. September 9, 2008 SouthAmerica: Reply to Nutmeg The race subject is something that I did not want to go into detail, but people could not read between the lines and I had to spell it out. I am not mentioning this from a racist point of view â first I had direct business relationship with Angola for many years., and when I made a proposal for economic development plan for Angola I had to learn a lot about the history of that country. I made an honest effort in trying to help the Angolans improve their country and in an article that I wrote about Angola a few years ago I said that Brazil had the obligation to help Angola get back on their feet after the civil war ended in Angola. When I was researching to write my two history books I learned a lot about slavery and the slavery trade. I understand the impact that slavery had in the African Continent and the connection to the Americas. Even today many countries in Africa probably would melt into chaos and they are dependent on the Chinese and Indians from India to keep the business structure of many countries going forward â the Chinese and the Indians are the business and traders who keep the economy of many African countries from total collapse. And you canât blame it on lack of money, and just look at Nigeria that country had a good cash inflow from oil revenues for a long time and that country still is a basket case. Last Sunday I spent about 2 hours talking on the telephone with my cousin in Brazil, she is 90 years old, and she is a historian and she just published her 9th book about the history of our family in relation to the history of Brazil. Her mind is like an encyclopedia and she remembers a lot of information about the history of Brazil. She owns with 2 other cousins a famous farm around Barbacena, state of Minas Gerais. Her cousin lives on the farm and she goes and visits on a regular basis. The farm is considered a historical landmark and they are not allowed to change much regarding the various buildings that they have in that farm, and they have many people who comes to visit it like a museum. On our last conversation she gave me a private lesson on the subject of slavery in Brazil â not only about the past but also the influence that still going on on the current generation of descendants of slaves. I learned a lot from her and I told her that she should write a book on that subject before the information is completely lost. It was very interesting a lot stuff that she told me. Let me bring on another point. In Brazil soap operas are very popular and for many years these soap operas have been exported to many countries around the world. A Brazilian soap opera usually last one year, then they start another story. Some of these soap operas are about Brazilian history and some of the stories are about the subject of slavery. People watch these soap operas day after day and they enjoy these stories, but at the same time the subject of slavery is being reinforced night after night. In these stories the black person is the slave and the white folks are their masters. Without realizing these soap operas are reinforcing on peoples' minds not only the subject of slavery, but also the racial divide between the two segments of the population the blacks and the whites. My ancestors were the most influential people in Brazil regarding the process of ending the slavery system in Brazil. Maybe because I have been exposed to all this material and experiences that I can see things that other people canât see it. When the subject of race comes up if you say anything then people call you a racist because in the world of most of these people only racists talk about that subject and that subject is considered Tabu. But as you mentioned above that Barack Obama has a degree from Harvard University. You are missing the point here. We are talking about image, and perception here. Let me give you an example. The last trip that George W. Bush made to the African Continent and visited various countries. Every night the cameras were following him to document his trip and everywhere he went There were a few white folks including George W, Bush but the majority of the people were black since he was visiting these African countries. A Barack Obama administration probably would send on a daily basis similar images around the world, but this time the images would be coming from Washington D.C. Basically the rest of the world would look at the United States as if the US was just another African country. For all practical purposes the image that the United States would be projecting to the rest of the world on a daily basis would be that the US is a country with a black majority population. In a nutshell: A picture is worth a thousand words. .
