Operation Pearl

by Professor A. K. Dewdney

August 2003

Editor's note: Some people have said that this account of the events of September 11th 2001 (a detailed extension of the Valentine-Plissken Hypothesis) is "too convoluted to understand". Actually it's quite simple. Here's a synopsis for those who have a slight comprehension problem or don't have time to read it all:

Four commercial passenger jets (American Airlines Flights 11 and 77 and United Airlines Flights 93 and 175) take off and shortly after the pilots are ordered to land at a designated airport with a military presence.

Two previously-prepared planes (one a Boeing 767, painted up to look like a United Airlines jet and loaded with extra jet fuel) take off and are flown by remote control to intercept the flight paths of AA 11 and UA 175 so as to deceive the air traffic controllers.

These (substituted) jets then fly toward Manhattan; the first crashes into the North Tower and (eighteen minutes later) the second crashes into the South Tower.

A fighter jet (under remote control), or a cruise missile, crashes into the Pentagon.

Back at the airport the (innocent) passengers from three of the Boeings are transferred to the fourth (UA 93).

This plane takes off, flies toward Washington, and is shot down by a U.S. Air Force jet over Pennsylvania, eliminating the innocent witnesses to the diversion of the passenger planes.

Under cover of darkness later that evening the other three Boeings are flown by remote control out over the Atlantic, are scuttled and end up in pieces at the bottom of the ocean.

1 Summary

It is possible to produce the appearance of a terrorist attack on the United States by means that do not employ terrorists, as such, but by the simple substitution of one aircraft for another, particularly when the transponders of the aircraft involved are turned off. The only people who need to be deceived by such an operation are the radar operators at air traffic control (ATC) centers.

The scenario explored here, called Operation Pearl (after Pearl Harbor), has been described in sufficient operational detail that sound judgments can be made about a) feasibility and b) consistency with evidence on the ground. At the time of this writing it is probably the best available description of what probably took place on September 11, 2001.

Under the Operation Pearl scenario, the passengers of all four flights died in an aerial explosion over Shanksville, PA and the remaining three airliners are at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

2 Introduction



Since March of 2002, persons probing the web for further information about the 9/11 attacks could not fail to encounter, sooner or later, a scenario advanced by Carol Valentine. Called the "Flight of the Bumble Planes" (Valentine 2002), it allegedly came from an informant who would only identify himself as "Snake Plissken," the name of the hero of the movie, Escape from New York (footnote 1).



The informant outlined the basic hijacking method in an email message to Carol Valentine, comparing it to a flight of bumble bees. Watching bees as they buzz around among flowers, it is very difficult to follow individual bees, since they are always passing close to one another.



This metaphor translates into the flight of two aircraft in a confined locale of airspace. If the separation between them is small enough, radar operators will see not two aircraft, but one. On the morning of September 11, 2001, according to this scenario, all four "hijacked" aircraft landed at a single airport or air base, transferring their passengers to a single aircraft, the one that crashed in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, remotely controlled aircraft of various types carried out the actual attacks. The scenario, as presented by Valentine, consists of little more than I have presented here.



Of course, there is a vast difference between an outline and a detailed operational plan. It may turn out, for example, that any attempt to imagine how a specific scheme is implemented runs into snags, as in the attempt by Spencer (2003) to get all four aircraft to one air base long enough for the combined list of over 200 passengers to board a single aircraft, take off and crash near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Spencer, however, assumed that the takedown of aircraft coincided with the turning off of transponders. In the present paper the scenario is modified to allow takedown prior to the turning off of transponders, assuming that takedown occurred at the first deviation of each aircraft from its flight plan. The refurbished scenario has now been completed to a level of detail that makes it possible to evaluate its feasibility, as well as its consistency with the evidence, as presently acquired and developed.



A scenario named Ghost Riders in the Sky was previously constructed by the author (Dewdney 2002). The purpose of that scenario was simply to demonstrate that alternate scenarios that fitted all the facts (as then understood by the author) could be constructed. The scenario involved killing all the passengers and flight crew with a fast-acting nerve agent, then triggering a software patch in the aircraft flight control systems to direct the aircraft to their various destinations. However, when it became evident that no Boeing 757 had actually struck the Pentagon (see The Pentagon Evidence, also on this website), the scenario was rendered invalid. The Ghost Riders scenario, like the Bush-Cheney scenario, required that the aircraft that struck their respective targets were as advertised, two 767s and two 757s.

The fact that the Ghost Riders scenario must now be rejected illustrates the nature of this inquiry. As in science, hypotheses must be formulated, then tested against the available evidence. If found wanting in the light of that evidence, they must be rejected. It is normal in any scientific inquiry to formulate and analyze more than one hypothesis before one is found that actually works. The same remark also applies to criminal investigations.

3 The Evidence Filter



Any scenario constructed to account for the events of September 11 2001 must pass a graduated test, as embodied in the following items. These fall into three classes:



Suspicious circumstances



Four of the named hijackers were not in the United States.

The WTC towers collapsed without adequate heat stress.



Smaller aircraft accompanied Flights 77 and 93.



Most of the alleged hijackers were rather poor pilots.



Evidence of the alleged hijackers developed too quickly.



Westward excursion of Flights UA93 and AA77 are inexplicable as terrorists hurrying to targets."

Anomalies



The US Air Force failed to intercept any of the flights.



The hijackers' names did not show up on passenger lists.



The hijackers' faces did not appear on boarding gate videos.



Black boxes were missing from all but one flight.

Contradictions



The Pentagon was not struck by a large passenger aircraft.



Cellphone calls alleged to have been made by passengers were essentially impossible.

A successful scenario must at least explain the contradictions and account for a majority of the anomalies. It is of course desirable that it also account for the suspicious circumstances, but no scenario need stand or fall in this regard.



It must be remarked that the only scenario ever supplied to the public via the official media was the Bush-Cheney scenario, that Arab hijackers seized control of the four aircraft and proceeded to pilot them into national landmarks, killing both themselves and their passengers. Clearly, the Bush-Cheney scenario, considered in detail, explains none of the suspicious circumstances, none of the anomalies and is directly contradicted by the facts adduced in the third category. As scenarios go, it is a distinct failure.

4 Technical Elements



The two major technical aspects of the Operation Pearl scenario involve radar and remote control. Radar technology has been with us since World War Two, some 60 years ago. Remote control technology has been around in various forms for at least twenty years. With a basic understanding of both radar and remote control in relation to 9/11, it becomes possible for the average citizen to think for himself or herself.



4.1 Radar Substitution



A radar screen is essentially a circular CRT (cathode ray tube - like a television screen) that displays aircraft within the circular airspace represented on the screen. Radar operators are the only people who can be aware of what planes are in the sky and where they are going. The vast majority of people are completely unaware of what is going on in any large volume of airspace and, when an aircraft passes overhead, can usually not tell one type from another, let alone what airline or aviation company may own it. This observation, while something of a commonplace, has important implications. If an organization wishes to substitute one aircraft for another without anyone knowing it, the only people it has to deceive are the radar operators.



The resolution of a radar screen is the size of the smallest point that can appear there, approximately two millimeters in diameter - a "blip." A typical radar screen, less than a meter in diameter, could therefore be described as less than 500 "blips" wide. If the airspace represented on the screen were 500 kilometers in diameter (approximately 300 miles, a not atypical size), each blip would represent a piece of airspace that is more than 500/500 = 1 kilometer wide.



In other words, as soon as two aircraft get within a kilometer of one another, there would be a tendency for their respective blips to merge. With half a kilometer separation or less, the two aircraft could easily appear as one.



Of course, two aircraft that are that close together run a distinct risk of collision - unless they are at different altitudes. Radar screens are two-dimensional in that they represent airspace in the same way as a map, with the vertical dimension of altitude suppressed. Thus, without additional information in the form of a displayed altitude number, it is impossible for a radar operator to tell whether two merged blips represent a potential collision or not. Altitude information is displayed if an aircraft's transponder is turned on, otherwise, the radar operator has no idea of the altitude at which an aircraft happens to be flying.



If one aircraft happens to be within a half kilometer of another, whether above that aircraft or below it, the radar operator will see only one aircraft, as long as the two maintain a horizontal separation that is no greater than half a kilometer (about 500 yards).



Imagine now two aircraft, both headed for the same approximate point on the radar screen, both with their transponders turned off. One is well above the other but, as the blips merge, both planes swerve, each taking the other's former direction. The operator would simply see the aircraft cross and would have no way to realize that a swap had taken place.



There are many other swapping patterns available. For example, one plane could apparently catch up and "pass" another when, in fact, it slowed after the blips merged, even as the other speeded up.



Another method involves the replacement aircraft climbing out of a valley where it would be invisible to distant radars, even as the other aircraft descended into the valley. Again, a radar operator would see a more or less seamless flight without realizing that he or she had been momentarily seeing not one, but two aircraft on the radar screen.



Of course, if the transponders are turned on, as explained in the next section, such confusion is less likely to occur. Even in this case, however, the deception can be complete if the aircraft switch transponder codes.



4.2 Aircraft transponders



Every commercial passenger jet carries a transponder, a device that emits a special radio message whenever it senses an incoming radar wave. The signal carries the transponder code, a multi-digit number that serves to identify the particular aircraft to radar operators at air traffic control centers. The purpose of the code is to make it clear to ATC operators which plane is which. Other information sent by the transponder includes the altitude at which the aircraft is flying. Transponders were implemented many years ago precisely for the reason that radar blips are otherwise easily confused. Transponders make the radar operator's job much easier.



The pilot of an airliner can turn the transponder on or off in the cockpit. He or she can also change the code by keying in a new number.



Transponder codes for all aircraft departing from a given air traffic control region are assigned by the ATC authority more or less arbitrarily. The only important criterion for the numbers so assigned is that they all be different. It sometimes happens that an aircraft entering the control area carries the same transponder code as another aircraft that is already in the area. In such a case, one of the pilots is requested to change his or her code to avoid confusion.



4.3 Remote Control



A remote control system of the type used in this scenario uses a signal interface that does two things: It reads signals from a ground station and sends signals back to it. Both sets of signals must pass through the aircraft's antenna system. In the Boeing 757 and 767 the antenna system is located in the forward belly of the aircraft.



The outgoing signal from the aircraft would include a video signal from a camera located in the nose or other forward portion of the aircraft. Flight data such as control positions, airspeed and other instrument readings are also included in the outgoing signal. The incoming signal from the ground station would include the position of a virtual control yoke (governing direction of aircraft), thrust, trim, and other essential flight parameters.



The virtual pilot would sit in front of a reduced instrument panel and a video monitor. A simplified control yoke or "joystick" control would also be part of the operator's equipment. The remote pilot would watch the instruments, as well as the video image, making continuing adjustments in the aircraft's flight path, just as if he or she sat in the cockpit of the actual aircraft.



Many claims of the attacking aircraft being under "remote control" have appeared on the web since 9/11, but typically with little or no supporting documentation. The claim of a pre-installed anti-hijacking system (Vialls 2001) has proved impossible to verify. Similarly, claims that Global Hawk technology (USAF 98) was used are rampant, but do not quite fit the specific version of Operation Pearl presented here. For one thing, the Global Hawk system does not use remote visual guidance, but onboard navigation electronics that bypass the need for direct, minute-by-minute human control.



The system invoked for the attacks in Operation Pearl is based on the Predator unmanned surveillance vehicle (USAF undated), a modularized aircraft that can be broken into components for ease of shipping and rapid deployment. One of the components includes a remote guidance module which could be refitted to another aircraft (with appropriate modifications) without the need to strip a predator vehicle. The predator operates under remote human guidance from a ground station that, once deployed, would require as few as two human operators during a "secure" operation.



A second possibility involves a system known as a "flight termination system," manufactured by the System Planning Corporation. (SPC 2000) This system permits hands-on control of a nearly endless variety of aircraft, the control interface being to a large degree customizable. For the purposes of the Operation Pearl scenario, either of these systems might well be adaptable to the remote operations of nonmilitary jet aircraft.



Without question, however, the basic technology for the remote guidance of aircraft has been on hand for many years. For a large intelligence organization it would be a straightforward technical operation to install a remote control system in virtually any type of aircraft, whether a large commercial airliner or anything smaller. The aircraft carrying the installation would be available and prepared in advance, then substituted for the passenger aircraft it was meant to replace.



4.4 Electronic towing



An interesting but different form of remote control is invoked by the Operation Pearl scenario in the "cleanup" phase, namely the disposal of the three aircraft that did not crash in Pennsylvania or anywhere else. I call this facility "electronic towing," It consists of two "black boxes" that pick up signals from an aircraft's data bus, a shared electronic pathway travelled by all electronic signals that control the aircraft. (Spitzer 2000) Each black box can read the bus through the data bus monitor, as well as insert information into the bus. Because the connections are already available, installation of the boxes could be completed in a matter of hours on any aircraft. In this relatively simple form of remote control, one aircraft would be called the "slave," the other the "master." In addition, two 2-way radios allow the black boxes to communicate, specifically for the master box to send its signals to the slave box. Under identical conditions, the slave aircraft will do precisely what the master aircraft does. Such control signals could also be taped and replayed later to invoke in the slave aircraft exactly the same behavior as the master.



To initiate towing, the master aircraft takes off first, while the slave aircraft remains on the runway, completely unoccupied. As soon (or as late) as the pilot of the master aircraft wishes to, a recording of the master signals is played over the radio to the slave aircraft, which then takes off precisely as the master aircraft did. The slave will then follow the master wherever the pilot of the master wishes to go. With a short time delay in the control loop, the slave aircraft would appear literally to be towed by the master, always maintaining the same distance and position behind it. If the pilot of the master aircraft wished to "unhitch" the slave, he could simply cut the control signal. Over the ocean, the unhitched aircraft might fly until it runs out of fuel or it might be blown up by implanted explosives.



[to see the rest of the article and to save BW for IMC LA go to]

http://www.serendipity.li/wot/operation_pearl.htm#footnote_1

punt into the end zone.

There have to be at least a hundred people involved in this convoluted theory. Why would they all have kept quiet?

Furthermore, what of the dozens of eyewitnesses stating they saw an airliner hit the Pentagon?

Occam's Razor: The simplest solution is usually the answer.

Radical Islamists attacked America...again.

Do you all hate Bush so much you believe him capable of this?

Apparently you do. And radical Islam thanks you very much for your support.

as much as it pains me to say it...Fido, the lying shit, is right on this one...

....but, hey, I've got a broken watch, and even it is still right twice a day!

...with faint damns."

Smaug the dragon, "The Hobbit"

The same senerio applies to the JFK hit.

If you are involved or don't know, how are you going to blow the whistle?

It comes back missing one. It's been gone long enough from its base to have been to PA and back.

It's 9/11/01.

You think the weapons guys couldn't figure that out?

And all those eyewitnesses to the Pentagon crash...how do you explain them?

Why do you refuse to believe it was militant Islamists?

...THEY SAID THEY DID IT?

This one has got to be the most assinine version of an already ludicrous conspiracy ever to be posted on this board.

I mean, the depth of the inanity is just stunning.

Please, sheepdog, please tell me that you posted this as a joke. Please tell me that even you realize that this is just wholesale crazy talk.

larry mary and popeye. How nice to have all three of you here together.

It's been dull lately and I was just poking around.

Did you read the entire post with the link?

The problem I had is that in order to believe John Judge's recount of an interview with a witness seeing body parts inside the pentagon which would have lent validity to the improbable fairytale of a passenger liner hitting it, I still had a hard time seeing any credible evidence from photos.

Then I remembered that this was still over 72 hours after the last flight

was shot down. Plenty of time to transfer meat and other items.

Anyway, you have really not shown any analysis. But thanks anyway.

In the meantime I'm not saying it is or isn't. But it still requires analysis to do more than wank at me about it.

"But it still requires analysis to do more than wank at me about it."

When you post, yet another round of utter nonsense no "analysis" is required to label it as such. Just because you are deluded enough to even waste the time to copy and paste it, that hardly qualifies it as anything more than a joke.

