. SouthAmerica: On March 20, 2003, George W. Bush issued a Presidential Executive Order that was published at the White Houseâs website on March 21, 2003: Executive Order: âConfiscating and Vesting Certain Iraqi Propertyâ (see copy of the Executive Order below) This new US government policy of confiscating the property of other countries will have some consequences over time in the American economy; mainly after what I have been reading in the mainstream press regarding the money that was confiscated from the Iraqi government. It seems to me that the money confiscated "did a disappearing act." Today, the international community should ask and demand the US government to give a full disclosure and account as to what happened to the money that was confiscated from the Iraqi government. "Where is the money? Today, the US government depends on an inflow of investments here in the US from foreign sources of $ 2 billion dollars per day to keep the US government afloat. What this new policy of confiscating assets of foreign governments says to all these countries that are sending money to be invested in the US? Is the money from Saudi Arabia at risk of confiscation in the United States? How about the China governmentâs over $ 650 billion investments in the US - in case of some kind of conflict between the US and China? Is this Chinese money also at risk of US government confiscation? This foreign assets confiscating policy adopted by the US government might have a big impact in the American economy some day, and if conflict starts in Saudi Arabia as I described on my other posting it is possible that we will have a stamped out of the US dollar, in turn causing a collapse of the US currency. ********* SouthAmerica: Reply to Wilburbear, You are right. I did check the location in the White House website where the document released on Friday, 21 March 2003, by the White House: Executive Order: âConfiscating and Vesting Certain Iraqi Property,â was posted, and the document was not there anymore. This document was made public and stayed in the White Houseâs website for a period of time. They must have moved most of the Presidential Executive Orders for the year 2003 to some other archive in the net. Try using Google, if you need to find the new location of the archive in the internet. By the way, after reading your posting on this tread, I went to my files to see if I had printed a copy of that Presidential Executive Order for my file. Usually, when I quote something from any source on one of my articles, I keep a copy of the source of the information just in case if people ask me on a later date where I got the information. Most of the time it takes a lot of research for me to write an article, and by the time the article is ready for publishing, my folder for that particular article would be full of information related to its research. After checking my file for that article, I located a printed copy of the Presidential Executive Order that I mentioned in that article. Here is the information that was posted on the White Houseâs website on March 21, 2003. If you take some information from this letter and use it to search on Google, then you might find the new location where the US government moved this letter. If you need further information on this subject, check the major newspapers such as The New York Times around that date, and you will find reference to confiscation of Iraqi assets by the US government. The newspaper articles at the time gave detail information about the amounts of this confiscation. With a civil war getting worse by the day in Iraq, maybe it will be a matter of time before that mess spreads to other countries in the area including Saudi Arabia. I would not be surprised if there are people in the US government today working, and getting ready all the information necessary to identify all the bank accounts and assets of the Saudi Arabian government and also of thousands of Saudi Princes â the members of the Saudi Royal Family - to freeze them and confiscate them when the Iraqi civil war start spreading into Saudi Arabia. I can see the Saudi assets confiscation coming right here in the USA. If the Saudis donât start cashing in their assets in the USA, and start moving them to a safer place, then they will look like fools when they get their assets frozen and confiscated. They really deserve to lose it all for being so careless with their investments. If I were a Saudi Prince, or the Finance Minister of Saudi Arabia, I would cash in all my assets in the United Sates, and would move them fast to a safer place such as Europe, Brazil, Asian countries, etc. Any place other than the USA. But again: âThere is a new sucker born every day.â Enjoy the reading. ************************************** I am quoting the information that follows from a Presidential Executive Order that was published at the White Houseâs website on March 21, 2003: Office of the Press Secretary March 20, 2003 Executive Order: Confiscating and Vesting Certain Iraqi Property By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, and in order to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 12722 of August 2, 1990, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, hereby determine that the United States and Iraq are engaged in armed hostilities, that it is in the interest of the United States to confiscate certain property of the Government of Iraq and its agencies, instrumentalities, or controlled entities, and that all right, title, and interest in any property so confiscated should vest in the Department of the Treasury. I intend that such vested property should be used to assist the Iraqi people and to assist in the reconstruction of Iraq, and determine that such use would be in the interest of and for the benefit of the United States. I hereby order: Section 1. All blocked funds held in the United States in accounts in the name of the Government of Iraq, the Central Bank of Iraq, Rafidain Bank, Rasheed Bank, or the State Organization for Marketing Oil are hereby confiscated and vested in the Department of the Treasury, except for the following: (a) any such funds that are subject to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations or the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, or that enjoy equivalent privileges and immunities under the laws of the United States, and are or have been used for diplomatic or consular purposes, and (b) any such amounts that as of the date of this order are subject to post-judgment writs of execution or attachment in aid of execution of judgments pursuant to section 201 of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-297), provided that, upon satisfaction of the judgments on which such writs are based, any remainder of such excepted amounts shall, by virtue of this order and without further action, be confiscated and vested. Sec. 2. The Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to perform, without further approval, ratification, or other action of the President, all functions of the President set forth in section 203(a)(1)(C) of IEEPA with respect to any and all property of the Government of Iraq, including its agencies, instrumentalities, or controlled entities, and to take additional steps, including the promulgation of rules and regulations as may be necessary, to carry out the purposes of this order. The Secretary of the Treasury may redelegate such functions in accordance with applicable law. The Secretary of the Treasury shall consult the Attorney General as appropriate in the implementation of this order. Sec. 3. This order shall be transmitted to the Congress and published in the Federal Register. GEORGE W. BUSH THE WHITE HOUSE, March 20, 2003. .
