The Swiss, Are They Cuckoo?ZURICH, Switzerland, March 14 (UPI) -- Switzerland is bowing to international pressure, agreeing to end its policy of allowing secretive banking, officials said.
The Times of London reported Saturday that the move means Switzerland will join Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Andorra, which also agreed this week to share limited information on their accounts on request from foreign governments.
The newspaper said Zurich's decision to end its 300 years of banking secrecy precedes the G20 meeting, where British Prime Minister Gordon Brown plans to press for international tax havens.
Switzerland has said it would share information on bank accounts with other countries on individual cases. Swiss Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz said despite the change, there would be no "fishing expeditions" for information.
"It's an enormous change, the most fascinating development since the end of the Second World War," said Jay Krause, a partner at Withers. "The Swiss continue to say that banking secrecy remains. That is in part true but it is for ever changed."
------------------------------------------------------
Is there a pattern here? Control the press, control the right to bear arms, control the flow of money? Jeezuz Christ, they are controlling our every move via vehicular toll passes. They are even pushing a mileage tax (which sounds good on the surface but is, in fact, pernicious). They plan to track drivers' fuel usage via mandatory GPS units in all vehicles.
We ALL know that our fucking tax dollars have always gone into the pockets of the wealthy, the 'powers-that-be', those who handle us. So why on Earth would we be lining up and chanting this mantra: "Let me pay more, let me pay more, let me pay more than my share", all the while knowing that our system is as corrupt as any that ever has been.
Particularly odious is this little tidbit, "Switzerland has said it would share information on bank accounts with other countries on individual cases.".
Just who the fuck are the assholes whose information they intend to 'not share'?
Personally, I am all in favor of being able to squirrel my money away and having nobody know where it is. On the other hand, I think that we should take the people who possess the vast majority of the world's wealth, line them up and shoot them all. This should raise no alarm for they comprise all of about 1% of the total population.
Uh-Oh ...
I hear them knocking.
7 comments:
You know, PMT, I voted for our current leader, and have high hopes for his "success", if that may be defined as leading us away from the direction in which we (and I don't just mean our recently departed criminals) have been sliding for a long time. I am mostly a left-leaning person when it comes to ideology. But I have no more interest in a left-wing autocracy than I do in submitting to right-wing fascists who coopt legitamate conservative ideals into a license to steal and to wield the iron fist than comes with the corruption of absolute power. It's a dilemma that we will probably be facing more in the future: engage or withdraw, (i.e. hide out). The present and future rulers will not willingly give up the new powers secured for them by their enemies and/or predecessors. It's the nature of the beast.
I too am impressed by your morning ritual. I have similar experiences on occasion, but they are not usually planned. I will (usually) be outside, and a sense of presence or belonging in the time and place will come over me. It strikes me that the "place" is almost always available. It's the time that is elusive. For as long as I can remember, my one overarching goal has been to own my own time. I believe that is much of the attraction of farming for me.
It shouldn't, but your depth of personhood (personality isn't quite the correct word there) continually surprises me. I mean that in a similar way to what I said to ClearAyes the other night. There's an old saying that so and so is "a mile wide and an inch deep". Being broad( minded) is good, but depth is where it's at.
Party on, friend.
Windhover
Would any of you who were lurking around the corner at, oh, I don't know, say around 11:05 have anything to say about "theory"?
Talk about reading between the lines..........
Windhover, thoughtfully.
WH, Ah yes....11:05. I have to get to art class, but I'll be back later.
I think that best thing we try to hope for at the present is some kind of honesty and transparency in our govt...something which has been sadly lacking. I know personally I am learning quite a bit about things function. I find it odd that all of a sudden I know the name of the heads of all of these depts and wonder why at such a point in my life I find this fascinating. I don't think that we will have truly moved forward until the previous administration is hauled into court for war crimes...until then, we are still just telling the rest of the world "Do as we say and not as we do"...kind of a move along, don't rubberneck and watch the car wreck. We are still a car wreck until we can show the rest of the world that we can stand by the rules of law this country was founded on.
Part 2...I think that part of the Swiss banking thing comes from the fact that for decades, Holocaust survivors have been trying to get the Swiss to open up information on a lot of these accounts. The way their banking system works, they hold onto the money or items(paintings, jewelry, etc) until so many years after the person is deceased and then it becomes the permanent property of the bank. In this country I think, if you can track down the info, that the bank still has to pay over the funds, even years later. I don't think that the whole issue is about tax evaders...it's more about keeping the swag.
Part 3: As much as I hate the fact that so many people have gotten hugely wealthy by screwing over everyone they can...we still have to have people with money...I do things that are superfluous, my daughter does faux finishing and my other daughter manages the technical side of a very high end travel agency...we all do things that need people with money...two of us at least do PRETTY...and to sell pretty you have to have clients with money. My brother the architect needs people with money and my friend who works at Sur la Table needs people with money to keep the business doing business.
What I rant about is the vast inequalites between corporate raiders like what we have been seeing recently and the people that make them rich. Many people have tried to set up societies where everyone shares equally and they never last for long because, face it, some people are more equal or smarter than others...the cream rises, as the old saying goes.
