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As long as Germany wants to keep running a current accounts surplus against Greece, it needs to be willing to pony up the money to finance that surplus, or allow Greece to print that money itself. Insisting that Greece pays for the German current accounts surplus is an exercise in futility. (Also in arbitrary cruelty to Greek society. But we seem to have established that the German version of European solidarity ends when it starts costing money, so that probably doesn't count.)
- Jake
Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.
Do really want to argue that Greece has exactly one trade partner?
Trade: Exports (2010): $22 billion: manufactured goods, agricultural products, beverages, tobacco, petroleum products, cement, chemicals. Major markets--Germany, Italy, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Turkey, U.K., France, U.S., Romania, Spain. Imports (2010)--$64.55 billion: basic manufactures, food and animals, crude oil, chemicals, machinery, transport equipment. Major suppliers--Germany, Italy, China, France, Netherlands, U.S., Russia.
Assming the countries are listed in decreasing order of importance, Germany is both Greece's leading importer and exporter. Now we just need to find a source for the actual amounts.
tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
With bilateral trade worth more than EUR 8.5 billion, Germany is Greece's principal trading partner. German companies are among the most important foreign investors in the country. Over the past two years, Deutsche Telekom has gradually acquired a 40 per cent share in the semi-state-owned Greek telecommunications company OTE. In addition to companies including Siemens and Bayer that have been operating in Greece for many years, there has been a recent increased influx of retail companies like Lidl and Media-Saturn. Major infrastructure projects such as the Athens Metro and the new Athens airport have been conducted with the help of German companies. The 144 German companies operating in Greece employ a total workforce of approximately 37,000 and account for an annual turnover of some EUR 10.5 billion (German Federal Bank figures, as of April 2010).
Nice how they give the gross amount of bilateral trade, but not the net.
tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
Of those three, one is Germany and the other two (Finland and the Netherland - and Finland's inclusion on this list is actually questionable) are an order of magnitude (and some small change) smaller. As trade scales faster than linearly with size, Germany is well in excess of 80 % of the trade imbalance.
So for all practical purposes, yes, Greece's primary deficit went to German export companies.
The percent of total German exports going to the Euro area as a whole has actually declined since the euro was introduced because the Euro area has grown more slowly than other regions. Germany's bilateral trade balance in goods with each of the GIIPS, however, has improved. For example, Greece's bilateral trade deficit with Germany widened from -1.5 percent of Greece's GDP in 1999 to -2.5 percent in 2008. Other core European countries, like the Netherlands, saw similar developments with the GIIPS, suggesting that all of the surplus countries benefited from increased demand in the weaker Euro area members.
First, rather than providing peripheral countries with a market for their distress goods, the Germans have been enthusiastically selling their manufactured goods to the periphery. According to Eurostat, Germany's trade surplus with the rest of the EU grew from 46.4 billion euro in 2000 to 126.5 billion in 2007. The evolution of Germany's bilateral trade surpluses with the Mediterranean countries is especially revealing. Between 2000 and 2007, Greece's annual trade deficit with Germany grew from 3 billion euro to 5.5 billion, Italy's doubled, from 9.6 billion to 19.6 billion, Spain's almost tripled, from 11 billion to 27.2 billion, and Portugal's quadrupled, from 1 billion to 4.2 billion. Between 2001 and 2009, moreover, Germany saw its final total consumption fall from 78.5 percent of GDP to 74.5 percent. Its gross savings rate increased from less than 19 percent of GDP to almost 26 percent over the same period.
I do overuse rhetorical questions, but I really don't think that matters . A assertion without a question mark is not really much better.
Now , according to the statistical annex of the OECD economic outlook report 90,
Greece had a current account trade deficit of 14.9% in 2008. In absolute numbers 51.2 billion $. The trade deficit was 49,1 billion $. Now as big as 2.5% of gdp is, that is not everything and certainly not 80% of the total.