. June 22, 2005 SouthAmerica: I was watching the BBC News yesterday, and one of the main stories was about land confiscation in Gaza by Israel. It seems to me that it is O.K. with the Bush Administration the subject of land and assets confiscation not only in other parts of the world, but also in the USA. The US government is saying nothing regarding land confiscation by the Mugaby government (in Africa) or by Israel in Gaza. The United States confiscated the assets of the Iraqi government 2 years ago (billions of US dollars) â and the US government performed a disappearing act on these Iraq assets â now you see it, now you donât. It seems to me that over the weekend the US government moved to the first stage of confiscation act # 2. In confiscation act # 2 there is a lot of money involved on this magic act. The Saudi Arabian government has an estimated $ 2 trillion dollars invested in the United States. The question is: Is the United States setting up Saudi Arabia to justify taking over most of their money invested in the US? Why George W. Bush it is turning against the Saudi Royal Family, a good friend of the US government for so long, and also a very good friend of his father George I. I know that greed is getting out of control in the United States (Enron, WorldCom and one financial scandal after another) and there is a lot of greed going on in Washington today with the compliments of the Iraq War (Halliburton) and I also understand as Charles de Gaulle once said: âcountries have no friends only interests.â In June 2003 I wrote an article regarding the possible US government confiscation of Saudi Arabian assets in the United States. In that article I said the following: âThe Saudi's assets are very tempting. Saudi Arabia would be an easy target for the US, even easier than Iraq. It would be much easier to justify to the American people the confiscation of all Saudi Arabia's assets here in the US, since the US government claims that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, in which 15 of the 19 suicide hijackers were also Saudi nationals. If I were the Finance Minister of Saudi Arabia, I would be cashing out, and moving most of Saudi Arabia's assets out of the US for safekeeping. If the Saudis have not grasped as yet the Bush Administration policies regarding confiscation of assets and the implication this policy have on their assets in the US - if they don't move their assets out of the US to protect them against confiscation, then they deserve to lose it all, because they are a bunch of fools." Over the weekend it seems to me, from what I saw on the news, that Condoleezza Rice went to Saudi Arabia and between the lines she told the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia that Saudi Arabia needs regime change. If I were a Saudi I would not be waiting around to find out what the Bush Administration really means with the latest change in policy regarding imposed democracy in that area of the world. I would be calling all my brokers and would tell them sell everything as soon as possible and transfer the money out of the United States. Forget about cashing out slowly to try not to affect too much the price of the stocks and other investments â just find a buyer as soon as possible and unload as fast as you can. After you cash out, move some of the money to European countries, some to Brazil, some to Asian markets, including China, and buy some gold and get out of the US dollar. Please move as fast you can before these assets are also confiscated in the United States. .