It's amazing how the sheepdogs of the world believe that to type is to make true.

didn't think you could. Ha

"didn't think you could. Ha"

Of course, you were right.

In that there's no way to "analyze" your fantasies.

Fresca and KOBE is the same. I catch you...

Operation Pearl (harbor)

Still nothing, heys guys and gals?

The Sheepdogs of the world still don't buy YOUR crap. Thank you for your support.

the reposted link is for not for the blinders impared or for the jackel campers on this board who work constantly in shifts posting quick and unflagging corporate/facistic defence of even the most henious crimes and cruelty.

To all others, the link again,

http://www.serendipity.li/wot/operation_pearl.htm#footnote_1

...blinders impared or for the jackel campers on this board who work constantly in shifts posting quick and unflagging corporate/facistic defence of even the most henious crimes and cruelty."

How about those of us who come here to make fun of you, Sheepie?

this guy is probally the most ignorant human being alive.

explains why he cant get laid.

Your preoccupation with other people's sex lives is disturbing.

Peered into any good windows lately?

Sheepdog, you merely have to sit down and do a little searching of the database to find numerous refutations of all but one of the ridiculous elements of your "theory".

They've ALL been gone over and trounced time and time again.

You'll have to entice some new "member" to "analize" your fantasy and refute it AGAIN for you.

I will say that the one new part to the fiction is the landing, swapping out and consequent scuttling of the original aircraft.

Nice touch.

1. The US Air Force failed to intercept any of the flights. No interceptors were deployed since their pilots would have reported the substitute aircraft.

2. The hijackers' names did not show up on passenger lists. The hijackers were not aboard the aircraft.

3. The hijackers' faces did not appear on boarding gate videos. The hijackers were not aboard the aircraft.

4. Black boxes were missing from all but one flight. Black boxes were not present on attacking aircraft

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2003/09/83090_comment.php#83291

oops...

wrong link

http://www.serendipity.li/wot/operation_pearl.htm#footnote_1

The four "anomilies" did appear in the article you linked. Of course there was NO validation of these age old internet myths. Neither was there any supporting references in the footnote section.

But I guess since your browser displyed this text, then it must be true,

Perfect!

Thank you sheep for proving my point regarding your utter lack of discerning intellect.

The Shanksville "crash" of Flight 93 presents us with a number of mysterious reports of a midair explosion (or explosions) as well as the presence of a white "mystery jet" seen in the area by many local residents.

The midair explosion was heard by virtually everyone in the area, of course. The debris field resulting from the explosion was apparently much more extensive than what would result from an ordinary crash, with all the debris within a narrow compass laterally to the incoming flight path. New Baltimore resident Melanie Hankinson, who lives some eight miles from the crash site, found paper debris from the aircraft, including remnants of United Airlines in-flight magazine, Hemispheres. Other debris, including body parts, were scattered over a space of miles. One of the engines were found a "considerable distance from the crash site," according to State Police Major Lyle Szupinka.

Shanksville Mayor, Earnest Stuhl, has stated that at least two area residents, both living within a few hundred yards of the debris field, heard missiles being fired. One of the witnesses, a Viet Nam veteran, had heard missiles fired from aircraft many times during his tour of duty and claimed that it could not be anything else.

http://www.serendipity.li/wot/operation_pearl.htm#footnote_1

"There's no way I imagined this plane — it was so low it was virtually on top of me. It was white with no markings but it was definitely military, it just had that look. It had two rear engines, a big fin on the back like a spoiler on the back of a car and with two upright fins at the side. I haven't found one like it on the internet. It definitely wasn't one of those executive jets. The FBI came and talked to me and said there was no plane around."

The description of the mystery aircraft given by Ms Mcelwain happens to match only one military aircraft currently in use by the US armed forces, namely a (repainted) A-10 Thunderbolt, a heavily armed aircraft used in ground support roles. (McChord 2003) Several other witnesses saw the same aircraft, both before the crash and after it, circling the area. (Flight 93, 2001)

Two area residents, both quite close to the crash scene, heard missiles being fired. One, a Viet Nam veteran, was quite sure about what he had heard.

Mcelwain and many others heard one or two tremendous explosions rock the sky over Shanksville. Debris rained down for miles around. One engine landed nearly a mile from the alleged crash site. Body parts, luggage, scraps of metal, bits of in-flight magazine plummeted or fluttered to the ground a mile or more away.-

-Four of the named hijackers were not in the United States. The alleged hijackers were not on the aircraft, in any case. Their names may have been selected from a list of lapsed or stolen passports.

1.The WTC towers collapsed without adequate heat stress. The lack of passenger corpses, luggage, etc, had to be concealed by burial.

2.Smaller aircraft accompanied Flights AA77 and UA93. Surrogate aircraft were used as substitutes for the originals.

3.Most of the alleged hijackers were rather poor pilots. The alleged hijackers were not aboard the aircraft, in any case.

4.Evidence of alleged hijackers developed too quickly. Evidence was planted in order to have the story develop quickly.

5.Westward excursion of Flights UA93 and AA77 are inexplicable as terrorists hurrying to targets. The excursions gave time to load all the pasengers onto Flight 93.-

6.http://www.serendipity.li/wot/operation_pearl.htm#footnote_1http://www.serendipity.li/wot/operation_pearl.htm#footnote_1

You , nonanarchist, smashtheleft and KOBE are the same pitiful shit .I know,You know, everything know.You postings are ZERO intellectual ZERO interested and you help on this board is - ZERO.Only you believe you poor opinions and arguments. You online harassment are Unbelievably pathetic and highly ineffective . You are unloved and unwelcome.Don't waste you time here. Fuck off !!!

You , nonanarchist, smashtheleft and KOBE are the same pitiful shit .I know,You know, everything know.You postings are ZERO intellectual ZERO interested and you help on this board is - ZERO.Only you believe you poor opinions and arguments. You online harassment are Unbelievably pathetic and highly ineffective . You are unloved and unwelcome.Don't waste you time here. Fuck off !!!

Man, you guys just can't comprehend that there is more than one person who doesn't buy your crap, can you?

There are way more of us than there are of you.

I, as a liberal, am sick of seeing conspiracy theories on blogs. Read my article so you can see how to get these points across the RIGHT way-just the facts.

http://www.mikehersh.com/Think_for_Yourself.shtml

please try again.

Sorry about that guys. If it doesn't work again, go to www.mikehersh.com, and scroll down to the 4th of 5th story down. I would copy it here, but it's too large... http://www.mikehersh.com/Think_for_Yourself.shtml

Sorry about that guys. If it doesn't work again, go to www.mikehersh.com, and scroll down to the 6th article. I would copy it here, but it's too large... http://www.mikehersh.com/Think_for_Yourself.shtml

without answers. thank you Brandon.

"IT IS BETTER TO WRAP YOURSELF IN THE

CONSTITUTION AND BURN THE FLAG THAN IT IS TO

BURN THE CONSTITUTION AND WRAP YOURSELF IN THE FLAG"

it's better to burn the flag and the constitution than to live under capitalism or marxism

and we have our little Cointel pro ' anarchist '

yipping in.

Screw you. I'd rather fix what we have then let you assholes with guns loose. I'll save my rounds for the rabbid dogs or anyone who fucks with me or my kin.

What you and your ilk propose doesn't "fix" anything, unless you call "fixing" things

everybody on the planet living in poverty and eating dirt. No, thanx. I gave at the office.

What you and your ilk propose doesn't "fix" anything.

I couldn't have said it better. Stay in your 'office' and

type with one hand.

I can work on getting rid of lice like you and the other maggots that are feeding off of the people of this land beating their chicken chests pretending to be patriots.

you will eat dirt alright.

"it's better to burn the flag and the constitution than to live under capitalism or marxism"

It's better to embrace anarchy than to admit you're a powerless failure and take responsibility for your situation...and also to get a job.

Anarchist: "To revolt is a natural tendency of life. Even a worm turns against the foot that crushes it. In general, the vitality and relative dignity of an animal can be measured by the intensity of its instinct to revolt." - Mikhail Bakunin

Nonanarchist: "Please Bush, let me take down your fly and give you a blow job." - Stanley Levin

Maybe you can answer the $64,000 questions:

1. How exactly will you overthrow the government of the United States?

2. What will you do about the people who don't want to play your games?

3. How will you deal with the National Guard? You know, the guys with tanks and jets and unhappy thoughts towards those who would overthrow the Constitution.

There are other questions, but if you'll just answer these 3 for now, it'd be dandy.

Maybe you, as the anarchist du jour, can answer the $64,000 questions:

1. How exactly do you plan to overthrow the government of the United States?

2. What will you do about the National Guard? You know, the guys with tanks and jets and unfriendly thoughts towards those who would overthrow the Constitution they swore to protect and defend from all enemies, foreign AND DOMESTIC.

3. What will you do about the (vast majority) of people who don't want to play your little games?

There are many other questions, but these 3 will do for now.

703-695-0071

I'll just charge it to your home phone, if that's okay.

And your number is...?

Are you still posting here? Why are you posting in a place with a philosophy you disagree with? Why don't you post on the Free Republic, for example? You do realize that none of us will be swayed by your views. Since this is the case, the only purpose of your constant posting is to harass. Isn't it?

I come here for a variey of reasons:

To remind myself why my political beliefs are what they are.

To have a few chuckles.

To remind certain people that, no matter what they might say, they don't have all the answers and their efforts to destroy the Constitution which I've sworn to protect will never succeed.

What are you afraid of?

If you have sworn to protect the Constitution, why have you not raised arms against George Bush and John Ashcroft? After all, they are destroying the Constitution. Name one anarchist that has harmed the Constitution in any way and state exactly who that anarchist has harmed the Constitution.

...blah blah blah.

You guys keep rattling that off, yet there is never any proof.

Hint: Just because you say it don't make it so.

"Name one anarchist that has harmed the Constitution in any way and state exactly who that anarchist has harmed the Constitution."

None. Never has happened; never will happen. They don't have a plan, they don't have the courage. They'd rather sit around, posting meaningless drivel on the Internet, talking about what a Utopia it would be and selling bumperstickers.

Now: do you actually think that to convert America to anarchy would leave the Constitution intact? Can't happen, because the Constitution clearly spells out the republic in which we live. To do away with that form of government would require overthrowing the Constitution, which I have sworn to protect and defend against all enemies, foreign AND DOMESTIC.

And I take that oath very seriously.

sit in comfort typing than do his real job.

" Airman, would you rather go serve over there and get shot at in the heat and hate or stay in the real world and type in this air conditioned doughnut&coffee barber shop."

So, tough guy, what are you doing to get rid of Bush?

Typing.

Ooh, that'll show 'im.

I would tell you what I'm doing but we know how you wet your pants when you get nervous.

Enjoy your safe and secure service. Don't mind me.

Ha ha ha ha.

Such tight security over there. New protocols, Ha ha ha ha.

"I'm writing very strongly worded letters to the editors of national magazines!

"Although I haven't had any published, yet..."

You don't scare me, Sheepdip. You don't impress me. You don't even annoy me.

You just make me laugh.

Thanks for the chuckles!

I have to ask: Why not release the Flight Data Recorder info? There is nothing horrific on it. There is nothing there that will aid and abed terrorists. There is nothing that will jeopardize a trial. And it's data that usually get's released at some point.

It's simply data about the aircraft as it flew and crashed.

There's only one reason not to release it. Because it shows the plane depressurizing, losing an engine, flipping upside down and crashing in a way that they don't care to explain.

http://www.flight93crash.com/

http://www.serendipity.li/wot/operation_pearl.htm#footnote_1

Post links to conspiracy-theory sites, as if they have any credibility.

That'll show me!

1. Flight

2. Departure

3. Deviation

4. Transponder

5. Hit

1. American 11

2 7:59 am

3. 8:16 am

4. 8:20 am

5. 8:46 am

1. United 175

2. 8:14 am

3.8:42 am

4. 8:40 am

5. 9:02 am

1. American 77

2. 8:20 am

3. 8:46 am

4. 8:55 am

5. 9:37 am

1. United 93

2. 8:42 am

3. 9:36 am

4. 9:40 am

5. 10:06 am

Notice the unbooked flights together with the period of time between the first loss of transponder signal to the final crash. This falls within the probable time frame so far.

Flight no

Equipment

Airport

On board

Flight 11

Boeing 767

Boston Logan

81 passengers, 11 crew

Flight 175

Boeing 767

Boston Logan

56 passengers, 9 crew

Flight 77

Boeing 757

Wash. Dulles

58 passengers, 6 crew

Flight 93

Boeing 757

Newark Intn'l

30 passengers, 7 crew

This page contains numerous links to pursue. Don't mind the weasels. They don't love me anymore.

http://www.serendipity.li/wot/operation_pearl.htm#footnote_1

FBI Chief Robert Mueller admitted on September 20 and on September 27 that at this time the FBI has no legal proof to prove the true identities of the suicidal hijackers. Yet in the haste to move forward on the already planned war in Afghanistan, our government and the FBI (which does not have the best record for honesty in investigations to begin with, having been caught rigging lab tests, manufacturing testimony in the Vincent Foster affair, and illegally withholding/destroying evidence in the Oklahoma Bombing case) are not taking too close a look at evidence that points away from the designated suspect, ex(?) CIA asset Osama Bin Laden.

In particular, the FBI, too busy harassing political dissenters to find spies in its midst, the long rumored mole inside the White House, or plug leaks in high-tech flowing to foreign nations, has willfully and criminally ignored the implications of some vital pieces of information the FBI is itself waving around at the public

http://whatreallyhappened.com/hoax.html

Please provide more info (sources, etc) on the following. Thanks.

Four of the named hijackers were not in the United States. The alleged hijackers were not on the aircraft, in any case. Their names may have been selected from a list of lapsed or stolen passports.

1.The WTC towers collapsed without adequate heat stress. The lack of passenger corpses, luggage, etc, had to be concealed by burial.

{please describe what you mean by 'heat stress'}

2.Smaller aircraft accompanied Flights AA77 and UA93. Surrogate aircraft were used as substitutes for the originals.

Also, please provide for the the particular brand of marijuana you are smoking and where I might obtain some. I, too, would like to be in a drug-induced state of mind where I could take far-out conspiracy theories seriously and delude myself into believing that activists like myself are the overwhelming majority in the world today and the number of people in the USA who wish to keep our system of government as it currently stands is really less than 20 people. I promise not to be a Bogart or take a bath.

By Christopher J. Petherick



The final desperate words of a flight attendant on one of the airliners which crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 captured in a telephone conversation with an air-traffic controller contradict official evidence that has been released on the men suspected of hijacking that jetliner, reports the British press.

On Sept. 21, the BBC reported that the transcript of a phone call made by Madeline Amy Sweeney aboard American Airlines Flight 11 to Boston air traffic control reveals that the flight attendant identified the hijackers and their seat numbers.

However, according to the BBC, the seat numbers were not the seats of the men who the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says were re sponsible for the hijacking.

In addition, the BBC reports that Sweeney identified only four hijackers, whereas FBI officials have released the names of five men they suspect were involved in the terror attack.

The FBI names the suspected terrorists as Waleed M. Alshehri, Wail Alshehri, Mohamed Atta, Abdulaziz Alo mari and Satam Al Suqami.

At least three of the men-Waleed M. Alshehri, Wail Alshehri and Abdulaziz Alomari-accused of flying the suicide mission are still alive, according to Mideast and western media. The father of Mohamed Atta, who is believed to have been the ring leader, claims that his son was kidnapped and is still alive.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/10_29_01/EVIDENCE_PLANTED_/evidence_planted_.html

It's all so clear now!

It's all so clear now!