The rest are surplus sources, and the external account is balanced.
Therefore, any surplus generated by the deficit countries will eventually find its way to the five surplus sinks.
Germany is larger than the other four by a factor of what? Four? Five? Something like that, anyway.
The fact that the Greek sovereign primary deficit passed through Italy before ending up at Siemens and Rheinmetall AG is of no consequence to the conclusion that it did, in fact, end up there.
RoW is not a surplus sink for the Eurozone, which means that none of the money the Eurozone's members pay for import end up in China.
The notion that "China is bankrolling Europe" is American conventional wisdom that you're puking up as if it were fact.
I said nothing of the sort. Don't make things up.
I cuold have used Ireland. Or the Netherlands. But countries with a considerable trade surplus with Germany. Or Japan.
The Eurozone has balanced foreign accounts. RoW is therefore not a surplus sink for the Eurozone. RoW not being a surplus sink, and China belonging to RoW, China cannot be a surplus sink.
This is elementary graph theory. So elementary, in fact, that you can prove it simply by drawing a graph with the nodes "Greece," "rest of Eurozone" and "Rest of World."
Then impose the boundary conditions that inflows must exceed outflows for Greece, and that all in- and outflows to RoW must sum to zero.
The only sink in that graph is RoE. China is not in the Eurozone, and is therefore not a sink.
This has been your first and last fee lesson in elementary graph theory. If anything here is unclear, look it up before venturing into discussions of international trade again.
The Eurozone is running a balanced trade with RoW.
That means that the Greek deficit cannot end up in a sink outside the Eurozone. It. Is. Not. Possible.
As long as the Eurozone as a whole is running balanced foreign accounts, all Eurozone countries' aggregate deficits must end up as surpluses for other Eurozone countries.
This is not a difficult concept to grasp, so I really don't see why you continue this obtuse insistence that German surpluses are not the problem.
Greece doesn't have a problem with its debt in Yuan either.
tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
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Mayors Criticize Obama Muni-Bond Tax Plan
WASHINGTON–U.S. mayors Thursday urged the Obama administration and Congress to drop a plan to tax at least a portion of interest paid to investors in the $3.7 trillion municipal-bond market.
President Barack Obama has advanced the idea, on the grounds that too much of the roughly $30 billion a year in forgone federal tax payments from a century-old interest exemption goes to higher-income households. House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) has signaled he too is willing to consider curbing the tax-exempt status of the bonds.
But members of the U.S. Conference of Mayors warned the muni market is a vital mechanism for financing schools, roads and other infrastructure projects that create jobs. Tweaking the tax exemption would make those projects more expensive, stymieing public projects.

subset: commoncrawl


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Top Pop Musics > Fereidoon Farokhzad
موسیقی و ترانه ایرانی - موسیقی پاپ
Fereydoun Farrokhzad(October 7, 1938 – August 8, 1992) was an Iranian singer, actor, poet, TV and radio host, writer, and iconic opposition political figure. He is best known for his successful variety TV show "Mikhak-e Noghrei" (The Silver Carnation). He was the brother of the acclaimed Persian poet Forough Farrokhzad and Pooran Farrokhzad. He was forced into exile after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, and after relocating to Germany was the victim of an unsolved murder. The murder is "widely believed to be the work of The Islamic Republic of Iran Fereydoun Farrokhzad was born in Chahar Raheh Gomrok (Gomrok Intersection), a neighborhood in Tehran, Iran. He was the fourth of seven children (Pouran, Amir(Masoud), Forough, Fereydoun, Gloria, Mehrdad, and Mehran). After graduating from high school he went to Germany and Austria for his post-secondary education. He got his Advanced Graduate degree in Political Science from Munich University. At a young age Fereydoun had a passion for poetry and for singing. He turned that passion to reality in 1962 when he started writing poems in German