EU signs pact with Internet networking sites
February 10, 2009 - 9:32am
BRUSSELS (AP) - The European Union has signed a pact with 17 social networking providers including Facebook, MySpace and Google to improve safeguards against the bullying of teenagers online.
EU spokesman Martin Selmayr says networking sites are now used by some 42 million people in the European Union, and young users need to be protected from abusive behavior on the Web sites.
The agreement commits the site operators to "limit the risks" of misuse by providing a "report abuse" button. This allows users to report "inappropriate contact from or conduct by" another user.
The site operators must also make sure online profiles and contact lists of underage users are set to the highest privacy settings.
The EU announced the agreement Tuesday.
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=108&sid=1597697
EU agree to coordinate on toxic assets
BRUSSELS – European Union finance ministers agreed Tuesday to coordinate the way they could tackle toxic assets on banks' balance sheets that have frozen lending and aggravated the recession.
They are aiming to stem a possible rash of go-it-alone government moves among the EU's 27 nations — such as Britain's plan to insure the bad assets that have punched huge holes in banks' balance sheets.
Speaking on condition of anonymity because the agreement is not yet public, diplomats said ministers had agreed "on the need for a coordinated approach to ensure a level playing filed and avoid distortions among banks."
This would set "a correct and consistent approach to valuation" and call on EU regulators to check that any state program would not damage competition by giving some banks an advantage over rivals.
But EU nations are unlikely to pick one option, instead agreeing a range of tools enabling each country to pick the one they like best for its banking sector.
Getting bad assets off banks' hands would theoretically free money for lending and restore the banking sector to some kind of normality because banks would not have to hold back funds to cover massive potential losses.
The U.S. is also planning to buy some of its banks' bad assets, building on last month's move to cover $118 million of Bank of America's toxic investments. Banks gorged on securities backed by risky U.S. mortgages, only to now find that the market for such assets has dried up.
Diplomats said EU ministers wanted to leave some flexibility in what assets each government might guarantee.
Officials say they are looking at several options include setting up a "bad bank" to buy assets dragging down banks' finances, or a government guarantee.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel wrote a joint letter Monday to say restoring credit to the economy should be the top priority for the EU — and dealing with problem assets would help restore confidence in the banking sector.
Britain has gone further than other nations in promising to use state money to guarantee toxic assets. Alistair Darling, the British chancellor of the Exchequer, said nations had to "do everything we can to get lending going again."
EU leaders are planning to meet this month to coordinate a patchwork of national stimulus programs that has led to complaints that some governments are moving to protect their industries from rivals.
Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said Monday he feared some aid might trigger protectionism. Last week, the Czech Republic criticized Sarkozy for suggesting a French-owned auto factory in the Czech Republic should be making cars in France.
EU regulators have warned France about insisting car makers only receive government help if they buy French car parts or invest in France — a French effort to reverse a trend where car manufacturing jobs have shifted to lower-wage eastern European nations.
The letter from Sarkozy and Merkel also called on the EU to talk about when they should start reducing public debt. Many euro nations are slipping from budget surpluses into shortfalls as the economy contracts, depressing tax revenues and hiking welfare payments.
On Monday, Juncker cautioned that government spending to restore the flow of credit to the economy "could have a very serious impact on public finances."
The EU's top economy official, Joaquin Almunia, said he wanted to see shareholders share some of the burden of bad assets and transparent methods to value the investments.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090210/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_eu_economy
Here is a third article, actually a blog entry, has to do with the Globalization theme.
Globalization Is The Enemy
Globalization is the enemy. Make no mistake it does not matter if Obama or McCain is the president. It does not matter which party is in control. The economic demise America is experiencing is an engineered transfer of wealth whose end is the destruction of the middle classes in every country on the planet and the installation of one all powerful world government.
The lie the globalists used was that by increasing the number of middle class workers in developing nations America would find new markets for their products. Honestly this might have worked unfortunately the corporations maintained their third world laborers in slave labor conditions and pocketed the profits. So rather than equalizing wages around the globe money flowed from the American citizens to the globalists bank accounts.
When corporations, with our governments blessing, started sending our manufacturing jobs to countries that utilize slave labor it was over for America. Logically we were never meant to compete, it was not possible. Our manufacturing jobs were sent to China. A technology bubble was created to placate the upset masses. These replacement jobs were then shipped to India after we developed the systems.
To dampen the American workers loss we were given cheap credit and a booming housing market. All middle class jobs were being shipped overseas at the same time home prices were skyrocketing…did this really make any sense to anyone. All those displaced workers took up employment in the housing industries. Everyone made huge money and no one noticed the strip-mining of our most valuable resource…our jobs.