Really??? Please tell my something NEW from Right-wing. You only answer to COSPIRACY FACTS ever is the same PATHETIC posture. You can slander and blame with empty arguments but YOU CREDIBILITY is ZERO. And listen, you can catch the entire corporate press, you can catch the entire intelligence web, you can catch anything with dirty money , but the overwhelming majority in this world fortunately don’t trust your 9-11 OFFICIAL THEORY, don’t trust your MOUNTEBANKS ARGUMENTS and don’t trust you entire BUFFOONS in the BUSH cabinet. YOU CREDIBILITY is ZERO.

Really??? Please tell my something NEW from Right-wing. You only answer to COSPIRACY FACTS ever is the same PATHETIC posture. You can slander and blame with empty arguments but YOU CREDIBILITY is ZERO. And listen, you can catch the entire corporate press, you can catch the entire intelligence web, you can catch anything with dirty money , but the overwhelming majority in this world fortunately don’t trust your 9-11 OFFICIAL THEORY, don’t trust your MOUNTEBANKS ARGUMENTS and don’t trust you entire BUFFOONS in the BUSH cabinet. YOU CREDIBILITY is ZERO.

Really??? Please tell my something NEW from Right-wing. You only answer to COSPIRACY FACTS ever is the same PATHETIC posture. You can slander and blame with empty arguments but YOU CREDIBILITY is ZERO. And listen, you can catch the entire corporate press, you can catch the entire intelligence web, you can catch anything with dirty money , but the overwhelming majority in this world fortunately don’t trust your 9-11 OFFICIAL THEORY, don’t trust your MOUNTEBANKS ARGUMENTS and don’t trust you entire BUFFOONS in the BUSH cabinet. YOU CREDIBILITY is ZERO.

Really??? Please tell my something NEW from Right-wing. You only answer to COSPIRACY FACTS ever is the same PATHETIC posture. You can slander and blame with empty arguments but YOU CREDIBILITY is ZERO. And listen, you can catch the entire corporate press, you can catch the entire intelligence web, you can catch anything with dirty money , but the overwhelming majority in this world fortunately don’t trust your 9-11 OFFICIAL THEORY, don’t trust your MOUNTEBANKS ARGUMENTS and don’t trust you entire BUFFOONS in the BUSH cabinet. YOU CREDIBILITY is ZERO.

Really??? Please tell my something NEW from Right-wing. You only answer to COSPIRACY FACTS ever is the same PATHETIC posture. You can slander and blame with empty arguments but YOU CREDIBILITY is ZERO. And listen, you can catch the entire corporate press, you can catch the entire intelligence web, you can catch anything with dirty money , but the overwhelming majority in this world fortunately don’t trust your 9-11 OFFICIAL THEORY, don’t trust your MOUNTEBANKS ARGUMENTS and don’t trust you entire BUFFOONS in the BUSH cabinet. YOU CREDIBILITY is ZERO.

Really??? Please tell my something NEW from Right-wing. You only answer to COSPIRACY FACTS ever is the same PATHETIC posture. You can slander and blame with empty arguments but YOU CREDIBILITY is ZERO. And listen, you can catch the entire corporate press, you can catch the entire intelligence web, you can catch anything with dirty money , but the overwhelming majority in this world, fortunately don’t trust your 9-11 OFFICIAL THEORY, don’t trust your MOUNTEBANKS ARGUMENTS and don’t trust you entire BUFFOONS in the BUSH cabinet. YOU CREDIBILITY is ZERO FOREVER.

Really??? Please tell my something NEW from Right-wing. You only answer to COSPIRACY FACTS ever is the same PATHETIC posture. You can slander and blame with empty arguments but YOU CREDIBILITY is ZERO. And listen, you can catch the entire corporate press, you can catch the entire intelligence web, you can catch anything with dirty money , but the overwhelming majority in this world, fortunately don’t trust your 9-11 OFFICIAL THEORY, don’t trust your MOUNTEBANKS ARGUMENTS and don’t trust you entire BUFFOONS in the BUSH cabinet. YOU CREDIBILITY is ZERO FOREVER.

Really??? Please tell my something NEW from Right-wing. You only answer to COSPIRACY FACTS ever is the same PATHETIC posture. You can slander and blame with empty arguments but YOU CREDIBILITY is ZERO. And listen, you can catch the entire corporate press, you can catch the entire intelligence web, you can catch anything with dirty money , but the overwhelming majority in this world, fortunately don’t trust your 9-11 OFFICIAL THEORY, don’t trust your MOUNTEBANKS ARGUMENTS and don’t trust you entire BUFFOONS in the BUSH cabinet. YOU CREDIBILITY is ZERO FOREVER.

Whatever.

Pass the bong, dude!

do a seacch:

9-11+put+options

Exclusive to American Free Press

By Christopher Bollyn

Manipulators with inside information made huge profits on sophisticated trades as the stocks of the airline and insurance companies plummeted in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 disaster. The inside information was so precise that experts have concluded that it could have only come from those who masterminded the terror attacks.

This money trail is the closest investigators have come to “a smoking gun” and could lead directly to those who planned the attacks. But with the notable exception of Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D.-Ga.), Congress has yet to demand a thorough and open investigation.

In the days following the terror attacks, suspicious and unusual stock trading activity indicated that people used inside information to make huge profits. The money made from the trades done with apparent inside information has been estimated at up to $15 billion worldwide.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/051302/Revealing_9-11_Stock_Trades_Co/revealing_9-11_stock_trades_co.htm

Those who believe in conspiracy theories can never believe anything other than what the conspiracy tells them to believe. To the conspiracy theorist, any evidences presented which disprove the conspiracy theory is just further evidence that the conspiracy theory itself is true, otherwise why would there be others trying to prove it is not true.

"In addition, the BBC reports ... hijackers accused of flying the suicide mission are still alive..."

----------

http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/english/0,1518,265160-2,00.html

But there is one wrinkle. The BBC journalist responsible for the story only recalls this supposed sensation after having been told the date on which the story aired. "No, we did not have any videotape or photographs of the individuals in question at that time," he says, and tells us that the report was based on articles in Arab newspapers, such as the Arab News, an English-language Saudi newspaper.

The operator at the call center has the number for the Arab News on speed dial. We make a call to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. A few seconds later, Managing Editor John Bradley is on the line. When we tell Bradley our story, he snorts and says: "That's ridiculous! People here stopped talking about that a long time ago."

Bradley tells us that at the time his reporters did not speak directly with the so-called "survivors," but instead combined reports from other Arab papers. These reports, says Bradley, appeared at a time when the only public information about the attackers was a list of names that had been published by the FBI on September 14th. The FBI did not release photographs until four days after the cited reports, on September 27th.

The photographs quickly resolved the nonsense about surviving terrorists. According to Bradley, "all of this is attributable to the chaos that prevailed during the first few days following the attack. What we're dealing with are coincidentally identical names." In Saudi Arabia, says Bradley, the names of two of the allegedly surviving attackers, Said al-Ghamdi and Walid al-Shari, are "as common as John Smith in the United States or Great Britain."

The final explanation is provided by the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, one of the sources of Arab News, which in turn serves as a source to the BBC. Mohammed Samman is the name of the reporter who interviewed a man named Said al-Ghamdi in Tunis, only to find that al-Ghamdi was quite horrified to discover his name on the FBI list of assassins.

Samman remembers his big story well. "That was a wonderful story," he says. And that's all it was. It had nothing to do with the version made up of Bröckers' and Bülow's combined fantasies.

"The problem," says Samman, "was that after the first FBI list had been published, CNN released a photo of the pilot Said al-Ghamdi that had been obtained from the files of those Saudi pilots who had at some point received official flight training in the United States."

After Samman's story was reported by the news agencies, he was contacted by CNN. "I gave them Ghamdi's telephone number. The CNN people talked to the pilot and apologized profusely. The whole thing was quite obviously a mix-up. The Ghamdi family is one of the largest families in Saudi Arabia, and there are thousands of men named Said al-Ghamdi."

When we ask Samman to take another look at the FBI's list of photographs, he is more than happy to oblige, and tells us: "The Ghamdi on the photo is not the pilot with whom I spoke."

The investigative journalists should have been able to figure out just how obvious the solution to this puzzle was. They all write that a man named Abd al-Asis al-Umari had been named as a perpetrator by the FBI, and that there are apparently many individuals with this name. Bröckers and Hauß even noticed that the FBI had initially released an incorrect first name to the press. All of this certainly suggests that there was a mix-up, but it's also something that the conspiracy theorists apparently did not consider plausible.

In the case of the supposedly surviving terrorist Walid al-Shari, the truth is even more obvious. At least Bülow had the opportunity to avoid making this mistake. In his book, he writes that the alleged assassin Shari "lives in Casablanca and works as a pilot, according to information provided by the airline Royal Air Maroc."

If Bülow had inquired with the airline, he would have discovered that the name of the pilot who lives in Casablanca is Walid al-Shri and not, like that of the assassin, Walid al-Shari. This minor detail makes a big difference, namely the difference between a dead terrorist and a living innocent man. But to conspiracy theorists, discovering the truth is like solving a crossword puzzle for children: What's a four-letter word for a domesticated animal? Hrse.

Whatever doesn't fit is made to fit. And whatever fits is included without scrutiny. "The uncritical acceptance of any argument that suggests a conspiracy" is one of the cornerstones of all conspiracy theories, writes conservative US historian Daniel Pipes. "The conspiracy theorist starts with the conclusion and then looks for reasons to rule everything out that doesn't fit." If you happen to be holding a hammer, you're probably more likely to see nails everywhere.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency uses a tool called Promis to monitor the stock exchanges of the world so as to predict traumatic events. Historically, if such trading activity precedes a traumatic event, it is an indication of foreknowledge.

Fox News on Oct. 16, 2001, broke stories disclosing the use of sophisticated Promis software by the FBI and the Justice Department. A multitude of court records and investigative reports have established not only the reality, but also the versatility of a program initially designed to incorporate data from a variety of data bases in different languages into one readable format. Fox and the Washington Times have both reported based on interviews with Justice Department officials that PROMIS is used to monitor banking and financial transactions in a virtual real-time environment.

All of the knowledge of these trades was known immediately as they occurred according to an expert with the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE). Lynne Howard of the CBOE said: "We would have been aware of any unusual activity right away. Any unusual volume would have triggered it. There is an automated system called 'blue sheeting,' or the CBOE Market Surveillance System, that everyone in the business knows about. It provides information on the trades - the name and even the Social Security number on an account - and these surveillance systems are set up specifically to look into insider trading. The system would look at the volume, and then a real person would take over and review it, going back in time and looking at other unusual activity. The system is so smart that even if there is a news event that triggers a market event it can go back in time, and even the parameters can be changed depending on what is being looked at. It's a very clever system and it is instantaneous.

http://www.sierratimes.com/03/04/10/gaddy.htm

Der Spiegel

US Nobel laureate Slams 'Looting' Bush Regime, Urges Mass Civil Disobedience

"I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign policy and economics but also in social and environmental policy," said the 2001 Nobel Prize laureate who teaches economics at the University of California in Berkeley.

"This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for (American) people to engage in civil disobedience. I think it's time to protest - as much as possible," the 61-year-old scholar added.

Akerlof has been recognized for his research that borrows from sociology, psychology, anthropology and other fields to determine economic influences and outcomes.

His areas of expertise include macro-economics, monetary policy and poverty.

OT/LS/210

END

http://www.irna.ir/en/head/030729143608.ehe.shtml

"A FORM OF LOOTING"

Das Akerlof-Interview im englischen Orginal

Interview: Matthias Streitz

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Professor Akerlof, according to recent official projections, the US federal deficit will reach $455 billion this fiscal year. That's the largest ever in dollar terms, but according to the President's budget director, it's still manageable. Do you agree?

George A. Akerlof: In the long term, a deficit of this magnitude is not manageable. We are moving into the period when, beginning around 2010, baby boomers are going to be retiring. That is going to put a severe strain on services like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. This is the time when we should be saving.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So it would be necessary to run a budget surplus instead?

Akerlof: That would probably be impossible in the current situation. There's the expenditure for the war in Iraq, which I consider irresponsible. But there's also a recession and a desire to invigorate the economy through fiscal stimulus, which is quite legitimate. That's why we actually do need a deficit in the short term - but certainly not the type of deficit we have now.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Because it's not created by investment, but to a large extent by cutting taxes?

Akerlof: A short-term tax benefit for the poor would actually be a reasonable stimulus. Then, the money would almost certainly be spent. But the current and future deficit is a lot less stimulatory than it could be. Our administration is just throwing the money away. First, we should have fiscal stimulus that is sharply aimed at the current downturn. But this deficit continues far into the future, as the bulk of the tax cuts can be expected to continue indefinitely. The Administration is giving us red ink as far as the eye can see, and these permanent aspects outweigh the short-term stimulatory effects.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: And secondly, you disagree with giving tax relief primarily to wealthier Americans. The GOP argues that those people deserve it for working hard.

Akerlof: The rich don't need the money and are a lot less likely to spend it - they will primarily increase their savings. Remember that wealthier families have done extremely well in the US in the past twenty years, whereas poorer ones have done quite badly. So the redistributive effects of this administration's tax policy are going in the exactly wrong direction. The worst and most indefensible of those cuts are those in dividend taxation - this overwhelmingly helps very wealthy people.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The President claims that dividend tax reform supports the stock market - and helps the economy as a whole to grow.

Akerlof: That's totally unrealistic. Standard formulas from growth models suggest that that effect will be extremely small. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has come to a similar conclusion. So, even a sympathetic treatment finds that this argument is simply not correct.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: When campaigning for an even-larger tax cut earlier this year, Mr. Bush promised that it would create 1.4 million jobs. Was that reasonable?

Akerlof: The tax cut will have some positive impact on job creation, although, as I mentioned, there is very little bang for the buck. There are very negative long-term consequences. The administration, when speaking about the budget, has unrealistically failed to take into account a very large number of important items. As of March 2003, the CBO estimated that the surplus for the next decade would approximately reach one trillion dollars. But this projection assumes, among other questionable things, that spending until 2013 is going to be constant in real dollar terms. That has never been the case. And with the current tax cuts, a realistic estimate would be a deficit in excess of six trillion.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So the government's just bad at doing the correct math?

Akerlof: There is a systematic reason. The government is not really telling the truth to the American people. Past administrations from the time of Alexander Hamilton have on the average run responsible budgetary policies. What we have here is a form of looting.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: If so, why's the President still popular?

Akerlof: For some reason the American people does not yet recognize the dire consequences of our government budgets. It's my hope that voters are going to see how irresponsible this policy is and are going to respond in 2004 and we're going to see a reversal.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What if that doesn't happen?

Akerlof: Future generations and even people in ten years are going to face massive public deficits and huge government debt. Then we have a choice. We can be like a very poor country with problems of threatening bankruptcy. Or we're going to have to cut back seriously on Medicare and Social Security. So the money that is going overwhelmingly to the wealthy is going to be paid by cutting services for the elderly. And people depend on those. It's only among the richest 40 percent that you begin to get households who have sizeable fractions of their own retirement income.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is there a possibility that the government, because of the scope of current deficits, will be more reluctant to embark on a new war?

Akerlof: They would certainly have to think about debt levels, and military expenditure is already high. But if they seriously want to lead a war this will not be a large deterrent. You begin the war and ask for the money later. A more likely effect of the deficits is this: If there's another recession, we won't be able to engage in stimulatory fiscal spending to maintain full employment. Until now, there's been a great deal of trust in the American government. Markets knew that, if there is a current deficit, it will be repaid. The government has wasted that resource.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Which, in addition, might drive up interest rates quite significantly?

Akerlof: The deficit is not going to have significant effects on short-term interest rates. Rates are pretty low, and the Fed will manage to keep them that way. In the mid term it could be a serious problem. When rates rise, the massive debt it's going to bite much more.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why is it that the Bush family seems to specialize in running up deficits? The second-largest federal deficit in absolute terms, $290 billion, occurred in 1991, during the presidency of George W. Bush's father.

