02/11/15 ~ The Raw Story

Wednesday, 11 February 2015

Putin's top security advisor: "Current US approach leads to inevitable confrontation with Russia and China"

Following the humiliation of tonight's much anticipated Eurogroup meeting in which for the first time ever, not only did Greece punk Germany's stern finance minister, but the ensuing disarray was so profound the panicked European finance ministers there was some hope that the second round of negotiations currently taking place in Minsk to find a solution to the Ukraine civil war would at least partially redeem Europe's faltering negotiating reputation.

Alas, as of this moment, that does not appear to be the case, and as Reuters reports citing a Kiev presidential aide, that Minsk talks on Ukraine crisis could last six more hours. "We've got another 5-6 hours of work. At least. But we should not leave here without an agreement on an unconditional ceasefire. There's a battle of nerves underway," aide Valeriy Chaly said in a Facebook post.

Well, if it is indeed a "battle of nerves", something tells who the victor will be, considering all his peers are just a little more preoccupied with the potential collapse of their artificial monetary and political union.

Yet, just like the previous Minsk "agreement", even if by some miracle there is a solution this time around, the probability peace will be maintained is slim to none.

The reason is not simply because the Ukraine civil war will go on until there is a terminal partition between the pro-western West part of the country, and the pro-Russian eastern regions. The real reason may be what one of Vladimir Putin's top security advisors, the secretary of the Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev said earlier today, when he told a Russian state newspaper that the U.S. was orchestrating events in Ukraine in a bid to overthrow Mr. Putin's government. He also expressed certainty that the West's financial aid for Kiev would only bring the Ukrainian economy to a "dead end."

"The situation in Ukraine is being used as a pretext for the active 'repression' of our country," Mr. Patrushev, who ran Russia's Federal Security Service during Mr. Putin's first eight years as president, said in an interview with the , published Wednesday.

And, if accurate, Patrushev's assessment is that the US will not stop short of what effectively will be world war: "The Americans are trying to involve the Russian Federation in an interstate military conflict, cause regime change [in Russia] and ultimately dismember our country via events in Ukraine," he said.

To be sure, Patrushev's view that the Ukraine events have been orchestrated by the US from day one, is a widely shared one (and not only because it has been validated to a great extend by the leaked facts). The adds that "Mr. Patrushev's comments reflect the views of some of the hard-liners around Mr. Putin, who have characterized the rise of a pro-Western government in neighboring Ukraine as an existential threat to the Kremlin leadership.

They describe last year's protests on Kiev's Independence Square, which ended with then-President Viktor Yanukovych fleeing to Russia, as a U.S.-orchestrated attempt to encroach upon Russia and spur a similar uprising in Moscow.

"The U.S. administration expects [its recent] anti-Russian measures to decrease quality of life for the population, give rise to mass protests and push Russian citizens to overthrow the current government using the scenario of the 'color revolutions,'" Mr. Patrushev said, referring to pro-Western uprisings that occurred in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan from 2003 to 2005.

To be sure, while Putin has repeatedly been compared to Hitler if mostly in the western press, the inverse is true in Russia, where people like Patrushev compare what Obama is trying to do to the actions of Hitler and Napoleon.

He noted that both Napoleon and Adolf Hitler failed to conquer Russia. "In today's difficult times, when the U.S. and its allies have taken the path of confrontation with the Russian Federation, it is necessary to recall again and again the lessons of history," he said.

So as futile diplomacy rages in this latest proxy war, the biggest loser are the common Ukraine people whose role is to be the pawn in the latest cold war between the east and west:

Mr. Patrushev suggested that the West wasn't dedicated enough to overhauling Ukraine's battered economy. "I suspect that the West will bring the Ukrainian economy to a dead-end," he said. "The aid sent to Kiev won't lead to any practical results. No one is preparing to raise the standard of living in Ukraine or set up its young people in Europe for real."

Regarding the recent attempts to send lethal support to Ukraine, or to send the US army to train Ukraine troops, Putin's security advisor didn't comment on the possibility of the U.S. arming Kiev, but Russian officials have said that Moscow would interpret such a move as a direct threat. Then again he didn't have to: as reported earlier "Russia Warns US, Supplying Arms To Ukraine "Will Have Dramatic Consequences."

In the interview, he repeated a claim often heard in Russia—that former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once said Moscow had come to control too much territory and too many resources—as evidence of a U.S. desire to dismantle Russia. Ms. Albright has denied ever making such a statement.

His punchline, as reported by Bloomberg: "the current US approach will lead to inevitable confrontation with Russia and China."

It hardly needs an explanation.

Finally, Patrushev also brought up another theory often cited by Russian officials: that the U.S. is "trying to seed conflict" around the world as a way to increase its power.

"Beginning with the global financial crisis in 2008, the U.S. decided to recover at the expense of others, including with the help of military adventurism and the destruction of full governments, employing the theory of 'managed chaos'."

Considering 7 years after the great financial crisis, the world is still stuck deep in a global recession with central banks monetizing more debt than ever before in history while the US oligarchy has never been richer even as the global middle class is left for dead and told to just "buy assets" his observation is rather spot on.

Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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© Nature Video, based on Tully et al 2014

A new study in Nature finds that the Milky Way is part of a broader supercluster of 100,000 galaxies known as Laniakea.

We know that the Earth and the solar system are located in the Milky Way galaxy. But how, exactly, does the Milky Way fit in among the billions of other galaxies in the known universe?

In a fascinating 2014 study for , a team of scientists mapped thousands of galaxies in our immediate vicinity, and discovered that the Milky Way is part of a jaw-droppingly massive "supercluster" of galaxies that they named Laniakea.

This structure is much, much, much bigger than astronomers had previously realized. Laniakea contains more than 100,000 galaxies, stretches 500 million light years across, and looks something like this (the Milky Way is just a speck located on one of its fringes on the right):

Say hello to Laniakea, our local supercluster

It's hard to wrap one's head around how enormous this is. Each of those points of light is an individual galaxy. Each galaxy contains millions, billlions, or even trillions of stars. Oh, and this all is just our little local corner of an even broader universe. There are many other galaxy superclusters out there.

So how did the researchers figure out this structure existed — and how did they distinguish it from other superclusters?

The team of scientists, led by R. Brent Tully of the University of Hawaii, first studied the motion of some 8,000 galaxies in our neighborhood. By doing so, they could map out certain patterns. The universe overall has been expanding ever since the Big Bang. But the team also found that gravity was pulling some galaxies toward each other.

That helped them build the graph below, where galaxies moving away from us are shown in red, and the galaxies moving toward us in blue.

The galaxies around us are moving in identifiable patterns

That, in turn, let them create a map of the pathways along which all the galaxies are moving and demarcate some boundaries.

The map below shows some of the pathways within our broader supercluster of galaxies. There's an especially dense region called "The Great Attractor" (in red) that's slowly pulling the Milky Way and many other galaxies toward it:

Many galaxies in Laniakea are being pulled toward the "Great Attractor"

What's interesting is that this structure is much bigger than anyone had realized. Astronomers had long grouped the Milky Way, Andromeda, and other galaxies around us in the Virgo Supercluster, which contained some 100 galaxy groups.

But as Tully and his colleagues found, and as the map above shows, this Virgo Supercluster is just part of a much, much bigger supercluster — Laniakea. (The name, aptly enough, means "immeasurable heavens" in Hawaiian.)

