The Mission

No, it's not the movie staring Robert De Niro, (one of my favorites), but a visit to the Carmel Mission Fiesta. I gave the fiesta passing notice, and then spent the rest of my time photographing this lovely site, rich in history, as it was the founding of Monterey as the capitol of California. A painting depicts the moment here:


Note that the two forces, both sharp blades of the conquest of this new land, are prominently featured--a company of Conquistadors bearing the arms that took the land from the hapless local natives who peek at the spectacle in clueless curiosity, and then their Jesuit brethren, bearing scripture and the mighty pen, the religious ideas that would eradicate the indigenous culture with equal efficiency. Consider this next image, where the priest holds his bible to pass on the new credo. The local natives surrounding him depict the warriors and traders, and the squaw and her child showing that the message delivered would transform every aspect of the indigenous culture, not only this generation, but those that followed.


These thoughts crossed my mind as I toured the place, realizing that the church was as much a fortress of occupation in a foreign land as anything else when it was first built. The deeply recessed windows on the mission buildings were perfect subjects for my camera, but I could not help but notice they were all well guarded by rusted iron bars with ornate metal fittings designed for one purpose only--to prevent a human from gaining entry to the mission grounds and buildings. Certainly the west was a wild and sometimes dangerous place, but only those properly "converted" to the new faith and way of life the Spanish brought would gain easy entry here.

I also passed a comical moment listening to the fiesta band playing "Wolly Bully" in the basillica courtyard as our 21st century locals ate barbecued chicken and danced. Somehow the grating rock chords and thrumming base line echoing off the mission walls seemed so jaring and out of place. It is clear that other forces and cultural influences have long since replaced the enormous power "the Church" once wielded in Western civilization. That said, the chapel and altar, and all the other shrines and prayer gardens, still held their charm and an air of serenity and mystic power.

Here's the full gallery of shots I took on this visit. Enjoy!

Car Fest

I went down to the famous "Cannery Row" last night for a stroll with my lady, but found the entire street clogged with a throng of sight seers, all come to see the "Old Car Show." There were perhaps 150 entrants, old roadsters from the 20s and 30s with those elegant Art Deco vertical grills and tear drop headlights, a Model A Ford, and all the Chevy Impalas, Ford Fairlanes, Mustangs, Pontiac GTOs, Corvettes and more, all lavishly detailed and gleaming in the neon shop lights. I have never seen "the Row" this busy. People were gawking and taking photos as the proud car owners sat lazily by in folding canvass chairs. When we finally reached the Clement Hotel near the Aquarium, the poor valet parking staff was flabberghasted, trying to sort out potential arriving guests from the crush of sight seers.

Americans love their cars! The evening had a nostalgic tint to it as these shining relics of a bygone era growled to life with their V-8 engines thrumming when the show began to wind down. I realized that, of all the various auto makers represented, only Henry Ford's original auto company still thrived. All the rest were history, or on government life support. These were the old "made in America" cars of yesteryear, but today the road is owned by the likes of Honda and Toyota. You can see those old cars just about any day on most highways, dating back years and years--because they still run! Face it. The Japanese make great cars, and the legacy of all the decades of American design was this car show, a proud, glittering tradition, but nothing you will ever see on the freeway again. Even the crowning glory of stupidity and excess in American design, the dread "Hummer" has been sold off to China where it will hit the road next year as the Dongfeng Hummer marketed by Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company Ltd.

Dongfeng, the "East Wind," is clearly blowing China's way. Already well established as the world's primary manufacturing center, China's economy, while still a third of US GDP, continues to humm along. As for the loss of Hummer--good riddance. Now Chinese drivers can fume and curse at the monstrosity as they try to see around it on the busy roads. As for Americans? They can enjoy the nostalgic fervor of the occasional old car show, and remember the glory days of yore. Perhaps, after learning the same lessons US car makers did in investing in clunky, inefficient SUVs and vans, the Chinese will one day sport old Dongfeng Hummers, complete with flaming paint details and LED lighting...decades from now in the old car show in Beijing.

