Teams from the two sides have held a week of discussions in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

If successful an agreement would create the world’s biggest free trade zone.

The chief US negotiator Dan Mullaney said the ultimate goal is to “create opportunities for job creating trade and investment”.

In a world full of fear. Do not fear this. FIGHT IT! It spells the end of democracy and stakeholder oversight. Its a back door to a final solution of corporate fascism and the end of civil liberties as we think we know them. I repeat do not fear this. Fight It. Tooth and nail.

I think we all wish we’d listened more. Stay well!

Hi David, I am very well and I am enjoying the Summer and schools hols, Johanna teaches so its great to have us all home. Being a house Husband its nice for the Children and for me to have Johanna here these precious summer months. Just read your latest piece, I’ll be thinking aboiut it for a week or two and probably more Both my Grandfathers were South Wales Coal Miners who went through the General Strike Llewellyn ( Grampy Harrison) was a quiet man but was very involved in the Workingmens clubs association, Lewis F Lewis ( Grampy Lewis) was somewhat more pugnacious and wrote and talked a great deal. I wish I had listened to bath much more closely it seems my Children may be in danger of experiencing their privations of the 1930’s. WHatever happened to never agaiin?
If you have time to catch up on Skype that will be great do remember that I am on call to come over and help with Canvassing come the election and happy to do any tedious Admin to help take the weight off David.
WIth love from the Band of Vikings here in Sweden.

Thanks Roger. How are you keeping these days? Sorry I’ve kept such a low profile recently.

It was a good read. I think some people in the US don’t seem to have taken it too well, but that’s Americans for you. The most important idea around is the one where redistribution of wealth is about a stronger capitalism and nothing to do with fairness. It’s all so simple, if your customers have money to spend then there’s a chance they may buy your product. The more you sell, the more you make. It’s really the basic principle of investing money to make money.

Two things have been troubling me. Isis and what the hell is happening in Iraq, and also the blitz of diversionary narratives especially a up tick in Climate Stories , has anyone else noticed that?regardless of ones views on Climate Change why do Rashes of Stories seem to emerge in social media at seemingly random times for no real newsworthy reason? perhaps its just me but is Climate Change one of those bury the news things?

Some thoughts.
What can we do as a collective voice as it seems unlikely that a National Strike is a possibility?

http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2014/06/cash-economy-week-ditch-plastic-debt.html

That Isis Thing.

http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2014/06/the-engineered-destruction-and.html

And The Climate story thing?

http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2014/06/surge-in-climate-stories-in-social-media.html

Standout good thing which I found inspiring this past few weeks, Solar Roadways what a great idea, we are installing Photovoltaics at our House this summer

http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2014/06/the-promise-of-solar-roadways-scott.html

via theburningplatform…all quotes…

“I bought a few shirts, a few pair of pants and the rest of my money I socked away into savings…”

My wife and I had a rather long discussion about this article last night over wine. We like to spend at least one night a week where we both dress nicely for each other, prepare some of our favorite things to eat and discuss our life, the world, and whatever else comes up like we did when we first met.

My take on this was that Nick Hanauer was whistling past the graveyard. Clearly- to me at least- he demonstrates an understanding of the simmering boil out there below his Gulfstream. His arrogance and hubris was an artifact of his environment, rather than the opposite. Why he was unable, in an open letter that he must have known would receive wide reception, to tell the truth was not because he was seeking to deceive others, but rather himself. His appeal for a $15 per hour minimum wage when the pay rates for his own company top out at $14 per hour demonstrates that he doesn’t actually believe in anything he has to say, but rather that he feels it is what he must say- to protect himself should things go bad, to make himself appear to be what he is not, for whatever reason that truly motivates him, but not for any of the ones he gives. If he actually believed his own rhetoric, what would prevent him from offering his entry level employees the $15 per hour he promotes rather than the $9 he actually offers? His deception isn’t one of commission as much as it is one of omission.

When he tells us about his modest purchases of slacks and shirts, what he leaves out is his gargantuan purchases of political influence. He leads us to believe that he doesn’t really even have a plan for his massive wealth- a savings account? Really? For what exactly, future purchases of Dockers? If easing the financial situation of workers is his raison d’etre, what prevents him from giving 1/10 of his savings account to his 2,400 employees, a sum that would be life changing for them, barely noticed by a guy who only has 3 cars for all his billions? He doesn’t for the same reason he lies about the “savings account”- because he doesn’t believe it himself.

I think he is afraid, deeply, rightly so, that the future built as it has been on such fragile foundations as a feather pillow story line, might not be as secure as it once seemed. He thinks that maybe he can get out in front of the massive social unrest that he sees coming and perhaps buy him a future out in the same way his billions have bought him his shirts and pants in the past.

Surely he knows that the reason $15 per hour is the new $5 per hour is that endless rounds of quantitative easing and Fed policies of monetization of debt have devalued the dollar. Compounding the problem by throwing more FR’s at it doesn’t solve anything, in fact it only exacerbates the problem. Two years from now we’ll be talking about a $25 per hour minimum wage- that is if there are any jobs left.

I thought his parting shot to the zillionaires that higher wages for low end workers would be more millions for them was especially telling in light of the original thrust of income equality being a threat from the pitchfork wielding “crazies” as he refers to everyone not a feather pillow plutocrat. The fact that his good buddy and the source of his billions, Jeff Bezos, is building spacecraft and funding his own private NASA is telling in it’s own right. Perhaps he has gleaned some crucial tidbits of information at his annual Bilderberg retreat. I doubt it has anything with making sure the common folk get to ride to the stars, but who knows with these folks.

My wife doesn’t buy any of it. She believes that this isn’t a personal reflection, but rather a collaboration- a policy piece, so to speak- of a group of ultra wealthy, hyper influential oligarchs that simply tapped Mr Hanauer to deliver the message. Written to “my fellow zillionaires” it reads as if it were directed to an entirely different audience, somewhere far below the rarified atmosphere that “99.9% couldn’t possibly conceive”.

After the reflection of the past night, I think she may be right.

In the 4th century, just before the sack of Rome, the reigning oligarchs of that time negotiated payoffs with the Visigoths hoping to forestall the inevitable. Something tells me that in today’s exchange rate it would have translated to roughly $15 per hour.”

http://www.theburningplatform.com/2014/06/29/the-oligarchs-are-getting-worried/

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014.html?ml=m_po#.U66gOLBOUoU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1AJjnl2y8U#t=16

The FT looks at her defence counsel:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c68d1560-fbb9-11e3-9a03-00144feab7de.html#axzz35gDrQ1vY

”Ms Brooks’ chief advocate in the courtroom was leading British barrister Jonathan Laidlaw QC, a former senior Treasury counsel.

Mr Laidlaw has acted for the Football Association in the Hillsborough inquests, prosecuted terror cases and represented the Metropolitan Police in the High Court hearings over David Miranda, the partner of a Guardian journalist, who was detained at Heathrow airport carrying “sensitive secrets”.

The barrister has advised government departments and intelligence agencies and is one of the few counsel to enjoy special security clearance.”