So what happens when we zoom out? The paper notes that Laniakea borders another supercluster known as Perseus-Pisces. And the scientists defined the borders as where the galaxies are consistently diverging:

Laniakea borders another supercluster: Perseus-Pisces

What happens if we zoom out even further? Even Laniakea and Perseus-Pisces are just one small pocket of the much broader universe. That universe consists of both voids and densely packed superclusters of galaxies. It looks something like this:

And... zooming out to the broader universe

We still don't have detailed maps of every last galaxy supercluster out there. But we now have one for our own home supercluster — and that's certainly a start.

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Are artists born, or made? At the end of Woody Allen's great comedy Bullets Over Broadway, the John Cusack character concludes that, in spite of his desire and effort, he will never be a creative genius. He simply does not have the gift.

But is his reluctant assumption that artistry is encoded in one's genes, or perhaps one's soul, really true? A recently published paper suggests otherwise.

"Creativity is another concept that is often thought of as something we are either born with or will never have," says Dartmouth College psychologist Alexander Schlegel, lead author of a paper published in the journal "Our data clearly refute this notion."

Schlegel and his colleagues report that taking an introductory class in painting or drawing literally alters students' brains. What's more, these training-induced changes didn't only improve the fine motor control needed for sophisticated sketching; they also boosted the students' creative thinking.

Start doing the work, and the brain responds, allowing one to build and retain not just technical knowledge, but also the imaginative capacity needed to utilize it fully.

Their study featured 35 college undergraduates, 17 of whom took a three-month introductory course in observational drawing or painting. All underwent monthly brain scans using fMRI technology.

At the beginning and end of the study, all participants completed a standard test of creative thinking, which measures such factors as fluency, originality, and the creative use of imagery and language.

During each of the monthly sessions, their brains were scanned under two conditions: as they "judged properties of illusory visual stimuli," a test designed to track the development of their perceptual abilities; and as they made "quick, 30-second gesture drawings based on observations of human figures."

"We did not find any improvements in the art students' purely perceptual skills or related brain activity relative to a control group of students who did not study art," the researchers write. "We did, however, find that the art students improved in the ability to quickly translate observations of human figures into gesture drawings, and that fine-grained patterns of drawing-related neural activity in the cerebellum and cerebral cortex increasingly differentiated the art students from the control group over the course of the study."

In other words, the researchers were able to watch as the brain adapted to learning new skills. But more importantly, they also observed changes in their prefrontal white matter that corresponded to an increase in their ability to think creatively.

The art students specifically increased "their ability to think divergently, model systems and processes, and use imagery," the researchers write. The results suggests that, in a matter of a few months, "prefrontal white matter reorganizes as (art students) become more able to think creatively."

So here is still more evidence of the plasticity of the brain, and its ability to adapt to new habits, new skills, and new information. Start doing the work, and the brain responds, allowing one to build and retain not just technical knowledge, but also the imaginative capacity needed to utilize it fully.

"Maybe there are gene variants that give individuals a proclivity toward art (e.g. make them more open to new ideas or more prone to make connections or see patterns), but that is a long way from saying they were born an artist and that those without such gene variants are doomed to being uncreative," Schlegel concludes. "It also propagates the strange myth of the artist as a special class of human. I hope our study will help to debunk the notion that there are "artists" and "the rest of us."

Are we on the verge of a major worldwide economic downturn? Well, if recent warnings from prominent bankers all over the world are to be believed, that may be precisely what we are facing in the months ahead. As you will read about below, the big banks are warning that the price of oil could soon drop as low as 20 dollars a barrel, that a Greek exit from the eurozone could push the EUR/USD down to 0.90, and that the global economy could shrink by more than 2 trillion dollars in 2015. Most of the time, very few people ever actually read the things that the big banks write for their clients. But in recent months, a lot of these bankers are issuing such ominous warnings that you would think that they have started to write for The Economic Collapse Blog. Of course we have seen this happen before. Just before the financial crisis of 2008, a lot of people at the big banks started to get spooked, and now we are beginning to see an atmosphere of fear spread on Wall Street once again. Nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next, but an increasing number of experts are starting to agree that it won't be good.

Let's start with oil. Over the past couple of weeks, we have seen a nice rally for the price of oil. It has bounced back into the low 50s, which is still a catastrophically low level, but it has many hoping for a rebound to a range that will be healthy for the global economy.

Unfortunately, many of the experts at the big banks are now anticipating that the exact opposite will happen instead. For example, Citibank says that we could see the price of oil go as low as 20 dollars this year...

The recent rally in crude prices looks more like a head-fake than a sustainable turning point — The drop in US rig count, continuing cuts in upstream capex, the reading of technical charts, and investor short position-covering sustained the end-January 8.1% jump in Brent and 5.8% jump in WTI into the first week of February.

Short-term market factors are more bearish, pointing to more price pressure for the next couple of months and beyond — Not only is the market oversupplied, but the consequent inventory build looks likely to continue toward storage tank tops. As on-land storage fills and covers the carry of the monthly spreads at ~$0.75/bbl, the forward curve has to steepen to accommodate a monthly carry closer to $1.20, putting downward pressure on prompt prices. As floating storage reaches its limits, there should be downward price pressure to shut in production.

The oil market should bottom sometime between the end of Q1 and beginning of Q2 at a significantly lower price level in the $40 range — after which markets should start to balance, first with an end to inventory builds and later on with a period of sustained inventory draws. It's impossible to call a bottom point, which could, as a result of oversupply and the economics of storage, fall well below $40 a barrel for WTI, perhaps as low as the $20 range for a while.

Even though rigs are shutting down at a pace that we have not seen since the last recession, overall global supply still significantly exceeds overall global demand. Barclays analyst Michael Cohen recently told CNBC that at this point the total amount of excess supply is still in the neighborhood of a million barrels per day...

"What we saw in the last couple weeks is rig count falling pretty precipitously by about 80 or 90 rigs per week, but we think there are more important things to be focused on and that rig count doesn't tell the whole story."

He expects to see some weakness going into the shoulder season for demand. In addition, there is an excess supply of about a million barrels of oil a day, he said.

And the truth is that many firms simply cannot afford to shut down their rigs. Many are leveraged to the hilt and are really struggling just to service their debt payments. They have to keep pumping so that they can have revenue to meet their financial obligations. The following comes directly from the Bank for International Settlements...

"Against this background of high debt, a fall in the price of oil weakens the balance sheets of producers and tightens credit conditions, potentially exacerbating the price drop as a result of sales of oil assets, for example, more production is sold forward," BIS said.

"Second, in flow terms, a lower price of oil reduces cash flows and increases the risk of liquidity shortfalls in which firms are unable to meet interest payments. Debt service requirements may induce continued physical production of oil to maintain cash flows, delaying the reduction in supply in the market."

In the end, a lot of these energy companies are going to go belly up if the price of oil does not rise significantly this year. And any financial institutions that are exposed to the debt of these companies or to energy derivatives will likely be in a great deal of distress as well.

Meanwhile, the overall global economy continues to slow down.

On Monday, we learned that the Baltic Dry Index has dropped to the lowest level ever. Not even during the darkest depths of the last recession did it drop this low.

And there are some at the big banks that are warning that this might just be the beginning. For instance, David Kostin of Goldman Sachs is projecting that sales growth for S&P 500 companies will be zero percent for all of 2015...

"Consensus now forecasts 0% S&P 500 sales growth in 2015 following a 5% cut in revenue forecasts since October. Low oil prices along with FX headwinds and pension charges have weighed on 4Q EPS results and expectations for 2015."

Others are even more pessimistic than that. According to Bank of America, the global economy will actually shrink by 2.3 trillion dollars in 2015.

One thing that could greatly accelerate our economic problems is the crisis in Greece. If there is no compromise and a new Greek debt deal is not reached, there is a very real possibility that Greece could leave the eurozone.