Here's a photo of Cannery Row from one of the flyovers, taken by my companion that night.

Chinatown

I passed a very exciting weekend in San Francisco's Chinatown for the annual "Autumn Moon Festival," the Chinese equivalent of our Thanksgiving or harvest celebrations. Arriving just in time for the kickoff ceremony and street parade, I saw my very first exhibition of dancing dragons and lions amid a throng of thousands of people on Grant Ave., 98% of them Chinese. The energy and activity along Grant was almost impossible to navigate, with 200 arts and crafts booths hawking everything from Chinese DVDs to clothing, nick nacks, food, and the ubiquitous 'Moon Cakes' selling for inflated prices. Gallery Here.

But just a block away along Stockton, the rest of the Chinese community in San Francisco was busy with the normal shopping of the day. There, in numerous street side markets, one could find an array of all kinds of produce selling for a fraction of what you would buy them for in any typical grocery store. Walk a few blocks east to the trendy tourist haven on the Embarcadero and compare prices to the 'organic' produce offered in the Ferry Building. Avacados there sold for a minimum of $2 each, while they were two for a dollar in Chinatown. Egg plant, cucumber, fruit of every sort all sold at three to five times what you would pay in Chinatown...which made me wonder: If the Chinese can deliver the goods at $.79 cents a pound on Stockton, why do American merchants soak me for $2.99 a pound for the very same item? And in many cases I found the produce offered up in Chinatown superior in quality and taste!

I considered the breakfast I had in the hotel lobby restaurant that morning: some potatoes, two scrabbled eggs, three sausage, OJ and coffee. The tab? A whopping $30. for one person after tax and tip. Later that day I ate a massive lunch near Chinatown that cost all of $15 for two people! (Tip included!) This strange disparity of price seemed to run parallel to the disparity of wealth in our society. There were hotel rooms in the city routinely booking out at $300-$400 per night...suites that booked for over $1500. Was it just me or was this obcenely decadent that people would book these while so many went homeless and hungry?

Walking to the Embarcadero Center and Financial District on Sunday morning presented another strange contrast. The financial district sat in swank silence, while a few blocks east the Chinese were bustling with the frenetic buying, selling and celebration on Grant. But here the streets were largely empty, except for the Ferry Building where tourists were bellying up for espresso and crossiants. Near Market Street a lone artist played mournful, jazzy tunes on a saxaphone, the music echoing amid the tall monolithic towers of all the major financial institutions. The world of finance, that has brought such harm to the nation these last years, was quietly sleeping this Sunday morning. You had to look elsewhere to find the damage their bad securities schemes had visited upon the City.

Later that day I toured the Asian Art Museum, noting a few derelict homeless men stretched out on the tiled stone of the plaza above the parking garage near City Hall. Across the street the dome of City Hall was guilded with gold, rising in stately majesty. As we entered the museum we were politely told that no photography would be permitted at the special "Lords of the Samuari" exhibit. Again, the jolting discord hit me--we lived in a society that carefully hoarded the light bouncing off its art treasures, while allowing human beings to sleep on hard, cold stone in the plaza just a hundred yards away, homeless men without hope, prospects for any future, or money for a $30 breakfast in a Hotel on Nob Hill.

What is wrong with this picture?

Bizzaro World

When I was a kid we used to look forward to Superman comic book episodes in "Bizarro World." It was a place where you had to do everything ass backwards, a cubed shaped planet called "Htrae," (which is earth spelled backwards.) First appearing in DC Action Comics issue #263, Wikipedia reminds us: "In the Bizarro world society is ruled by the Bizarro Code which states "Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!" In one episode, for example, a salesman is doing a brisk trade selling Bizarro bonds: "Guaranteed to lose money for you!" Later, the mayor appoints Bizarro No. 1 to investigate a crime, "Because you are stupider than the entire Bizarro police force put together." This is intended and taken as a great compliment."