which were published in two German newspapers. In 1964 he published his collection of poems called "Fasleh Deegar" (Another Season). His book was critically acclaimed and was honored by many famous German poets. Five months after the release of "Fasleh Deegar", Fereydoun Farrokhzad received the Poetry Award of Berlin. For a couple of years Farrokhzad was a member of the Munich Academy of Poetry. In 1966 he found his way to the Television and Radio of Munich. On Radio he had a comedy and music program which played middle eastern music including music from Iran. On TV he created and produced a show called خيابان های آلپ (Alpine Roads). In 1967 he returned to Iran and performed on successful radio and TV shows. His most successful and famous TV show was "Mikhakeh Noghrei" (Silver Carnation), and his radio show which aired every other Friday mornings called "Jomeh Bazzar" (Friday Bazaar). The TV show was watched by millions of Iranians. On the show Farrokhzad introduced and discovered many famous Iranian artists including Sattar, Shohreh, Shahram Solati, Ebi, Morteza, Rouhi Savoji, Hamid Shabkhiz, Leila Forouhar, Saeed Mohammadi, and many more. After the 1979 revolution, Farrokhzad was imprisoned, then released. He escaped the country and settled in the country of his youth college years, Germany. Farrokhzad married and divorced twice. His first marriage took place in 1962, to a German/Polish woman named Ania Buchkowski, whom he met in Oxford. Like Farrokhzad, she had a passion for poetry and theater; it was after meeting her that Farrokhzad started writing poems. The result of this marriage was a son named Rostam. Farrokhzad and Ania later separated and got divorced. In 1974 he married an Iranian woman named Taraneh. Political views According to Voice of America, Farrokhzad was known by his fans as an "educated patriot" who frequently criticized the Islamic Republic and its leaders and who was present during many demonstrations against the clerical government. Death Farrokhzad's grave in Alter Friedhof, Bonn, Germany. Farrokhzad produced a weekly radio show for the "Voice of the Flag of Freedom Organization of Iran," the radio station of the Organization of Kaviyani Banner, an "organization of exiled supporters of the Iranian monarchy."Farrokhzad also acted in a film, I Love Vienna,which was considered by some Iranian authorities as anti-Islamic. On August 8, 1992 Farrokhzad's body was found in the kitchen of his apartment in Bonn, Germany after neighbours reported barking by his two dogs. Farrokhzad had been killed violently, having been stabbed repeatedly in the face and upper torso.Many urban legends surround Farrokhzad's death, including the widely repeated myth that he was beheaded. Prior to his murder, Farrokzhad had been involved in producing an opposition radio program and reportedly received death threats. In his show the Royal Albert Hall in London he criticized Khomeini and made fun of Khomeini's obsession with sex in his Ressaleh book, which followed death threats and concerns for him. According to the U.S. state-funded Voice of America (VOA), the murder was "widely believed to be the work of Iran's Islamic government". Legacy To this day, Farrokhzad remains a significant Iranian cultural icon whose popular music and television programs continue to be circulated through various media platforms. His murder—a political assassination of a celebrity activist entertainer—is a well known and oft-cited event amongst Iranians. Fereydoun Farokhzad, a poet, a patriotic singer who was Iran's Jay Leno during the time of Shah, was stabbed and was beheaded with a knife on 8th August 1992, in Bonn, Germany during the time of exile from the Islamic Revolution, by the order of the clerical repressive corrupt fanatical regime of IRI. He was a great Entertainer and trained many great Persian singers currently living in LA. He was someone of whom most people have fond memories growing up in Iran. An educated patriot who fought against the mullahs with all his power and finally was murdered in a tragic way by the mullah regime. Fereydoun was always present during many demonstrations and always spoke loud and clear against the Islamic Republic and he is truly missed and irreplaceable. He was the brother of one of Iran's most famous poets: Foroogh Farrokhzad. Before the Revolution he had a very popular live show on Iranian TV called "Mikhak-E-Noghrei" which was