Akerlof: That may be, but Bush's father committed a great act of courage by actually raising taxes. He wasn't always courageous, but this was his best public service. It was the first step to getting the deficit under control during the Clinton years. It was also a major factor in Bush's losing the election.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: It seems that the current administration has politicised you in an unprecedented way. During the course of this year, you have, with other academics, signed two public declarations of protest. One against the tax cuts, the other against waging unilateral preventive war on Iraq.

Akerlof: I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign and economic but also in social and environmental policy. This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for people to engage in civil disobedience.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Of what kind?

Akerlof: I don't know yet. But I think it's time to protest - as much as possible.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Would you consider joining Democratic administration as an adviser, as your colleague Joseph Stiglitz did?

Akerlof: As you know my wife was in the last administration, and she did very well. She is probably much better suited for public service. But anything I'll be asked to do by a new administration I'd be happy to do.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You've mentioned the term civil disobedience a minute ago. That term was made popular by the author Henry D. Thoreau, who actually advised people not to pay taxes as a means of resistance. You wouldn't call for that, would you?

Akerlof: No. I think the one thing we should do is pay our taxes. Otherwise, it'll only make matters worse.

www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,258983,...

Der Spiegel

US Nobel laureate Slams 'Looting' Bush Regime, Urges Mass Civil Disobedience

"I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign policy and economics but also in social and environmental policy," said the 2001 Nobel Prize laureate who teaches economics at the University of California in Berkeley.

"This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for (American) people to engage in civil disobedience. I think it's time to protest - as much as possible," the 61-year-old scholar added.

Akerlof has been recognized for his research that borrows from sociology, psychology, anthropology and other fields to determine economic influences and outcomes.

His areas of expertise include macro-economics, monetary policy and poverty.

OT/LS/210

END

http://www.irna.ir/en/head/030729143608.ehe.shtml

"A FORM OF LOOTING"

Das Akerlof-Interview im englischen Orginal

Interview: Matthias Streitz

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Professor Akerlof, according to recent official projections, the US federal deficit will reach $455 billion this fiscal year. That's the largest ever in dollar terms, but according to the President's budget director, it's still manageable. Do you agree?

George A. Akerlof: In the long term, a deficit of this magnitude is not manageable. We are moving into the period when, beginning around 2010, baby boomers are going to be retiring. That is going to put a severe strain on services like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. This is the time when we should be saving.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So it would be necessary to run a budget surplus instead?

Akerlof: That would probably be impossible in the current situation. There's the expenditure for the war in Iraq, which I consider irresponsible. But there's also a recession and a desire to invigorate the economy through fiscal stimulus, which is quite legitimate. That's why we actually do need a deficit in the short term - but certainly not the type of deficit we have now.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Because it's not created by investment, but to a large extent by cutting taxes?

Akerlof: A short-term tax benefit for the poor would actually be a reasonable stimulus. Then, the money would almost certainly be spent. But the current and future deficit is a lot less stimulatory than it could be. Our administration is just throwing the money away. First, we should have fiscal stimulus that is sharply aimed at the current downturn. But this deficit continues far into the future, as the bulk of the tax cuts can be expected to continue indefinitely. The Administration is giving us red ink as far as the eye can see, and these permanent aspects outweigh the short-term stimulatory effects.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: And secondly, you disagree with giving tax relief primarily to wealthier Americans. The GOP argues that those people deserve it for working hard.

Akerlof: The rich don't need the money and are a lot less likely to spend it - they will primarily increase their savings. Remember that wealthier families have done extremely well in the US in the past twenty years, whereas poorer ones have done quite badly. So the redistributive effects of this administration's tax policy are going in the exactly wrong direction. The worst and most indefensible of those cuts are those in dividend taxation - this overwhelmingly helps very wealthy people.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The President claims that dividend tax reform supports the stock market - and helps the economy as a whole to grow.

Akerlof: That's totally unrealistic. Standard formulas from growth models suggest that that effect will be extremely small. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has come to a similar conclusion. So, even a sympathetic treatment finds that this argument is simply not correct.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: When campaigning for an even-larger tax cut earlier this year, Mr. Bush promised that it would create 1.4 million jobs. Was that reasonable?

Akerlof: The tax cut will have some positive impact on job creation, although, as I mentioned, there is very little bang for the buck. There are very negative long-term consequences. The administration, when speaking about the budget, has unrealistically failed to take into account a very large number of important items. As of March 2003, the CBO estimated that the surplus for the next decade would approximately reach one trillion dollars. But this projection assumes, among other questionable things, that spending until 2013 is going to be constant in real dollar terms. That has never been the case. And with the current tax cuts, a realistic estimate would be a deficit in excess of six trillion.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So the government's just bad at doing the correct math?

Akerlof: There is a systematic reason. The government is not really telling the truth to the American people. Past administrations from the time of Alexander Hamilton have on the average run responsible budgetary policies. What we have here is a form of looting.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: If so, why's the President still popular?

Akerlof: For some reason the American people does not yet recognize the dire consequences of our government budgets. It's my hope that voters are going to see how irresponsible this policy is and are going to respond in 2004 and we're going to see a reversal.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What if that doesn't happen?

Akerlof: Future generations and even people in ten years are going to face massive public deficits and huge government debt. Then we have a choice. We can be like a very poor country with problems of threatening bankruptcy. Or we're going to have to cut back seriously on Medicare and Social Security. So the money that is going overwhelmingly to the wealthy is going to be paid by cutting services for the elderly. And people depend on those. It's only among the richest 40 percent that you begin to get households who have sizeable fractions of their own retirement income.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is there a possibility that the government, because of the scope of current deficits, will be more reluctant to embark on a new war?

Akerlof: They would certainly have to think about debt levels, and military expenditure is already high. But if they seriously want to lead a war this will not be a large deterrent. You begin the war and ask for the money later. A more likely effect of the deficits is this: If there's another recession, we won't be able to engage in stimulatory fiscal spending to maintain full employment. Until now, there's been a great deal of trust in the American government. Markets knew that, if there is a current deficit, it will be repaid. The government has wasted that resource.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Which, in addition, might drive up interest rates quite significantly?

Akerlof: The deficit is not going to have significant effects on short-term interest rates. Rates are pretty low, and the Fed will manage to keep them that way. In the mid term it could be a serious problem. When rates rise, the massive debt it's going to bite much more.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why is it that the Bush family seems to specialize in running up deficits? The second-largest federal deficit in absolute terms, $290 billion, occurred in 1991, during the presidency of George W. Bush's father.

Akerlof: That may be, but Bush's father committed a great act of courage by actually raising taxes. He wasn't always courageous, but this was his best public service. It was the first step to getting the deficit under control during the Clinton years. It was also a major factor in Bush's losing the election.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: It seems that the current administration has politicised you in an unprecedented way. During the course of this year, you have, with other academics, signed two public declarations of protest. One against the tax cuts, the other against waging unilateral preventive war on Iraq.

Akerlof: I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign and economic but also in social and environmental policy. This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for people to engage in civil disobedience.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Of what kind?

Akerlof: I don't know yet. But I think it's time to protest - as much as possible.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Would you consider joining Democratic administration as an adviser, as your colleague Joseph Stiglitz did?

Akerlof: As you know my wife was in the last administration, and she did very well. She is probably much better suited for public service. But anything I'll be asked to do by a new administration I'd be happy to do.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You've mentioned the term civil disobedience a minute ago. That term was made popular by the author Henry D. Thoreau, who actually advised people not to pay taxes as a means of resistance. You wouldn't call for that, would you?

Akerlof: No. I think the one thing we should do is pay our taxes. Otherwise, it'll only make matters worse.

www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,258983,...

Der Spiegel

US Nobel laureate Slams 'Looting' Bush Regime, Urges Mass Civil Disobedience

"I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign policy and economics but also in social and environmental policy," said the 2001 Nobel Prize laureate who teaches economics at the University of California in Berkeley.

"This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for (American) people to engage in civil disobedience. I think it's time to protest - as much as possible," the 61-year-old scholar added.

Akerlof has been recognized for his research that borrows from sociology, psychology, anthropology and other fields to determine economic influences and outcomes.

His areas of expertise include macro-economics, monetary policy and poverty.

OT/LS/210

END

http://www.irna.ir/en/head/030729143608.ehe.shtml

"A FORM OF LOOTING"

Das Akerlof-Interview im englischen Orginal

Interview: Matthias Streitz

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Professor Akerlof, according to recent official projections, the US federal deficit will reach $455 billion this fiscal year. That's the largest ever in dollar terms, but according to the President's budget director, it's still manageable. Do you agree?

George A. Akerlof: In the long term, a deficit of this magnitude is not manageable. We are moving into the period when, beginning around 2010, baby boomers are going to be retiring. That is going to put a severe strain on services like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. This is the time when we should be saving.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So it would be necessary to run a budget surplus instead?

Akerlof: That would probably be impossible in the current situation. There's the expenditure for the war in Iraq, which I consider irresponsible. But there's also a recession and a desire to invigorate the economy through fiscal stimulus, which is quite legitimate. That's why we actually do need a deficit in the short term - but certainly not the type of deficit we have now.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Because it's not created by investment, but to a large extent by cutting taxes?

Akerlof: A short-term tax benefit for the poor would actually be a reasonable stimulus. Then, the money would almost certainly be spent. But the current and future deficit is a lot less stimulatory than it could be. Our administration is just throwing the money away. First, we should have fiscal stimulus that is sharply aimed at the current downturn. But this deficit continues far into the future, as the bulk of the tax cuts can be expected to continue indefinitely. The Administration is giving us red ink as far as the eye can see, and these permanent aspects outweigh the short-term stimulatory effects.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: And secondly, you disagree with giving tax relief primarily to wealthier Americans. The GOP argues that those people deserve it for working hard.

Akerlof: The rich don't need the money and are a lot less likely to spend it - they will primarily increase their savings. Remember that wealthier families have done extremely well in the US in the past twenty years, whereas poorer ones have done quite badly. So the redistributive effects of this administration's tax policy are going in the exactly wrong direction. The worst and most indefensible of those cuts are those in dividend taxation - this overwhelmingly helps very wealthy people.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The President claims that dividend tax reform supports the stock market - and helps the economy as a whole to grow.

Akerlof: That's totally unrealistic. Standard formulas from growth models suggest that that effect will be extremely small. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has come to a similar conclusion. So, even a sympathetic treatment finds that this argument is simply not correct.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: When campaigning for an even-larger tax cut earlier this year, Mr. Bush promised that it would create 1.4 million jobs. Was that reasonable?

Akerlof: The tax cut will have some positive impact on job creation, although, as I mentioned, there is very little bang for the buck. There are very negative long-term consequences. The administration, when speaking about the budget, has unrealistically failed to take into account a very large number of important items. As of March 2003, the CBO estimated that the surplus for the next decade would approximately reach one trillion dollars. But this projection assumes, among other questionable things, that spending until 2013 is going to be constant in real dollar terms. That has never been the case. And with the current tax cuts, a realistic estimate would be a deficit in excess of six trillion.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So the government's just bad at doing the correct math?

Akerlof: There is a systematic reason. The government is not really telling the truth to the American people. Past administrations from the time of Alexander Hamilton have on the average run responsible budgetary policies. What we have here is a form of looting.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: If so, why's the President still popular?

Akerlof: For some reason the American people does not yet recognize the dire consequences of our government budgets. It's my hope that voters are going to see how irresponsible this policy is and are going to respond in 2004 and we're going to see a reversal.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What if that doesn't happen?

Akerlof: Future generations and even people in ten years are going to face massive public deficits and huge government debt. Then we have a choice. We can be like a very poor country with problems of threatening bankruptcy. Or we're going to have to cut back seriously on Medicare and Social Security. So the money that is going overwhelmingly to the wealthy is going to be paid by cutting services for the elderly. And people depend on those. It's only among the richest 40 percent that you begin to get households who have sizeable fractions of their own retirement income.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is there a possibility that the government, because of the scope of current deficits, will be more reluctant to embark on a new war?

Akerlof: They would certainly have to think about debt levels, and military expenditure is already high. But if they seriously want to lead a war this will not be a large deterrent. You begin the war and ask for the money later. A more likely effect of the deficits is this: If there's another recession, we won't be able to engage in stimulatory fiscal spending to maintain full employment. Until now, there's been a great deal of trust in the American government. Markets knew that, if there is a current deficit, it will be repaid. The government has wasted that resource.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Which, in addition, might drive up interest rates quite significantly?

Akerlof: The deficit is not going to have significant effects on short-term interest rates. Rates are pretty low, and the Fed will manage to keep them that way. In the mid term it could be a serious problem. When rates rise, the massive debt it's going to bite much more.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why is it that the Bush family seems to specialize in running up deficits? The second-largest federal deficit in absolute terms, $290 billion, occurred in 1991, during the presidency of George W. Bush's father.

Akerlof: That may be, but Bush's father committed a great act of courage by actually raising taxes. He wasn't always courageous, but this was his best public service. It was the first step to getting the deficit under control during the Clinton years. It was also a major factor in Bush's losing the election.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: It seems that the current administration has politicised you in an unprecedented way. During the course of this year, you have, with other academics, signed two public declarations of protest. One against the tax cuts, the other against waging unilateral preventive war on Iraq.

Akerlof: I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign and economic but also in social and environmental policy. This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for people to engage in civil disobedience.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Of what kind?

Akerlof: I don't know yet. But I think it's time to protest - as much as possible.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Would you consider joining Democratic administration as an adviser, as your colleague Joseph Stiglitz did?

Akerlof: As you know my wife was in the last administration, and she did very well. She is probably much better suited for public service. But anything I'll be asked to do by a new administration I'd be happy to do.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You've mentioned the term civil disobedience a minute ago. That term was made popular by the author Henry D. Thoreau, who actually advised people not to pay taxes as a means of resistance. You wouldn't call for that, would you?

Akerlof: No. I think the one thing we should do is pay our taxes. Otherwise, it'll only make matters worse.

www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,258983,...

Der Spiegel

US Nobel laureate Slams 'Looting' Bush Regime, Urges Mass Civil Disobedience

"I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign policy and economics but also in social and environmental policy," said the 2001 Nobel Prize laureate who teaches economics at the University of California in Berkeley.

"This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for (American) people to engage in civil disobedience. I think it's time to protest - as much as possible," the 61-year-old scholar added.

Akerlof has been recognized for his research that borrows from sociology, psychology, anthropology and other fields to determine economic influences and outcomes.

His areas of expertise include macro-economics, monetary policy and poverty.

OT/LS/210

END

http://www.irna.ir/en/head/030729143608.ehe.shtml

"A FORM OF LOOTING"

Das Akerlof-Interview im englischen Orginal

Interview: Matthias Streitz

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Professor Akerlof, according to recent official projections, the US federal deficit will reach $455 billion this fiscal year. That's the largest ever in dollar terms, but according to the President's budget director, it's still manageable. Do you agree?

George A. Akerlof: In the long term, a deficit of this magnitude is not manageable. We are moving into the period when, beginning around 2010, baby boomers are going to be retiring. That is going to put a severe strain on services like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. This is the time when we should be saving.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So it would be necessary to run a budget surplus instead?

Akerlof: That would probably be impossible in the current situation. There's the expenditure for the war in Iraq, which I consider irresponsible. But there's also a recession and a desire to invigorate the economy through fiscal stimulus, which is quite legitimate. That's why we actually do need a deficit in the short term - but certainly not the type of deficit we have now.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Because it's not created by investment, but to a large extent by cutting taxes?

Akerlof: A short-term tax benefit for the poor would actually be a reasonable stimulus. Then, the money would almost certainly be spent. But the current and future deficit is a lot less stimulatory than it could be. Our administration is just throwing the money away. First, we should have fiscal stimulus that is sharply aimed at the current downturn. But this deficit continues far into the future, as the bulk of the tax cuts can be expected to continue indefinitely. The Administration is giving us red ink as far as the eye can see, and these permanent aspects outweigh the short-term stimulatory effects.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: And secondly, you disagree with giving tax relief primarily to wealthier Americans. The GOP argues that those people deserve it for working hard.