Lately I've come to the feeling that we are living on the bizarro world of Htrae instead of earth. It's apparently a big crime now for a bank to make a loan that is safe and sound all on its own, and doesn't require government backing from the FHA, or packaging into a risk avoiding "security." What a strange world to think that the government now owns and guarantees 80% of the mortgages issued in the former "free market" we call the real estate industry. Yet like the demise of Fannnie & Freddie, the former backers of shaky mortgage paper, the FHA is now seeing a 23% default rate in its "portfolio." They might as well just borrow the line from Action Comics: FHA - "Guaranteed to lose money for you!"

And consider the stock market, where the play de jour is to try and make money by "shorting" stocks in a bad economy--making money from declining fortunes of the companies that issue the stocks. Bizarro indeed! But lately the short sellers have taken a big hit because, in the midst of the worst economic crash since the Great Depression, the stock market has put in a Bizarro Bear rally. All this while real earnings in companies that make up the S & P 500 have fallen off a cliff. Here's a chart from the folks at "Chart of the Day."

Wow! Talk about nasty "fundamentals!" Real earnings have taken the worst plunge in the history of the market since 1935! Time to buy stocks in Bizarro world! And while everyone stands in awe of this amazing bizarro bear rally, insiders, those with the big money in the know, are busy selling their stock shares like there was no tomorrow.

So what a world we live in here on Htrae, where public money from the weakest goes to support the bad bets and private investment losses of the wealthiest. And all of this happens with the willing aid of the government that is supposed to be "of the people, by the people, and for the people"... you know, all of the folks out there on Main Street with no jobs or health care. No money for health care in Bizarro world! We spent it all to bail out the big banks. And all this goes on because our regulators, congressmen and government leaders appear to be "stupider than the entire Bizarro police force put together!"

GOOD NEWS! Unemployment continues unabated, foreclosures are at an all time high, credit is contracting at record levels, banks are failing everywhere, commerce is slowing to a crawl! It's a recovery! Excuse me. I have to go practice walking backwards.

The New Landfills

The Wall Street Journal recently reported: "To keep funds flowing to the housing market, the government bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last year and now effectively owns the mortgage finance giants and their combined $5.4 trillion in loan portfolios. To keep mortgage rates low, the Federal Reserve is on track to purchase nearly $1.5 trillion in debt issued or guaranteed by the government's various mortgage arms and another $300 billion in Treasurys, which set the benchmark for home lending."

Bear in mind that Fannie and Freddie were, in effect, the two great landfills where mortgages went to die, and the bailout was a government backstop of, (and 80% ownership stake in), their $5.1 trillion dollar mortgage portfolios, about 50% of all US mortgages. Now the banks are busy looking for new landfills where they can again pass on the risk of lending to someone else. Their solution? Ginnie Mae and the FHA. These two agencies are now backing about 80% of current mortgage traffic. The Fed is presently purchasing billions of mortgage backed securities, (read "toxic assets"), issued by these institutions, with a target of $1.2 trillion. All told, Treasury bailouts and Fed programs have thrown $7 trillion at this problem alone--all, as the WSJ reports "To keep funds flowing to the housing market...to keep mortgage rates low..." Yet the banks have reduced lending, relentlessly, for the last six months!

Lord, is this an expensive way to do things, or what? As long as the government is going to virtually own 70% to 80% of bad US mortgage paper, I'd say a much cheaper way to keep funds flowing to housing would have been to simply demand all funds committed to bank bailouts be used for lending, not new securities purchases, acquisitions, bloated CEO salaries, and expensive parties. And a much cheaper way to "keep mortgage rates low" would have been to simply mandate the rate by passing a law. After all, with this massive government intervention in the real estate business, we don't really have an operating free market now anyway. Why not just bite the bullet and legislate these goals, instead of paying banks $7 trillion and ... well, having them say "thanks, now please go away" as they get right back to their game of buying securities.

