduced its consumption and expanded investments. People spent less; they saved more and bought war bonds. That surge in investment - by people and government - produced a generation of growth after the war.

If we want the next generation of growth, we need a similarly serious strategy of investment.

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Synagogue Welcomes Homeless with Christmas Tree

Christmas isn't about material things. It's spiritual:

Congregation Beth Shalom is continuing its annual practice of placing a Christmas tree inside the Oak Park synagogue to welcome the homeless of various faiths.

The Detroit Free Press reports (http://on.freep.com/uj4KGk ) Saturday that the synagogue allows clients of the South Oakland Shelter to use its kitchen, classrooms and Youth Lodge through Monday as churches that participate throughout the year in the program are busy with their own activities over the Christmas holiday.

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Will a Reelected President Obama Face More Gridlock in 2013?

The answer is simple: yes. Why would it be any different. Even when the Democrats had a large majority in both House of Congress in 2009 very little got accomplished that we could consider beneficial to the country. As for the "change" we were promised. It doesn't seem like much has changed. The problem is Obama himself. We have a President who is clearly in over his head. He's also not motivated, like Clinton, in principals. It's all about ego and self promotion. His gift is in winning elections. That's it. He sold his soul to get elected in 2008. And his agenda, like his predecessors is pay back the wealthy donors that funded his election victories. That's the name of this corrupt game:

President Obama may have slightly boosted his reelection chances by outmaneuvering the Republicans on the payroll-tax-cut extension. But after a year of Beltway paralysis, that deal simply preserves the status quo for a mere two months—the latest sign of the capital’s utter dysfunction.

So is there any reason to believe that Obama would fare better in a second term?

More of the same is not appealing. Yet for Obama to govern with any degree of success, he would need either a big electoral upset—with Democrats regaining the House and maintaining a nominal hold on the Senate—or a chastened Republican Party, newly open to cooperation and willing to set aside the all-or-nothing brinkmanship that has defined its strategy.

The prospect of four more years of gridlock while Obama looks on from the sidelines will hardly energize voters already disappointed by the president’s performance. For now, Obama is benefiting by standing apart from an institution whose approval rating is 11 percent, but mastering the legislative process is a big part of the job of being president, and while Obama squeezed major legislation through Congress in his first two years, this last year has been a disaster all around.

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Gingrich Fails to Qualify for Va. Primary Ballot

This proves that Gingrich was never a serious threat to win the nomination. He won't win Iowa which would truly end any chance he ever had of challenging Mitt Romney:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has failed to qualify for Virginia’s March 6 Republican primary, a development that complicates his bid to win the GOP presidential nomination.

“After verification, RPV has determined that Newt Gingrich did not submit required 10k signatures and has not qualified for the VA primary,” the Republican Party of Virginia announced early Saturday on its Twitter website.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry also fell short of the 10,000 signatures of registered voters required for a candidate’s name to be on the primary ballot, but former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Rep. Ron Paul will be on the ballot.

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Troops, Protesters Clash in Yemeni Capital

It was naive to believe that the rulers in Yemen would give up power simply because of some toothless agreement. There had to have been more restrictions on the military. There also had to have been the threat of international war crime trials if the the agreements were not adhered to. In addition, the opposition would have to had a promise of some kind of support if the agreement had been ignored by the government:

Yemen's powerful Republican Guard forces opened fire with guns, tear gas and water cannons Saturday at a march by more than 100,000 protesters demanding that the outgoing president be put on trial.

The protesters were attacked as they entered the capital Sanaa after marching for four days from Taiz, a city that has been a major opposition center 170 miles to the south. The first of its kind protest was called the March of Life and aimed to put pressure on the country's new government not to grant Ali Abdullah Saleh immunity from prosecution.

The violence underlined the continuing turmoil in Yemen even after Saleh signed a U.S.- and Saudi-backed deal last month by which he handed his powers to his vice president and committed to step down completely in return for immunity.