Akerlof: The rich don't need the money and are a lot less likely to spend it - they will primarily increase their savings. Remember that wealthier families have done extremely well in the US in the past twenty years, whereas poorer ones have done quite badly. So the redistributive effects of this administration's tax policy are going in the exactly wrong direction. The worst and most indefensible of those cuts are those in dividend taxation - this overwhelmingly helps very wealthy people.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The President claims that dividend tax reform supports the stock market - and helps the economy as a whole to grow.

Akerlof: That's totally unrealistic. Standard formulas from growth models suggest that that effect will be extremely small. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has come to a similar conclusion. So, even a sympathetic treatment finds that this argument is simply not correct.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: When campaigning for an even-larger tax cut earlier this year, Mr. Bush promised that it would create 1.4 million jobs. Was that reasonable?

Akerlof: The tax cut will have some positive impact on job creation, although, as I mentioned, there is very little bang for the buck. There are very negative long-term consequences. The administration, when speaking about the budget, has unrealistically failed to take into account a very large number of important items. As of March 2003, the CBO estimated that the surplus for the next decade would approximately reach one trillion dollars. But this projection assumes, among other questionable things, that spending until 2013 is going to be constant in real dollar terms. That has never been the case. And with the current tax cuts, a realistic estimate would be a deficit in excess of six trillion.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So the government's just bad at doing the correct math?

Akerlof: There is a systematic reason. The government is not really telling the truth to the American people. Past administrations from the time of Alexander Hamilton have on the average run responsible budgetary policies. What we have here is a form of looting.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: If so, why's the President still popular?

Akerlof: For some reason the American people does not yet recognize the dire consequences of our government budgets. It's my hope that voters are going to see how irresponsible this policy is and are going to respond in 2004 and we're going to see a reversal.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What if that doesn't happen?

Akerlof: Future generations and even people in ten years are going to face massive public deficits and huge government debt. Then we have a choice. We can be like a very poor country with problems of threatening bankruptcy. Or we're going to have to cut back seriously on Medicare and Social Security. So the money that is going overwhelmingly to the wealthy is going to be paid by cutting services for the elderly. And people depend on those. It's only among the richest 40 percent that you begin to get households who have sizeable fractions of their own retirement income.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is there a possibility that the government, because of the scope of current deficits, will be more reluctant to embark on a new war?

Akerlof: They would certainly have to think about debt levels, and military expenditure is already high. But if they seriously want to lead a war this will not be a large deterrent. You begin the war and ask for the money later. A more likely effect of the deficits is this: If there's another recession, we won't be able to engage in stimulatory fiscal spending to maintain full employment. Until now, there's been a great deal of trust in the American government. Markets knew that, if there is a current deficit, it will be repaid. The government has wasted that resource.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Which, in addition, might drive up interest rates quite significantly?

Akerlof: The deficit is not going to have significant effects on short-term interest rates. Rates are pretty low, and the Fed will manage to keep them that way. In the mid term it could be a serious problem. When rates rise, the massive debt it's going to bite much more.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why is it that the Bush family seems to specialize in running up deficits? The second-largest federal deficit in absolute terms, $290 billion, occurred in 1991, during the presidency of George W. Bush's father.

Akerlof: That may be, but Bush's father committed a great act of courage by actually raising taxes. He wasn't always courageous, but this was his best public service. It was the first step to getting the deficit under control during the Clinton years. It was also a major factor in Bush's losing the election.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: It seems that the current administration has politicised you in an unprecedented way. During the course of this year, you have, with other academics, signed two public declarations of protest. One against the tax cuts, the other against waging unilateral preventive war on Iraq.

Akerlof: I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign and economic but also in social and environmental policy. This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for people to engage in civil disobedience.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Of what kind?

Akerlof: I don't know yet. But I think it's time to protest - as much as possible.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Would you consider joining Democratic administration as an adviser, as your colleague Joseph Stiglitz did?

Akerlof: As you know my wife was in the last administration, and she did very well. She is probably much better suited for public service. But anything I'll be asked to do by a new administration I'd be happy to do.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You've mentioned the term civil disobedience a minute ago. That term was made popular by the author Henry D. Thoreau, who actually advised people not to pay taxes as a means of resistance. You wouldn't call for that, would you?

Akerlof: No. I think the one thing we should do is pay our taxes. Otherwise, it'll only make matters worse.

www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,258983,...

Der Spiegel

US Nobel laureate Slams 'Looting' Bush Regime, Urges Mass Civil Disobedience

"I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign policy and economics but also in social and environmental policy," said the 2001 Nobel Prize laureate who teaches economics at the University of California in Berkeley.

"This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for (American) people to engage in civil disobedience. I think it's time to protest - as much as possible," the 61-year-old scholar added.

Akerlof has been recognized for his research that borrows from sociology, psychology, anthropology and other fields to determine economic influences and outcomes.

His areas of expertise include macro-economics, monetary policy and poverty.

OT/LS/210

END

http://www.irna.ir/en/head/030729143608.ehe.shtml

"A FORM OF LOOTING"

Das Akerlof-Interview im englischen Orginal

Interview: Matthias Streitz

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Professor Akerlof, according to recent official projections, the US federal deficit will reach $455 billion this fiscal year. That's the largest ever in dollar terms, but according to the President's budget director, it's still manageable. Do you agree?

George A. Akerlof: In the long term, a deficit of this magnitude is not manageable. We are moving into the period when, beginning around 2010, baby boomers are going to be retiring. That is going to put a severe strain on services like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. This is the time when we should be saving.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So it would be necessary to run a budget surplus instead?

Akerlof: That would probably be impossible in the current situation. There's the expenditure for the war in Iraq, which I consider irresponsible. But there's also a recession and a desire to invigorate the economy through fiscal stimulus, which is quite legitimate. That's why we actually do need a deficit in the short term - but certainly not the type of deficit we have now.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Because it's not created by investment, but to a large extent by cutting taxes?

Akerlof: A short-term tax benefit for the poor would actually be a reasonable stimulus. Then, the money would almost certainly be spent. But the current and future deficit is a lot less stimulatory than it could be. Our administration is just throwing the money away. First, we should have fiscal stimulus that is sharply aimed at the current downturn. But this deficit continues far into the future, as the bulk of the tax cuts can be expected to continue indefinitely. The Administration is giving us red ink as far as the eye can see, and these permanent aspects outweigh the short-term stimulatory effects.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: And secondly, you disagree with giving tax relief primarily to wealthier Americans. The GOP argues that those people deserve it for working hard.

Akerlof: The rich don't need the money and are a lot less likely to spend it - they will primarily increase their savings. Remember that wealthier families have done extremely well in the US in the past twenty years, whereas poorer ones have done quite badly. So the redistributive effects of this administration's tax policy are going in the exactly wrong direction. The worst and most indefensible of those cuts are those in dividend taxation - this overwhelmingly helps very wealthy people.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The President claims that dividend tax reform supports the stock market - and helps the economy as a whole to grow.

Akerlof: That's totally unrealistic. Standard formulas from growth models suggest that that effect will be extremely small. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has come to a similar conclusion. So, even a sympathetic treatment finds that this argument is simply not correct.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: When campaigning for an even-larger tax cut earlier this year, Mr. Bush promised that it would create 1.4 million jobs. Was that reasonable?

Akerlof: The tax cut will have some positive impact on job creation, although, as I mentioned, there is very little bang for the buck. There are very negative long-term consequences. The administration, when speaking about the budget, has unrealistically failed to take into account a very large number of important items. As of March 2003, the CBO estimated that the surplus for the next decade would approximately reach one trillion dollars. But this projection assumes, among other questionable things, that spending until 2013 is going to be constant in real dollar terms. That has never been the case. And with the current tax cuts, a realistic estimate would be a deficit in excess of six trillion.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So the government's just bad at doing the correct math?

Akerlof: There is a systematic reason. The government is not really telling the truth to the American people. Past administrations from the time of Alexander Hamilton have on the average run responsible budgetary policies. What we have here is a form of looting.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: If so, why's the President still popular?

Akerlof: For some reason the American people does not yet recognize the dire consequences of our government budgets. It's my hope that voters are going to see how irresponsible this policy is and are going to respond in 2004 and we're going to see a reversal.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What if that doesn't happen?

Akerlof: Future generations and even people in ten years are going to face massive public deficits and huge government debt. Then we have a choice. We can be like a very poor country with problems of threatening bankruptcy. Or we're going to have to cut back seriously on Medicare and Social Security. So the money that is going overwhelmingly to the wealthy is going to be paid by cutting services for the elderly. And people depend on those. It's only among the richest 40 percent that you begin to get households who have sizeable fractions of their own retirement income.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is there a possibility that the government, because of the scope of current deficits, will be more reluctant to embark on a new war?

Akerlof: They would certainly have to think about debt levels, and military expenditure is already high. But if they seriously want to lead a war this will not be a large deterrent. You begin the war and ask for the money later. A more likely effect of the deficits is this: If there's another recession, we won't be able to engage in stimulatory fiscal spending to maintain full employment. Until now, there's been a great deal of trust in the American government. Markets knew that, if there is a current deficit, it will be repaid. The government has wasted that resource.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Which, in addition, might drive up interest rates quite significantly?

Akerlof: The deficit is not going to have significant effects on short-term interest rates. Rates are pretty low, and the Fed will manage to keep them that way. In the mid term it could be a serious problem. When rates rise, the massive debt it's going to bite much more.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why is it that the Bush family seems to specialize in running up deficits? The second-largest federal deficit in absolute terms, $290 billion, occurred in 1991, during the presidency of George W. Bush's father.

Akerlof: That may be, but Bush's father committed a great act of courage by actually raising taxes. He wasn't always courageous, but this was his best public service. It was the first step to getting the deficit under control during the Clinton years. It was also a major factor in Bush's losing the election.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: It seems that the current administration has politicised you in an unprecedented way. During the course of this year, you have, with other academics, signed two public declarations of protest. One against the tax cuts, the other against waging unilateral preventive war on Iraq.

Akerlof: I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign and economic but also in social and environmental policy. This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for people to engage in civil disobedience.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Of what kind?

Akerlof: I don't know yet. But I think it's time to protest - as much as possible.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Would you consider joining Democratic administration as an adviser, as your colleague Joseph Stiglitz did?

Akerlof: As you know my wife was in the last administration, and she did very well. She is probably much better suited for public service. But anything I'll be asked to do by a new administration I'd be happy to do.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You've mentioned the term civil disobedience a minute ago. That term was made popular by the author Henry D. Thoreau, who actually advised people not to pay taxes as a means of resistance. You wouldn't call for that, would you?

Akerlof: No. I think the one thing we should do is pay our taxes. Otherwise, it'll only make matters worse.

www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,258983,...

Der Spiegel

US Nobel laureate Slams 'Looting' Bush Regime, Urges Mass Civil Disobedience

"I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign policy and economics but also in social and environmental policy," said the 2001 Nobel Prize laureate who teaches economics at the University of California in Berkeley.

"This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for (American) people to engage in civil disobedience. I think it's time to protest - as much as possible," the 61-year-old scholar added.

Akerlof has been recognized for his research that borrows from sociology, psychology, anthropology and other fields to determine economic influences and outcomes.

His areas of expertise include macro-economics, monetary policy and poverty.

OT/LS/210

END

http://www.irna.ir/en/head/030729143608.ehe.shtml

"A FORM OF LOOTING"

Das Akerlof-Interview im englischen Orginal

Interview: Matthias Streitz

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Professor Akerlof, according to recent official projections, the US federal deficit will reach $455 billion this fiscal year. That's the largest ever in dollar terms, but according to the President's budget director, it's still manageable. Do you agree?

George A. Akerlof: In the long term, a deficit of this magnitude is not manageable. We are moving into the period when, beginning around 2010, baby boomers are going to be retiring. That is going to put a severe strain on services like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. This is the time when we should be saving.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So it would be necessary to run a budget surplus instead?

Akerlof: That would probably be impossible in the current situation. There's the expenditure for the war in Iraq, which I consider irresponsible. But there's also a recession and a desire to invigorate the economy through fiscal stimulus, which is quite legitimate. That's why we actually do need a deficit in the short term - but certainly not the type of deficit we have now.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Because it's not created by investment, but to a large extent by cutting taxes?

Akerlof: A short-term tax benefit for the poor would actually be a reasonable stimulus. Then, the money would almost certainly be spent. But the current and future deficit is a lot less stimulatory than it could be. Our administration is just throwing the money away. First, we should have fiscal stimulus that is sharply aimed at the current downturn. But this deficit continues far into the future, as the bulk of the tax cuts can be expected to continue indefinitely. The Administration is giving us red ink as far as the eye can see, and these permanent aspects outweigh the short-term stimulatory effects.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: And secondly, you disagree with giving tax relief primarily to wealthier Americans. The GOP argues that those people deserve it for working hard.

Akerlof: The rich don't need the money and are a lot less likely to spend it - they will primarily increase their savings. Remember that wealthier families have done extremely well in the US in the past twenty years, whereas poorer ones have done quite badly. So the redistributive effects of this administration's tax policy are going in the exactly wrong direction. The worst and most indefensible of those cuts are those in dividend taxation - this overwhelmingly helps very wealthy people.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The President claims that dividend tax reform supports the stock market - and helps the economy as a whole to grow.

Akerlof: That's totally unrealistic. Standard formulas from growth models suggest that that effect will be extremely small. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has come to a similar conclusion. So, even a sympathetic treatment finds that this argument is simply not correct.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: When campaigning for an even-larger tax cut earlier this year, Mr. Bush promised that it would create 1.4 million jobs. Was that reasonable?

Akerlof: The tax cut will have some positive impact on job creation, although, as I mentioned, there is very little bang for the buck. There are very negative long-term consequences. The administration, when speaking about the budget, has unrealistically failed to take into account a very large number of important items. As of March 2003, the CBO estimated that the surplus for the next decade would approximately reach one trillion dollars. But this projection assumes, among other questionable things, that spending until 2013 is going to be constant in real dollar terms. That has never been the case. And with the current tax cuts, a realistic estimate would be a deficit in excess of six trillion.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So the government's just bad at doing the correct math?

Akerlof: There is a systematic reason. The government is not really telling the truth to the American people. Past administrations from the time of Alexander Hamilton have on the average run responsible budgetary policies. What we have here is a form of looting.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: If so, why's the President still popular?

Akerlof: For some reason the American people does not yet recognize the dire consequences of our government budgets. It's my hope that voters are going to see how irresponsible this policy is and are going to respond in 2004 and we're going to see a reversal.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What if that doesn't happen?

Akerlof: Future generations and even people in ten years are going to face massive public deficits and huge government debt. Then we have a choice. We can be like a very poor country with problems of threatening bankruptcy. Or we're going to have to cut back seriously on Medicare and Social Security. So the money that is going overwhelmingly to the wealthy is going to be paid by cutting services for the elderly. And people depend on those. It's only among the richest 40 percent that you begin to get households who have sizeable fractions of their own retirement income.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is there a possibility that the government, because of the scope of current deficits, will be more reluctant to embark on a new war?

Akerlof: They would certainly have to think about debt levels, and military expenditure is already high. But if they seriously want to lead a war this will not be a large deterrent. You begin the war and ask for the money later. A more likely effect of the deficits is this: If there's another recession, we won't be able to engage in stimulatory fiscal spending to maintain full employment. Until now, there's been a great deal of trust in the American government. Markets knew that, if there is a current deficit, it will be repaid. The government has wasted that resource.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Which, in addition, might drive up interest rates quite significantly?

Akerlof: The deficit is not going to have significant effects on short-term interest rates. Rates are pretty low, and the Fed will manage to keep them that way. In the mid term it could be a serious problem. When rates rise, the massive debt it's going to bite much more.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why is it that the Bush family seems to specialize in running up deficits? The second-largest federal deficit in absolute terms, $290 billion, occurred in 1991, during the presidency of George W. Bush's father.

