₦airaland Forum

BaboonYansh:
LOL
i'm sorry but not everyone has the time to be disproving the maniacal claims of a mad man. Thats why the smart people who designed the legal system placed the onus of proof on the accuser or positive claimant. I suggest you learn from them.

stop making unfounded claims like a drunk. Its unhealthy for you.

typical mentality of a docile sheep, quick to dismiss something that his low mentality can not cope with, it is people like you who scream "conspiracy theory" when their porous brains are unable to cope with the truth. I know it is people like you that would never have beleived the hold that shell has on nigeria until the wikileaks disclosure of a few weeks ago. You expect me to do your research for you, why not put that your lazy brain to use for once and stop waiting for others to spoon feed you. it is your lack of curiosity and complacency that has condemned you to a life of unmitigated ignorance.

BaboonYansh:
^^^
Can you please provide us sensible evidence (not conspiracy nonsense) that shows the "Windsors" have "controlling shares in major multinational corporations and banks" as you claim? Thanks

i am not your research assistant, if you want knowledge go out and look for it yourself, must i spoon feed you?

The onus is on you to prove me wrong, not the other way around, so until you can do that you are not in a position to dismiss what i have said as according to you as conspiracy nonsense".

frosbel:
Hmm, whats the logic here ?

What has tuition fees increase have to do with the Royal Family.

The people who attacked Prince Charles are despicable and have no respect for authority, they MUST and should be punished.

Ive noticed a very nauseating trend with some people on NL - this business of jumping to the defense of people who do not even recognise black people as being fully human , i really do not understand how you can look with sympathy on the royal family, here we have a family who are well known for being in bed with fascist right wing govts throughout history, who regard non white people as sub human and who remain staunch defenders of a class system which guarantees them an undeserved llife of luxury at the expense of every one else. These are the same people whose relatives colonised and enslaved african peoples and yet you are jumping to defend them - why? they hate you.

you want to know how the increase in student fees has anything to do with them - i'll tell you the windsors have controlling interests in the very banks which have created this economic meltdown - they are part of the problem but instead of being punished for the reckless and criminal behaviour of the banks they have been rewarded with huge bonuses while the poor man on the street is the one being punished with job cuts, cuts in benefit and removal of govt funding on education.

Mai Suya:
i don't get it. why attack the royal family? what have got they got to do with the increase in scholl fees?

they are part of the problem, the windsors actually have large controlling shares in the worlds biggest multinational corporations, these are the same multinationals which create suffering and poverty all over the world.

Also do you know of any member of the royal family that has ever held down a job in their life?

Despite this fact they live a life of comfort and luxury which is paid for by british tax payers. The majority of them do not even have one qualification to their name and yet they jet around the world, live in rent/mortgage free accommodation, drive expensive cars, wear expensive clothing all at the expense of the tax payer. I think charles and camilla deserve the treatment they received from those students.

fstranger1:
^^^

Your respect for her or your respect for her kitty

Women dont have brains
'
They are all stupit

wow does your mum know this is what you think of her?

sycophancy knows no bounds in this our country nigeria.

since when did the ability to read a written speech become the yardstick for measuring a person's intellectual ability?

only in nigeria do you get st.upid old men confusing physical appearance with intellectual astuteness.

OBJ has done well, his loyal service to the USand british govts since 1976 has earned him immunity from assassination attempts and coup d'etats.  In addition he has succeeded in amassing billions by colluding with the enemies of progress (US and british govts) to sell out and exploit his own people.
I was actually shocked to find that former british PM - Thatcher  stepped in to prevent him from being executed by the Abacha regime in 1995 -now i see why OBJ conducts himself with so much confidence - he is untouchable - the west have got his back:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/mar1999/nige-m05.shtml

This ruthless former area boy and army thug with very limited education is not someone to be trifled with, ask Femi Kuti , son of the late great Fela Anikulapo Kuti, OBJ was responsible for giving the order for 1,000 soldiers to attack Fela's commune -  Kalakuta Republic.  OBJ ordered the brutal, ra.pe and  maiming of innocent civilains within the commune and the subsequent burning of Fela's home in 1977.