Protesters who rallied by the thousands for the past nine months rejected the deal, demanding Saleh be tried for his bloody crackdown on their movement.

At the same time, Saleh has seemed to continue to exercise influence through his relatives and loyalists still in their positions, even after Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi formed a unity government between the opposition and ruling party. Forces loyal to Saleh have defied orders to withdrew from the streets of Sanaa after a deadline was reached Saturday to do so.

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Bank Of America Dumps $75 Trillion In Derivatives On U.S. Taxpayers With Federal Approval

This is the reason the financial system is on the verge of another collapse. But the next time no amount of bailout will save it. And nothing is being done to prevent the disaster from coming. That's why it's inevitable:

Bloomberg reports that Bank of America (BAC) has shifted about $22 trillion worth of derivative obligations from Merrill Lynch and the BAC holding company to the FDIC insured retail deposit division. Along with this information came the revelation that the FDIC insured unit was already stuffed with $53 trillion worth of these potentially toxic obligations, making a total of $75 trillion.

Derivatives are highly volatile financial instruments that are occasionally used to hedge risk, but mostly used for speculation. They are bets upon the value of stocks, bonds, mortgages, other loans, currencies, commodities, volatility of financial indexes, and even weather changes. Many big banks, including Bank of America, issue derivatives because, if they are not triggered, they are highly profitable to the issuer, and result in big bonus payments to the executives who administer them. If they are triggered, of course, the obligations fall upon the corporate entity, not the executives involved. Ultimately, by allowing existing gambling bets to remain in insured retail banks, and endorsing the shift of additional bets into the insured retail division, the obligation falls upon the U.S. taxpayers and dollar-denominated savers.

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CIA's watchdog: No problem with NYPD Partnership

There is some question whether the Federal government was involved in the crackdown on Occupy Wall Street. Did the CIA teach the NYPD techniques and strategies that were used against OWS. If true it would be particular frightening. The CIA, in particular, has failed miserably in preventing terrorism and in predicting events abroad. They be should focusing on protecting America not stifling free speech at home :

The CIA said Friday its internal watchdog found nothing wrong with the spy agency's close partnership with the New York Police Department.

The agency's inspector general concluded that no laws were broken and there was "no evidence that any part of the agency's support to the NYPD constituted `domestic spying'," CIA spokesperson Preston Golson said.

[...]The revelations troubled some members of Congress and even prompted the U.S. director of national intelligence, James Clapper, to remark that it did not look good for the CIA to be involved in any city police department. Thirty-four lawmakers have asked for the Justice Department to investigate but so far that request has gone nowhere.

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Trends analyst Predicted Global Uprisings a Year ago

Governments around the world, including in the U.S., realize that the internet has been essential to the revolutionary movements that are arising in many countries. As a result they might try to limit the freedoms that exist. That would be disastrous for those of us who are fighting to bring change to our countries. It's already happening in America. We must prepare for the worst. All freedom seekers must develop strategies for dealing with our governments' attempt to shut us down. Democracy must be defended at all costs since the alternative is tyranny:

A trends analyst who made his reputation by predicting the 2008 economic crash appears to have scored again — at least in part.

A year ago, Gerald Celente told Russia Today that 2011 would be marked both by young people around the world coming together on the Internet to combat political and financial corruption and by government attempts to control dissent by shutting down free speech online.

“[The Internet is] exposing the corruptness, the ineptitude and the double dealing going on that [governments] don’t want the public to know about,” Celente told RT in a January 2011 interview. “The more freedom of information that goes out, they’re going to start using cyber war and the war on terror to take that Internet freedom away from America.”

“But in 2011, the game’s gonna run out,” he continued. “On one end, it’s a wake-up call and on the other hand it’s [an effort to] screw the people.”

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Donald Trump Leaves Republican Party

What a shocker. And to believe that Trump was once ahead in the early Presidential polls. Can the Republican primary campaign process get more ridiculous? Stay tuned:

Donald Trump is officially a man without a party.