Akerlof: That may be, but Bush's father committed a great act of courage by actually raising taxes. He wasn't always courageous, but this was his best public service. It was the first step to getting the deficit under control during the Clinton years. It was also a major factor in Bush's losing the election.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: It seems that the current administration has politicised you in an unprecedented way. During the course of this year, you have, with other academics, signed two public declarations of protest. One against the tax cuts, the other against waging unilateral preventive war on Iraq.

Akerlof: I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign and economic but also in social and environmental policy. This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for people to engage in civil disobedience.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Of what kind?

Akerlof: I don't know yet. But I think it's time to protest - as much as possible.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Would you consider joining Democratic administration as an adviser, as your colleague Joseph Stiglitz did?

Akerlof: As you know my wife was in the last administration, and she did very well. She is probably much better suited for public service. But anything I'll be asked to do by a new administration I'd be happy to do.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You've mentioned the term civil disobedience a minute ago. That term was made popular by the author Henry D. Thoreau, who actually advised people not to pay taxes as a means of resistance. You wouldn't call for that, would you?

Akerlof: No. I think the one thing we should do is pay our taxes. Otherwise, it'll only make matters worse.

www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,258983,...

Der Spiegel

US Nobel laureate Slams 'Looting' Bush Regime, Urges Mass Civil Disobedience

Berlin, July 29, IRNA -- American Nobel Prize laureate for Economics George A. Akerlof lashed out at the government of US President George W. Bush, calling it the "worst ever" in American history, the online site of the weekly Der Spiegel magazine reported Tuesday.

"I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign policy and economics but also in social and environmental policy," said the 2001 Nobel Prize laureate who teaches economics at the University of California in Berkeley.

"This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for (American) people to engage in civil disobedience. I think it's time to protest - as much as possible," the 61-year-old scholar added.

Akerlof has been recognized for his research that borrows from sociology, psychology, anthropology and other fields to determine economic influences and outcomes.

His areas of expertise include macro-economics, monetary policy and poverty.

OT/LS/210

END

http://www.irna.ir/en/head/030729143608.ehe.shtml

"A FORM OF LOOTING"

Das Akerlof-Interview im englischen Orginal

Interview: Matthias Streitz

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Professor Akerlof, according to recent official projections, the US federal deficit will reach $455 billion this fiscal year. That's the largest ever in dollar terms, but according to the President's budget director, it's still manageable. Do you agree?

George A. Akerlof: In the long term, a deficit of this magnitude is not manageable. We are moving into the period when, beginning around 2010, baby boomers are going to be retiring. That is going to put a severe strain on services like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. This is the time when we should be saving.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So it would be necessary to run a budget surplus instead?

Akerlof: That would probably be impossible in the current situation. There's the expenditure for the war in Iraq, which I consider irresponsible. But there's also a recession and a desire to invigorate the economy through fiscal stimulus, which is quite legitimate. That's why we actually do need a deficit in the short term - but certainly not the type of deficit we have now.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Because it's not created by investment, but to a large extent by cutting taxes?

Akerlof: A short-term tax benefit for the poor would actually be a reasonable stimulus. Then, the money would almost certainly be spent. But the current and future deficit is a lot less stimulatory than it could be. Our administration is just throwing the money away. First, we should have fiscal stimulus that is sharply aimed at the current downturn. But this deficit continues far into the future, as the bulk of the tax cuts can be expected to continue indefinitely. The Administration is giving us red ink as far as the eye can see, and these permanent aspects outweigh the short-term stimulatory effects.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: And secondly, you disagree with giving tax relief primarily to wealthier Americans. The GOP argues that those people deserve it for working hard.

Akerlof: The rich don't need the money and are a lot less likely to spend it - they will primarily increase their savings. Remember that wealthier families have done extremely well in the US in the past twenty years, whereas poorer ones have done quite badly. So the redistributive effects of this administration's tax policy are going in the exactly wrong direction. The worst and most indefensible of those cuts are those in dividend taxation - this overwhelmingly helps very wealthy people.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The President claims that dividend tax reform supports the stock market - and helps the economy as a whole to grow.

Akerlof: That's totally unrealistic. Standard formulas from growth models suggest that that effect will be extremely small. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has come to a similar conclusion. So, even a sympathetic treatment finds that this argument is simply not correct.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: When campaigning for an even-larger tax cut earlier this year, Mr. Bush promised that it would create 1.4 million jobs. Was that reasonable?

Akerlof: The tax cut will have some positive impact on job creation, although, as I mentioned, there is very little bang for the buck. There are very negative long-term consequences. The administration, when speaking about the budget, has unrealistically failed to take into account a very large number of important items. As of March 2003, the CBO estimated that the surplus for the next decade would approximately reach one trillion dollars. But this projection assumes, among other questionable things, that spending until 2013 is going to be constant in real dollar terms. That has never been the case. And with the current tax cuts, a realistic estimate would be a deficit in excess of six trillion.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So the government's just bad at doing the correct math?

Akerlof: There is a systematic reason. The government is not really telling the truth to the American people. Past administrations from the time of Alexander Hamilton have on the average run responsible budgetary policies. What we have here is a form of looting.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: If so, why's the President still popular?

Akerlof: For some reason the American people does not yet recognize the dire consequences of our government budgets. It's my hope that voters are going to see how irresponsible this policy is and are going to respond in 2004 and we're going to see a reversal.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What if that doesn't happen?

Akerlof: Future generations and even people in ten years are going to face massive public deficits and huge government debt. Then we have a choice. We can be like a very poor country with problems of threatening bankruptcy. Or we're going to have to cut back seriously on Medicare and Social Security. So the money that is going overwhelmingly to the wealthy is going to be paid by cutting services for the elderly. And people depend on those. It's only among the richest 40 percent that you begin to get households who have sizeable fractions of their own retirement income.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is there a possibility that the government, because of the scope of current deficits, will be more reluctant to embark on a new war?

Akerlof: They would certainly have to think about debt levels, and military expenditure is already high. But if they seriously want to lead a war this will not be a large deterrent. You begin the war and ask for the money later. A more likely effect of the deficits is this: If there's another recession, we won't be able to engage in stimulatory fiscal spending to maintain full employment. Until now, there's been a great deal of trust in the American government. Markets knew that, if there is a current deficit, it will be repaid. The government has wasted that resource.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Which, in addition, might drive up interest rates quite significantly?

Akerlof: The deficit is not going to have significant effects on short-term interest rates. Rates are pretty low, and the Fed will manage to keep them that way. In the mid term it could be a serious problem. When rates rise, the massive debt it's going to bite much more.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why is it that the Bush family seems to specialize in running up deficits? The second-largest federal deficit in absolute terms, $290 billion, occurred in 1991, during the presidency of George W. Bush's father.

Akerlof: That may be, but Bush's father committed a great act of courage by actually raising taxes. He wasn't always courageous, but this was his best public service. It was the first step to getting the deficit under control during the Clinton years. It was also a major factor in Bush's losing the election.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: It seems that the current administration has politicised you in an unprecedented way. During the course of this year, you have, with other academics, signed two public declarations of protest. One against the tax cuts, the other against waging unilateral preventive war on Iraq.

Akerlof: I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign and economic but also in social and environmental policy. This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for people to engage in civil disobedience.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Of what kind?

Akerlof: I don't know yet. But I think it's time to protest - as much as possible.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Would you consider joining Democratic administration as an adviser, as your colleague Joseph Stiglitz did?

Akerlof: As you know my wife was in the last administration, and she did very well. She is probably much better suited for public service. But anything I'll be asked to do by a new administration I'd be happy to do.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You've mentioned the term civil disobedience a minute ago. That term was made popular by the author Henry D. Thoreau, who actually advised people not to pay taxes as a means of resistance. You wouldn't call for that, would you?

Akerlof: No. I think the one thing we should do is pay our taxes. Otherwise, it'll only make matters worse.

http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,258983,00.html

Der Spiegel

US Nobel laureate Slams 'Looting' Bush Regime, Urges Mass Civil Disobedience

Berlin, July 29, IRNA -- American Nobel Prize laureate for Economics George A. Akerlof lashed out at the government of US President George W. Bush, calling it the "worst ever" in American history, the online site of the weekly Der Spiegel magazine reported Tuesday.

"I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign policy and economics but also in social and environmental policy," said the 2001 Nobel Prize laureate who teaches economics at the University of California in Berkeley.

"This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for (American) people to engage in civil disobedience. I think it's time to protest - as much as possible," the 61-year-old scholar added.

Akerlof has been recognized for his research that borrows from sociology, psychology, anthropology and other fields to determine economic influences and outcomes.

His areas of expertise include macro-economics, monetary policy and poverty.

OT/LS/210

END

http://www.irna.ir/en/head/030729143608.ehe.shtml

"A FORM OF LOOTING"

Das Akerlof-Interview im englischen Orginal

Interview: Matthias Streitz

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Professor Akerlof, according to recent official projections, the US federal deficit will reach $455 billion this fiscal year. That's the largest ever in dollar terms, but according to the President's budget director, it's still manageable. Do you agree?

George A. Akerlof: In the long term, a deficit of this magnitude is not manageable. We are moving into the period when, beginning around 2010, baby boomers are going to be retiring. That is going to put a severe strain on services like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. This is the time when we should be saving.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So it would be necessary to run a budget surplus instead?

Akerlof: That would probably be impossible in the current situation. There's the expenditure for the war in Iraq, which I consider irresponsible. But there's also a recession and a desire to invigorate the economy through fiscal stimulus, which is quite legitimate. That's why we actually do need a deficit in the short term - but certainly not the type of deficit we have now.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Because it's not created by investment, but to a large extent by cutting taxes?

Akerlof: A short-term tax benefit for the poor would actually be a reasonable stimulus. Then, the money would almost certainly be spent. But the current and future deficit is a lot less stimulatory than it could be. Our administration is just throwing the money away. First, we should have fiscal stimulus that is sharply aimed at the current downturn. But this deficit continues far into the future, as the bulk of the tax cuts can be expected to continue indefinitely. The Administration is giving us red ink as far as the eye can see, and these permanent aspects outweigh the short-term stimulatory effects.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: And secondly, you disagree with giving tax relief primarily to wealthier Americans. The GOP argues that those people deserve it for working hard.

Akerlof: The rich don't need the money and are a lot less likely to spend it - they will primarily increase their savings. Remember that wealthier families have done extremely well in the US in the past twenty years, whereas poorer ones have done quite badly. So the redistributive effects of this administration's tax policy are going in the exactly wrong direction. The worst and most indefensible of those cuts are those in dividend taxation - this overwhelmingly helps very wealthy people.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The President claims that dividend tax reform supports the stock market - and helps the economy as a whole to grow.

Akerlof: That's totally unrealistic. Standard formulas from growth models suggest that that effect will be extremely small. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has come to a similar conclusion. So, even a sympathetic treatment finds that this argument is simply not correct.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: When campaigning for an even-larger tax cut earlier this year, Mr. Bush promised that it would create 1.4 million jobs. Was that reasonable?

Akerlof: The tax cut will have some positive impact on job creation, although, as I mentioned, there is very little bang for the buck. There are very negative long-term consequences. The administration, when speaking about the budget, has unrealistically failed to take into account a very large number of important items. As of March 2003, the CBO estimated that the surplus for the next decade would approximately reach one trillion dollars. But this projection assumes, among other questionable things, that spending until 2013 is going to be constant in real dollar terms. That has never been the case. And with the current tax cuts, a realistic estimate would be a deficit in excess of six trillion.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So the government's just bad at doing the correct math?

Akerlof: There is a systematic reason. The government is not really telling the truth to the American people. Past administrations from the time of Alexander Hamilton have on the average run responsible budgetary policies. What we have here is a form of looting.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: If so, why's the President still popular?

Akerlof: For some reason the American people does not yet recognize the dire consequences of our government budgets. It's my hope that voters are going to see how irresponsible this policy is and are going to respond in 2004 and we're going to see a reversal.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What if that doesn't happen?

Akerlof: Future generations and even people in ten years are going to face massive public deficits and huge government debt. Then we have a choice. We can be like a very poor country with problems of threatening bankruptcy. Or we're going to have to cut back seriously on Medicare and Social Security. So the money that is going overwhelmingly to the wealthy is going to be paid by cutting services for the elderly. And people depend on those. It's only among the richest 40 percent that you begin to get households who have sizeable fractions of their own retirement income.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is there a possibility that the government, because of the scope of current deficits, will be more reluctant to embark on a new war?

Akerlof: They would certainly have to think about debt levels, and military expenditure is already high. But if they seriously want to lead a war this will not be a large deterrent. You begin the war and ask for the money later. A more likely effect of the deficits is this: If there's another recession, we won't be able to engage in stimulatory fiscal spending to maintain full employment. Until now, there's been a great deal of trust in the American government. Markets knew that, if there is a current deficit, it will be repaid. The government has wasted that resource.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Which, in addition, might drive up interest rates quite significantly?

Akerlof: The deficit is not going to have significant effects on short-term interest rates. Rates are pretty low, and the Fed will manage to keep them that way. In the mid term it could be a serious problem. When rates rise, the massive debt it's going to bite much more.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why is it that the Bush family seems to specialize in running up deficits? The second-largest federal deficit in absolute terms, $290 billion, occurred in 1991, during the presidency of George W. Bush's father.

Akerlof: That may be, but Bush's father committed a great act of courage by actually raising taxes. He wasn't always courageous, but this was his best public service. It was the first step to getting the deficit under control during the Clinton years. It was also a major factor in Bush's losing the election.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: It seems that the current administration has politicised you in an unprecedented way. During the course of this year, you have, with other academics, signed two public declarations of protest. One against the tax cuts, the other against waging unilateral preventive war on Iraq.

Akerlof: I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign and economic but also in social and environmental policy. This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for people to engage in civil disobedience.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Of what kind?

Akerlof: I don't know yet. But I think it's time to protest - as much as possible.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Would you consider joining Democratic administration as an adviser, as your colleague Joseph Stiglitz did?

Akerlof: As you know my wife was in the last administration, and she did very well. She is probably much better suited for public service. But anything I'll be asked to do by a new administration I'd be happy to do.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You've mentioned the term civil disobedience a minute ago. That term was made popular by the author Henry D. Thoreau, who actually advised people not to pay taxes as a means of resistance. You wouldn't call for that, would you?

Akerlof: No. I think the one thing we should do is pay our taxes. Otherwise, it'll only make matters worse.

http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,258983,00.html

Der Spiegel

US Nobel laureate Slams 'Looting' Bush Regime, Urges Mass Civil Disobedience

Berlin, July 29, IRNA -- American Nobel Prize laureate for Economics George A. Akerlof lashed out at the government of US President George W. Bush, calling it the "worst ever" in American history, the online site of the weekly Der Spiegel magazine reported Tuesday.

"I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign policy and economics but also in social and environmental policy," said the 2001 Nobel Prize laureate who teaches economics at the University of California in Berkeley.

"This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for (American) people to engage in civil disobedience. I think it's time to protest - as much as possible," the 61-year-old scholar added.

Akerlof has been recognized for his research that borrows from sociology, psychology, anthropology and other fields to determine economic influences and outcomes.

His areas of expertise include macro-economics, monetary policy and poverty.

OT/LS/210

END

http://www.irna.ir/en/head/030729143608.ehe.shtml

"A FORM OF LOOTING"

Das Akerlof-Interview im englischen Orginal

Interview: Matthias Streitz

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Professor Akerlof, according to recent official projections, the US federal deficit will reach $455 billion this fiscal year. That's the largest ever in dollar terms, but according to the President's budget director, it's still manageable. Do you agree?

George A. Akerlof: In the long term, a deficit of this magnitude is not manageable. We are moving into the period when, beginning around 2010, baby boomers are going to be retiring. That is going to put a severe strain on services like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. This is the time when we should be saving.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So it would be necessary to run a budget surplus instead?

