From his first days on the political scene, Sen. Marco Rubio has never strayed far from his close friend, Rep. David Rivera. The men first met while volunteering for then Florida State Senator Lincoln Diaz-Balart’s first congressional campaign in 1992.  A few years later, Rivera hired Rubio out of law school in Miami to work on Bob Dole’s doomed presidential bid.

By 2002, they were colleagues in the Florida state house and when Rubio was elected speaker in 2006, Rivera took up as his top lieutenant. They rode into Washington together on the crest of a powerful GOP midterm wave in 2010, Rubio as a senator, Rivera as the new house representative from Florida’s 25^th district.

Today, Rubio is one of the Republican’s party’s most buzzed-about young stars and an early favorite to run alongside presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in the coming general election. Despite repeated statements that he “won’t be the vice president,” operatives in both parties told ABC News they believe Rubio is seeking the bid.

“He wants it,” one Democratic strategist said. “He can say what he wants, but he’s doing all the things that people who want to be the running mate do. He’s going to South Carolina [to speak before state party bigwigs at their annual Silver Elephant dinner] and working on some Republican version of the Dream Act.”

What Rubio has not done – and recently told POLITICO he never will — is break his ties to David Rivera.

Featured prominently in the non-partisan “Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington” 2011 “Most Corrupt” list, Rivera has been “under investigation by at least five different law enforcement agencies for a range of violations,” including payments he allegedly received in connection with the successful campaign (led, at times, by his mother’s consulting firm) to legalize slot machines at horse and dog-racing tracks.

(On Wednesday night, The Miami Herald reported that Rivera would not be charged by state prosecutors for actions detailed in a scathing report by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement because the statute of limitations had expired on the alleged crimes. The same Herald story maintains that the IRS and FBI are still investigating his role in a $510,000 payment made by dog track owners to his mother and godmother’s firm.)

The alleged dog track shenanigans cap off a decade of sometimes odd brushes with the law. On Sept. 6, 2002, the Florida Highway Patrol recorded an incident in which a car driven by Rivera ran a truck carrying flyers authored by a political opponent off the road, forcing it to the shoulder. The delay kept the potentially damaging mailers on board from arriving at the post office before a 6 p.m. deadline.

Rivera said in a statement shortly after the incident that the truck was carrying his mailers, too, and that he was only trying to retrieve his own materials.

Earlier this year, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor expressed “concern” about the probes and at least one GOP strategist, speaking to ABC News, referred to Rivera as one of the “possible skeletons in [Rubio's] closet.”

Asked if he was concerned that the allegations, from the 2002 highway incident to the dog track controversy and the revelation that he had not, despite reporting it as a source of income, ever worked for USAID, could hurt his friend Rubio’s standing in the party, Rivera told ABC News, simply, “No.”

When pressed for specific details about the timeline of events surrounding a threatened foreclosure on — and eventual decision to sell — a home he and Rubio bought together in Tallahassee during their time in the statehouse, Rivera said, “You’ll have to ask Marco.”

Faced with that, a spokesman for Rubio wrote: “The issue over the home mortgage payments has been really well documented. There was confusion over the payments, and Sen. Rubio paid the bank as soon as he became aware of the issue.”

The reality is a bit more complicated. Rivera said the bank “was overcharging us,” so he and Rubio decided to withhold payment until the dispute was settled. But it was only after Deutsche Bank filed suit and threatened to foreclose that Rubio delivered a check to the mortgage company’s lawyers.

Later on they tried and failed to sell the home. “The real estate market is still really struggling there,” Rivera said. The property is now being rented.

Even with allegations and investigations swirling, Rubio has remained steadfast by his friend’s side. He will hold a fundraiser for Rivera in Washington, D.C., later next month and, according to Rivera, Rubio speaks to him regularly about matters both personal and political.

“I don’t think there’s another vice presidential candidate that could energize the ticket the way Marco could,” Rivera said over the phone Monday night. “Both in substance and style, he has the ability to communicate an optimistic and conservative message.

“But he’s told me in private exactly what he’s said in public, that he’s not going to be picked. He has told me he’s not going to be picked [as Romney's running mate.]”