The real estate mogul whose flirtation with the 2012 presidential race has never really ended despite announcing seven months ago he would not seek the Republican nomination has been signaling he wants to find other ways onto a presidential ticket.

Trump took another step in that direction on Thursday, switching his party affiliation from Republican to “unaffiliated,” according to a source close to the reality television star.

According to the source, he did so because he is “disgusted” with the way Republicans are handling matters in Washington, including the recent payroll tax cut deal. But the move also sets Trump up for a potential third-party run for president — a possibility he began talking about almost as soon as he told his fans in May he wasn’t running.

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Occupy's 2012 Agenda: Visiting Campaign Cities

Sounds good to me. But better yet, how about running candidates of our own that promise to run on a platform that shares many of the views of Occupy Wall Street. Until the 99% gain power nothing will really change in America:

"Occupy" protest organizers say they are using the winter to hone in on specific events and presidential campaign events instead of occupying town centers and financial institutions.

[...]Occupy protesters have voiced their concerns at several presidential campaign events, including disrupting President Obama during a speech at a high school in Manchester, N.H., on Nov. 22, and occupying one of his campaign offices in Des Moines, Iowa, over the weekend. The Occupy protesters make it clear they do not endorse any particular candidate, and they do not discriminate based on party when it comes to criticism.

"I think the typical OWS person is really upset with both parties and the whole idea of a two-party system," Pete Dutro, an Occupy Wall Street finance committee member in New York City, said. "It basically has turned into a campaign club ... not about getting things done. It's about gathering resources to get elected."

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Payroll Tax Cut Extension Just More Kicking Can Down the Road

President Obama and the Democrats are riding high after their "victory" over the Republicans. And that will last 2 months when we go through the gridlock and name calling all over again. What's going on is nothing political maneuvering having little to do with the fiscal/financial crisis facing America. The press isn't telling you this. They are busy playing up the drama and telling us who's ahead in some meaningless Presidential campaign poll. Anyone want to talk about how we get Americans back to work?:

Ahead of Christmas, President Barack Obama today achieved a major political victory when Republicans in the House of Representatives caved to his demands and agreed to extend the pay roll tax cut for 160 million American workers for two months.

Welcoming the deal reached by congressional leaders, Obama said it was a victory for weary Americans as they prepared for Christmas.

This is good news, just in time for the holidays. This is the right thing to do to strengthen our families, grow our economy, and create new jobs," he said in a statement.

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Teargas fired at Chinese protesters in Haimen

The Chinese people are resisting despite overwhelming odds against them:

Chinese riot police have fired teargas to break up a protest against a planned power station, while a state TV station showed confessions by two detained activists in an attempt to get other protesters off the streets.

Footage from Hong Kong's Cable TV showed police firing several rounds of teargas in Haimen town in the southern province of Guangdong, forcing hundreds of people to flee covering their mouths and noses with their hands.

Hours later, a local TV station carried interviews with two detained protesters, a man named Li and a woman, Yung. Sitting behind bars with their heads bowed and handcuffs in full view, the two took turns to confess. "It was wrong to surround the government and block the highway," Li said, with his eyes lowered.

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China Jails Veteran Activist Chen Wei as Crackdown Continues

The UN should be spending it's time demanding Wei be set free rather than honoring a North Korean monster. The World is silent because they don't want to offend the Chinese rulers and not be allowed to open a factory in China. Let you and I not forget this individual. Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere:

A Chinese court has sentenced veteran democracy activist Chen Wei to nine years in jail for "inciting subversion of state power" in what human rights groups say is the harshest sentence yet in a near year-long crackdown on dissent.

The case against Chen, a former student leader who was first jailed after the 1989 Tianamen Square uprising, was based on four online essays he wrote calling for political reforms. Suining intermediate court in Sichuan province took two and a half hours to reach a guilty verdict.