Fannie and Freddie were leveraged in this toxic paper at 50-1 levels. Guess what. The FHA, our new landfill, is now leveraged in this same stew at a rate of ....(drumb roll) ... 50-1.

Have we learned nothing from what happened to Fannie and Freddie?

M.U.L.E.

I was visiting with a good friend this weekend and at one point in our meandering conversation we passed a moment of nostalgic reflection on an old computer game for the Commodore-64--(remember that?)--called "M.U.L.E." Basically the game was an exercise in supply and demand economics, and how markets work to set prices as buyers bid for commodities. You can read up on this 1983 classic here, and I'll come back to this in a moment.

How did M.U. L. E. make it into my early morning brain today? The Washington Post published a quote from White House insider Larry Summers clearly spinning out a thesis that the worst was over in our recent financial crisis, and like Bernanke, he took a little credit for it all. "Lawrence H. Summers compared the government's actions to a successful but evolving response to a natural disaster. "We are making a clear transition from rescue as the priority of public policy to sustained recovery," he told reporters in a briefing Friday afternoon. "We have moved back from the brink of financial catastrophe." Sustained recovery? Watch what happens to car sales next month without the $4000 government credit Cash for Clunkers offered. And watch what happens to housing sales when the $8000 tax credit for first time home buyers expires soon. Then we get back to reality--sustained decline.

Let me beg to differ with Mr. Summers. What we have done is to quietly agree, in the back rooms of Congress, the Treasury Department, and the Fed, that the core beams of our financial system, (BofA, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo) are simply too big and important to fail--even though they have failed and are technically insolvent. But we have decided instead to change the way the bad debt these institutions carry is reported, and then backstopped them with truckloads of freshly printed cash and trillion dollar lines of credit at the Fed--sums of money that exceed the total money our government has spent to fight every war in it's history, and fund every major purchase or program (like the moon race) to boot. $13.8 trillion is one hell of a truss system thrown up to support the banking structure. This was what saved the core of the financial system--not a real resolution of the bad debt they carry, but simply an agreement not to acknowledge that debt, and the creation of massive allotments of digital dollars on the computer systems of the Fed.

Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stilgitz agrees, and was quoted in Bloomberg today as saying: "In the U.S. and many other countries, the too-big-to-fail banks have become even bigger,” Stiglitz said in an interview today in Paris. “The problems are worse than they were in 2007 before the crisis." Get that? Things are even worse now in the core financial companies than before the collapse last year--and this is after the $13.8 bailout and Fed program billion bonanza they received. So in what way have we stepped back from the brink? By jumping over the cliff?

We now have now what I call a false illusion of recovery and stability. This was accomplished because the powers that be realized, in the end, that these gentlemen's agreements are the way anything in the world is assigned value, from a comodity like food, a "real asset" like a house, to a hunk of metal like gold, or a printed piece a paper we now call a "Federal Reserve Note." A thing is worth only what people agree it is worth, and the way we sample the general consensus of opinion as to what a thing is worth is called a "free market." Things in this market get put up for sale, and buyers make offers, competing with one another to get what they need--just like that nifty little game called M.U.L.E. But in this case the government, and the Fed, simply decided to overrule the price discovery of the free market and intervene directly to decide what value "toxic" securities will have--rather they changed rules to allow banks to simply assign this value, and the multiple trillions in securities are simply penned in at values that the banks could never collect if these same securities were offered up on the "free market" ...or in a game like M.U.L. E.

One play balancing feature of the game was a series of seemingly random events that would happen each turn. Players could lose valuable equipment in natural disasters, or win a windfall bonanza when something like good weather increased their solar energy harvest. And you could also go out and hunt a creature called the "Wumpus" to get more points if needed. But no matter how well you played the game with superior trading strategies, the Space Pirates could show up and simply steal away a huge chunk of your wealth. This was programed in to keep the game relatively even for most players, though eventually one player had to win.