Baba never lost his brutal touch when the people of Odi and  Gbamaratu had the audacity to engage in peaceful protest against the systematic ra.pe and plunder of their land by Shell and other IOCs.  Baba OBJ responded by sending thousands of bloodthirsty soldiers into these villages where children as young as 10 where either ra.ped or shot at point blank range in front of their parents,  so i guess OBJ is one great elder statesman we should all be proud to call our own.  Baba you are indeed great - see how your citizens worship and glorify you despite the atrocities you have committed against them.

Well, Baba its your luck, you better pray that Wikileaks does not expose the role you played in the assassination of your predecessor Murtala Muhammed and your collusion with former US national security advisor Robert Macnamara in the proposed genocide of your own people, maybe when all this comes out in the wikileaks cables your loyal citizens will begin to see just how monstrous you really are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odi_massacre


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEPBQVOp_Yg


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5QfLc5xZRg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalakuta_Republic

OBJ aka area boy aka CIA asset.

im so proud of these students , they're doing a really good job.

Clegg was always going to be a sell out, people were seduced by his image, now they know the truth, people have very short memories, they forget how thatcher decimated jobs in this country in the 80's and condemned whole swathes of the working class to mass unemployment and poverty, now the tories (in collaboratin with the libdems) are back and people are foolishly thinking that they have anything positive in store for working people.

This is just the beginning, when they announce fresh job cuts early next year i predict a general strike and mass riots.

cjfavour:
advice to gej. be firm. there are corrupt men in your government,sack them. there are moles in your government ministries, sack them. fight corruption with all your might. remove danjuma, aganga, odein ajumogobia,orubebe. look for others. support amaechi with all your might.

-wow corrupt men in GEJ's govt who would have guessed!!!

[quote author=pres-elect link=topic=559737.msg7305969#msg7305969 date=1291948003]@cap28
in lincoln's day, there was no federal reserve. The federal reserve was established in 1913 under democratic president Woodrow Wilson, infact Lincoln established a single currency for the whole country.[/quote]thanks for that pres elect, you're right the fed was estblshed in 1913, not sure why Lincoln was assassinated though, i suspect it might be to do with his emancipation of slaves, i know the southerners lost a of lot of money following the abolition of slavery, the southern slave owners must have wanted lincoln dead.

i loved them both, they were both geniuses.

Dedicated, sincere and iconic my their souls rest in peace

yeswecan:
Thia is an interesting/educative tread and i must admit we have some healthy folks on here. Katsumoto has a lucid and coherent way of delivering his point that I'm gonna vote for you.

What you see in the social world depend mainly on where you stand - whether you are a realist, liberal or conservative will reflect your judgment and decisions. So there is really no best point of view, its just mine and yours.

cap28 says Obama is working for the elites then i have to implore him to point out a single US president that has taken the opposite direction since Woodrow Wilson. The fact is that the system was designed for the elites, the America Federal Reserve System is the legitimate legal fiscal entity with a Congressional delegated mandate to coin and print money, manage credit and the banking industry, to ensure the American economy maintains stability and health YET it is not either controlled or regulated by the American government . I think it is safe to say the restrainer of the money system are the real owners of the system, they created the first depression, they have a fair share in this crisis and they print money out of nothing, lend it to the America government and take interest from it. Obama cannot do anything about this - it is bigger than him. That is a whole different story.

cap28 - you have to be a realist because your point is pure fact but unfortunately the world likes fiction more - so lets talk fiction.

I totally agree with your comments about the Fed.

I think there have been a few US presidents that have tried to challenge the powerful international banking elite that control the US govt, unfortunately all of these people have paid for this with their lives, Lincoln and JFK are the ones that immediately come to mind.

JFK is the one that im more familiar with, he tried to challenge the international banking elite and was murdered for doing so, one of his  proposals which attracted the anger of the ruling elite was the introduction of a US dollar backed by silver which was to replace the fiat dollar which the fed reserve prints out of thin air, this effectively would have meant that the US treasury would no longer have to rely on the Fed for loans along with  crippling interest , effectively this would have taken power away from the Fed.

its for this reason that many people beleive that  Kennedy was assassinated.  The white washed investigation known as the warren commission concluded that JFK was assassinated by a lone assassin.

Lincoln before him i think also tried to challenge the stranglehold that the fed reserve had over the printing and loaning of money to the US govt and also met with an untimely death, I am not saying that I expect Obama to be any different im simply trying to point out the fact to all of Obama's faithful followers who see him as  a messiah figure that he is not the man they think he is, the sooner people realise this the clearer all his policies and decisions will become.