The wonderful housing bubble also allowed for the entrapment of the remaining American middle class workers in “debt slavery”. Through declining wages, cleaver legislation and the “American Dream” the globalists thought that Americans would simply work themselves to death in an ever decreasing jobs market trapped in their overpriced homes.
This did not happen. As the American workers started sensibly abandoning their upside down mortgages en mass the global elite demanded payout from our government. The banks were given literally trillions in tax payer dollars under the guise of stimulating lending and restarting the massive consumption engine that is America. Instead the loan industry hoarded the money investing in things like toll roads, private prisons and security agencies. All of this legislatively hidden from the American public!
While all this was going on the worlds governments were instituting policies and procedures to combat “terrorism”. The big, bad war on terror is nothing more than a smoke screen that allows the corporate/government complex to install public control mechanisms in an unmolested and patriotic manner. So when it does fall apart in the “developed” nations and the people figure out they have been screwed over it will be easy to maintain control. This is where we are at today.
Tomorrow or Monday Congress will pass a trillion dollar stimulus bill to create jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. It will not work…the stimulus bill will not restart our consumption economy…but that not its real purpose. Our globalist masters will need good roads to fully strip our land and enslave the indebted American public. We still have the largest most productive farmlands in the world and they will need good workers to till and plant.
Don’t worry about the trillion dollars added to our national debt…the republic is dead.
Now I am gonna have a beer and watch another episode of buffy. Tomorrow I will tell you about my tractor.
http://www.bearridgeproject.com/ Business as usual in DC, nothing changes but the names, that does happen often enough.
Bailout recipients keep donating
Jennifer Haberkorn (Contact)
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Wall Street executives have pleaded economic ruin, secured hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer assistance and been pilloried for their business excesses. But none of that has curbed their appetite for doling out political donations - or the willingness of politicians to accept the largesse.
A Washington Times analysis found that executives and employee-funded political action committees of banking companies that received bailout money have donated more than $2 million to members of Congress and other politicians since lawmakers approved the federal rescue of America's financial system in October.
The PACs linked to the top 20 recipients of federal rescue funds have spent a combined $1.5 million on donations since Congress approved the bailout while employees of the top 10 recipients of bailout money have donated an additional $726,070, Federal Election Commission records showed.
The financial industry has long been a dominant political giver. For instance, executives of the top 10 bailout recipients gave $1.2 million in donations during the same period in 2004.
But their continued largesse since the bailout is a stark reminder that its executives still intend to play expensive politics even in the midst of a belt-tightening recession, analysts said.
"Taxpayers hope their money is being allocated entirely on the merits, but with Congress controlling how much money the Treasury gets to hand out, it will be impossible to completely exclude politics from this process," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that studies political giving.
Lawmakers said the federal bailout program, which was passed Oct. 3, would help banks keep credit moving in the market to help Americans buy homes and cars.
But within weeks, money also was moving into their campaign accounts.
JPMorgan's employee PAC, for instance, has issued $275,552 in political donations since Oct. 16, including $91,000 spent three weeks after the bailout was approved.
Wells Fargo & Co.'s employee PAC has approved $211,400 in political donations. Bank of America's PAC issued another $304,265.
Banks stress that neither corporate money nor federal funds - distributed under the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) - are used in PACs.
"Through our voluntary team member-funded political action committees - not through corporate dollars - Wells Fargo makes contributions to candidates who understand the needs of our company, team members, customers and communities," Wells Fargo spokeswoman Julia Tunis Bernard said in an e-mail.
PACs are made up largely of employee contributions, and decisions about who receives a donation typically are made by a committee of employees.
"We don't use TARP funds for lobbying or political contributions," Bank of America spokeswoman Shirley Norton said. "We're very sensitive to the fact we have taxpayer money."
Members of Congress, some of whom have derided the banks for frivolous spending in the middle of the massive credit crisis, have received a majority of the campaign cash, according to a review of the FEC documents.
Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, West Virginia Republican, collected a combined $10,000 from the PACs of Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs in October. She had voted against the bailout that month.
Rep. David Scott, Georgia Democrat, collected $9,500 from the PACs of Wells Fargo, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs during October. He voted for the bailout.
Rep. Barney Frank, Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, collected $9,500 from Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs PACs in the month after the bailout was approved.
Michael Andel, Mr. Scott's chief of staff, said the congressman was focused on getting mortgage relief passed, not necessarily aiding the banks.