If Greece does leave the eurozone, the continued existence of the monetary union will be thrown into doubt and the euro will utterly collapse.

Of course I am not the only one saying these things. Analysts at Morgan Stanley are even projecting that the EUR/USD could plummet to 0.90 if there is a "Grexit"...

The Greek Prime Minister has reaffirmed his government's rejection of the country's international bailout programme two days before an emergency meeting with the euro area's finance ministers on Wednesday. His declaration suggested increasing minimum wages, restoring the income tax-free threshold and halting infrastructure privatisations. Should Greece stay firm on its current anti-bailout course and with the ECB not accepting Greek T-bills as collateral, the position of ex-Fed Chairman Greenspan will gain increasing credibility. He forecast the eurozone to break as private investors will withdraw from providing short-term funding to Greece. Greece leaving the currency union would convert the union into a club of fixed exchange rates, a type of ERM III, leading to further fragmentation. Greek Fin Min Varoufakis said the euro will collapse if Greece exits, calling Italian debt unsustainable. Markets may gain the impression that Greece may not opt for a compromise, instead opting for an all or nothing approach when negotiating on Wednesday. It seems the risk premium of Greece leaving EMU is rising. Our scenario analysis suggests a Greek exit taking EURUSD down to 0.90.

If that happens, we could see a massive implosion of the 26 trillion dollars in derivatives that are directly tied to the value of the euro.

We are moving into a time of great peril for global financial markets, and there are a whole host of signs that we are slowly heading into another major global economic crisis.

So don't be fooled by all of the happy talk in the mainstream media. They did not see the last crisis coming either.

The recent rally in crude prices looks more like a head-fake than a sustainable turning point — The drop in US rig count, continuing cuts in upstream capex, the reading of technical charts, and investor short position-covering sustained the end-January 8.1% jump in Brent and 5.8% jump in WTI into the first week of February.

Short-term market factors are more bearish, pointing to more price pressure for the next couple of months and beyond — Not only is the market oversupplied, but the consequent inventory build looks likely to continue toward storage tank tops. As on-land storage fills and covers the carry of the monthly spreads at ~$0.75/bbl, the forward curve has to steepen to accommodate a monthly carry closer to $1.20, putting downward pressure on prompt prices. As floating storage reaches its limits, there should be downward price pressure to shut in production.

The oil market should bottom sometime between the end of Q1 and beginning of Q2 at a significantly lower price level in the $40 range — after which markets should start to balance, first with an end to inventory builds and later on with a period of sustained inventory draws. It's impossible to call a bottom point, which could, as a result of oversupply and the economics of storage, fall well below $40 a barrel for WTI, perhaps as low as the $20 range for a while.

"What we saw in the last couple weeks is rig count falling pretty precipitously by about 80 or 90 rigs per week, but we think there are more important things to be focused on and that rig count doesn't tell the whole story."

He expects to see some weakness going into the shoulder season for demand. In addition, there is an excess supply of about a million barrels of oil a day, he said.

"Against this background of high debt, a fall in the price of oil weakens the balance sheets of producers and tightens credit conditions, potentially exacerbating the price drop as a result of sales of oil assets, for example, more production is sold forward," BIS said.

"Second, in flow terms, a lower price of oil reduces cash flows and increases the risk of liquidity shortfalls in which firms are unable to meet interest payments. Debt service requirements may induce continued physical production of oil to maintain cash flows, delaying the reduction in supply in the market."

Meanwhile, the overall global economy continues to slow down.

On Monday, we learned that the Baltic Dry Index has dropped to the lowest level ever. Not even during the darkest depths of the last recession did it drop this low.

"Consensus now forecasts 0% S&P 500 sales growth in 2015 following a 5% cut in revenue forecasts since October. Low oil prices along with FX headwinds and pension charges have weighed on 4Q EPS results and expectations for 2015."

Others are even more pessimistic than that. According to Bank of America, the global economy will actually shrink by 2.3 trillion dollars in 2015.

If Greece does leave the eurozone, the continued existence of the monetary union will be thrown into doubt and the euro will utterly collapse.

Of course I am not the only one saying these things. Analysts at Morgan Stanley are even projecting that the EUR/USD could plummet to 0.90 if there is a "Grexit"...

The Greek Prime Minister has reaffirmed his government's rejection of the country's international bailout programme two days before an emergency meeting with the euro area's finance ministers on Wednesday. His declaration suggested increasing minimum wages, restoring the income tax-free threshold and halting infrastructure privatisations. Should Greece stay firm on its current anti-bailout course and with the ECB not accepting Greek T-bills as collateral, the position of ex-Fed Chairman Greenspan will gain increasing credibility. He forecast the eurozone to break as private investors will withdraw from providing short-term funding to Greece. Greece leaving the currency union would convert the union into a club of fixed exchange rates, a type of ERM III, leading to further fragmentation. Greek Fin Min Varoufakis said the euro will collapse if Greece exits, calling Italian debt unsustainable. Markets may gain the impression that Greece may not opt for a compromise, instead opting for an all or nothing approach when negotiating on Wednesday. It seems the risk premium of Greece leaving EMU is rising. Our scenario analysis suggests a Greek exit taking EURUSD down to 0.90.

If that happens, we could see a massive implosion of the 26 trillion dollars in derivatives that are directly tied to the value of the euro.

We are moving into a time of great peril for global financial markets, and there are a whole host of signs that we are slowly heading into another major global economic crisis.

So don't be fooled by all of the happy talk in the mainstream media. They did not see the last crisis coming either.

Vaccine are proven safe, right? You may be surprised to find how non-evidence based this belief really is....

A few days ago, The Washington Post published an op-ed piece by a medical ethicist who thinks that all doctors who have concerns about vaccines should lose their licenses. Last week, it was parents who don't vaccinate their children should be jailed or sued. There are case reports where not vaccinating has been used as proof of neglect for CPS to remove children and terminate parental rights. Whatever you think about vaccination, think hard before you endorse the idea that the government should be able to mandate a profitable but invasive medical procedure without informed consent. This is a very dangerous precedent to set and one you may not be happy about when vaccines are mandated for adults to protect our "herd immunity" . It is not about the measles. It is about your freedom to choose what goes into your body and your child's body.

Although we keep hearing from the media and the medical establishment that vaccines are unquestionably safe, the supreme court has deemed them "unavoidably unsafe" as recently as 2011. Pharmaceutical companies are indemnified by the government against liability and pediatricians also cannot be sued for vaccine injury. Rather, there is a special vaccine court that compensates the very few patients who can prove their injury beyond a shadow of a doubt. The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has paid out over 3 billion dollars to date.

We keep hearing about the overwhelming proof that vaccines and the MMR in particular is safe. Anyone who questions this is being ridiculed. Concerned parents are stupid and concerned doctors don't understand the science. Well, here is the science, from the most recent Cochrane Review of the entire literature on the subject. Cochrane Reviews are systematic reviews and meta-analyses which interpret the research and are generally recognised as the highest standard in evidence-based health care.

Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2012 Feb 15;2:CD004407. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD004407.pub3.

Vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella in children.

Demicheli V1, Rivetti A, Debalini MG, Di Pietrantonj C.

Partial Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Mumps, measles and rubella (MMR) are serious diseases that can lead to potentially fatal illness, disability and death. However, public debate over the safety of the trivalent MMR vaccine and the resultant drop in vaccination coverage in several countries persists, despite its almost universal use and accepted effectiveness.

OBJECTIVES:

To assess the effectiveness and adverse effects associated with the MMR vaccine in children up to 15 years of age.