widely seen by Iranian people. Married twice. Once to a German/Polish woman and a second time to an Iranian. He has a son named Rostam. He was educated in Germany and had a PhD in Political science. His sister Foroogh Farrokhzad was a famous Persian poet who was killed in a car accident. His father worked in the army and was a strike man. in summary airline card mileage auto insurance low rate see Loans consolidate graduate student loans cheapest homeowner loans Loans consolidate graduate student loans cheapest homeowner loans if Treatment additionally drug treatment centers asbestos removal uk for the purpose of attorney florida injury from time to time att cellular along with for accident claims no win no fee or Claim anti spam products beside apr credit tell store umbilical cord blood additionally cordblood bank certainly Rehab alcohol rehab centers in fact airline miles credit card coupled with asbestos poisoning in other words asbestos lung cancer arizona dui lawyer once end Treatment drug treatment centers criminal justice online classes online classes business administration remortgage with bad credit for the purpose of refinanced second mortgages over help desk software cheap Software in the background attorney criminal texas from best conference call service for cordblood bank for the purpose of Cord Blood like alicante car cheap hire assurance life policy formerly att conference and american singles two home equity line of credit home equity line of credit on the other side business electricity price comparison switch gas and electricity suppliers think american family life insurance beside aarp life insurance on the other hand attorney injury new york and atlanta hair laser removal stand aircraft charter jet or acid reflux disease alcohol rehab centers or Rehab thing auto bad credit refinancing accident colorado lawyer again even airport car hire malaga auto insurance price quotes Insurance buy car insurance online car donation centers Donate finally Classes Classes in order to attorney personal injury attorney now Insurance buy car insurance online coupled with Insurance buy car insurance online asbestos removal uk aiu online also argent company mortgage att store further att go phone wireless beside audio conferencing service add Recovery beside hard drive recovery laptop altogether bad credit home buyer home equity line of credit mean help desk software cheap granted crm software programs last augmentation breast new york auto italy rental in crack rehab centers additionally Rehab quickly cheap online trading such as cheap online trading business electricity price comparison additionally switch gas and electricity suppliers Fereidoon Farokhzad Album Boom Baba Boom has 27 musics


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Mo'ne Davis, the 13-year-old girl who's become baseball's breakout star, has become the first Little League player ever to make the national cover of Sports Illustrated.
Not that the Philadelphia eighth-grader needs any more firsts under her belt — not with her blinding 70 mph fastball, and certainly not with the Series shutout she threw last week, making her the first girl ever to throw a shutout in Little League World Series history.
Remember Her Name! #LLWS2014 sensation @Monedavis11 is on this week's national cover http://t.co/LAwVgubpCS pic.twitter.com/sENsPMF7ew — Sports Illustrated (@SInow) August 19, 2014
Mo'ne, an honor roll student at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy, has helped make her team the Taney Dragons the first Little League team from Philadelphia ever to advance to the Series in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
But Mo'ne's sports goals extend far beyond baseball.
"To be honest, I never thought I'd be famous for baseball," she told Sports Illustrated. "I want to play basketball, and I could also do both basketball and baseball — but I really want to play basketball."
She one day hopes to play basketball for the University of Connecticut on a full scholarship, preferably as the point guard for the Huskies. Her mother Lakeisha McLean says she's confident her daughter can do it.
"When Mo'ne says she's gonna do it, she's gonna do it," McLean said.
Mo'ne will take the mound Wednesday in Las Vegas when the Taney Dragons take on the only other undefeated team in the Series, the Mountain Ridge team from Las Vegas.
--David Chang contributed additional reporting.