. SouthAmerica: Most people will think that it is naïve of my part to say the following but I have to say it anyway. In my opinion, the international community should devise a reporting system today to ensure that the money that the United States government will confiscate in the near future from the Saudi Arabian government and also from the members of the Saudi monarchy (which will be in the trillions of US dollars) will be returned to the Saudi Arabian people and will be used appropriately. The international community should demand accountability from the US government regarding the Saudi confiscated assets to avoid a repeat looting of assets that happened when the US government confiscated the Iraq government assets two years ago. Maybe that is the idea, create a crisis with Saudi Arabia to have a justifiable reason to confiscate and loot their assets. I know that today it is open season in the United States, and honesty, and business ethics are obsolete and things that some people used to believe on a long time ago. Today, the name of the game is donât honor your past commitments (related to pensions, and health care), use accounting shenanigans to show that your business is growing and doing well, use a lot of PR and spins to back up all the misinformation related to your products or services, use all kinds of creative ways to loot the assets of you company, etc. If you donât know what I am talking about I will refresh your memory for you. The savings and loans fraud of the 1980âs cost over $200 billion in taxpayer money to clean that mess. Then we had Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia Communications, Global Crossing, City Bank scandals, Tyco, mutual fund industry scandal, the hedge fund industry scandal, Halliburton scandal and so onâ¦. The Saudi government must have grasped by now that the money that they invested all these years here in the United States will be in play in the near future, and they are about to lose their very rich pot of gold. By the way, what happened to the assets of the Iranian government that were confiscated by the US government over 25 years ago? When the US government confiscates the Saudi money probably that event will make the Guinness book of world record as the biggest looting job in world history. The way things look right now â The Saudis can kiss goodbye to the money they have invested in the United States. .
. June 22, 2005 SouthAmerica: Why everyone is going along with all the government confiscation of assets and private property that is happening here in the United States and in other parts of the world? Why governments are not protecting peoplesâ rights regarding private property? In Venezuela the government just confiscated a large piece of farmland from a British company. In the US I understand that there are over 5,000 cases of government confiscation of assets per week. In Brazil people are taking over other peoples property â houses, apartments, farmland - and the Brazilian government is doing next to nothing to protect the property owners rights to these properties. Without government protection of private property there is no capitalist system. The US is moving one notch up on this game by confiscating the assets of other countries. If it is O.K. for the United States government to confiscate the assets of other countries - I wonder if it is also O.K. for other the countries to start confiscating the assets of American companies located on their soil. What will happen when everybody around the world starts playing this confiscation game? Based on the definition below, all that is needed is for the United States to provoke Saudi Arabia and start a war against that country to justify the confiscation of Saudi Arabian assets in the United States. (We are talking about over $ 2 trillion dollars of assets) That is a small amount for the US government to confiscate when we consider that the US has over $ 10 trillion dollars of cumulative debt outstanding today, ( $ 8 trillion dollars the federal government, and $ 2 trillion state and local) plus another estimated $ 70 trillion dollars of new liabilities that are coming due related to the ageing American population. ******************** Here is what a dictionary of legal terms has to say about confiscation: CONFISCATION - Appropriation of private property for public use without compensation. The act by which the estate, goods or chattels of a person who has been guilty of some crime, or who is a public enemy, is declared to be forfeited for the benefit of the public treasury. When property is forfeited as a punishment for the commission of crime it is usually called a forfeiture. It is a general rule that the property of the subjects of an enemy found in the country may be appropriated by the government without notice unless there be a treaty to the contrary. It has been frequently provided by treaty that foreign subjects should be permitted to remain and continue their business, notwithstanding a rupture between the governments, so long as they conducted themselves innocently and when there was no such treaty, such a liberal permission has been announced in the very declaration of war. In the United States the broad principle has been assumed 'that war gives to the sovereign full right to take the persons and confiscate the property of the enemy, wherever found. The mitigations of this rigid rule, which the policy of modern times has introduced into practice, will more or less affect the exercise of this right, but cannot impair the right itself.' Commercial nations have always considerable property in the possession of their neighbors: and when war breaks out the question, what shall be done with enemies property found in the country, is one rather of policy than of law and is properly addressed to the consideration of the legislature and not to courts of law. The strict right of confiscation exists in congress; and without a legislative act authorizing the confiscation of enemies' property it cannot be condemned. The claim of a right to confiscate debts contracted by individuals in time of peace, and which remain due to subjects of the enemy in time of war, rests very much upon the same principles as that concerning the enemy's tangible property found in the country at the commencement of the war. But it is the universal practice to forbear to seize and confiscate debts and credits. .
. May 16, 2007 SouthAmerica: Never mind the foreign asset confiscation - Americans should worry about their own assets. If you saw the program Frontline on PBS last night - then you know that the rich Americans are the ones who should worry about asset confiscation with all the data mining that is going on today by the various government agencies in the USA. During the Inquisition they also screwed the wealthy people in a big way - at that time it was done in the name of religion - this time around it will be done in the name of fighting terrorism. The truth is the suckers in the United States are ripe for the taking and they have been indoctrinated that the boogieman is coming to get them. .