The international banking elite have been running america for over 100 years - they are made up of some of the most powerful banking interests in the world. They will do anything to protect their self interests, if they could murder Kennedy who himself was a member of the elite, imagine what they would do to Obama if he dared stepped out of line.

So yes, you are right the situation is bigger than Obama and there isnt much he can do about it.

kodewrita - just to add to my earlier post, Chavez has had numerous assassination attempts made on his life.

In 2002 chavez was drugged, kidnapped and flown out of the country by the CIA, he was then replaced with a US backed puppet, however the masses of the country stormed the presidential palace demanding that the US govt produce him, the puppet head of state ordered the army to open fire on the masses but the army which was largely made up of men loyal to Chavez refused and instead refused to recognise the US backed puppet, within 48 hours Chavez was flown back into the country by an intermediary acting on behaf of the US govt!!!

Chavez was then reinstated by the troops who remained loyal to him.

There have however been numerous assassination attempts on Chavez's life since 2002, but due to his control over the army it has proved almost impossible for the americans to dislodge him.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/apr2002/vene-a15.shtml

kodewrita:
A post filled with so many ignorant people arguing based on rumour and self-supporting inane opinions.

The FG nationalized BP in the 70s. did we lose our sovereignity for that? Venezuela (much closer to the reach of the US airforce) threatened the oil majors, got them to play ball and got away with it.

The nigerian oil industry is actually a joint venture with the FGN retaining a 55% stake and foreign oil companies having a 45% stake this still gives the foreign IOC's (international oil companies) huge leverage over the FGN.
Chavez is a nationalist leader whose main objective was the redistribution of wealth away from a corrupt US backed elite into the hands of the dispossessed poor, we do not have that kind of leadership in nigeria therefore until we do there is no point comparing Venezuela to nigeria.

In venezuela Chavez did the following:


kicked out the world's biggest oil companies from his country and divested them OF ALL OPERATIONAL CONTROL over crude oil  projects,

nationalized  the cement industry

nationalized the venezuelan  steel industry

Ordered the take-over of a cement plant owned and operated by a foreign owned cement producer

Ordered the takeover  by indigenous venezuelan companies of all rice processing and packaging plants.

nationalized various retail outlets in  Venezuela owned by French companies

nationalized oil drilling rigs belonging to the U.S. companies

is about to nationalise  two U.S.-owned glass-manufacturing plants.

Has announced the proposed takeover of a foreign owned steel manufacturing plant

besides the people in government will only go along if it serves their purpose.

Shell has no power to deeply influence an already crooked nigeria.

Interestingly half of the people making comments have never worked in an oil major (not even as contract staff or external contractor or even industrial attache) yet they claim to know.
As for this comment, The Land Use Act of 1977 says you cant refuse if the government awards MTN your house unless you have a C.of O in which case they compensate you(if they remember). All Land belongs to the Federal Government of Nigeria. capisce. so your argument holds no water.

You dont have to have worked in an oil company to understand when you are being shafted by your govt and foreigners. All you need is the ability to read and comprehend.
The land use act assisted the corrupt FGN in illegally appropriating land from states with oil reserves, the FGN did a similar thing in 2002 where they got the Supreme Court to rule that offshore oil wells lying more than 200 km off shore are the property of the FGN and not the state lying adjacent to it.

There's no line in that cable that suggests shell imported arms, it claims they suspect importation of arms. read well.

Research Shell's activities in south america and you will find out how they operate.

besides you all shout shell as if its a company of 5000 white men climbing all over your land. investigate and you will find out its almost wholly filled with nigerians. it is one of the most indigenised of the oil majors. enough said.

Shell nigeria is a subsdiary of Royal Dutch Shell which is a british dutch multinational - its one of the most powerful multinational organisations in the world.

Of course it will be a scary thing if this were true but I choose to take it with a pinch of salt. that someone says he killed another person doesnt make it true unless he actually did. if that holds in a court of law why not here.

thats your prerogative, sometimes its easier to hide from the truth, it makes life a lot easier.