. September 12, 2008 SouthAmerica: Last Thursday Charlie Rose had a number of pundits on his television show discussing the latest developments on the 2008 Presidential Election. One of the pundits was Jonathan Alter and he said that one of the priorities for the new president when he takes office in January 2009 should be to rebuild the United States prestige and clout around the world for the United States to be able to operate in the new global economy in the coming years. Talking about rebuilding the United States perceived image around the world then we should keep the following in mind: John McCain is gaining momentum and he is going to win the election in November 2008. Here is further evidence to back up the fact that Barack Obama is going to lose the presidential election in November 2008. At the end of the day a lot of things regarding the United States it is about image and many people are having second thoughts about having a black president here in the United States at this time since most likely is going to surround himself with a circle of black advisors and project an image even less appealing to the rest of the world. If people like it or not the image that black leaders have around the world is not good and it does not matter how you look at their past record. Let me clarify the perception that the world has about black leaders and let see how they have been doing in recent history to improve their global image. I am going to list some of the black leaders that symbolizes black leadership in the African Continent and elsewhere in the last 40 years and they were the ones who received most of the global news coverage in the recent past as follows: 1) Robert Mugabe (1980 to Present) Dictator of Zimbabwe 2) Mobutu Sese Seko (1965 â 1997) Dictator of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) 3) Idi Amin (1971 â 1979) Dictator of Uganda 4) François Duvalier, known as "Papa Doc" (1957 â 1971) Dictator of Haiti 5) Jean-Claude Duvalier, known as "Baby Doc" (1971 â 1986) Dictator of Haiti 6) Omar Hassan Al-Bashir (1989 to Present) Dictator of Sudan 7) Charles Taylor (1997 â 2003) President of Liberia 8) Nigeria â since 1960 that country has been a complete mess. Too many bad black leaders to list all their names 9) Rwanda = Rwandan Genocide in 1994 militia groups killed about 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates 10) Somalia â Since 1976 that country has been a basket case. 11) Nelson Mandela (1994 â 1999) President of South Africa 12) Patrice Lumumba (1960) Prime minister Republic of the Congo Above is an example of what black leadership of a country means to the world in recent decades and for a country obsessed with image such as the United States the election of Barack Obama as its new president would project an image of decaying leadership in the United States (keep in mind that Barack Obama is just a rookie) On top of that the world is already very aware of the United States fast economic decline and collapsing prestige and clout and since the rest of the world associate the African Continent with the image of political and economic failure that would just reinforce the perception that the entire United States political and economic system is in a state of complete decay. In a nutshell: At this point what is really at stake in the coming US presidential election is the image that the United States and Americans want to project to the rest of the world regarding the current political and economic state of their country! .
. SouthAmerica: Today Senator Chuck Hagel has endorsed Ralph Nader for president. In a national basis Ralph Nader has 4 percent of the votes, but in states such as Minnesota he has 8 percent of the votes. Ralph Nader'08 http://www.votenader.org/ ***** September 22, 2008 Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) delivered an address at Riggs Library earlier this afternoon. While his remarks focused on the perils on the financial crisis and continued US involvement in Iraq, Hagel was asked at the end of the speech, âWho amongst the candidates believes in [your] vision for the future?â âEverybody is going to want to hear this,â Senator Hagel announced. âRalph Nader.â And with laughter and clapping in the background, Hagel left for a meeting of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee to work out the details of the Wall Street bailout. .
. September 29, 2008 SouthAmerica: I realized that there is a possibility that after the US presidential election in November 2008 the United States is going to belong to a very exclusive group in the American Continent. Since people like to categorize everything and place them in special groups based on things that they have in common â The United States will belong to a special category in the American Continent: the countries with a black head of state. There are 3 countries that are going to share that category: 1) Haiti 2) Jamaica 3) United States The sad part of this story is that very soon these countries might also share the same economic conditions. Since people like to make comparisons all the time I am sure that the mainstream media probably will not miss this opportunity and they will start making new comparisons regarding which black leader is doing a better job in the Americas â the president of Haiti, Jamaica or the president of the United States. The United States should have a better economic performance than at least Haiti in the next 4 years when we take inconsideration that Haiti has about 80 percent unemployment rate and after the last 2 hurricanes that hit that island in the last month that island is in worse shape than before. I wonder if potential president Barack Obama is going to organize a Summit in Washington D.C. to be attended only by black head of state of the Americas. I already can see the advertisements on TV for the âAnnual Summit of the Black Head of State of the Americas.â .
. September 29, 2008 SouthAmerica: Reply to Jayford I did watch the presidential debate on Friday night which ended in a tie and they should have gone into overtime. They confirmed one more time something that I already knew: They are both second-rate candidates and very Mediocre. In my opinion, neither one of these guys are presidential material to represent the United States. We are in bad shape since the race in November 2008 is for the American people to chose which candidate is the least worse of the 2. The United States is reaching a new level for political Mediocrity. Are these guys the best candidates available today to represent the United States? This is the best the American system can come up with? No wonder the country is going to hell in a handbasket. .
This I agree with. Neither one of these guys would be my first (or second) choice. I was just hazing you a bit because you were so sure Mac was going to win when Gore flopped (chose not to run).
. September 29, 2008 SouthAmerica: Reply to Jayford After Friday's presidential debate one question must be answered. I wonder if Ralph Nader also has a bracelet. .