SEARCH METHODS:

For this update we searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (The Cochrane Library 2011, Issue 2), which includes the Cochrane Acute Respiratory Infections Group's Specialised Register, PubMed (July 2004 to May week 2, 2011) and Embase.com (July 2004 to May 2011).

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS:

The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre- and post-marketing, are largely inadequate. The evidence of adverse events following immunisation with the MMR vaccine cannot be separated from its role in preventing the target diseases.

The full paper is behind a paywall, but I've read it in its entirety. The authors screened approximately 5000 papers, found 139 possible for inclusion and ended up with 31 papers that met their criteria. They rated 26 of 31 as having high or moderate risk of bias, most commonly selection bias. They concluded that there was no data to support efficacy, "We were disappointed by our inability to identify effectiveness studies with population or clinical outcomes. Given the existence of documented elimination of targeted diseases in large population by means of mass immunisation campaigns however, we have no reason to doubt the effectiveness of MMR." So we believe it, because we all saw it happen, not because there is a study which shows it to be true.

They state that there is no evidence for an association between MMR and autism, but the only included study which could possibly answer the question, comparing vaccinated to unvaccinated children, is Madsen 2002 . One of the co-authors of that paper is Poul Thorsen, on the OIG's most wanted list for fraud. Thorsen is a co-author of 22 papers on autism and 5 papers on vaccine safety that still stand and are widely referenced by other authors. Even if including a paper co-authored by Thorsen doesn't bother you, their note on the Madsen study concludes: "The follow up of diagnostic records ends one year (31 Dec 1999) after the last day of admission to the cohort. Because of the length of time from birth to diagnosis, it becomes increasingly unlikely that those born later in the cohort could have a diagnosis." They noted the general absence of studies with unvaccinated controls. The reason given is that it would be unethical to have unvaccinated controls.

DeStefano 2004 is also included. One of the authors of that paper was reportedly granted official whistleblower status and immunity , alleging that the authors manipulated data to cover an association between the vaccine and autism in African American males vaccinated before the age of 36 months. Those authors are collectively responsible for a lot of the "indisputable" science we are hearing so much about. From a few months ago: The Fox Guarding The Henhouse .

Here is a compilation of abstracts, 86 Research Papers Supporting the Vaccine/Autism Link , but the media keeps telling us there is no evidence that vaccines can cause autism.

Why has there never been a well designed study comparing vaccinated to unvaccinated children? Rumor has it that Amish children don't get autism. Why isn't the CDC doing everything it can to figure out if that's true and, if so, why? The NIH just canceled the National Children's Study after wasting over 1.2 billion dollars.

Vaccines have not been a cause célèbre for me. My interest grew from the realization that vaccines grown in murine and avian cells contain infectious animal retroviruses that are supposed to be unable to cross the species barrier, but the evidence that they can't is rather flimsy. Here are blogs I wrote about vaccines and biologicals in early 2011 when I was considering the risks of attenuating viruses in animal cells and realizing the temporal relationship between the first yellow fever vaccine in 1932 and the first ME/CFS cluster in 1934, as well as the first cases of autism described by Leo Kanner in 1935.

This led to thinking about how vaccines are made, what exactly is in them, the evidence for safety/efficacy and their possible impact upon various immune profiles. The furthest I have ever gone as a doctor is to say that I don't think that ME/CFS patients or their offspring should be vaccinated. I don't think I've ever explicitly said publicly that autistic children shouldn't be vaccinated, but I will now, as it seems a no brainer to me, even if you don't believe that vaccines can cause autism. Neuroimmune disease patients are in a state of persistent immune activation which needs to be reduced with anti-inflammatory strategies. Vaccines do the opposite, on purpose. In addition, they are less likely to be effective in the presence of a preexisting inflammatory state.

The argument goes, thimerosal was removed from vaccines 10 years ago (except for the multi-dose vial flu shot), but the rate of autism has continued to climb, so vaccines are safe. This is scientific sleight of hand, not science. It is the type of argument used commonly by our so called experts to brainwash people into concluding that vaccines are all safe and any number of vaccines can be given with impunity. We ruled out one thing, so it's all fine. Data by country shows a strong correlation between more vaccines before the age of 1 year and higher infant mortality. The US is 34th in the world and gives the most vaccinations: Infant mortality rates regressed against number of vaccine doses routinely given: Is there a biochemical or synergistic toxicity?

The US childhood immunization schedule requires 26 vaccine doses for infants aged less than 1 year, the most in the world, yet 33 nations have better IMRs. Using linear regression, the immunization schedules of these 34 nations were examined and a correlation coefficient of 0.70 (p < 0.0001) was found between IMRs and the number of vaccine doses routinely given to infants. When nations were grouped into five different vaccine dose ranges (12 - 14, 15 - 17, 18 - 20, 21 - 23, and 24 - 26), 98.3% of the total variance in IMR was explained by the unweighted linear regression model. These findings demonstrate a counter-intuitive relationship: nations that require more vaccine doses tend to have higher infant mortality rates.

Here's something not being discussed in the measles/vaccine debate. Take a look at the current table of vaccine excipients: Vaccine Excipient & Media Summary . Notice how many contain aluminum, a known neurotoxin, implicated in ASIA (autoimmune syndrome induced by adjuvants). Here is a PubMed search which brings up 75 papers since 2008, specifically on this subject. There are a few hundred on aluminum and neurotoxicity . Here are two papers about ASIA and CFS/fibromyalgia, one suggesting a link with autism and a recent review paper about aluminum adjuvant biopersistence and delayed neurotoxicity: The FDA says that the amount of aluminum in vaccines is GRAS (generally recognized as safe). The argument goes that since children are exposed to aluminum in the environment anyway, giving them a little more in their vaccines is safe. Then there is MSG, formaldehyde, animal and human cells, adventitious viruses, the list goes on and on, each deserving of concern in its own right. The GRAS designation should be another blog entirely...

From the CDC website: "In the decade before 1963 when a vaccine became available, nearly all children got measles by the time they were 15 years of age. It is estimated 3 to 4 million people in the United States were infected each year. Also each year an estimated 400 to 500 people died, 48,000 were hospitalized, and 4,000 suffered encephalitis (swelling of the brain) from measles." That's roughly a 0.1% risk of encephalitis and there is a great deal of literature showing that high dose vitamin A at the onset of illness mitigates that risk significantly. The most recent numbers show that the current risk of autism, aka encephalitis/encephalopathy, is 20 times that, higher in some places. We are faced with an epidemic of allergic, neuroimmune and autoimmune disorders. The prevalence of chronic illness in our children is greater than 50% (2011). 16% have a developmental disability (2008). 11% have ADHD (2011). 2% have autism (2013). It is an emergency. Measles is not. I am not saying that vaccines are the only cause of this disaster, but there are many reasons to think they are contributory. Instead of mandating more vaccines, we should be trying to understand which children are at risk: Personalized vaccines: the emerging field of vaccinomics .

Being concerned about vaccines is not the same as discounting the dangers of infectious diseases. Not trusting the CDC and the pharmaceutical companies is not anti-science, but prudent, since they have earned our mistrust in spades. They have lied and been wrong so many times. Why believe them now? The drug companies regularly pay out billion dollar settlements for fraud convictions. Merck is currently embroiled in lawsuits brought by whistleblowers: Massive Fraud In Merck MMR Vaccine Testing . The incestuous relationship between the CDC and the vaccine manufacturers is epitomized by Julie Gerberding, former director of the CDC, now head of vaccine safety at Merck.

There are a few egregious examples that make it clear how little the vaccine program is worrying about the health of children.