One GOP strategist with strong ties to Florida state politics, Tim Baker, said he “takes Sen. Rubio at his word that wants to remain a great senator from Florida.”

And that may well be the case, but after years operating at the center of South Florida’s politically powerful Cuban-American community, Rubio must maneuver carefully. Breaking with Rivera could solve one problem, but create another, more damaging set of circumstances.

If Rubio’s appeal as a running mate is primarily rooted in his perceived ability to rally the Hispanic vote, which broke strongly for President Obama and the Democrats in 2008, it is critical that he has the full support of his constituency back home. Should Miami turn its back on him, his very reason for cutting ties with Rivera — ending their very real friendship — would be mooted and his Florida-based political career placed in unique peril.

Source: ABC News.

The Democrats, the Republicans and especially Barack Obama promised that something would be done about the too big to fail banks so that they would never again be a threat to destroy our financial system.  Well, those promises have not been kept and the too big to fail banks are now muchbigger and much more powerful than ever.  The assets of the five biggest U.S. banks were equivalent to about 43 percent of U.S. GDP before the financial crisis.  Today, the assets of the five biggest U.S. banks are equivalent to about 56 percent of U.S. GDP.  So if those banks were “too big to fail” before, then what are they now?  They continue to gobble up smaller banks at a brisk pace, and they continue to pile up debt and risky investments as if a day of reckoning will never come.  But of course a day of reckoning is coming, and when it arrives they will be expecting more bailouts just like they got the last time.

The size of these monolithic financial institutions is truly difficult to comprehend.  They completely dominate our financial system and everywhere you look they are constantly absorbing more wealth and more power.  The following comes from a recent Bloomberg article….

Five banks — JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. — held $8.5 trillion in assets at the end of 2011, equal to 56 percent of the U.S. economy, according to central bankers at the Federal Reserve.

Five years earlier, before the financial crisis, the largest banks’ assets amounted to 43 percent of U.S. output. The Big Five today are about twice as large as they were a decade ago relative to the economy

Despite all of the talk from the politicians, they just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

So why isn’t anything ever done?

CONTINUED at the Economic Collapse.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

What the hell happened last night? No, I am not talking about some sort of development in the 2012 Republican primary, that’s basically over at this point. I am talking about this damn nausea and the monster sized jackhammer wrapped in flashing bright lights and obnoxious dubstep that is blasting through the thin rock-like structure of my skull right now!! Where the hell was that hotel room I found myself in this morning? What was that sticky mass all over the floor and as I woke up in it, what the hell was that that I saw under the bed: a slightly large syringe or a slightly small baster? Do I really want to know either way? What’s with the fucking reggae blaring outside the window, it’s 6:30 in the goddamned morning! Forty-five minutes later, why the hell am I sitting in the Naples-Ft. Myers Greyhound Track parking lot with my MacBook Pro burning my legs, as I type out this strange train of random chemically influenced thoughts? My bagel tastes like shit, my head feels like it was raped by a dozen raging elephant cocks in a sexual repressed frenzy and I keep feeling like I need to puke but so far I’ve just had a few dry heaves – I guess I got it all out somewhere on the beach last night. The truth is, there isn’t a better time to write than now.

Reflecting on the events that brought me to this place, I feel that maybe I shouldn’t party so hard during the week. Then again, everything that has come from my seemingly careless actions have only contradicted this theory. You see, every boss in my company is in Mexico this week and therefore I have had no distractions at the office from an administrative standpoint. No meetings, no meetings about what to talk about in future meetings and no meetings to talk about what we’ve talked about in previous meetings – all of which has something to do with wide-receivers and debating over lunch options. I have actually got to do some real work this week and because of that, have created some pretty amazing shit. For those who don’t know, I am the Art Director for a major cigar manufacturer, which company is insignificant but a Google search will probably destroy my anonymity. Now considering that my boss has decided to release about eight dozen new brands at this year’s biggest trade show, I am expected to magically pull creative miracles out of my urethra on a whim. I’m certainly not complaining, this is what I do and the pay is sufficient; I’m also allowed certain freedoms at this job that I wouldn’t have elsewhere – which is why I have stayed for so long. This week has been pretty goddamned magical and even if the CEO hates my new concepts, I’m still in love with them and will fight for them as always, until my last breath or another big project that is made to seem more important than it actually is is dropped in my lap at the last minute with a deadline of three days prior.