. Note: Since the last posting on this thread 2 weeks ago about 1,000 people read this thread. October 16, 2008 SouthAmerica: Here is some information that I posted on The Charlie Rose Show comments section regarding last nightâs show about the last presidential debate. I posted this information on his website just before the debate had started. *** I am having the time of my life right now with what is going on in the international financial crisis. I hardly can sleep these days since there is so much action going on almost 24 hours per day. Most people donât have a clue that the entire international monetary system is in the edge of the abyss right now. I can appreciate everything that is happening since this is a once on a lifetime event. I understand why the US economy is dragging most of the world into a new Great Depression. It does not make much difference if Americans elect Barack Obama or John McCain in November 2008, since the result will be the same; and the US economy is going to descend into a new Great Depression and into a real black-role. Someone on this forum said that the talking heads that Charlie was interviewing today were all millionaires but that would not last long when the entire economic system collapses. The new reality in the United States will be one of equality; poverty for everybody. As the stock market collapses and all kinds of assets and property loses its value, with unemployment exploding, pension plans melting down and becoming the responsibility of the US government, the entire system implodes as the entire system starts spiraling in a downward deleveraging feedback. As I have been explaining to people at the Elite Trader economics forum and in other forums on the internet, we had a classic case of bait and switch by the US government. They sold to the US population a $ 700 billion dollars bailout to stabilize the real estate market, and buy toxic real estate related assets, and there was a very important reason why they were asking Congress to give Treasury Secretary Paulson a blank check as far as making the decisions regarding what to do with the bailout money. Charlie Rose even brought Warren Buffett to be interviewed on his show to give some credibility and support for that massive bailout. And Mr. Buffett mentioned on this show that he recommended that Congress give Treasury Secretary Paulson that blank check. The bailout was never about stabilizing the real estate market. The bailout was about making a last stand and about funding the major US banks for them to be able to absorb the massive amount of losses incurred with the nuclear explosion on the derivatives market. Most people have no idea the impact that that nuclear explosion had in the international financial system. The $ 700 billion dollars it is just a down payment to keep all these banks afloat for a while longer. Basically this is a last Hail Mary play to keep the entire international monetary system from spinning completely out of control and creating the mother of all international monetary crisis that the world have ever seen. I am going to write a few more articles tonight to describe even further the chain reaction that it is underway because there are very few people who have grasped the gravity of the current financial crisis. Anyway, Lou Dobbs mentioned on his TV show tonight the detail of all the pieces that the US government had to bailout so far in 2008, and up to this point the bailouts total is about $ 2.2 trillion dollars, but he also mentioned that by next week AIG is going to need another $ 35 billion to continue the bailout of that company. The International Monetary Fund on a recent report said that based on their analysis there is another $ 800 billion in losses on the pipeline for US banks to absorb â and we can assume that the US taxpayer will be the one to fund these banking losses, otherwise the entire Us banking system would collapse. The other concept that Americans donât understand is that the real GDP of the United States is shrinking and imploding as the US economy is deleveraging. The real US GDP today is closer to $ 10 trillion dollars and it is getting smaller as the US economy implodes. I will post a link to my new article that I am writing right now to further explain the implosion process. By the way, all the other actions that the US government is taking right now about guarantees of certain types of assets and extending deposit insurance to no limit per account, and demanding that the major 9 American banks take the cash infusion from the US government â all this is part of a desperate last effort to keep the entire banking system from total collapse. That is why the Europeans also are flooding their banking system with $ 2.3 trillion dollars of new liquidity. It is a coordinated last standing by the European Union, the UK and the United States to keep the entire global financial system from a massive meltdown. By the way, at this point might be convenient to elect Barack Obama, and the United States would be able to use the election of a black man here in the US as the scapegoat for the coming economic collapse. Most Americans are going to think that the global economic system is collapsing because they elected a black man, mostly because most people donât have a clue about what is really going on regarding the critical point that we are right now regarding the international financial system. The two presidential candidates are completely clueless about the severity of the current international financial crisis. Both of them are in La La Land and completely disconnected from what is going on in the real world. ***** I mentioned in one of my postings on this forum that the world is looking for someone that inspires confidence and trust. Not a rookie or an old man who is completely disconnected from the realities of the global economic system. The world is looking for someone who is MR. integrity, Mr. Substance, Mr. honesty, someone that is very ethical, smart, and someone who understand how the entire US government works and he knows what is wrong with the system because he has been studying in detail the major problems that is destroying this country. There is only one man with these credentials in Washington D.C. and his name is Ralph Nader. But if Ralph Nader wants to make a surprise run and take away this election from the other two less qualified candidates then he has to make an immediate change on his presidential ticket and add someone who would balance his ticket and would give him a chance to win the election in November 2008. Ralph Nader should drop his current running mate and he should add to his ticket Senator Chuck Hagel as the VP. Senator Chuck Hagel has endorsed Mr. Nader, and at this point Mr. Nader is the best option that Americans have to handle the Perfect Storm that the next president is going to confront head on from his first day in office. When we take in consideration the latest international financial crisis and the critical condition of the US economy in November 2008 the best chance that Americans have to survive the Perfect Storm is: Ralph Nader / Chuck Hagel for president in 2008. .