Reference:
Thanks Beaf for amplifying that point. If MTN comes to my home and says it wants to erect a mast, I have a right to say no. If the government forces me to give up my house the result is down the line MTN will take over the government. Simple. Corporations are important but Governments must act as a buffer. The interests of the people come first simply because government is made up of the people. So hitting people is hitting yourself. This simple equation has been lost on our government for ages. If Shell is permitted to bring arms to haunt people it is only a matter of time before they turn these weapons on the government. It is called in CIA parlance 'blow back'. The CIA trained and armed the mullahs in Afghanistan to drive out the Russians. Guess who's been tossed around today. It will always come back. Ask Odili.

If the government calls me instead and explains the need for the mast for the 'common good' the respect the government shows me is bound to rub off on MTN. Now if government returns to its base how on earth will MTN now erect two masts or build a refuse dump instead. They can't because there is now a chain of watchdogs. Just imagine the differences in response to the gulf oil spill and those that happen in Nigeria.

This country is a real gangsters paradise.

The nigerian govt has the right to say no to Shell's demands, but what happens if Shell overrides the nigerian govts requests and decides that it does not give a damn what the nigerian govt wants?

You are forgetting one major point, Nigeria militarily is no match for NATO, therefore if Shell, Chevron or Exxon Mobil decide tomorrow that they are not happy with any of the policies that Nigeria is adopting with regard to the oil industry it can do several things:

destabilise the entire country by fomenting inter ethnic clashes (very easy to do in a country like nigeria)

orchestrate a military coup detat using a paid saboteur (history has shown us that we have millions of people in nigeria who have no loyalty to nigeria and who would sell their own mothers for a piece of the action)

impose economic sanctions -cutting off nigeria's export markets - the US and britain are currently nigeria's largest oil importers - if they pull out of nigeria, who does nigeria export to? the US could also make it difficult for other potential countries who might want to trade with Nigeria eg  China.  The US actually tried this in Sudan, they destabilised the entire country in order to force China out.

as a last resort - stage a military intervention - the US has already started deploying troops to the gulf of guinea area (AFRICOM) under the pretext that they are merely securing our territorial waters from piracy and other terrorist activities!!

Government can only act as a buffer where it has the military might to repel any intervention, nigeria does not have that power that is why it succumbs to Shell, Chevron and Exxon Mobil's dictates.  

Shell instructs the nigerian govt not the other way around, remember that Shell were the ones who gave the instruction for Saro Wiwa to be executed because they felt that his activities were interfering with the day to day operation of their business.  

I think you should also bear in mind that our leaders are willing accomplices with Shell's activities in nigeria, in exchange for aiding and abetting Shell's criminal activities in the ND they receive military aid from the US and the UK, this military aid enables them to remain in power for as long as they are willing to keep playing the game of selling out their own people.

Shell will not turn against the nigerian govt UNLESS the nigerian govt interfere with their activities, i think it should be obvious to anyone that the likelihood of the nigerian govt biting the hands that is keeping them in power is equal to zero.

One other thing you seem to have overlooked is the long term objective of multinational corporations, they are not in the business of creating democracies or carrying out humanitarian acts - they are in the business of making profit.

Even if the nigerian govt were a progressive govt which adopted economic policies which benefitted its populace, they would still be at risk of an attack from the US and Britain, this is because western multinationals are only interested in maximising profit, if it means murdering thousands of indigenous people so be it - i would advise you to research US and British multinational corporations activities all over south america, south east asia and africa and then the picture will become clearer.

The only defence against these corporations is military might , when you have military might you can protect the economic and political sovereignty of your nation from external intervention.

Reference:
I am shocked at some responses on this thread. Where have you folks been all these years. What do you think Shell is. A business. A raw unadulterated business. What is a government, a raw Nigerian government. If you do not know SHELL IS BIGGER THAN THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT. It has been bigger than the government since BP left. Consider this simple analogy. Oil accounts for what 90 percent of our income, thus oil accouts for 90 percent of our GDP. Now Shell, one company produces over 60 percent of this oil. Do the maths. Shell acounts for approx. 50 percent of our GDP. Which means in lay terms for every two policemen one owes his salary to Shell, equally for every two state security men, customs officer, bank staff, fire man, doctor, nurse, mechanic, pastor, etc. Do we talk of infrastructure one of every two kilometres of roads, one airport in two, one minute in two of your airtime, one mega byte of two you use to hang onto Nairaland. If others (telecoms, taxes, hustling, forex repatrations by you good fellows out there, etc) pays one legislator, Shell pays the other. Hell I wonder who they choose to pay, the President or Vice President. So why are you surprised they have information about government. Who's office is it anyway. How can you spy on yourself.