Those times when I don’t write a lot are because of the strenuous demands of my well-paying job. Which makes me appreciate the fact that the Republican primary is just about over and I can go back to focusing fully on my real job, as the busiest time of the year for the creative side of this business, is creeping up on me. Writing about politics doesn’t really have a negative impact on my performance at my job, it actually seems to work in the opposite, as days upon days of conceptualizing something as insignificant to the real world as a cigar band can cause one’s brain to either erupt in colorful vulgar madness or completely shutdown. I do however find some senseless motivation in assisting the universe in putting more nails into Rick Santorum’s coffin and really, setting the bastards of this universe on fire is gratifying in a way that I will continue to do it without money on the table. However, getting a paycheck for it would be nice and ultimately, would be much more preferable than my current line of paid employment, as I could focus on rattling cages full-time.

The opportunity I have been waiting for, fell into my lap a few weekends ago. Now I was instructed not to write about this and I said that I wouldn’t until the election was over. These egomaniacal assholes probably assumed that I meant November but I didn’t specify and since the candidate that they work for is pretty much done at this point, his election is most assuredly over. Now I may look like a devious trickster here and I did give them my word to a degree, which I do hold my word true, but pure unadulterated truth is much more important in this case as I have always believed in free speech and in transparency. What they wanted me to do was to compromise my principles where those two things are concerned, which immediately threw up a red flag and made me go into the mode of playing along to see what exactly it was that these schemers had up their sleeves.

I was asked to breakfast, early on a Sunday morning at the last minute to meet with important people on the staff of a Republican presidential candidate. I will not say their names or the candidate’s, as I only want to shed light on the situation and who it was doesn’t matter; I am sure this is standard practice amongst the leeches and vampires. Besides, the meeting was quick, as they learned almost immediately that I wasn’t going to play ball for them.

The leader of the group introduced himself to me and as he did, I checked him out on my iPhone to see if he was legit: he was. He immediately tried to butter me up by talking about my website and my work. He said that he respected my stance on the issues and that was why he needed to meet with me. He knew my website stats to a tee and talked about how my articles have reached hundreds of thousands of people through Facebook and various political forums. He then brought up the fact that I was very biased for Ron Paul and because of that have gotten a lot of support and readership from other Paul supporters. Aha! The proverbial plot thickens!

The leader of the group asked me how their campaign could capitalize on Ron Paul’s “fall from grace” and gain the support of his loyal followers. I explained to him that when Paul was finally out of the race, his supporters would either walk away, write “Ron Paul” on their ballots in November or vote for Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party. This guy refused to accept that and insisted that there must be a way to win over the hearts of Paul supporters to get behind his candidate. I told him that it would never happen no matter what kind of dirty tricks that he had in mind. The man got pissed and a bit irate at this point, as he stared at me intently between bites of his blueberry pancakes. I had to bring him to the realization that even if you compiled all of Ron Paul’s delegates with his boss’ delegates, that the number was still dwarfed by the number of delegates Mitt Romney has amassed. I also made it clear that Barack Obama was going to get re-elected regardless of how the GOP contest concluded; this was the point where his face got about as purple as his pancakes.

Calming down and trying to regain his footing with me, this guy said that people can be “persuaded”. He then added that they can “especially be persuaded by the voices they trust”. What this shady bastard was trying to do, in a nutshell, was to get me to write an article calling for Paul supporters to shift their allegiance elsewhere, based off of the fact that Paul is a greyhound that can’t win in a race rigged to lose. What this guy couldn’t see through the blinding light of his massive holier-than-thou ego is that his boss has no chance in hell of winning but that isn’t even the point here. Now he never asked me to write something but it was heavily alluded to and he told me that there are a thousand writers like me out there who would jump at the opportunity to help their campaign succeed. While that could very possibly be true, I am not nor will I ever be one of those soulless creatures out to make a quick buck by surrendering my principles and lying to those whose loyal eyes scroll across my words and thank me by simply reposting my articles wherever they can.