The difference that has potential with this administration is that there is a better chance for people to achieve goals through hard work and creativity, this time, someone is paying attention and wants to offer a helping hand. Things that will put America back on track. I also think that there can be a return to the more solid values that grew this country originally...No government will be perfect, people will always cheat and lie and steal...but I do think that a focus on the things the Obama Administration is trying to promote in the midst of cleaning up all the horse crap left at the end of the previous parade gives me hope that things will get better.
WH...I know I'm a broad...but are you trying to tell me I'm shallow??? I resemble that!..AND...are you talking about the no belly button thing? FAUGH!!!
DARN, I didn't get spanked.
Actually, I didn't think I would. C.C. didn't say a word, much less delete my post, following my having alluded to necrophilia and cannibalism in one fell swoop. So, I didn't think she would get too riled up over my reference to that dastardly deed, which everyone else was already disgusting ... er ... discussing. FYI, I am just kidding about that anyway, I don't believe that anything is nasty when two people are each attempting to pleasure the other.
WH,
I was a bit confused by her 'theory' reference. This was due to the fact that she described it as a 'catastrophe', but I have decided that she must be referring to the alleged hanky-panky between the 'Daughters of Men' and the Nephilim. While I am not willing to take the Bible literally the way fundamentalists do, I am not willing to simply dismiss it outright either. WM mentioned a while back that she did not find the notion of other-worldly visitors any more far out than the potpourri of distorted facts and downright deception that some expect us to swallow hook, line and shrinker. I agree with her. Fact of the matter is, it would explain an awful lot.
Good God, PMT...and I mean that in the exclamatory sense only. I think that we should take the people who possess the vast majority of the world's wealth, line them up and shoot them all.". If you don't want to be a Buddhist...OK, but this reaction is a little extreme.
BTW, You do seem to be liked over there. She is letting you say some things that can be laughed at here, but are pretty outrageous elsewhere.
Just refreshed the page and read what WM had to say. It saves me from going into what the Swiss banks have been doing for year...screwing Holocaust survivors and their families. Nazis stashed their thefts into unmarked Swiss accounts and have profited off them for 60 years. Whether or not these account will be the "individual cases" has yet to be seen. The only reason for secret banking that I can see is for ill-gotten gains to be kept secret. I guess I am going into it, but it has pissed me off for years.
I've got nothing against people with money...if they came by it honestly...inheriting it perhaps...yeah, right. Seriously, rich people can be relatively decent and ethical. I think Bill Gates employs a lot of people and runs a pretty smooth philanthropic foundation. I don't see anything wrong with him taking his family to Tahiti for a ridiculously expensive vacation. Paul McCartney and Keith Richards are filthy rich, but they earned it. They should be able to spend their money the way they want, except Keith Richards should spend some of it on rejuvenating plastic surgery...YIKES!. But I don't think they should have the right to hide their assents in order to avoid taxes and/or criminal prosecution.
I also agree that our previous administration should be prosecuted, at least civil crimes committed against the citizens of the United States. Not likely to happen though. People have a tendency to want to forget bad times and get on with getting better times. Obama's a nice guy, but I am beginning to think that Obama's administration is being too conciliatory and trying to please too many Republicans. He was elected to make big changes as a Democrat. He has the votes, he should get on with it.
Now I've got to read PMT's latest post and get on to 11:05.
I believe there is a possibility that, not only are there other inhabited planets, but that they are capable of intergalactic travel and that they, or many theys, have dropped in to see how we are doing. It makes a lot more sense to me than the myths and fables in the Bible. After all, I can look up and see a million stars, but I don't see a single god.
I am willing to acknowledge the Bible as a collection of stories, written by mostly uneducated and superstitious men. I think a lot of the history happened more or less the way it was written, but with a lot of deus ex machina tossed in to explain what to them was unexplainable.
I wasn't aware of the biblically unmentioned catastrophic event theory between the lines of Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. I guess that is where the "theory of evolution" can be inserted and lots of bad stuff happened to screw up God's perfect plan. I can't help but wonder how strict Bible-as-written fundamentalists can accept this?
Then, if God were in charge, why would he allow that " something messed up His creation"? And while I'm thinking of it, who did write the first couple of chapters of Genesis? So many questions and not an answer in the bunch.
I was really taken aback by the silly minutia of "no bellybutton". Just because God created Adam and Eve out of dirt and ribs, why wouldn't he have anticipated the future need of navels and given his creations what their genetic makeup would need to pass on bellybuttons to the next generation. A God that can't think beyond the day after tomorrow is walking on thin ice as far as I'm concerned.
Also this, "nothing putrid and no foulness could have happened in a perfect place....Our bodies must have had quite an overhaul when Sin came!
My, my, so the human body became putrid and foul after the Fall. Even at the gravity challenged age of 66, I don't think of myself as putrid or foul. My body performs its necessary functions (mostly) perfectly and has seldom let me down....except for the aforementioned... gravitationally
Post a Comment