You may ask. How come ? It came by in the sixties and seventies when you abandoned all other sources and forms of productivity and jumped into one. You sold your house to buy a chair. Or is the saying 'he who pays the piper dictates the tune' no longer applicable for Shell. Did they tell you to abandon coal, ginger, hides and skin, tin, copper, did they tell you to abandon agriculture, did the force you not to complete Ajaokuta and bar you from industrialization.

Who in this forum in all sincerity will not grab the monopoly of Shell with both hands. Who will not savour indirect control of this country. We all love power but power corrupts. Shell is massively corrupt because it is massively powerful. Who let it be. We the people because of our laziness, the government because it loves cheap money. So Shell did what all businesses do. It trades. It traded money for power. Government got the money, Shell got the power. As long as our focus remains on personal gain alone, Shell and the likes will continue to rule. Julius Berger, Dangote, Oando, etc are the same, just mini Shells. It is not a white thing. It is a global thing. Corporations control corrupt governments.

Big oil and big defence were key players in the Iraqi debacle because the Bush regime was corrupt. They had eyes and ears in the White House, they controlled the powerful armed services committee of the House. If I was in a business for forty years and traded trillions of dollars I would be grossly foolish not to penetrate every institution that can threaten it.

My friends, due to globalization corporations are the new countries and corporate I.D cards will soon become more valuable than international passports. Maybe, just maybe this 666 business will happen. The top ten fortune companies will buy out Africa three times over.

If you don’t like control don’t worship money. These folks produce everything we need for life and existence and you simply cannot send them away. What you can do is to say no to perceived excesses.  It is called regulation. I believe in foreign investment and foreign participation but I recognize getting the right balance is critical. This is what the Niger-Delta struggle has always been about and some naïve people turn up their noses. The people are not anti-Shell or anti-Nigeria or anti-government. All they want is a fair and right balance in control. The right to say no when they feel cheated. Simple.

My dad once told me partnerships only succeed when one party accepts to be cheated by the other.  True as this may be. Must it.

Thank you, sir for that.

Im so glad that many posters on here are now finally having their eyes opened as to who really controls nigeria, I remember trying to explain many of these issues to several NL's and being dismissed as a "conspiracy theorist" I now understand that nigerians only see the truth when it is told to them by a white man.

To think that many people on here do not understand just how powerful Shell is, i gave an earlier example of how a british oil company then known as Anglo Iranian Oil but subsequently renamed BP, destabilised and overthrew a democratically elected president in Iran because this man nationalised the Iranian oil industry.  Anglo Iranian in collaboration with the american intelligence authorities (CIA) , funded and orchestrated a coup d'etat and  replaced Mossadeq with a puppet.  It is the exact way in which nigeria is being run, all nigerian heads of states have been puppets and anyone of them who dares to challenge Shell will be overthrown.

Someone described Shell as a mere corporation, actually Shell is more powerful than the nigerian govt as a matter of fact the top ten multinational corporations ARE MORE POWERFUL THAN EVERY SOVEREIGN GOVT IN AFRICA.  
Its really shocking at the level of ignorance that our people suffer from, if multinational corporations can lobby and control the US congress why would the control of nigeria be beyond their power?

ShangoThor:

@ DapoBear
The kind of control that you seek, desire or is required will only be achieved by implementing structural change of the type that threatens the status quo. The status quo was setup by the colonial vampires and entrenched by our Northern countrymen, that is why Lugard had a preference for Northerners to rule as they were deemed to be more ‘conservative’ and thus would keep the status quo. Furthermore, British policy all over the empire dictated that Nigeria as a colony could only engage in trading raw materials and never refined products. Which means we could only export raw petroleum and not refined petroleum ( a policy that I believe has only been recently changed since the Obama Administration – check out the history of the World Trade Agreement)


At this stage, any Administration that attempts to challenge the status quo (or upset the apple cart) will risk being destabilized and even key personnel within it risk being assassinated, such is the power of the Multinationals and every Federal Administration is aware of it.



My point again is that it is a grand illusion to assert that “we are the ones selling them oil and gas”, we are not in control of the situation and never have been.


The job of the FGN is to maintain and enforce order at any cost in order for the Multinationals to continue to exploit our resources (and to manage local affairs).