Akerlof: That would probably be impossible in the current situation. There's the expenditure for the war in Iraq, which I consider irresponsible. But there's also a recession and a desire to invigorate the economy through fiscal stimulus, which is quite legitimate. That's why we actually do need a deficit in the short term - but certainly not the type of deficit we have now.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Because it's not created by investment, but to a large extent by cutting taxes?

Akerlof: A short-term tax benefit for the poor would actually be a reasonable stimulus. Then, the money would almost certainly be spent. But the current and future deficit is a lot less stimulatory than it could be. Our administration is just throwing the money away. First, we should have fiscal stimulus that is sharply aimed at the current downturn. But this deficit continues far into the future, as the bulk of the tax cuts can be expected to continue indefinitely. The Administration is giving us red ink as far as the eye can see, and these permanent aspects outweigh the short-term stimulatory effects.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: And secondly, you disagree with giving tax relief primarily to wealthier Americans. The GOP argues that those people deserve it for working hard.

Akerlof: The rich don't need the money and are a lot less likely to spend it - they will primarily increase their savings. Remember that wealthier families have done extremely well in the US in the past twenty years, whereas poorer ones have done quite badly. So the redistributive effects of this administration's tax policy are going in the exactly wrong direction. The worst and most indefensible of those cuts are those in dividend taxation - this overwhelmingly helps very wealthy people.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The President claims that dividend tax reform supports the stock market - and helps the economy as a whole to grow.

Akerlof: That's totally unrealistic. Standard formulas from growth models suggest that that effect will be extremely small. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has come to a similar conclusion. So, even a sympathetic treatment finds that this argument is simply not correct.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: When campaigning for an even-larger tax cut earlier this year, Mr. Bush promised that it would create 1.4 million jobs. Was that reasonable?

Akerlof: The tax cut will have some positive impact on job creation, although, as I mentioned, there is very little bang for the buck. There are very negative long-term consequences. The administration, when speaking about the budget, has unrealistically failed to take into account a very large number of important items. As of March 2003, the CBO estimated that the surplus for the next decade would approximately reach one trillion dollars. But this projection assumes, among other questionable things, that spending until 2013 is going to be constant in real dollar terms. That has never been the case. And with the current tax cuts, a realistic estimate would be a deficit in excess of six trillion.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So the government's just bad at doing the correct math?

Akerlof: There is a systematic reason. The government is not really telling the truth to the American people. Past administrations from the time of Alexander Hamilton have on the average run responsible budgetary policies. What we have here is a form of looting.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: If so, why's the President still popular?

Akerlof: For some reason the American people does not yet recognize the dire consequences of our government budgets. It's my hope that voters are going to see how irresponsible this policy is and are going to respond in 2004 and we're going to see a reversal.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What if that doesn't happen?

Akerlof: Future generations and even people in ten years are going to face massive public deficits and huge government debt. Then we have a choice. We can be like a very poor country with problems of threatening bankruptcy. Or we're going to have to cut back seriously on Medicare and Social Security. So the money that is going overwhelmingly to the wealthy is going to be paid by cutting services for the elderly. And people depend on those. It's only among the richest 40 percent that you begin to get households who have sizeable fractions of their own retirement income.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is there a possibility that the government, because of the scope of current deficits, will be more reluctant to embark on a new war?

Akerlof: They would certainly have to think about debt levels, and military expenditure is already high. But if they seriously want to lead a war this will not be a large deterrent. You begin the war and ask for the money later. A more likely effect of the deficits is this: If there's another recession, we won't be able to engage in stimulatory fiscal spending to maintain full employment. Until now, there's been a great deal of trust in the American government. Markets knew that, if there is a current deficit, it will be repaid. The government has wasted that resource.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Which, in addition, might drive up interest rates quite significantly?

Akerlof: The deficit is not going to have significant effects on short-term interest rates. Rates are pretty low, and the Fed will manage to keep them that way. In the mid term it could be a serious problem. When rates rise, the massive debt it's going to bite much more.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why is it that the Bush family seems to specialize in running up deficits? The second-largest federal deficit in absolute terms, $290 billion, occurred in 1991, during the presidency of George W. Bush's father.

Akerlof: That may be, but Bush's father committed a great act of courage by actually raising taxes. He wasn't always courageous, but this was his best public service. It was the first step to getting the deficit under control during the Clinton years. It was also a major factor in Bush's losing the election.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: It seems that the current administration has politicised you in an unprecedented way. During the course of this year, you have, with other academics, signed two public declarations of protest. One against the tax cuts, the other against waging unilateral preventive war on Iraq.

Akerlof: I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign and economic but also in social and environmental policy. This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for people to engage in civil disobedience.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Of what kind?

Akerlof: I don't know yet. But I think it's time to protest - as much as possible.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Would you consider joining Democratic administration as an adviser, as your colleague Joseph Stiglitz did?

Akerlof: As you know my wife was in the last administration, and she did very well. She is probably much better suited for public service. But anything I'll be asked to do by a new administration I'd be happy to do.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You've mentioned the term civil disobedience a minute ago. That term was made popular by the author Henry D. Thoreau, who actually advised people not to pay taxes as a means of resistance. You wouldn't call for that, would you?

Akerlof: No. I think the one thing we should do is pay our taxes. Otherwise, it'll only make matters worse.

http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,258983,00.html

Der Spiegel

US Nobel laureate Slams 'Looting' Bush Regime, Urges Mass Civil Disobedience

Berlin, July 29, IRNA -- American Nobel Prize laureate for Economics George A. Akerlof lashed out at the government of US President George W. Bush, calling it the "worst ever" in American history, the online site of the weekly Der Spiegel magazine reported Tuesday.

"I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign policy and economics but also in social and environmental policy," said the 2001 Nobel Prize laureate who teaches economics at the University of California in Berkeley.

"This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for (American) people to engage in civil disobedience. I think it's time to protest - as much as possible," the 61-year-old scholar added.

Akerlof has been recognized for his research that borrows from sociology, psychology, anthropology and other fields to determine economic influences and outcomes.

His areas of expertise include macro-economics, monetary policy and poverty.

OT/LS/210

END

http://www.irna.ir/en/head/030729143608.ehe.shtml

"A FORM OF LOOTING"

Das Akerlof-Interview im englischen Orginal

Interview: Matthias Streitz

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Professor Akerlof, according to recent official projections, the US federal deficit will reach $455 billion this fiscal year. That's the largest ever in dollar terms, but according to the President's budget director, it's still manageable. Do you agree?

George A. Akerlof: In the long term, a deficit of this magnitude is not manageable. We are moving into the period when, beginning around 2010, baby boomers are going to be retiring. That is going to put a severe strain on services like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. This is the time when we should be saving.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So it would be necessary to run a budget surplus instead?

Akerlof: That would probably be impossible in the current situation. There's the expenditure for the war in Iraq, which I consider irresponsible. But there's also a recession and a desire to invigorate the economy through fiscal stimulus, which is quite legitimate. That's why we actually do need a deficit in the short term - but certainly not the type of deficit we have now.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Because it's not created by investment, but to a large extent by cutting taxes?

Akerlof: A short-term tax benefit for the poor would actually be a reasonable stimulus. Then, the money would almost certainly be spent. But the current and future deficit is a lot less stimulatory than it could be. Our administration is just throwing the money away. First, we should have fiscal stimulus that is sharply aimed at the current downturn. But this deficit continues far into the future, as the bulk of the tax cuts can be expected to continue indefinitely. The Administration is giving us red ink as far as the eye can see, and these permanent aspects outweigh the short-term stimulatory effects.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: And secondly, you disagree with giving tax relief primarily to wealthier Americans. The GOP argues that those people deserve it for working hard.

Akerlof: The rich don't need the money and are a lot less likely to spend it - they will primarily increase their savings. Remember that wealthier families have done extremely well in the US in the past twenty years, whereas poorer ones have done quite badly. So the redistributive effects of this administration's tax policy are going in the exactly wrong direction. The worst and most indefensible of those cuts are those in dividend taxation - this overwhelmingly helps very wealthy people.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The President claims that dividend tax reform supports the stock market - and helps the economy as a whole to grow.

Akerlof: That's totally unrealistic. Standard formulas from growth models suggest that that effect will be extremely small. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has come to a similar conclusion. So, even a sympathetic treatment finds that this argument is simply not correct.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: When campaigning for an even-larger tax cut earlier this year, Mr. Bush promised that it would create 1.4 million jobs. Was that reasonable?

Akerlof: The tax cut will have some positive impact on job creation, although, as I mentioned, there is very little bang for the buck. There are very negative long-term consequences. The administration, when speaking about the budget, has unrealistically failed to take into account a very large number of important items. As of March 2003, the CBO estimated that the surplus for the next decade would approximately reach one trillion dollars. But this projection assumes, among other questionable things, that spending until 2013 is going to be constant in real dollar terms. That has never been the case. And with the current tax cuts, a realistic estimate would be a deficit in excess of six trillion.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So the government's just bad at doing the correct math?

Akerlof: There is a systematic reason. The government is not really telling the truth to the American people. Past administrations from the time of Alexander Hamilton have on the average run responsible budgetary policies. What we have here is a form of looting.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: If so, why's the President still popular?

Akerlof: For some reason the American people does not yet recognize the dire consequences of our government budgets. It's my hope that voters are going to see how irresponsible this policy is and are going to respond in 2004 and we're going to see a reversal.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What if that doesn't happen?

Akerlof: Future generations and even people in ten years are going to face massive public deficits and huge government debt. Then we have a choice. We can be like a very poor country with problems of threatening bankruptcy. Or we're going to have to cut back seriously on Medicare and Social Security. So the money that is going overwhelmingly to the wealthy is going to be paid by cutting services for the elderly. And people depend on those. It's only among the richest 40 percent that you begin to get households who have sizeable fractions of their own retirement income.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is there a possibility that the government, because of the scope of current deficits, will be more reluctant to embark on a new war?

Akerlof: They would certainly have to think about debt levels, and military expenditure is already high. But if they seriously want to lead a war this will not be a large deterrent. You begin the war and ask for the money later. A more likely effect of the deficits is this: If there's another recession, we won't be able to engage in stimulatory fiscal spending to maintain full employment. Until now, there's been a great deal of trust in the American government. Markets knew that, if there is a current deficit, it will be repaid. The government has wasted that resource.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Which, in addition, might drive up interest rates quite significantly?

Akerlof: The deficit is not going to have significant effects on short-term interest rates. Rates are pretty low, and the Fed will manage to keep them that way. In the mid term it could be a serious problem. When rates rise, the massive debt it's going to bite much more.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why is it that the Bush family seems to specialize in running up deficits? The second-largest federal deficit in absolute terms, $290 billion, occurred in 1991, during the presidency of George W. Bush's father.

Akerlof: That may be, but Bush's father committed a great act of courage by actually raising taxes. He wasn't always courageous, but this was his best public service. It was the first step to getting the deficit under control during the Clinton years. It was also a major factor in Bush's losing the election.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: It seems that the current administration has politicised you in an unprecedented way. During the course of this year, you have, with other academics, signed two public declarations of protest. One against the tax cuts, the other against waging unilateral preventive war on Iraq.

Akerlof: I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign and economic but also in social and environmental policy. This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for people to engage in civil disobedience.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Of what kind?

Akerlof: I don't know yet. But I think it's time to protest - as much as possible.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Would you consider joining Democratic administration as an adviser, as your colleague Joseph Stiglitz did?

Akerlof: As you know my wife was in the last administration, and she did very well. She is probably much better suited for public service. But anything I'll be asked to do by a new administration I'd be happy to do.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You've mentioned the term civil disobedience a minute ago. That term was made popular by the author Henry D. Thoreau, who actually advised people not to pay taxes as a means of resistance. You wouldn't call for that, would you?

Akerlof: No. I think the one thing we should do is pay our taxes. Otherwise, it'll only make matters worse.

http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,258983,00.html

...claims as Gospel the opinion (Note: and that's ALL it is) of any academic, no matter his/her specialty, as long as it's critical of Bush.

Dr. Akerlof is an economist. Dr. Chomsky is a linguist. Yet both seem to feel qualified to speak on subjects outside their areas of expertise, i.e.: geopolitics and foreign policy.

There are subjects I am expert in. Yet, unlike the typical academic Lefty, I do not feel this gives me expertise in ALL subjects.

9/11 Was A Hoax

The American government killed its own people

by John Kaminski, skylax@comcast.net>skylax@comcast.net, March 22, 2003

Opposed by everyone in the world who was not bought off, the illegal invasion of Iraq was undertaken for many reasons - the imminent replacement of the dollar by the euro as the world's primary currency, the tempting lure of untapped oil reserves, the desire to consolidate U.S./Israeli military hegemony over a strategically vital region - but the most important reason was to further obscure questions about the awesome deception staged by the American government that has come to be known as 9/11.

9/11 was a hoax. This is no longer a wild conspiracy assertion; it is a fact, supported by thousands of other verifiable facts, foremost of which are:

. The attacks of 9/11 COULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED without the willful failure of the American defense system. In Washington, Air Force pilots demanded to fly but were ordered to stand down. Yet instead of prosecuting the president and military leaders for this unprecedented dereliction of duty, military leaders were promoted and the president was praised for presiding over a defense system that suspiciously failed the most crucial test in its history. None of the deaths would have happened without the deliberate unplugging of America's air defenses.

http://www.2012.com.au/9-11_hoax.html

Those who believe in conspiracy theories can never believe anything other than what the conspiracy tells them to believe. To the conspiracy theorist, any evidences presented which disprove the conspiracy theory is just further evidence that the conspiracy theory itself is true, otherwise why would there be others trying to prove it is not true.

Section 1: Airforce stand-down

1:1 It has become popular mythology in the media

that fighter jets were scrambled to intercept the

hijacked planes. This is completely untrue as the

following research shows.

Guilty For 9-11: Bush, Rumsfeld, Myers,

by Illarion Bykov and Jared Israel, 14 Nov 2001

http://emperors-clothes.com/indict/indict-1.htm

1:2 Mr. Cheney's Cover Story -- Section 2

of Guilty For 9-11, 20 Nov 2001

http://emperors-clothes.com/indict/indict-2.htm

1:3 9-ll: Nothing Urgent, by George Szamuely,

Research & documentation by Illarion Bykov

and Jared Israel, Jan 2002

http://emperor.vwh.net/indict/urgent.htm

1:4 Planes "did scramble " on 9/11,

they just "arrived late"

http://www.emperors-clothes.com/indict/faq.htm

POWERFUL EVIDENCE THAT AIR FORCE WAS MADE TO STAND DOWN ON 9-11

[Posted 1 July 2002]



To go right to instructions for accessing the DCANG Website, as it was April 19, 2001, click here

In response to the letter below, we have provided a clearer explanation of the proof that the Air Force was ordered to stand down on 9-11.

Dear Emperor's Clothes,

I want to start with congratulating you on a great website, all kudos to you. I'm pointing out a key error you're making because I'm trying to help.

In several places on your 911 pages you refer to "combat ready" jets, seemingly implying that these jets are ready to take off on a few minutes notice. But the terminology is wrong.

All that the term "combat ready" means is that they are capable of Combat. It doesn't necessarily mean "scramble ready".

A much clearer phrase is "combat units in the highest possible state of readiness," which you quoted from the Washington, DC Air National Guard [DCANG] website but it looks like that's been erased from the archives since the middle of June. Any suggestions?

Best regards,

Kalun D.

Seattle, Washington USA

***

Dear Kalun,

Thanks for the kind words and helpful criticism. Fortunately, the DC Air National Guard (DCANG) Website archives have not been erased, at least not yet. We'll show how to locate them below. These archives provide a key part of the evidence that the Air Force was not permitted to respond on 9-11.

You're right about 'combat-ready.' It is too broad a term. And as you say, the phrase "combat units in the highest possible state of readiness" is much clearer. We'll go through our 9-11 texts and make some changes, using this clearer wording.

The Website of the D.C. Air National Guard (DCANG) is at http://www.dcandr.ang.af.mil

But please don't go there yet.