It occured to me that the Space Pirates on Wall street have had a pretty good run in the last year--stealing away wealth from the public trust--from you and I as taxpayers and from those that will fill that role for generations to come. None of it has really been "paid" mind you. The Federal government doesn't collect enough tax money to even keep its bloated administrative mechanism running each year. It is currently $1.38 trillion in the red--just ten percent of that $13.8 trillion in new debt that was "created" to backstop the banks. So this was what "stabilized" the financial system--the creation of massive new debt, all while we refuse acknowledge or write down the collosal debt that is already on the balance sheets...somewhere. Talk about fighting fire with fire!

But in M.U.L.E. you eventually came to realize these programmed events were a part of the game, and planned accordingly. I guess that is what Wall Street has done to engineer this wonderful Bear time rally we've seen the last six months. While the real economy--the buying and selling on Main Street, has seen not a whisper of a rally, the trading of stocks from companies that service that economy has been brisk and profitable. What a game! Jim Kunstler summed up the situation we have now very nicely in his Sept 14 post today: "What we've seen in the vaunted rally for the last six months is the triumph of wishing over facts, combined with the most arrant market manipulation by floundering banks backstopped by a panicked government -- all pounding sand down a rat-hole of hopeless non-performing debt, while pretending that the machinery of capital finance still grinds on."

Me? Since I can't set federal or "Fed" monetary policy, I'm going out to enjoy life and hunt the Wumpus.

Nagging Questions on 9/11

Every September has a tinge of foreboding in it these days, with jittery stock markets and the shadow of 9/11 greeting us after the long Labor Day weekend. Over the years a large "9/11 Truth Movement" has grown on the web, joined by firefighters, building inspectors, engineers, demolition experts, physicists. The bottom line? They don't buy the "official" government, (Bush Government when it was written), explanation of that fateful day. There are simply too many unanswered questions and here are some of the most nagging ones about that day--most totally ignored by the 9/11 fact finding commission.

How could all 19 hijackers have been identified in less than 72 hours and before any crime scene investigation? And how come none of their names appeared on passenger lists of the flights in question?

How could paper passports be found in the rubble of 9/11, while 8 indestructible black boxes are missing?

How could the entire US air defense command fail to notice or intercept four simultaneously hijacked airliners within 50 miles of the nations capitol?

How could the hijackers, under great stress and with little training, execute precision turns and low altitude maneuvers required to strike the Pentagon--maneuvers some believe could only be performed by a computer.

Why were all confiscated videos of the pentagon strike never released?

Why were no remnants of the massive airliner engines ever found at the pentagon?

What about the reports that early firefighters on the scene claimed there were only a few pockets of fire that could be easily controlled?

If these fires were hot enough to destroy the inner core of the towers then why were people seen alive and waving for help in the breached sections of the damaged buildings?

How is it that both towers could fail so quickly when aviation fuel cannot burn hot enough in the atmosphere to melt of even seriously weaken steel?

Why did both these towers fail so spectacularly, in less than 2 hours, when no steel frame building has ever failed due to fire--even after burning 18 to 24 hours?

How could the buildings collapse at freefall speed, meeting no resistance whatsoever as they fell?

What caused the explosive "squibs," jets of smoke clearly seen by millions at intervals just below the point of collapse?

What about the numerous eye and ear witnesses, including experienced firefighters, who claim they heard a series of explosions before the collapse?

Why were the massive central steel beams so neatly and incisively cut at exact lengths instead of being one massive tangle of twisted steel?

Why did Mayor Rudolph Giuliani instantly authorized the shipment of WTC rubble to China and India for recycling, thus removing vital evidence before the investigation could begin?

How could concrete be pulverized to powder, something only achieved by the power of high explosives.

Why were the towers closed on the days prior to the attack for a major installation of some supposed "networking" system, with scores of men carrying in tools and equipment?