"We presented a full defence of the case, but we were interrupted often, and none of what we said was accepted by the court," his lawyer, Liang Xiaojun, said after the verdict. Chen was not allowed to make a statement during the trial. As he was hurried out of the courtroom, he called out: "I am not guilty! Constitutional democracy will win, dictatorship will be defeated!" He was also sentenced to two years deprivation of political rights once he completes his sentence.

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Ron Paul Newsletters: Ad Urging Subscription Warned Of 'Race War'

Paul has been running for President for some time now. Why are these allegations coming up now that he's ahead in the polls? And how has it been that the Congressman has gotten away with it the past. He should be laughed out of the campaign. His racist past went on years before he decided to run for President. He should not have gotten this far without having explain his past. Herman Cain was forced out of his run for the White House because of his immoral behavior. The same should happen to Paul:

A direct-mail solicitation for Ron Paul's political and investment newsletters two decades ago warned of a "coming race war in our big cities" and of a "federal-homosexual cover-up" to play down the impact of AIDS.

[...]Among other things, the articles called the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. a "world-class philanderer," criticized the U.S. holiday bearing King's name as "Hate Whitey Day," and said that AIDS sufferers "enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick."

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Obama’s comeback mirage?

He's riding high right now. He might even win reelection. But that doesn't mean things are getting better. Both the President and Congress have given up trying to solve the nation's serious problems. It's all about getting re-elected.

Occupy the New York Times

Occupy has never been about left or right. They attack greed wherever it is. It's about right and wrong.

Bank of America Settles for $335 Million in Latino Discrimination Lawsuit

This case, which is a long time in coming, disproves the myth that the housing collapse was caused by the government. Americans seeking the American dream were exploited by those greedy to sell a home by any means necessary. The right has been feeding us the myth that it was the poor who were to blame by buying homes they could not afford. The people who sold them the homes knew that they couldn't afford subprime loans. Not the buyers.

It also disproves the myth that it was the government that forced home sellers into selling homes at subprime rates:

According to the DOJ's complaint, Countrywide charged over 200,000 African-American and Hispanic borrowers higher fees and interest rates than non-Hispanic white borrowers with a similar credit profile. The complaint says that these borrowers were charged higher fees and rates because of their race or national origin rather than any other objective criteria.
"These institutions should make judgments based on applicants' creditworthiness, not on the color of their skin," said Attorney General Eric Holder. "With today's settlement, the federal government will ensure that the more than 200,000 African-American and Hispanic borrowers who were discriminated against by Countrywide will be entitled to compensation."

[...]The United States' complaint says that Countrywide was aware that the fees and interest rates that its loan officers were charging discriminated against African-American and Hispanic borrowers, but failed to impose meaningful limits or guidelines to stop it. By steering borrowers into subprime loans from 2004 to 2007, the complaint alleges, Countrywide harmed those qualified African-American and Hispanic borrowers. Subprime loans generally carried costlier terms, such as prepayment penalties and significantly higher adjustable interest rates that increased suddenly after two or three years, making the payments unaffordable and leaving the borrowers at a much higher risk of foreclosure.

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Argentine government wins control of newsprint

Argentine government wins control of newsprint - CBS News

This is not a good thing.

Disgraceful: U.N. pays tribute to North Korea's Kim Jong Il

U.N. pays tribute to North Korea's Kim Jong Il

The UN was created to promote human freedom and the rule of law. They dishonor that cause by this recognition of murderous dictator; even if it's for a minute.

Occupy protesters sue over free speech, force

Occupy protesters sue over free speech, force

Lawyers representing protesters have filed lawsuits — or are planning them — in state and federal courts from coast to coast, challenging eviction orders and what they call heavy-handed police tactics and the banning of demonstrators from public properties.

Some say the fundamental right of protest has been criminalized in places, with protesters facing arrest and charges while doing nothing more than exercising protected rights to demonstrate.