As of April 19, 2001, that Website included the following statement:

"DCANG MISSION

To provide combat units in the highest

possible state of readiness."

This is powerful stuff. Consider. The military never makes public all its air defense procedures. If it did, a potential enemy could entirely circumvent defenses. So key air procedures are kept secret.

Therefore one can be sure that air defense information posted on the DCANG Website on April 19, 2001 and available to the general public excluded some key defense procedures. They would *understate*, not overstate.

When DCANG stated that its Mission was "To provide combat units in the highest possible state of readiness," they were indicating a general approach but leaving out the nitty gritty details. They were saying: 'Don't worry; we're ready. But we're not going to tell you our emergency plans.'

Given this understandable reticence, the phrase, "To provide combat units in the highest possible state of readiness," means that the DC Air National Guard at Andrews Air Force Base had fighter jets ready for an emergency.

And when you think about it, this would have to be the case. Not only is Andrews Air Force Base a few miles from the White House, the Pentagon, the Capital building and the CIA, but it is also the official airport of the US government.

The President flies out of Andrews. Other top US officials fly out of Andrews. Foreign diplomats and national leaders may arrive and depart from Andrews at any time. For instance:

"[There is] Tony Blair, Prime Minister of Britain. He has just landed here at Andrews Air Force Base." (CNN November 7, 2001)

Let us say that as it took off from Andrews Air Force Base, Tony Blair's plane was attacked by a hostile jet. Would his pilot have to radio the attackers and ask them to kindly postpone their attack until US fighter jets arrived from Langley Air Force Base, 129 miles away?

Andrew's unique role as the Federal government's official airport is another reason DCANG would withhold key details of its emergency response procedures. So again, when DCANG stated on its Website that its Mission at Andrews included providing combat units "in the highest possible state of readiness," one can be sure this meant Andrews was equipped to scramble aircraft in an emergency.

We'll show you how to find the April 19th backup of the DCANG Mission Statement in just a moment. Let us consider the significance of that statement, as it relates to 911.

The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) reported that it 'suspected' Flight 11 out of Boston had been hijacked by 8:20 Eastern Time. (1) So when Flight 11 hit the World Trade Center, of course the FAA knew this was a terrorist act. Vice President Cheney said on MEET THE PRESS September 16th that the FAA had open lines to the Secret Service as soon as Flight 11 hit the World Trade Center. So the Secret Service was in the know no later than 8:45 Eastern time. (2)

Flight 77 reached Ohio and turned around, heading back to Washington, DC around 8:55, we are told. At 9:06 the FAA reports that it ordered the air corridor from Cleveland, Ohio, to Washington, D.C. closed to all air traffic. (3)

We are told that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon around 9:45 Eastern time.

So here's the burning question: why weren't those combat jets which DCANG provided, "in the highest possible state of readiness" - why weren't those planes scrambled from Andrews Air Force Base *before* the Pentagon was hit?

Some respond that it was due to human error. The people at DCANG were asleep at the wheel. Well, military organizations don't accept explanations like that. A catastrophic failure leads to court martial. If the people at DCANG merely are guilty of criminal negligence in failing to respond, why haven't they been pilloried and put on trial?

Some respond that the whole military was lax before 9-11. Nobody was worried about security. Really? In a dispatch discussing security after 9-11, Associated Press noted that US military bases were already on security alert *before* 9-11:

"Earlier this summer, all three Army bases in Hampton Roads, including Fort Eustis and Fort Story, already had begun restricting public access to their grounds for security reasons. The bases did so under an order affecting major Army installations around the country.

"The Army required its bases to perform mandatory vehicle registrations. Military members and civilian employees were to receive vehicle decals serving as proof they have permission to be on base." ("Military Tightens Security in Wake of Apparent Terrorist Attacks," AP, 12 September 2001)

We'll put out an FAQ with more evidence concerning the myth of a security lapse prior to 9-11.

Now, here's how you can access the DCANG Mission Statement.

HOW TO ACCESS THE APRIL 19th DCANG MISSION STATEMENT

The Mission Statement is no longer posted on the DCANG Website, but you can (as of June 30th) access it by using the free archive service at www.archive.org. They backed up the DCANG Website as it was on April 19th (with the Mission Statement) and on September 13th (without the Statement.)



Important point: we cannot say *exactly* when the Mission Statement was removed. We can only say with certainty that it was between April 19 and September 13, 2001.

Here's a step-by-step guide to access the Mission Statement:

1) Go to http://www.archive.org

2) You will see their logo, 'WAYBACK MACHINE.'

Just below the logo is a search box. After "http://" paste-in the following url:

www.dcandr.ang.af.mil/

3) Hit "enter." You will be taken to the index of backups for DCANG.

4) Click the hyperlink for "April 19, 2001."

5) This will take you to the DCANG website as it looked April 19th.

On the upper left click on the hyperlink, "Headquarters."

This will take you to a page with the Mission Statement:

"DCANG MISSION

To provide combat units in the highest

possible state of readiness."

HOW TO ACCESS THE SEPT. 13TH DCANG ARCHIVE

1) If you are at the April 19th DCANG WebPage, hit the back-arrow twice.

If you are not, follow steps 1, 2 and 3 above. Either way you'll be at the DC ANG backups index page.

2) Click on the hyperlink for September 13, 2002.

3) On the upper right, click the hyperlink, "About the DCANG."

4) Click "MISSION AND VISION" on the upper left. This will take you to the new Mission Statement:

"Headquarters Mission

Be the premier State Head Quarters in the Air National Guard, Critically linked to our units and influencing the future of the DCANG."

In case the April; 19th archive is pulled from www.archive.org, we have made a backup. It is at

http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/dcandr2.htm

If possible, please make backups yourself as well.

- John Flaherty and Jared Israel

=========================

FURTHER READING :

FOR A COMPLETE LIST of our articles refuting false information about 9-11, go to http://emperors-clothes.com/indict/911page.htm

1) NEWSDAY reported that the FAA 'suspected' Flight 11 had been hijacked. For our backup of NEWSDAY text, which should take you to the exact quote, go to

http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/nd923.htm#b

For Newsday text scroll 2/3 of the way down at

http://www.newsday.com/ny-uspent232380681sep23.story

2) Regarding Cheney's statement on MEET THE PRESS that the FAA had open lines to the Secret Service after the first plane hit the World Trade Center, for link to exact quote, in our backup, go to 'NBC, Meet the Press' (10:00 AM ET) Sunday 16 September 2001.

http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/nbcmp.htm#openlines

Original transcript of MEET THE PRESS can be read at:

http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/629714.asp?cp1=1 )

3) On FAA closing the air corridor, see, for exact NEWSDAY quote, our backup at

http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/nd923.htm#a

Or for original NEWSDAY text, scroll 2/3 of way down at http://www.newsday.com/ny-uspent232380681sep23.story

Ansar al-Islam leader threatens to document his links to US

Saturday, 01-Feb-2003 4:20AM PST

Story from AFP

Copyright 2003 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)

DUBAI, Feb 1 (AFP) - The suspected leader of a Kurdish Islamic extremist group threatened in an interview published Saturday to produce evidence of his contacts with Washington prior to the September 11 suicide hijackings.

" I have in my possession irrefutable evidence against the Americans and I am prepared to supply it ... if (the United States) tries to implicate me in an affair linked to terrorism," Mullah Krekar, who is believed to front Ansar al-Islam, told Al-Hayat newspaper.

He dismissed as "fabrications" reports linking his group to Al-Qaeda, saying they were designed to justify a strike against Iraq.

Krekar told the Arabic-language daily he had been approached by the United States before September 11.

" I had a meeting with a CIA representative and someone from the American army in the town of Sulaymaniya (Iraqi Kurdistan) at the end of 2000. They asked us to collaborate with them ... but we refused to do so," he said.

British and US news reports this week claimed that Krekar, who has enjoyed political refugee status in Norway since 1991, and Ansar al-Islam would be key elements of US Secretary of State Colin Powell's proof of links between Al-Qaeda and Baghdad to be presented to the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

Kurdish officials said the Americans have been paying particular attention in recent month to a mountainous enclave controlled by Ansar al-Islam fighters in Kurdistan near Iran.

The opposition Kurdisih Democratic Party considers the group, whose name means Support of Islam, to be a link between the Baghdad regime and Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda.

Krekar, whose real name is believed to be Fateh Najmeddin Faraj, was arrested in the Netherlands last September and was questioned by US agents about his links while in custody.

Ansar al-Islam is an extremist alliance of Muslim guerrillas including some who reportedly fought in Afghanistan.

hf/tm/bp/al

Iraq-Kurds-US

Ansar al-Islam leader threatens to document his links to US

Saturday, 01-Feb-2003 4:20AM PST

Story from AFP

Copyright 2003 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)

DUBAI, Feb 1 (AFP) - The suspected leader of a Kurdish Islamic extremist group threatened in an interview published Saturday to produce evidence of his contacts with Washington prior to the September 11 suicide hijackings.

" I have in my possession irrefutable evidence against the Americans and I am prepared to supply it ... if (the United States) tries to implicate me in an affair linked to terrorism," Mullah Krekar, who is believed to front Ansar al-Islam, told Al-Hayat newspaper.

He dismissed as "fabrications" reports linking his group to Al-Qaeda, saying they were designed to justify a strike against Iraq.

Krekar told the Arabic-language daily he had been approached by the United States before September 11.

" I had a meeting with a CIA representative and someone from the American army in the town of Sulaymaniya (Iraqi Kurdistan) at the end of 2000. They asked us to collaborate with them ... but we refused to do so," he said.

British and US news reports this week claimed that Krekar, who has enjoyed political refugee status in Norway since 1991, and Ansar al-Islam would be key elements of US Secretary of State Colin Powell's proof of links between Al-Qaeda and Baghdad to be presented to the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

Kurdish officials said the Americans have been paying particular attention in recent month to a mountainous enclave controlled by Ansar al-Islam fighters in Kurdistan near Iran.

The opposition Kurdisih Democratic Party considers the group, whose name means Support of Islam, to be a link between the Baghdad regime and Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda.

Krekar, whose real name is believed to be Fateh Najmeddin Faraj, was arrested in the Netherlands last September and was questioned by US agents about his links while in custody.

Ansar al-Islam is an extremist alliance of Muslim guerrillas including some who reportedly fought in Afghanistan.

hf/tm/bp/al

Iraq-Kurds-US

Ansar al-Islam leader threatens to document his links to US

Saturday, 01-Feb-2003 4:20AM PST

Story from AFP

Copyright 2003 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)

DUBAI, Feb 1 (AFP) - The suspected leader of a Kurdish Islamic extremist group threatened in an interview published Saturday to produce evidence of his contacts with Washington prior to the September 11 suicide hijackings.

" I have in my possession irrefutable evidence against the Americans and I am prepared to supply it ... if (the United States) tries to implicate me in an affair linked to terrorism," Mullah Krekar, who is believed to front Ansar al-Islam, told Al-Hayat newspaper.

He dismissed as "fabrications" reports linking his group to Al-Qaeda, saying they were designed to justify a strike against Iraq.

Krekar told the Arabic-language daily he had been approached by the United States before September 11.

" I had a meeting with a CIA representative and someone from the American army in the town of Sulaymaniya (Iraqi Kurdistan) at the end of 2000. They asked us to collaborate with them ... but we refused to do so," he said.

British and US news reports this week claimed that Krekar, who has enjoyed political refugee status in Norway since 1991, and Ansar al-Islam would be key elements of US Secretary of State Colin Powell's proof of links between Al-Qaeda and Baghdad to be presented to the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

Kurdish officials said the Americans have been paying particular attention in recent month to a mountainous enclave controlled by Ansar al-Islam fighters in Kurdistan near Iran.

The opposition Kurdisih Democratic Party considers the group, whose name means Support of Islam, to be a link between the Baghdad regime and Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda.

Krekar, whose real name is believed to be Fateh Najmeddin Faraj, was arrested in the Netherlands last September and was questioned by US agents about his links while in custody.

Ansar al-Islam is an extremist alliance of Muslim guerrillas including some who reportedly fought in Afghanistan.

hf/tm/bp/al

Iraq-Kurds-US

Ansar al-Islam leader threatens to document his links to US

Saturday, 01-Feb-2003 4:20AM PST

Story from AFP

Copyright 2003 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)

DUBAI, Feb 1 (AFP) - The suspected leader of a Kurdish Islamic extremist group threatened in an interview published Saturday to produce evidence of his contacts with Washington prior to the September 11 suicide hijackings.

" I have in my possession irrefutable evidence against the Americans and I am prepared to supply it ... if (the United States) tries to implicate me in an affair linked to terrorism," Mullah Krekar, who is believed to front Ansar al-Islam, told Al-Hayat newspaper.

He dismissed as "fabrications" reports linking his group to Al-Qaeda, saying they were designed to justify a strike against Iraq.

Krekar told the Arabic-language daily he had been approached by the United States before September 11.

" I had a meeting with a CIA representative and someone from the American army in the town of Sulaymaniya (Iraqi Kurdistan) at the end of 2000. They asked us to collaborate with them ... but we refused to do so," he said.

British and US news reports this week claimed that Krekar, who has enjoyed political refugee status in Norway since 1991, and Ansar al-Islam would be key elements of US Secretary of State Colin Powell's proof of links between Al-Qaeda and Baghdad to be presented to the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

Kurdish officials said the Americans have been paying particular attention in recent month to a mountainous enclave controlled by Ansar al-Islam fighters in Kurdistan near Iran.

The opposition Kurdisih Democratic Party considers the group, whose name means Support of Islam, to be a link between the Baghdad regime and Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda.

Krekar, whose real name is believed to be Fateh Najmeddin Faraj, was arrested in the Netherlands last September and was questioned by US agents about his links while in custody.

Ansar al-Islam is an extremist alliance of Muslim guerrillas including some who reportedly fought in Afghanistan.

hf/tm/bp/al

Iraq-Kurds-US

coincidence theorists A few unanswered questions

why are there no Arab names on the flight lists?

why when numerous names on the FBI list of 19 alleged hijackers are proven false, has no subsequent list been released by the FBI?

why has no action been taken on the insider stock trades which prove exact foreknowledge? You cannot make anonymous stock trades. . .the identities of those who placed the put options must be known.

why is the FBI dragging its feet in the anthrax case

why is the discrepancy between the quotes from the flight instructors indicating poor piloting skills, and the quotes from civil and miliatry authorities indicating that the pilots of the hijacked planes had to be skilled, never addressed? This one point invalidates the entire FBI scenario

why were the alleged hijackers waltzing around using their own names, when we are being told that it was super secret cells of terrorists who did this?

what were the false names they used? when did they switch from using their real names, to using false names? (remember they were supposed to have used fake names)

who killed the woman the day before she was supposed to testify on her connections to obtaining fake drivers licenses? why was she killed?

Why did the US fake the video of Osama? (not one single person who was shown side by side photos of Osama and the person in the video said they were the same. . .the nose is not even close)

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/topic/911investigation/

...I guess this guy is just kidding around, huh?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&e=2&u=/ap/20030921/ap_on_re_us/terror_mastermind

WASHINGTON - Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, has told American interrogators that he first discussed the plot with Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) in 1996 and that the original plan called for hijacking five commercial jets on each U.S. coast before it was modified several times, according to interrogation reports reviewed by The Associated Press.

Why is it that the US government doesn't feel

confident enough of it's case against Bin laden

to lay any formal charges, but keeps " finding"

convenient video " confession" tapes ?

Probably because new video technology makes

it impossible to distinguish between a real video

confession and a fake.

When seeing and hearing isn't believing.

by William M. Arkin. Washington Post Feb 1 1999

5:1 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/dotmil/arkin020199.htm

Last word in High Tech trickery. by David Higgins

Sydney Morning Herald. may 16 2002

5:2 http://smh.com.au/articles/2002/05/16/1021415016681.html

try these on for size.

lots o links

List of links to documented evidence of high level US complicity in the attacks of sept 11 2001.

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jpdesm/pentagon/investigation77.htm