Why was thermite and other nanoparticles found only in high explosives found in the 9/11 debris dust?

What was so hot at the base of the two towers that it created a pool of molten steel and a fire that burned for over one month even though they were smothered under millions of tons of soot and debris?

How could building #7 collapse when it was not struck by a plane, sustained no serious damage, and only had a few fires burning on the lower floors?

How come building #7 was reported to have collapsed by news outlets, even though it still remained standing and would not fall for another 20 minutes?

How come building #7 clearly collapses from the top down, with the roof clearly buckling inward on all videos, when there was no damage or even fire at the top of the building?

What did Larry Silverstein, heavily insured owner, mean when he said "we made the decision to "pull it" on building #7--a term associated with deliberate demolition.

If deliberately destroyed, when were the complex high explosives, wiring and other equipment required for the job installed? (Clearly not during the chaos of 9/11 !!!)

There are just a few of the many unanswered question concerning 9/11--an issue that will be the "who killed Kennedy?" of this generation. While we may never learn the full truth about that day, these questions, ignored, unanswered, dismissed, will forever leave a shadow of conspiracy and doubt over the event. Yet there are many who have undertaken to research and dispose of these questions as "myths" generated by the overactive imaginations of people in the shadow of the Bush administration. For those of you who would like to investigate possible answers to the questions listed above, try this link, sent to me by a trusted friend, Richard Gylgatyon.

I might also add that there is a whole barn full of article on the web that "debunk the 9/11 debunkers," and systematically refute all the attempts to explain away the "9/11 myths." Just google it.

Then again, perhaps we should all wait for Dick Cheney's memoirs?

End of Summer Song

I passed a good portion of the Labor Day weekend joining millions of other Americans in a last gasp summer's end holiday. My choice for the weekend was California's high Sierra wonder, Lake Tahoe. There is something soothing about driving roads lined with towering green pine trees and taking in the sweeping view of the blue water lake from roadside vista points. I'll admit I joined thousands of other tourists doing the very same thing, and filling up my digital camera with hundreds of photos. You see every kind of person on the streets, from Europe, the Middle East, India, Asia, all mixed in with throngs of US tourists, couples, families, friends. People are happy, at ease, their eyes alight with the energy of discovery, as mine were. They ooh and aah at the sights, and offer to take pictures of one another.

"Making memories" is half the fun of a weekend getaway like this, and I made my fair share, forgetting the sad state of the economy, the irrelevance of the media that reports on it, the continuing ruinous corruption of the banking system, and the rudderless ship of state in Washington, as we seem to have no real center of gravity or focused leadership. The long promised but never delivered "health care for all Americans" is being kicked about like a political football again, while the nation laid to rest one of its strongest life time advocates with the passing of Teddy Kennedy. The SF Gate opened its coverage of the holiday with the poignant lead: "On this Labor Day weekend, many Californians find themselves more in need of work than a holiday." The article asserted that a whopping 40%, two of every five working age Californians, are out of work. The study was done by the California Budget Project, analyzing the total number of jobs available as compared to the working age population. Unlike the Bureau of Labor, they didn't fudge the numbers. But to my eye it appeared as though people were squeezing every dime they could out of those unemployment benefits before they run dry. They were all out for fun and sun.

The casinos at "stateside," just across the Nevada border in South Lake Tahoe, were the busiest part of the region. Tourists in shorts and t-shirts swarmed about the place, perhaps hoping to pull the lever on a big payoff at a slot machine. I've never gambled, but the pastime seems a good metaphor for what we have done as a nation these last years--living on credit and flipping houses to try and sustain a life style that is clearly unsustainable. If the American shopper has abandoned the malls, it appeared to me that they had all been transformed into tourists this weekend. Yet many came just for the serenity and fun of getting out in nature, fishing by an alpine lake, motorcycling, hiking--nothing you need Donald Trump's frowning permission for, just good clean fun.