1. Giving newborns who have no risk of infection a hepatitis B shot is insane. The series often wears off by the time the child is at risk. Here is a paper showing evidence of an association between the hepatitis B series and autism: Hepatitis B vaccination of male neonates and autism diagnosis, NHIS 1997-2002.

Findings suggest that U.S. male neonates vaccinated with the hepatitis B vaccine prior to 1999 (from vaccination record) had a threefold higher risk for parental report of autism diagnosis compared to boys not vaccinated as neonates during that same time period. Nonwhite boys bore a greater risk.

2. Chicken pox was a benign illness when contracted in childhood. This vaccine is another example of setting people up for waning immunity when they are older. Also shingles used to be prevented by being around infected children, but now a zoster vaccine is needed for older adults to keep the virus in check, even if they had the natural infection. The attenuated virus can cause shingles just like the wild type. The incidence of shingles has risen since the vaccine was introduced , in children and adults, though there is data suggesting this trend was already in effect from reduced immune competence in the general population prior to introduction of the vaccine. Decreased varicella and increased herpes zoster incidence at a sentinel medical deputising service in a setting of increasing varicella vaccine coverage in Victoria, Australia, 1998 to 2012. Here is a paper stating that the Varicella vaccination program is a failure. Review of the United States universal varicella vaccination program: Herpes zoster incidence rates, cost-effectiveness, and vaccine efficacy based primarily on the Antelope Valley Varicella Active Surveillance Project data. Safety data for the Varicella vaccine is even thinner than for the MMR and the excipients are particularly noxious. if we are going to decrease the number of vaccines we give to our children, this one might be a good place to start. Every adult who was vaccinated will need boosters for life, but if we let the wild type disease come back in children, we might also get rid of the need for the zoster vaccine.

3. Your government wants you to have a flu shot, even though it admits that this year's shot doesn't work. The current CDC recommendation is "Everyone 6 months of age and older should get a flu vaccine every season." Pregnant women, sick people, no matter the health status of the patient. Only people allergic to the shot or one of its components shouldn't get it. Even this year, everybody should get it, because gosh, so much money was spent making all those millions of shots and who knows, they might help a little. And they are perfectly safe, except that they can cause wheezing, Guillain Barré Syndrome and have not been studied in immunocompromised persons. There are several choices for the flu shot, but here's an example of the safety data. The FluMist package insert: "Data on safety and shedding of vaccine virus after administration of FluMist in immunocompromised persons are limited to 173 persons with HIV infection and 10 mild to moderately immunocompromised children and adolescents with cancer." 10 immunocompromised children. How many doses went up the noses of children with preexisting conditions? And then there is this: Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine Enhances Colonization of Streptococcus pneumoniae and Staphylococcus aureus in Mice .

The people making these decisions don't care about your children. They are lying to you about the quality or even the existence of safety data.

I am the last one to say that the question of whether to vaccinate or not is a simple one. I delayed vaccinating my children until they were 3 months old and I didn't give them hepatitis B shots until later. They had the chicken pox at 5 years and 6 months old, so my son may not be immune. I allowed them to be given hepatitis B shots at school when my daughter was 9 and my son was 4. He got very sick after the first dose, missed school for 2 months and I never allowed him to be vaccinated again. He lived in a dorm at college for 2 years and not a day went by that I didn't worry about the decision to forgo the meningococcal vaccine. He is now doing research in Okinawa for a semester and I worry about Japanese encephalitis, for which there is a vaccine. But he has a mother and a sister with ME/CFS, a father with POTS and other things in his risk profile that worry me with respect to vaccines. Without a crystal ball, you can never know what is the safest thing to do. If you guess wrong, either way, it is 100%.

Resource: National Vaccine Information Center

Suggested reading:

Vaccine Epidemic by Louse Kuo Habakus and Mary Holland

Dissolving Illusions by Susanne Humphries and Roman Bystrianyk

Plague by Kent Heckenlively and Judy Mikovits

The Big Autism Cover Up by Anne Dachel

Recommended documentaries:

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Russia is in a dilemma. How can it work through a peaceful settlement over the Ukraine conflict - and avoid a wider, more terrible war - when it is having to communicate with imbeciles and vassals? We are referring to the American and European leaders, respectively.

The problem of trying to have a conversation with imbeciles is that they are simply incapable of understanding anything outside of their obtuse reality. They suffer from cognitive dissonance and are proud of it. In fact, the more cognitively dysfunctional, the more the imbecile is celebrated as being strong. Imbeciles cannot be enlightened; their ignorant and boorish way of looking at the world is impervious to any different, even more correct perspective. Indeed, they have a visceral aversion to correction, which only retrenches their imbecility all the more.

The problem in dealing with vassals is that they are powerless to change course - even if they have a residual ability to think independently and to recognise an alternative perspective as being more correct, or at least reasonable.

Thus we have the dilemma facing Russia in its dealings with Washington and its European allies over the Ukraine conflict.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking in Munich last weekend, deplored the lack of European independence in averting Washington's systematic vandalism of the international order. Lavrov was scoffed at for daring to speak the truth and more so because he used logic and historical evidence to support his argument.

The imbecilic Americans substitute axioms and accusations for rational dialogue. They are guided by their own self-serving propaganda and are deluded by every word of it. And proud of it! God bless America!

US President Barack Obama, who is supposed to be one of the most thoughtful American politicians, evidently can't think beyond the uniform straitjacket narrative that posits, without a scintilla of evidence, that the conflict in Ukraine as "all Russia's fault".

Speaking with German Chancellor by his side at the White House this week, Obama said that he was considering sending lethal weapons to the Kiev regime "to help Ukraine bolster its defenses in the face of separatist aggression". Obama accused Russia of fueling the conflict and of trying to violate Ukraine's territorial integrity "down the barrel of a gun".

Reality check. Ethnic Russians are being killed in their homes, basements, schools and streets, by the Western-backed Kiev regime, which launched a gratuitous war on eastern Ukraine ten months ago, resulting in over 5,500 dead and more than a million people displaced - and yet Obama condemns the violence as "separatist aggression" and wants to send more deadly weapons to the offenders.

From Obama on down the political ladder, it only gets worse. The Vice President Joe Biden told the security conference in Munich last weekend that "Ukrainians have the right to defend themselves" and so the US should send military support to ward off "Russian aggression".

So, Mr Biden, what about the right of ethnic Russian Ukrainians defending themselves? Are they debarred from doing so? Are they not Ukrainians? Or maybe because they are ethnic Russians that makes them inferior in your view?

America's top diplomat John Kerry, a supposedly urbane, multilingual cosmopolitan, reiterates the same baseless, brainless accusations against Russia, claiming the latter to be the "biggest threat to Ukraine". Kerry also wants to send weapons to Ukraine to teach Russia a lesson.

Ditto Ashton Carter, the incoming Defense Secretary. Ditto Michel Flournoy, who is tipped to be Defense Secretary if Hillary Clinton wins the 2016 presidency. Ditto Bobby Jindal who is a hot contender for the Republican presidential candidacy. Ditto Republican foreign policy chief Bob Corker. Ditto the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey. Ditto the members of America's foreign policy establishment at the Brookings Institute and Atlantic Council. Ditto the editorial boards of America's top media corporations, including the and . All of them unblinkingly repeat the mantra that the Ukraine conflict is due to Russian aggression and that arming the Kiev regime is a swell idea for peace. All of them regurgitate a corny travesty of history which paints Russian President Vladimir Putin as "a mid-20th Century dictator" in the same "expansionist" vein as Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini. (Without a whit of understanding that mid-20th Century fascism was fomented as a covert policy of Western capitalist powers to attack the Soviet Union, and resulted in 30 million dead Russians. A policy that continues today in the form of US support for the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev as a destabilizing force towards Russia.)