The breakfast meeting was incredibly short and the guy was a complete jackoff. What I learned from this though, is how the media is bought and paid for at almost any level and how out of touch these big wig Washington insiders really are. This guy has no clue as to how any of this works and if he does, he certainly didn’t show it and only displayed what could be interpreted as pure arrogance and ignorance. In the end, they got up and left and I had to pay my own tab. I guess the part where I tore his business card in half really set him off. His parting words were, “Have fun scribbling on cigar boxes for the rest of your life.” Funny, because ten minutes earlier he told me, “We want you to work for us.” What I now believe, based off of this encounter, is that there are bloggers and writers who do work for them. As insignificant as I am to the bigger picture, this must be true and it is seemingly the job of men like these to round us up and bribe us into making things go their way.

So as I finish this, thighs charred from this damn laptop, I stare out at the dog track, as the sun rises behind me, and wonder if greyhound racing is as dirty as the most important race in America. Do those speedy mongrels on that track try underhanded devious tactics to get the edge on their competition or do they just race and hope for the best? Those animals were bred for pure competition and push themselves around that circle day in and day out and truth be told, every single one of them has more heart in their small chests than the vast majority of the mongrels in the race to the White House. Politics isn’t a sport, it’s just a beauty contest where the winner is chosen by how many cocks they fluff and how many corrupt corporatists they can convince to line their pockets. And hell, when that doesn’t work, some of that money trickles down into the pockets of those who can use the power of their words to change minds for the worse. It’s a vile, dishonest and disgusting tournament for jackals who would eat their own for one more go around that dirty track.

The best thing any of us can do, is to choose not to play their game.

‘Council of Governors’ member McDonnell could try to sabotage anti-NDAA law.

The Virginia Senate has passed a law that forbids authorities in the state from using the ‘indefinite detention’ provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act against Americans, but whether or not Governor Bob McDonnell will sign it remains to be seen given the fact that he is a member of Barack Obama’s infamous ‘Council of Governors’, whose role it is to increase military involvement in domestic affairs.

“Today, the Virginia State Senate nearly unanimously passed my bill, HB 1160, to prevent Virginia’s state and local government agencies from cooperating with the federal government in the indefinite detention of Virginians under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (“NDAA”). I am grateful that the vote in the Senate to accede to the bill as passed by the House of Delegates was 37-1,” said a statement by Delegate Bob Marshall, who was the driving force behind the bill.

“Congress, by including this provision in a must pass bill affecting our Armed Forces, made a terrible mistake in empowering this or any future President and the military to arrest and detain American citizens indefinitely, without charges, without the chance to confront their accusers, without legal counsel, and without a trial.”

Having already passed the Virginia House by a vote of 96-4 last month, the final bill will be sent to Governor Bob McDonnell. However, McDonnell has already attempted to sabotage the legislation using “secretive, backdoor” tactics, according to Marshall, so whether he agrees to sign the bill without trying to weaken its language remains to be seen.

The fact that McDonnell was included on President Obama’s infamous ‘Council of Governors’ probably explains why he has been so reticent to support the bill.

The executive order which established the Council of Governors (PDF), created a body of ten state governors directly appointed by Obama to work with the federal government to help advance the “synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States”.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

While I was driving back home from the 2012 Libertarian Party of Florida Convention and Presidential Debate in Orlando, the rest of the country (or just those few who care) were watching the results of the Maine caucuses. It was a toss up as to who would win between Ron Paul, who had been campaigning there for weeks, or New England’s favorite Michigan-born son, Mitt Romney. Despite the projected performances, I found myself pretty much scared shitless that Rick Santorum would help display the insanity of many conservative Americans once again and run away with another state. Thank God that his streak of three was ended this past Saturday. Although he finished third, he only walked away with three delegates. Gingrich laughably walked away with nothing, as once again, he fell flat on his face in another state. If Newt hadn’t won South Carolina a few weeks ago, racking up twenty-three of those twenty-five delegates, he’d be out of this race. He’s still in second place however but Santorum is only one delegate behind him after the last four states and Ron Paul is still on everyone’s heels. It’s a very close race for second place but in all honesty, after a few more states, Newt should be in last and on his way out – leaving Paul and Santorum to battle it out in the delegate race to catch up to Romney.