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Dear public's experts
I am often reminded by the ancient wisdom of the sages long dead that, the pen is mightier than the sword. Although, I have yet to see conclusive evidence of that cliché in modernity where the pen, along with its surrogate, the press, is effectively used to mainly augment the sword. The pen today continues to underwrite inimical laws, induces servitude, and holds the public mind in the complex web of perception management from which escape has become well-nigh impossible. Plato captured this dystopic reality in his fable: The Myth of the Cave, in his book: The Republic, 2500 years ago. Goethe, some two millennia later, echoed that theme with great panache as follows:
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes."
The creation of money, however, is surely one of those few hard realities where the pen can perhaps overwhelm the sword if wielded astutely in opposition to the dystopic forces controlling the world of words and pens. For, indeed, the control of money is also the first cause enabler of dystopia, ab initio.
This one reform, the return to creation of money as a public commons, genuinely undertaken, solely in the public interest, can make heaven right here on earth for the vast majority of its untermenschen, without the need for population reduction under the United Nations' Agenda 21. Surely, no public's expert in these money matters, anywhere in the world, can really be unaware of the dystopian forces long depicted in fables of one kind or another, actually existing in reality even today, and operating in the name of public interest, but wilily inimical to the same public's interest. The power of money creation is that one weak link upon which the entire pyramid of this dystopian power, the exercise of oligarchic power from behind the scenes against public interest to keep us in chains, is constructed. The tables can be turned by the public just as simply as by knocking out the corner brick of the tallest pyramid, arguably, with just the righteous flow of the beatitudinous pen in the public interest!
While simple in concept, this beautiful theory too, I did not invent. But in my off days, I tend to believe it in order to maintain my sanity. And I continue to practice it --- so far to no avail. But that is perhaps because the "whole" is consistently coming out less than the sum of its parts!
As individuals supposedly working in public interest, we have no common focus except to sell books, make a name for ourselves, and stroke our egos as lauded "public intellectuals", some even dreaming of Nobel peace prize. And I hasten to add that I am most glad this does not apply to you if you feel you are the exception. I feel that too. In fact, I won't be surprised if we all feel we are the exception to that self-serving public intellectual who so ubiquitously occupy the public podium flaunting their high-morality. That, we, the exception to the rule and to the rulers, are indeed most noble, most pious, most humble, and work solely with our conscience as our guide, with no petty self-interests at stake. This call goes out to all who claim that.
The thrust du jour in the name of monetary reform, is to return the world to some kind of Gold Standard. A lot of well-intentioned people among the public, and some well-intentioned national leaders, all of whom appear to be quite innocent of knowledge, have been clamoring for it. This has even become the holy grail of reform in some influential institutional quarters. It includes, not just the well known rebels extraordinaire, former American Congressman Ron Paul and his zealot followers including author G. Edward Griffin, but interestingly, even the World Bank. What follows is my eight years old commonsense analysis of this "reform" --- and, it demonstrates that it is, in fact, another boondoggle no different in conferring infinite power to the oligarchy, than the fiat money that it is supposedly designed to replace. It too does not place the world of banking and spending, on sound financial footings anymore than fiat money in the hands of an unaccountable financial oligarchy ever did.
I invite you to review this analysis and offer refutation if you disbelieve it, forward it to your favorite public expert, economics professor, chief of this or that, or Nobel laureate economist whom you trust, or, extend it further with your own public wisdom and intellect so that the whole shall, finally, come out greater than the sum of each individual's brain-cells' worth.
This call for an intelligent public to become a public think-tank in the public's interest, is an open challenge to the financial oligarchy driving this boondoggle. Perhaps we can finally come to believe in the wisdom of the sages long dead. I sure would like to see some proof of its veracity before I am dead.
With best wishes,
Zahir Ebrahim
Revised Letter September 27, 2016
Zahir Ebrahim | Project Humanbeingsfirst.org
First Look November 13, 2008 | Boondoggle Revisited March 26, 2013
[ Author's Preface, March 26, 2013:
I have a feeling that while 'war on terror' and other existential games are being played out in the left-field to continually engage the public's attention, the really significant issues are being decided in the right-field (thanks to the rebel Walter J. Burien, Jr., cafr1.com/BIO.html, for that apt baseball analogy from many years ago). There is very little analytical deconstruction of the Gold Standard that has been advanced over what has been known for ages. This is a seed to create a deeper more scrutinizing debate based on the examination of the five points mentioned towards the end of this article. These five points enable separating the chaff from the wheat.