I would be willing to bet my bottom $£N on this that there will be no reaction to this news, no inquiry, no investigations nothing. Had this been Washington, London, Moscow or Beijing there would be hell to pay and heads would roll. The acts of the placed officials in key positions leaking information is tantamount to espionage/treason.

100% spot on, Nigeria is owned lock stock and barrel by Shell, our leaders are merely overseers on a plantation.

Our sovereignty was hijacked the day the British govt rigged the elections in 1959 before independence and handed control to the north.

Taking power back from Shell can only be done by way of a revolution - the chances of nigerians uniting in order to defeat the FGN and Shell are remote, due to ethnic differences, the west know this, they are privy to everything going on in nigeria via their intelligence agencies.  If need be they can foment inter-ethnic rivalries and stoke old animosities in order to retain their stranglehold on nigeria.

The current situation in nigeria is very similar to what occurred in Iran in the 1950's where british owned oil company Anglo Iranian colluded with the corrupt iranian elite to exploit the iranian people and their oil reserves,  this was brought to an abrupt end when the iranians elected a nationalist leader by the name of Mossadeq who nationalised the iranian oil industry.  The british in collaboration with the americans went ballistic and decided Mossadeq had to go, he was overthrown by the CIA and replaced with the corrupt Shah of Iran who remained in power for 26 years until he was overthrown in a peoples revolution.

mandingo - this is what awaits you, come the imminent economic collapse of the US economy:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8no3SMt1Ek

MandingoII:
I suspect that in the UK your weak a.r.s.e Nigerian Degree was not recognized. so you had to take work as a commoner. Then the U.S. refuse you a VISA. LOL!!!! Rough over there in England aye? coming from Nigerian upscale to U.K. bottom feeder only to find that the U.K. lives for Everything American and YOU CAN'T GET HERE.

I have been to the US so many times and as a UK citizen i don't need a visa to get there, I can move to the US anytime i want to but i have chosen not to, the next place that i will be going to will be my father's land - nigeria.

Why are you so concerned about me and my qualifications, try focusing on how your beloved america has failed black people like you and continues to treat you as second class citizens.  Your so caught up in your dream world thinking that you are above africans that you can't see how white america has screwed you up mentally.  They taught you how to hate yourself to the extent that you don't want to be affiliated to the land of your ancestors, the other day i was reading one of your posts headed "thank god for slavery" is it any wonder white people in america treat people like you like garbage.  Who would respect someone who hates themself?

In almost all of your posts you keep trying to convince yourself that you are above africans and how grateful you are to have been born an african american, and yet this great america that you love so deeply has throughout history shown you nothing but hatred and contempt.

I feel sorry for you because you are so confused and twisted, it must be mental torture being you - you're not wanted in the land of your birth and you have refused to embrace the land of your ancestors.

Like i said get ready for the imminent collapse of the US empire - the handwriting is on the wall, and you will be the first one to be affected - you only have to look at all the major cities where blacks are in the majority ie detroit, washington and see the level of unemployment, rising crime and despair, and you will understand what i mean.

Detroit , michigan which is a predominantly black city has been one of the hardest hit since this recession started - the auto industry which used to be a major employer of african americans has shed so many of its workers , unemployment in detroit now stands at  27%  -take a look at the place now:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCm1tQfuHeg&NR=1


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eR5bZ-lRL4&NR=1&feature=fvwp


see what corporate america has done to your people:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hamL1H-rjhw

is this the sort of place you think i'd want to leave the UK to come live in? you must be crazy??

[quote author=Negro_Ntns link=topic=559737.msg7283250#msg7283250 date=1291663621]Katsumoto,

Listen to what Cap is saying. . . . .underneath all these dealings there is a shadyness that makes government a co-conspirator in the wall street shenanigans.

I was posting a response to you this morning and was banned for content. Here is a retry of the content but in a summarized version. . . . The economy is in trouble from two quarters - public treasury and private capital market. The root causes for their problems is outlined in brief below:

1. Public treasury - root cause for this problem is the "shock and awe" failure in Baghdad.

2. Private market - President Bush froze, seized and penalized underground monetary networks (real property). The sanctions choked off buoyancy to the conventional banking networks and damaged their holding vaults, which is valued in raw assets. Mortgages and fund markets (real property mixed with prospect yields) both subsist on the raw assets and so they went belly up when their source of investments dried up.