So where does that leave the top half of the field in Maine? Well, the finish was quite controversial actually. The official announcement is that Romney won Maine with less than 200 votes over Ron Paul. The race was incredibly close and in essence was a virtual tie. I mean, when Romney won Iowa and then it was announced that Santorum had in fact won the state, Ol’ Mittens himself called it “a tie”. So with Paul being so close to Romney, I am calling it “a tie”. Unfortunately though, Romney walked away with nine delegates to Paul’s seven. So why is this controversial?

Well, I don’t think that there is a single state so far that hasn’t been suspected of voter fraud. I’m not trying to stir the pot here but the validity of these primary elections has come into question at every stop on the 2012 campaign trail. Oddly, almost every time that eyebrows are raised, Romney seems to be the benefactor. In Iowa, votes were lost or missing and Mitt just edged out Ricky Boy. In the end, the votes magically re-appeared and Santorum got the win. In New Hampshire, zombies were found voting, as many dead people casted votes for Mr. Romney. Mittens won that state. There were claims that the dead voted in South Carolina and in Florida; Romney won the latter. Nevada was also suspected of voter fraud, which got a lot of publicity last week from various news sites. Who won Nevada? Well, it was Romney. Follwoing Nevada was the trifecta win of Rick Santorum in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado. I’m of the firm belief that if Santorum won, there has to be foul play involved – I mean, people aren’t THAT crazy, right? Maybe those steering this suspected corruption decided to throw the guy a bone, as it couldn’t really hurt Mitt in the long run and they didn’t want their tinkering to be obvious. Besides, Santorum rising up amongst the ranks, only makes Romney a stronger candidate as Santorum scares the everliving crap out of anyone that isn’t a creepy bastard like the fascist big government Bible thumper himself.

Following the announcement of Romney’s victory, many Paul supporters were upset. Some were heard shouting “Liar!” while others shouted “How many dead voted?!” It was a grim display and Paul supporters had a right to be pissed off based off of the fact that the road to the White House has been littered with what appears to be some very serious attempts and successes at electoral corruption. In fact, it was pointed out that the caucuses in several counties were shut down and not counted. Washington County, a place were Paul was projected to do extremely well, was one of the counties whose votes weren’t counted. Paul campaign chairman Jesse Benton suggested that the Romney people were instrumental in the cancellation of certain caucuses. Benton said:

It’s not completely insidious, but they knew we were going to swamp it up there.

According to Politico:

The state GOP said that the caucuses were cancelled due to inclement weather.

Also worth noting is that there are 505 municipalities in Maine and just 420 have caucused thus far. So there are nearly 20 percent who haven’t even voted yet! Yet, Mr. Romney has been declared the winner with less than 200 votes over Paul! The fish in Maine are stinking like something gross and unnatural right now.

After Maine was awarded to Romney, Paul’s campaign manager John Tate sent out an email where he trashed the mainstream media for jumping the gun and announcing Mitt Romney as the winner when only 84 percent of the vote had been counted and there were only 194 votes separating the two men. Tate wrote:

The national political establishment and their pals in the national media will do ‘anything’ to silence our message of liberty. Tonight you saw dueling examples of how much the establishment is scared of Ron Paul and his message of liberty. The truth is, Ron Paul will win the most delegates out of Maine tonight. In fact, he will probably even win the ‘beauty contest’ Straw Poll the media has already called for Mitt Romney – even before all the votes have been tallied. In Washington County – where Ron Paul was incredibly strong – the caucus was delayed until next week just so the votes wouldn’t be reported by the national media today. Of course, their excuse for the delay was ‘snow.’ That’s right. A prediction of 3-4 inches – that turned into nothing more than a dusting – was enough for a local GOP official to postpone the caucuses just so the results wouldn’t be reported tonight. In fact, if you were watching one major network, they cut off their telecast of Ron Paul’s speech right when he began mentioning this fact.