"Banks and credit unions like Congressman Scott, but they fight all the time," Mr. Andel said. "He has been supportive of efforts that bring strong oversight to TARP funding."
The Treasury Department controls how and to whom the money is distributed, but Congress initially had to approve the program.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/10/bailout-recipients-keep-donating-to-politicians/
FAA says Hackers broke into agency computers
by JOAN LOWY, Associated Press Writer Joan Lowy, Associated Press Writer – Tue Feb 10, 12:22 am ET
Featured Topics: Barack Obama Presidential Transition WASHINGTON – Hackers broke into the Federal Aviation Administration's computer system last week, accessing the names and Social Security numbers of 45,000 employees and retirees.
The agency said in a statement Monday that two of the 48 files on the breached computer server contained personal information about employees and retires who were on the FAA's rolls as of the first week of February 2006.
The server that was accessed was not connected to the operation of the air traffic control system and there is no indication those systems have been compromised, the statement said.
"The FAA is moving quickly to prevent any similar incidents and has identified immediate steps as well as longer-term measures to further protect personal information," the statement said. The agency said it is providing a toll-free number for employees "who believe they may be affected by the breach."
Tom Waters, president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3290, said FAA officials told unions representing agency employees at a briefing Monday that the second breached file with personal information contained encrypted medical information.
"These government systems should be the best in the world and apparently they are able to be compromised," said Waters, an FAA contracts attorney. "Our information technology systems people need to take a long hard look at themselves and their capabilities. This is malpractice in their world."
The FAA statement said the data theft has been reported to "law enforcement authorities," who are investigating.
All affected employees will receive letters notifying them of the breach, the statement said.
Waters said FAA officials told union leaders the incident was the first of its kind at the agency. But he said his union complained about three or four years ago about an incident in which employees received anti-union mail that used names and addresses that appeared to be generated from FAA computer files.
He said the union complained to the FAA and the Transportation Department's inspector general but no action was taken.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090210/ap_on_go_ot/faa_computers
Here are two articles about our teens and the "elightened" culture they are being brought up in.
Teenagers 'spend an average of 31 hours online'
Teenagers spend an average of 31 hours a week online and nearly two hours a week looking at pornography, according to a study.
They spend some three and a half hours communicating with friends on MSN, and around two hours on YouTube and in chat rooms.
Just over an hour is devoted to looking up cosmetic surgery procedures such as how to enlarge breasts and get collagen implants, an hour and a half is spent on family planning and pregnancy websites and one hour 35 minutes is spent investigating diets and weight loss.
One in four teenagers of the 1,000 polled said they regularly spoke to strangers online but thought it harmless.
One in three admitted trying to hide what they were looking at if a parent entered the room.
But children also use the internet to help them with homework, with at least three hours a week spent searching for such information.
The research was conducted by www.cybersentinel.co.uk, which provides software solutions allowing parents to block access to certain sites.
Spokesman Ellie Puddle said: "The alarming thing is the survey shows teenagers are obviously exploring all sorts of topics as a result of modern-day pressures.
"Talking to friends on social networking websites can be completely risk-free, good fun. But there is also the danger of online predators.
"Teenagers and parents need to realise the dangers of talking to strangers online but parents must not overreact by denying access to the internet. The internet is a fantastic resource for learning and development."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/4574792/Teenagers-spend-an-average-of-31-hours-online.html
Hang-up for ‘sexting’ boys
Six middle-schoolers may face kid porn rap
FALMOUTH - Six middle school students could face child porn charges after a boy took a nude photo of his 13-year-old girlfriend and “sexted” it to his pals’ cell phones, cops said.
The six boys, ages 12 to 14, will be summoned to Falmouth District Court for a hearing to determine whether they should be charged with possessing, exhibiting or distributing child porn in the form of a text message photo, according to The Cape Cod Times.
Wendy Murphy, who lectures on sex crimes at the New England School of Law, said “sexting” almost has become an “epidemic.” Murphy said, “I know it seems heavy-handed to bring child porn charges. Law enforcement is using the only tool it has for what has become a huge problem nationwide.”
Columbia University Professor Sari Locker said surveys suggest one in five teens has sent or received nude or semi-nude pictures. “When boys receive a nude picture of a girl, they think the next time they see her they can go further with her in a sexual way than before,” she said. “It becomes an invitation to advance a sexual relationship.” But Locker said she believes criminal charges are excessive: “Clearly these boys are not sexual predators or pedophiles."
http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/2009_02_11_Hang-up_for_‘sexting__boys:_Six_middle-schoolers_may_face_kid_porn_rap/srvc=home&position=3
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