The scary thing about American imbeciles is that they don't have an inkling that they might be brainwashed. They are Orwellian clones who believe that war is peace, slavery is freedom, and truth is whatever you are told it is.

American politicians attending the Munich Security Conference derided efforts by Germany's Merkel and French President Francois Hollande to engage Putin in political dialogue over the Ukraine crisis as "bullshit".

The three leaders are proposing to follow up lengthy discussions held in Moscow last weekend with a further meeting in Minsk, the Belarus capital, this week. It's far from certain that Putin, Merkel and Hollande can achieve a breakthrough to get the Kiev regime to sit down and talk with the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. The uncouth Americans are certainly trying their best to scupper dialogue before it is even given a chance to progress.

In contrast to the gung-ho Americans, there is a new consensus among the Europeans that pouring more weapons into Ukraine is no solution, indeed is to be avoided, and that the separatists have reasonable grounds for political autonomy deserving a respectful hearing.

The Europeans, at least publicly, may still adopt the hoary narrative that Russia is destabilizing Ukraine covertly with its troops or military support for the separatists. Moscow flatly denies those claims. But at least the Europeans seem to have enough intellectual subtlety to realize that maximalist finger-pointing against Putin is counterproductive and that there might be more than one side to the story.

To her credit, Angela Merkel has stood firm in her opposition to American calls for increasing military involvement in Ukraine. While in Washington this week, she categorically ruled out supporting the idea of sending more weapons into Ukraine. Merkel's opposition to US proposals has been denounced by leading Republican Senators as "appeasement" of Putin, with asinine analogies to Chamberlain and Hitler at the 1938 Munich conference.

Dealing with American imbeciles is thus impossible. They inhabit a different mental world from most other people. Their world is formed by ahistorical propaganda and a boorish attitude that makes dialogue, reciprocation, or socratic elucidation a dim prospect. Their arrogance and ignorant conceit are obstacles to genuine communication and understanding. It's all Putin's fault; it's all due to those morose Russian hordes; it's the evil Soviet empire making a comeback. A US-backed regime-change illegal operation in Kiev against an elected government? A US-backed regime waging war on ethnic Russian people in eastern Ukraine? Are you nuts, you Putin-pussy-apologist?

How can you deal with such people? You can't.

However, the additional problem is that the Europeans are not free to really act on their incipient independent thoughts. It is clear that Merkel and Hollande, and many other European leaders, realize that US plans to flood Ukraine with even more lethal weapons is a woeful idea that potentially could spark World War III. It is clear that many Europeans think US-led sanctions against Russia are not only counterproductive, but actually an unreasonable, hostile policy that is hurting European workers, farmers and economies as much as it is Russia's.

The problematic fact is that European states are vassals of America. They are not free to act out of line from Washington's dictate, no matter how ludicrous is the latter. Germany is considered the powerhouse of Europe and the fourth largest economy in the world. Yet, as German political analyst Christof Lehmann reminds us, Germany has never had genuine political independence since the end of the Second World War. It does not have a constitution befitting a modern state, and it continues to be occupied by military forces belonging to the "victorious" American and British allies. "Germany is a de facto colony of the US", says Lehmann. "At any time, under the postwar basic law, American troops can take over the government of Germany, which technically and legally is an occupied state, a vassal state".

The American NSA spying on Chancellor Merkel revealed in 2013 by Edward Snowden is a case in point. More telling is how Merkel did not respond to that gross infringement of German "sovereignty" with the political force that that American violation merited. She meekly accepted the intrusion as a condition of American postwar hegemony.

Lehmann points out how any past moves by Germany to create an independent foreign policy, and one in particular that involves rapprochement with Russia, have been serially vetoed by the US and its British ally. "We saw that under Chancellors Willy Brandt and Gerhard Schroeder, their efforts at adopting a more friendly relation with Russia were sabotaged at every step by Washington and London", says Lehmann.

That is why Merkel deserves much credit for making her bold stand this week against American militarism in Ukraine. Her dissent is highly significant of a potential cleavage in US-European relations. What she is doing is challenging a fundamental red line in Washington: namely, that European states, and Germany especially, cannot, must not, dare to question American hegemony and its longterm policy of hostility towards Russia.

Merkel and Hollande may be finally getting the message from the millions of ordinary EU citizens who deeply object to American warmongering towards Russia at Europe's expense. But given the tradition of European vassalage to the imbecilic Americans, the chances of a positive breakthrough for peaceful relations remain elusive. European leadership is still a captive of Washington's clutches. But the disgusted European masses might just be forcing a break in the imbecilic bonds.

The FDA continues to be one of the most dangerous government agencies in the United States. The sheer scope of people it affects with its corruption is staggering. As Jon Rappoport has highlighted, the FDA's own webpage admits that the drugs it certifies as safe contribute to over 100,000 deaths per year.

And as you'll see in the video interview below with constitutional attorney, Jonathan Emord, not only does the FDA routinely approve drugs over objections from its own medical reviewers, but the FDA does zero independent medical testing of its own. It is a system built upon conflicts of interest that leaves consumers completely in the dark about the true consequences of taking Big Pharma products.

As the newly inflamed vaccine debate rages across America, the fundamental role of the FDA in disseminating false information and flat-out covering up widespread health dangers must be examined more fully. Here are two key articles from natural health author, Catherine J. Frompovich, which add to the information presented in the following video:

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I'm 80 years old. I was never scared throughout the Cold War years. I'm very scared now." That is what Stephen Lendman, a Research Associate for the Centre for Research on Globalization told Sputnik in an exclusive interview regarding recent developments related to the military conflict in Ukraine.

As the Normandy Four are set to meet in Minsk on Wednesday to discuss possible ways out of the deteriorating military conflict in eastern Ukraine, Stephen Lendman forecasts that the US won't drop its idea of waging a full-size war in the region.

Washington under the Democrats or Republicans wants war, not peace, he said. "In the post-9/11 era alone, not a single day of peace has followed. Multiple US direct and proxy wars rage. US Special Forces (trained killers) operate covertly and overtly in over 130 countries disruptively."

'Ignore What Germany and France Say Publicly; Follow What They Do'

He says that "Merkel and Hollande (Germany and France) are bedrock US-dominated NATO members." "Ignore what they say publicly; follow what they do," he advised. "Throughout the Ukrainian crisis, they haven't gone their own way against

Washington...nor has Britain's David Cameron."

"I'm sure Merkel and Hollande tried to get Putin to largely bend to Washington's will; in other words, [they] do nothing to stop its chokehold on Ukraine, including NATO forces encroaching on Russia's borders."

America maintains an empire of bases in over 150 countries, he added, noting that Russia and China are increasingly surrounded by US bases, which he called "so-called defensive missiles for an offense target: their heartlands."

Washington wants all sovereign independent governments eliminated, Lendman stated. "Replaced by pro-Western stooge ones. America's ultimate aim is unchallenged global dominance; it's willing to wage wars to achieve its objectives."

'Peace is Anathema. US-Banker Led War Lobby Demands Wars'

The political analyst said that wars are hugely profitable. "The US-banker led war lobby demands them. Peace is anathema. Putin is right: Russia has been targeted for centuries, more than ever now since Hitler's Barbarossa campaign."

Regarding the role the US left for Russia, Lendman forecast the following.

Washington wants to plunder Russia's resources," he said. "Exploit its people. Balkanize the country like Yugoslavia for easier control."

"America ousted Ukraine's legitimate government," in "the most brazen European coup since Mussolini's 1922 march on Rome. Neo-Nazi thugs run things", Lendman said of the 2014 Maidan events, calling the post-Maidan government there mob rule. "War policy is made in Washington."