Tate was referring to MSNBC cutting off Dr. Paul in the middle of his post-Maine speech. Tate’s email continued:

This is MAINE we’re talking about. The GIRL SCOUTS had an event today in Washington County that wasn’t cancelled! And just the votes of Washington County would have been enough to put us over the top. This is an outrage. The truth is, there is no length to which the GOP establishment won’t go. There is nothing the mainstream media won’t do.

Take all that for what you will but Mr. Tate makes some solid points. The fact of the matter is that the GOP and the mainstream media are going to continue to use their dirty tricks to push this man out of the race and whether you are a Paul supporter or not, that alone should sicken you. The choice of who to elect should be ours and ours alone. It shouldn’t be dictated to us and a winner certainly shouldn’t be announced under these sketchy circumstances. Yet, somehow, these crooked bastards continue to get away with their shenanigans time and time again! How much longer do we have to wait before the Internet overtakes television and the mainstream media’s establishment propaganda is swallowed up by the truth brought forth from the ever-growing alternative media industry? The time is coming but it will be too late this election. If only we could rely on people to educate themselves and not wholeheartedly sponge-up the misinformation being poured into them daily. If we truly are a nation of sheep, it’s time to steer the herd over the cliff because there is no saving us. However, if we are a nation of free thinkers that can make our own decisions and embrace personal responsibility, we might just have something left to keep fighting for. Either way, this is all coming to a head quite rapidly. It was Bob Dylan who said, “The times they are a changin’.”

Ron Paul’s full uncut speech after Maine announcement:

Dr Jerome Corsi reports on the leak of 1,000 pages of HSBC internal records including customer account ledgers for dozens of companies through which the global banking giant apparently was laundering money each month.

The hypocrisy of the war on drugs is outrageous when compared to the amount of drug trafficking that benefits the CIA and international banking system. The son of a convicted notorious mobster, John Gotti Jr, when asked in court if the family still dealt drugs cracked, “No, we can’t compete with the government.”

Today in Afghanistan, American troops have been seen guarding poppy fields used to make heroin. Those fields were all but wiped out by 2001 when the Taliban destroyed them and forbade that agricultural pursuit. Now they’re flourishing again after the American occupation.

This doesn’t make sense despite all the mainstream reports that American troops are protecting the poppy farmers from the bad guys. Internet sites such as Prison Planet, Info Wars, The Political Coffeehouse and others report otherwise. They connect the CIA and US military to restarting the poppy fields in Afghanistan in 2002, increasing poppy growth by over 650 percent. Who’s telling it like it is?

One way the CIA keeps their drug trafficking hidden from public view

The CIA’s secret operations to influence journalism started in the 1950s by infiltrating the media and bribing journalists to be operatives and assets for the CIA. By 1976, then CIA director William Colby reportedly bragged that the CIA owned the press. Supposedly, this too secret to name operation was coined “Operation Mockingbird” by Deborah Davis in her bookKatherine the Great.

Operation Mockingbird worked well against prize winning journalist Gary Webb when his newspaper, theSan Jose Mercury News, ran his in depth series on CIA drug trafficking that flooded the USA to help finance the CIA backed Nicaraguan Contras during the 1980s.

Journalists all over the USA jumped on the series, claiming Webb’s journalism was shoddy. The newspaper had to recant and fire him, and Gary Webb was black listed from mainstream journalism completely.

Webb retaliated by having his bookDark Alliancepublished and making theNY Timesbest seller list, forcing some of his critics to privately eat crow after the fact.

Despite the CIA’s control of the press, a few Mexico and Central America cocaine busts of plane cargoes and discoveries of large cocaine stashes on crashed planes with CIA hired pilots flying them for front companies did hit the mainstream news,albeit briefly.

Remember the movie “Air America?” It was based on an actual CIA owned front company transporting tons of heroin from Southeast Asia’s “Golden Triangle” poppy fields during and after the Vietnam conflicts. Now Afghanistan and the “Golden Crescent” are the featured opium/heroin conduit sources.