I hope this posting is not censored and you can read this summarized version.[/quote]thank you bro, thank god at least someone on here is reasoning properly, it never ceases to amaze me when nigerians in the west, who in many cases are one pay check away from destitution slavishly defend a system which does not benefit them in anyway, i can understand an ivy league educated corporate lawyer or wall street investment banker extolling the virtues of wall street and its crooked back room deals , but for a mere wage slave like Katsumoto to keep parrotting economic drivel that he can barely understand and pretending to be a member of a class that he is not completely baffles me.  The funny thing is that the likes of Katsumoto and his ilk would find it difficult to even get a job as a janitor in any of these major financial institutions and yet like a brainwashed docile slave he continues to deceive himself into beleiving that he is a beneficiary of a ruthless capitalist system.

Katsumoto:
Citigroup stake sale makes $12bn profit for US taxpayers

07 Dec 2010 | 08:56
Hysni Kaso

Categories: US

Tags: Citigroup

The US government sold off its remaining shares in Citigroup yesterday, making a strong profit from its ownership of the bailed-out banking giant.
citigroup

The share sale at $4.35 each, 10 cents below Citi's $4.45 closing price on the NYSE, means the Treasury has generated a $12bn gross profit for taxpayers from the stake, Reuters reports.

Citigroup received $249 billion dollars in tax payer bail out money despite saddling the govt with  $306 billion dollars in worthless toxic assets.

At the time that the money was lent to Citigroup there were no requirements that the bank use the federal money to lend to other banks, businesses or consumers.

To date Citigroup has laid off approximately 150,000 workers, it also wrote off $11 billion in toxic subprime mortgages.

the bailout monies that Citigroup received were used to buy up smaller institutions and consolidate power in the hands of four mega-banks—JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup itself.

Do you now understand how they were able to make the $12 billion in profits ?

Katsumoto:
Why must you personalise every argument? You do not know me, yet you go about conjecturing unnecessarily.

I do not know you but i respond to you based on the way you project yourself on here and for the most part you come across as a pretentious wannabe.

Katsumoto:
Cap28
I am not defending a corrupt system; I am simply telling it as it is. Yes the American system is not perfect just as there isn't a perfect system in the world. Having said that, I still like the American model more than any other system because it rewards those with ability.

If that is indeed the case why is it that less than 1% of america's population owns 60% of all corporate stock and all business assets and 90% of all tax free bonds ?
Also if your above statement is correct- how is it that George W Bush became president of the US despite his limited intellectual ability?  

Again if what you say is true why is it that most of the people who occupy the highest leadership positions in the US ie the presidency (Obama being the exception to the rule) , vice presidency, supreme court judges  - tend to always be white upper class males from affluent backgrounds.

I would advise you to go and research an organisation known as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) which is a powerful think tank responsible for advising on US policy. It is made up of prominent people drawn from finance, industry and government with the majority of its members coming from families of inherited wealth, over 60% of its members are corporate lawyers, executives and bankers.

Also, I can't criticise a system that provides basic amenities and infrastructure for its citizens when I come from a system where citizens are denied all kinds of basic rights, privileges etc. At the end of the day, I can analyse the demerits and merits of the American system but I can not take the high ground for the reasons that I mentioned above. The day when Nigeria is at par with the US, I may take that position. The question you have to ask yourself is this, 'should immigrants who seek a better life abroad criticise their host countries? or should they return home if they are unhappy with the situation in their host countries.'

Well thats because you feel fortunate to find yourself living in the white man's land, you also have failed to realise that it was the slave labour of your african ancestors that provided the economic  foundation that generated the huge wealth that the US currently enjoys today.

If america had not engaged in the slave trade america would not be the prosperous nation that it is today, therefore to say that you are in no position to take the high ground in respect of their ill gotten wealth smacks of naivite.

Furthermore you seem to have missed the glaringly obvious part that the US has played and continues to play in the economic enslavement of nigeria, have you forgotten that it was under IBB that nigeria ended up ensnared in US imposed IMF and world bank loans, you might also want to find out why america sells billions of dollars in arms to our dictators.

How about nigeria's slavish compliance to economic policies dictated to us from washington with the  intention of keeping us in a perpetual state of underdevelopment.
Perhaps you are unaware of the close ties that the US has had with numerous african dictators over the years, how do you think the likes of Mobutu were able to remain in power for 35 years despite the atrocities he committed against his people.