"CIA, FBI and US Special Forces infest Kiev: Top US officials like Joe Biden, John Kerry, Victoria Nuland and John Brennan show up to deliver marching orders."

"Kiev is a hotbed of fascist, militant gangsterism, murdering its own citizens in Donbas [for] wanting only democratic rights free from Kiev-style tyranny."

"Kiev's military is a proxy US force," Lendman went on. "One observer said America will wage the war down to the last Ukrainian. What's ongoing is a pretext to blame Moscow for US/Kiev high crimes against peace."

'Putin Will Keep Doing What's Best for Russia'

"Putin will keep doing what's best for Russia, not America or other NATO countries", the analyst said. However, Lendman greatly fears how things will turn out.

"Washington has been heading for conflict with Russia throughout Putin's tenure."

Lendman says that the US Congress almost universally demonizes Putin, and that the US media has sunk to its lowest depths in his lifetime. He fears a possible US-instigated war with Russia, and suspects a major false flag will be used as justification.

"I'm 80 years old. I was never scared throughout the Cold War years. I'm very scared now," he stated.

File image.

The Obama administration announced creation of another federal intelligence center in the long list of law enforcement and spy services. This time its main task will be cyberintel.

The last year saw high-profile hacks into Sony Pictures, which set off a firestorm of controversy surrounding their film "The Interview." But other security breaches, like cyberattacks on Home Depot, Target, and even the social media accounts of US Central Command, made President Obama to prioritize cybersecurity.

Called the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center (CTIIC), the new agency will be an "intelligence center that will 'connect the dots' between various cyber threats to the nation so that relevant departments and agencies are aware of these threats in as close to real time as possible," according to an unnamed Obama administration official who spoke to Washington Post.

Profiling hacker groups, gathering their digital "signatures" and sharing threat information with law enforcement and intelligence agencies will be the main task of the new center.

Right now, cybersecurity is managed by a hodgepodge network consisting of the National Security Agency, Department of Homeland Security, FBI, and CIA, but a lack of coordination between these departments is a critical weakness in US intelligence.

The CTIIC will, theoretically, serve to pool all of this cybersecurity information in one place. Following 9/11, the Bush administration created the National Counterterrorism Center to establish better communication between various US intelligence agencies. The CTIIC would work in a similar way.

"No existing agency has the responsibility for performing these functions, so we need these gaps to be filled to help the federal government meet its responsibilities in cybersecurity," the unnamed Obama administration official said.

While the intelligence apparatus welcomed the creation of a joint cyber intelligence center, it concerns privacy advocates still wary of the government's eavesdropping capabilities. The Snowden revelations, which outlined the extent of the government's domestic spying apparatus, have placed watchdogs on high alert.

To appease these concerns, the Obama administration established the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC), a cyber data hub with some semblance of oversight. The NCCIC will purportedly start gathering its intelligence directly from the CTIIC.

However, it didn't satisfy privacy advocates. Judge Andrew Napolitano told Fox Business network that the government is "least equipped" to protect Americans from cyberinvasion, because its not interested in unbreakable products that the government itself can't penetrate.

"The internet cannot be protected by the government, because the government will never permit a system that it can't zero into," he said, adding that "any government agency that is big enough to protect us, is big enough to surveil us."

The Obama administration has been encouraging the private sector to voluntarily share user data with the government for threat assessment, and last month, Prime Minister David Cameron also asked for that data to be shared with British intelligence in real time.

© Reuters/Nacho Doce

A sign (in black) that reads "Tap without Water" is seen inside an ice-cream shop at the Pinheiros neighbourhood in Sao Paulo February 10, 2015.

Brazilians are hoarding water in their apartments, drilling homemade wells and taking other emergency measures to prepare for forced rationing that appears likely and could leave taps dry for up to five days a week because of a drought.

In São Paulo, the country's largest city with a metropolitan area of 20 million people, the main reservoir is at just 6 percent of capacity with the peak of the rainy season now past.

Other cities in Brazil's heavily populated southeast such as Rio de Janeiro face less dire shortages but could also see rationing.

Uncertainty over the drought and its consequences on jobs, public health and overall quality of life have further darkened Brazilians' mood at a time when the economy is struggling and President Dilma Rousseff's popularity is at an all-time low.

After January rains disappointed, and incentives to cut consumption fell short, São Paulo officials warned their next step could be to shut off customers' water supply for as many as five days a week - a measure that would likely last until the next rainy season starts in October, if not longer.

State officials say they have not yet decided whether or when to implement such rationing, in part because they are still hoping for heavy rains in February and March. Indeed, thunderstorms in recent days have caused lakes to rise a bit.

Still, independent projections suggest that São Paulo's main Cantareira reservoir could run out of water as soon as April without drastic cuts to consumption.

As such, the race is on to secure water while it lasts.

Large hospitals in São Paulo are installing in-house water treatment and recycling centers, among other measures, to make sure they can still carry out surgeries and other essential tasks if regular supply stops.

Meanwhile, companies are competing with each other to secure deliveries from large water tanker trucks, which have already become a common sight on São Paulo's gridlocked streets.

"It's like seeing 10 liters in your gas tank and knowing you won't make it to the next station," said Stefan Rohr, environmental director for industry group Ciesp in Campinas, a metropolitan area of more than 3 million people just north of São Paulo.

Many large water-intensive industries, including beverages, cellulose and steel, long ago made contingency plans to truck in water or use underground wells, which may stave off a full-fledged economic disaster.

But smaller ones, ranging from beauty salons and restaurants to car washes and light industry, may have to close or severely restrict activity.

"The economic impact will be job losses," Rohr said.

40 million could be affected

Sabesp, São Paulo's state-controlled water utility, told Reuters it did not yet know when or if rationing would begin. State Governor Geraldo Alckmin, who has also seen his popularity plummet due to the water crisis, declined requests for an interview.

A member of Rousseff's Cabinet told Reuters earlier this month on condition of anonymity that some degree of water rationing is expected in Brazil's three largest metropolitan areas - São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte, with a combined population of 40 million people.

Even without rationing, health problems are being felt.

The official number of dengue fever cases in São Paulo tripled in January from the previous year to 120. Officials blamed the rise in part on residents collecting rainwater in open buckets, which attracts mosquitoes.

Many richer Brazilians have large storage tanks built into their apartment buildings or houses which, combined with more conscious water use, may allow them to survive severe rationing without ever seeing their taps go dry.

But most working-class families can't afford such measures. Some unions are planning demonstrations for next month to protest the government's handling of the crisis and demand the poor don't bear the brunt of it.

"We will not accept paying for the government's irresponsibility with our jobs," said Adi dos Santos Lima, president of the São Paulo state branch of Brazil's largest umbrella union, the CUT.

Brazil's economy is already expected to post zero growth this year. Worse yet, since Brazil depends on hydroelectric dams for about three quarters of its electricity, power shortages are also possible due to the drought, federal officials have said.

Combined water and electricity rationing could lop an additional 0.5 percent or more off of economic growth in 2015, according to Ilan Goldfajn, chief economist at Itaú Unibanco.

Inflation, which is running above 7 percent a year, could also rise as companies face increased costs.

São Paulo's shopping centers are standing by for potential rationing and have signed contracts to truck in water as soon as needed, said Glauco Humai, who heads Brazil's mall association Abrasce.

"Our plan is not to close the malls. Obviously this will raise costs," he said.

Some local chicken processors and pasta makers will also likely raise prices for those products as a result of trucking in water, a local food workers' union said.