It has been my sad observation that virtually all monetary reform advocates choose to remain silent on these questions while they trumpet their solutions as the best invention since sliced bread. I am less than impressed. Unfortunately Ron Paul has now departed (or will soon depart as per his statement earlier this year) from Congress but has left the legacy of Gold Standard wannabes as the panacea to world's financial crisis, including my favorite scholar, G. Edward Griffin, from whose books and videos, I will admit with thanks right off the bat, I cut my baby teeth on this monetary knowledge. Now I dare to challenge him as he is the co-exponent of the Gold Standard with Ron Paul, and, no surprise, the World Bank! I hope you can print this on your blog, website, and/or debate it, to put some more meat on this skeleton article. If a non-expert can get this far, the experts can certainly go farther. But where do they go instead?
See what MIT Sloan Professor Simon Johnson named 'public intellectual' of the year says at MIT. [10] And Nobel Laureate economist James Tobin says at Princeton. [11]
Bunch of bullshit is where they collectively take the public mind from America's top Ivy Leagues while the world of elite establishmentarians applaud; precisely where their pious detractors and fabled dissent also invariably take the public mind while the goofy public also applauds. And that is the Ron Paul's legacy on Gold Standard scrutinized below. Please better this almost 5 year old analysis.
The drive towards some kind of Gold Standard is accelerating among establishmentarians in the first world nations, with the sheep among the third world nations also demanding their own slaughter, while none among those learned in economics and financial policy-making in both worlds dare to publicly address the issues highlighted below. I know precisely why. That reason was most ably captured by W. Cleon Skousen in his commentary to Carroll Quigley's momentous work Tragedy and Hope – A history of the World in Our Time, in these perceptive words:
'The real value of Tragedy and Hope ... [is the] bold and boastful admission by Dr. Quigley that there actually exists a relatively small but powerful group which has succeeded in acquiring a choke-hold on the affairs of practically the entire human race. Of course we should be quick to recognize that no small group could wield such gigantic power unless millions of people in all walks of life were "in on the take" and were willing to knuckle down to the iron-clad regimentation of the ruthless bosses behind the scenes. As we shall see, the network has succeeded in building its power structure by using tremendous quantities of money (together with the vast influence it buys) to manipulate, intimidate, or corrupt millions of men and women and their institutions on a world-wide basis.' (W. Cleon Skousen, The Naked Capitalist, pg. 6) ]
I have a feeling that while 'war on terror' and other existential games are being played out in the left-field to continually engage the public's attention, the really significant issues are being decided in the right-field (thanks to the rebel Walter J. Burien, Jr., cafr1.com/BIO.html, for that apt baseball analogy from many years ago). There is very little analytical deconstruction of the Gold Standard that has been advanced over what has been known for ages. This is a seed to create a deeper more scrutinizing debate based on the examination of the five points mentioned towards the end of this article. These five points enable separating the chaff from the wheat.
It has been my sad observation that virtually all monetary reform advocates choose to remain silent on these questions while they trumpet their solutions as the best invention since sliced bread. I am less than impressed. Unfortunately Ron Paul has now departed (or will soon depart as per his statement earlier this year) from Congress but has left the legacy of Gold Standard wannabes as the panacea to world's financial crisis, including my favorite scholar, G. Edward Griffin, from whose books and videos, I will admit with thanks right off the bat, I cut my baby teeth on this monetary knowledge. Now I dare to challenge him as he is the co-exponent of the Gold Standard with Ron Paul, and, no surprise, the World Bank! I hope you can print this on your blog, website, and/or debate it, to put some more meat on this skeleton article. If a non-expert can get this far, the experts can certainly go farther. But where do they go instead?