If you see yourself as an immigrant who should remain eternally grateful for being allowed to live in the west - that is your prerogative, i on the other hand do not see myself in that way, probably because i have spent a great part of my life in the west as well as nigeria and therefore as a law abiding tax payer who has made my own contribution, i beleive i am entitled to air my opinion. 

Secondly, some individuals might have enriched themselves during the bailout but I choose to focus on two things
1. Those individuals are able to do so because they positioned themselves well. There are no secrets to it; if you do the right things, then you may get the reward. Should a manual worker who chose leisure over acquiring the necessary skills have the same compensation as a manager who chose to acquire the necessary skills often ignoring leisure to study and also taking a huge risk by becoming immersed in debt? I don't think so. Some of these managers you are castigating are not beneficiaries of a feudal elitist system.

I can see that you have a great deal of admiration and respect for people who abuse positions of power and loot the public treasury, fortunately the average educated american does not reason like you and this is why america is an advanced society while nigeria remains a basket case where people like you praise and respect immoral kleptocrats.

What amazes me is that you are in no way benefitting from any of these appropriated millions, infact you are more than likely to end up as a casualty of the ongoing job losses and yet you kow tow before these people who have created so much misery for the average man on the street.

The problem with people like you is that when you get a few bits of loose change in your pocket and find that you are now able  to eat three square meals a day you suddenly start to imagine that you are above other people, first of all not everyone in society has to be a manager or acquire degrees  in order to be regarded as a useful member of society, the firemen, train drivers, dustbin men, street sweepers, bus drivers are all blue collar workers but their services are so crucial to the everyday running of society that if anyone of these workers went on strike the society would grind to an immediate halt.  Your disdain for the ordinary worker and admiration for the corrupt investment banker demonstrates just how limited you are in terms of intelligence.  You remind me of so many nigerians that i come across who idolise status and wealth but lack basic common sense. Is it any wonder that nigeria is in the state that it is in.
Nigeria is full of supposedly educated people like yourself who think that education is about aquiring letters after their name and looking down on those who have not acquired material possessions.

One thing you have failed to understand is that in the western world most self made wealthy people are wealthy not because they set out to pursue wealth not because they  idolised wealth and status  but because they had a natural talent in a particular areas which ultimately made them rich.

2. Not all workers got fired; some workers are still employed

Yes some workers are still employed minus the benefits and other allowances that they were entitled to before their employers decided to start restructuring the businesses.

3. It is obvious that you are anti-capitalism but it does not make sense to keep complaining if you are not going to do something about it. What is the solution or solutions? What are your plans for correcting the imbalances in the system? Don't you think you should start at home (Nigeria) before embarking on some kind of new world order?

It does not make sense to you because you have grown up in an environment where freedom of thought and expression is non existent, your mind is geared towards getting ahead and you dont really care how you do it, this is why issues such as this are meaningless to you, unfortunately for you, you are in an environment where you are just another invisible black face, when the time comes for your employer to start laying off employees, you will be one of the first to go being a black man. It doesnt really matter how much kow towing and obeisance you pay to wealth and status, as a black man in the western world the odds are already severely stacked against you.

MandingoII:
+1

All that complaining and whining he's doing is NOT going to change things. Besides, he's in the UK.

that chump is JEALOUS of EVERYTHING American.

something is WRONG with him. he's suffering from searing low self esteem and is only causing his own hearthache focusing on EVERYTHING that's WRONG in Amerikka while unable to do anything about it. Sad mofo

you are such an ignorant loser, what exactly have you got that i would be jealous of?

If you even had a brain cell in your head you would understand that your economy is headed for a massive meltdown, you are too dumb to understand that your banking elite has sold you down the river.  Your below average mentality prevents you from seeing the bigger picture.  Are you aware that China is about to pull the rug from underneath america's feet? very soon the US dollar will no longer be the world reserve currency and then guess what you can look forward to becoming a third world nation with hyperinflation, food shortages, astronomical food prices, accelerated foreclosures and mass unemployment.

I cant wait to see how the likes of people like you will survive the coming hyperinflation and mass unemployment.

So keep dreaming and deluding yourself that you are safe.

With america's track record on race relations people like you will be some of the first casualties of the imminent mass unemployment and foreclosures.