Government and big business using drug traffic profits is nothing new

When the U.S. government made deals with the Cosa Nostra mafia to help police ports and harbors during WW II, they breathed life into the heroin trade. Eventually, Marseilles, France was set up by the Corsican mafia to become the “French Connection” for heroin traffic.

But opium trade history goes back further, to colonial times and early America. That’s when American shipping magnates used their fast Clipper Ships to compete with England’s monarch sanctioned dope running East India Company for transporting opium to China.

A few key players created family fortunes from the China opium trade that exist today within some northeast America’s “old money” families.

Among the familiar family names, according toWikipedia(source below) is Forbes. Another source mentions Astor, a prominently wealthy philanthropic family around New York today (Wiki source below). In those days, trafficking dope was a legitimate business endeavor, immoral but not illegal.

Now it is illegal as well. Ironically, this allows the biggest illicit drug providers to financially benefit the CIA and international banking.

Source: Natural News.

Economic and political elites meeting this week at the Swiss resort of Davos will be asked to urgently find ways to reform a capitalist system that has been described as “outdated and crumbling.”

“We have a general morality gap, we are over-leveraged, we have neglected to invest in the future, we have undermined social coherence, and we are in danger of completely losing the confidence of future generations,” said Klaus Schwab, host and founder of the annual World Economic Forum.

“Solving problems in the context of outdated and crumbling models will only dig us deeper into the hole.

“We are in an era of profound change that urgently requires new ways of thinking instead of more business-as-usual,” the 73-year-old said, adding that “capitalism in its current form, has no place in the world around us.”

Some 1,600 economic and political leaders, including 40 heads of states and governments, will be asked to come up with new ideas as they converge at eastern Switzerland’s chic ski station for the 42nd edition of the five-day World Economic Forum which opens Wednesday.

The eurozone’s failure to get a grip on its debt crisis and the spectre this is casting over the global economy will dominate discussions.

“The main issue would be the preoccupation with the global economy. There will be relatively less conversation about social responsibility and environment issues — those tend to come to the fore when the economy is doing well,” John Quelch, dean of the China European International Business School, told AFP.

“The main conversation will be about a deficit of leadership in Europe as a prime problem,” he added.

The annual talk-shop comes barely a week after the eurozone’s reputation took a further battering, as ratings agency Standard and Poor’s downgraded the credit-worthiness of nine eurozone countries, including stripping France of its triple-A grade.

While saved from the downgrade embarrassment, the region’s economic powerhouse Germany has nevertheless been forced to lower its growth forecast, dragged down by its neighbours’ debt woes and weaker demand from emerging markets.

The forum will centre on the issue from the beginning, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel opens with a keynote speech.

European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde will also give a broader insight into the international economic impact of the eurozone crisis.

The World Bank slashed its global economic growth forecasts to 2.5 percent for 2012 and 3.1 percent in 2013 — sharply lower than previous estimates of 3.6 percent for both years.

Beyond economic issues, the forum will address a plethora of other subjects.

Sessions will range from scientific discoveries expected to shape 2012, to a discussion on the differences perceived when a Beethoven sonata is played on historic and modern instruments, to how virtual games can be harnessed for innovation in the real world.

It will also hear about the profound changes in the Arab world after a series of revolutions swept across the region in 2011. New Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali and Egyptian presidential candidate Amre Moussa will both be present at the meeting.

Political issues in other regions will be addressed, with the participation of Mexican Felipe Calderon, his Nigerian counterpart Goodluck Jonathan and Salva Kiir Mayardit, President of the fledgling South Sudan.

Up to 5,000 Swiss soldiers have been mobilised to secure the location, and the air space around eastern Switzerland’s Davos region will also be severely restricted during the week.

But anti-capitalist demonstrators are planning to make their presence felt.

The Occupy WEF protestors have built igloos in the middle of the village perched 1,500 metres above sea level and are planning a protest against those they call “self-proclaimed elites.”

Source: Raw Story.