For three wonderful days I joined the end of summer crowd starting off the day with a breakfast at the local Ihop, and banishing all thoughts of the economy and politics from my head as I toured the lake and the surrounding alpine wonders along California Highway 4, ending the trip with a visit to Calaveras Big Trees State Park. There among the groves of thousand year old Redwoods and Giant Sequoias, you get a perspective on life that diminishes the importance of all these silly human endeavors. It's just you, your companion, your camera, and the human eye and soul behind it. I walked up to a giant redwood, 25 feet wide at the base and whispered a silent prayer with my hand on its furry bark: "Father of the forest--you do not even know you are here, nor do you hear me or know that I am here. But I know for the both of us, and that makes all the difference."

I had that soft, langorous feeling in the groves, with an "end of summer song" running a chorus of feeling in my mind. When that tree sprouted up from a fallen seed, the tourist-filled city of South Lake Tahoe did not exist. Columbus would not even discover this continent for another 400 years! The thought that the great cities like San Francisco and LA are but recent newcomers on the scene compared to the life of that tree was both humbling and consoling. Life has roots as big and burly as that tree, extending back millenia, like the life of that tree, and we are but passing visitors in the park. While the first humans to walk under these groves sought wood for their fires and game for their food, the people on the trail today were all busy just taking in the light, delighted as they posed beneath the towering trees and snapped one digital picture after another.

I could not help but wonder who would wander by in another 300 years, and lay their hand upon the bark of that same old tree, standing proud and tall in the silent mountain grove. Would there be any freeways left to deliver the tourists? Would there be any trees left to greet them if they came? Would we be here with our bustling cities and urgent work? Then I let the thought go and just breathed in the clean mountain air, the smell of the forest, and the thought that it was good, indeed, to be alive. The world is so enormous, and I am so very small. I have lived in California for over 40 years, but had never seen any of these places before. How like my digital camera is my mind and life, I thought, just getting a few brief snapshots of it all and moving on. But life is that movement, and seeing is the wonder of it all. And something about the brevity and urgency of taking in the experience makes it special, unlike that old tree standing for a thousand years in the silence of the forest. This might be my one and only visit to this place. I might never return.

And that's life in an acorn, isn't it? I hope you took some time to live and see this weekend as well.

The Big Dogs

Ever wondered who all these "shareholders" are that the government and financial institutions are protecting with all these bailouts. These primary tier one shareholders are the big dogs controlling the flow of capitol throughout the world. Insider News reported: "A recent analysis of the 2007 financial markets of 48 countries has revealed that the world's finances are in the hands of just a few mutual funds, banks, and corporations."

Surprise, surprise! This is certainly not news, particularly on the Internet where talk of the Illuminati, the Rothchilds and Rockefellers abounds as the hidden "World Controllers" of our Brave New World. In reality, these top ten corporations have their hand in the flow of funds throughout the globe, as analyzed by a pair of Swiss physicists, J.B. Glattfelder and S. Battiston, who did an exhaustive study to identify the backbone of capitol flow networks in 48 key countries. Here are the Big Dogs--the real movers and shakers when it comes to the old buy, hold or sell in the markets. (Note: The number at the end of each entry is the number of the 48 countries the listed corporation is active in.)

But then what about the Rothchilds and Rockefellers? Not to worry. They are both big stakeholders in the misnamed "Federal Reserve," a private consortium of bankers operating for profit -- not a government agency as many believe. The Fed is just a private business that has been given enormous powers by the government. Who owns it? According to Peter Kershaw here are the Big Dog top 10 primary shareholders in the pen behind the "Fed."

1) The Rothschild Family - London
2) The Rothschild Family - Berlin
3) The Lazard Brothers - Paris
4) Israel Seiff - Italy
5) Kuhn-Loeb Company - Germany
6) The Warburgs - Amsterdam
7) The Warburgs - Hamburg
8) Lehman Brothers - New York
9) Goldman & Sachs - New York
10) The Rockefeller Family - New York