Even Carnival cancelled

Sírio Libanês, one of São Paulo's premier private hospitals, said it cut reliance on Sabesp from 65 percent of its water needs to 25 percent by recycling and installing its own treatment system. Another large upscale hospital, Albert Einstein, said it had increased storage capacity to last four days and would rely on trucks for emergencies.

Many neighborhoods have already experienced daily water outages as Sabesp turns down pressure in pipes to save consumption. Some residents of the Brasilândia slum said this week they were often without water 13 hours a day.

At least two towns in Minas Gerais, a massive coffee producing state adjacent to São Paulo, even canceled Carnival celebrations this month because of the lack of water.

In an upper-class neighborhood of São Paulo, a grocery delivery boy reported bringing 170 two-liter bottles of water to a single apartment over the weekend.

Ronaldo Guellen, who runs a small construction store, recently ordered 70 200-liter tanks that can be used to store water. They sold out in three days, he said, and he hasn't been able to order any more because supplies are running short.

"People are really getting scared," Guellen said.

Source: Reuters

Public banks in North Dakota, Germany and Switzerland have been shown to outperform their private counterparts. Under the TPP and TTIP, however, publicly-owned banks on both sides of the oceans might wind up getting sued for unfair competition because they have advantages not available to private banks.

In November 2014, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Bank of North Dakota (BND), the nation's only state-owned bank, "is more profitable than Goldman Sachs Group Inc., has a better credit rating than J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and hasn't seen profit growth drop since 2003." The article credited the shale oil boom; but as discussed earlier here, North Dakota was already reporting record profits in the spring of 2009, when every other state was in the red and the oil boom had not yet hit. The later increase in state deposits cannot explain the bank's stellar record either.

Then what does explain it? The BND turns a tidy profit year after year because it has substantially lower costs and risks then private commercial banks. It has no exorbitantly-paid executives; pays no bonuses, fees, or commissions; has no private shareholders; and has low borrowing costs. It does not need to advertise for depositors (it has a captive deposit base in the state itself) or for borrowers (it is a wholesome wholesale bank that partners with local banks that have located borrowers). The BND also has no losses from derivative trades gone wrong. It engages in old-fashioned conservative banking and does not speculate in derivatives.

Lest there be any doubt about the greater profitability of the public banking model, however, this conclusion was confirmed in January 2015 in a report by the Savings Banks Foundation for International Cooperation (SBFIC) (the Sparkassenstiftung für internationale Kooperation), a non-profit organization founded by the the Sparkassen Finance Group (Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe) in Germany. The SBFIC was formed in 1992 to make the experience of the German Sparkassen - municipally-owned savings banks - accessible in other countries.

The Sparkassen were instituted in the late 18^th century as nonprofit organizations to aid the poor. The intent was to help people with low incomes save small sums of money, and to support business start-ups. Today, about half the total assets of the German banking system are in the public sector. (Another substantial chunk is in cooperative savings banks.) Local public banks are key tools of German industrial policy, specializing in loans to the Mittelstand, the small-to-medium size businesses that are at the core of that country's export engine. The savings banks operate a network of over 15,600 branches and offices and employ over 250,000 people, and they have a strong record of investing wisely in local businesses.

In January 2015, the SPFIC published a report drawn from Bundesbank data, showing that the Sparkassen not only have a return on capital that is several times greater than for the German private banking sector, but that they pay substantially more to local and federal governments in taxes. That makes them triply profitable: as revenue-generating assets for their government owners, as lucrative sources of taxes, and as a stable funding mechanism for small and medium-sized businesses (a funding mechanism sorely lacking in the US today). Three charts from the SBFIC report are reproduced in English below. (Sparkassen results are in orange. Private commercial banks are in light blue.)

Swiss Publicly-Owned Banks and the Swiss National Bank: Marching to a Different Drummer

The Swiss have a network of cantonal (provincially-owned) banks that are so similar to the Sparkassen banks that they were invited to join the SBFIC. The Swiss public banks, too, have been shown to be more profitable than their private counterparts. The Swiss public banking system helps explain the strength of the Swiss economy, the soundness of its banks, and their attractiveness as a safe haven for foreign investors.

The unique structure of the Swiss banking system also helps explain the surprise move by the SNB on January 15, 2015, when it lifted the cap on the Swiss franc as against the euro, anticipating the European Central Bank's move to embark on a massive program of quantitative easing the following week. Switzerland is not a member of the EU or the Eurozone, and the Swiss National Bank (SNB) is not like other central banks. It is 55% owned by the country's 26 cantons or provinces. The remaining investors are private. Each canton has its own publicly-owned cantonal bank, which provides credit to local small and medium-sized businesses.

In 2011, the SNB pegged the Swiss franc to the euro at 1 to 1.20; but the value of the euro steadily dropped after that, and the SNB could maintain the peg only by printing Swiss francs, diluting their value to keep up with the euro. The fear was that once the ECB started its new money printing program, the Swiss franc would have to be diluted into hyperinflation to keep up.

The SNB's unanticipated action imposed heavy losses on speculators who were long the euro (betting it would rise), and the move evoked criticism from the European central banking community for not tipping them off beforehand. But the loyalty of the Swiss National Bank is to its cantons, cantonal banks, and individual investors, not to the big private international banks that drive central bank policies in other countries. The cantons had been complaining that they were no longer receiving the hefty 6% dividend they had been able to count on for the previous century. The SNB promised to restore the dividend in 2015, and lifting the cap was evidently felt necessary to do it.

Publicly-owned Banks and the Trans-Pacific Partnership

The SBFIC is working particularly hard these days to make information and technical help available to other countries interested in pursuing their beneficial public model, because that model has come under attack . Private international competitors are pushing for regulations that would limit the advantages of publicly-owned banks, through Basel III, the European Banking Union, and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

In the US, the current threat is from the TransPacific Partnership (TPP) and its European counterpart the TTIP. President Obama, the Chamber of Commerce, and other corporate groups are pushing hard for fast track authority to pass these secret trade agreements while effectively bypassing oversight from Congress.

The agreements are being sold as promoting trade and increasing jobs, but the effect of international trade agreements on jobs was evident with NAFTA, which hurt US employment more through the competition of cheap imports than helped it with increased exports. Moreover, only five of the TPP's twenty-nine chapters are about trade. The remaining chapters are basically about getting government off the backs of the big international corporations and protecting their profits from competition. Corporations would be authorized to sue governments that passed laws protecting their people from corporate damage, on the ground that the laws impair corporate profits. The trade agreements put corporations before governments and the people they represent.

Particularly targeted are government-owned industries, which can undercut big corporate prices; and that includes publicly-owned banks. Public banks are true non-profits that recycle earnings back into the community rather than siphoning them into offshore tax havens. Not only are the costs of public banks quite low, but they are safer for depositors; they allow public infrastructure costs to be cut in half (since the government-owned bank can keep the interest that composes 50% of infrastructure costs); and they provide a non-criminal alternative to an international banking cartel caught in a laundry list of frauds.

Despite these notable benefits, under the TPP and TTIP, publicly-owned banks might wind up getting sued for unfair competition because they have advantages not available to private banks, including the backing of their local governments. They have the backing of the government because they are the government. The government would be getting sued for operating efficiently in the best interests of its constituents.

To truly eliminate unfair competition, the giant monopolistic multinational corporations should be broken up, since they have an obvious unfair trade advantage over small farmers and small businesses. But that outcome is liable to be long in coming. In the meantime, fast track for the secretive trade agreements needs to be vigorously opposed. To find out how you can help, go to http://bit.ly/1zXyQvl orwww.FlushtheTPP.org.

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The Raw Story

A non-profit news blog, focused on providing independent journalism.

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