See what MIT Sloan Professor Simon Johnson named 'public intellectual' of the year says at MIT. [10] And Nobel Laureate economist James Tobin says at Princeton. [11]
Bunch of bullshit is where they collectively take the public mind from America's top Ivy Leagues while the world of elite establishmentarians applaud; precisely where their pious detractors and fabled dissent also invariably take the public mind while the goofy public also applauds. And that is the Ron Paul's legacy on Gold Standard scrutinized below. Please better this almost 5 year old analysis.
The drive towards some kind of Gold Standard is accelerating among establishmentarians in the first world nations, with the sheep among the third world nations also demanding their own slaughter, while none among those learned in economics and financial policy-making in both worlds dare to publicly address the issues highlighted below. I know precisely why. That reason was most ably captured by W. Cleon Skousen in his commentary to Carroll Quigley's momentous work Tragedy and Hope – A history of the World in Our Time, in these perceptive words:
'The real value of Tragedy and Hope ... [is the] bold and boastful admission by Dr. Quigley that there actually exists a relatively small but powerful group which has succeeded in acquiring a choke-hold on the affairs of practically the entire human race. Of course we should be quick to recognize that no small group could wield such gigantic power unless millions of people in all walks of life were "in on the take" and were willing to knuckle down to the iron-clad regimentation of the ruthless bosses behind the scenes. As we shall see, the network has succeeded in building its power structure by using tremendous quantities of money (together with the vast influence it buys) to manipulate, intimidate, or corrupt millions of men and women and their institutions on a world-wide basis.' (W. Cleon Skousen, The Naked Capitalist, pg. 6) ]
This is Project Humanbeingsfirst's first look at the key issues inherent in the Gold Standard as the backing commodity for national and international currency. It is being advocated by Hon. Congressman Ron Paul of Texas ('The Revolution – A Manifesto', Chapter-6 "Money The Forbidden Issue in American Politics"). He is inspired by the Ludwig von Mises Institute (http://mises.org/) which represents the libertarian political and economic thinking of the Austrian School of Economics. That in turn, in this scribe's opinion, can be elegantly captured in a nutshell by the British economist E. F. Schumacher's Buddhist paradigm of "Man is small, and, therefore, small is beautiful". Mises Institute primarily features the work of Ludwig von Mises ('Human Action – A Treatise on Economics') where Mises notes: "Economics deals with society's fundamental problems; it concerns everyone and belongs to all. It is the main and proper study of every citizen". Mises Institute also features the work of his student, Murray N. Rothbard ('What Has Government Done to Our Money?'), who notes: "On the free market, everyone earns according to his productive value in satisfying consumer desires. Under statist distribution, everyone earns in proportion to the amount he can plunder from the producers."
Ron Paul is evidently inspired by these 'Small Is Beautiful' decentralization principles of sustainable economics, sustainable government, sustainable development, and the importance and responsibility of man for his own decision-making and welfare, as opposed to centralized institutional planning and impersonal decision-making [1]. Who would not like such 'manly' "Tim the Toolman Taylor" empowerment? [1980s American sitcom] As the iconic macho-man Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, might have said in some movie – only the "girlie man"!
However, there surely must also be, somewhere in its verbiage, an implied balance and harmony in this Buddhist doctrine of governmental non-interventionism. The extreme at either end is of course, only bounded by total anarchy on the one side, and total collectivism on the other, as correctly observed by G. Edward Griffin (http://realityzone.com). Both extremes can have undesirable characteristics. The communist style centralized planning and control is a well known collectivist extreme – and apparently the world today is indeed headed towards that characteristics with a global police state in the offing and a global central banking under construction which will usher in a global currency managed by private International banksters.
Whereas, complete deregulation and privatization (in for-profit hands) of public commons which are held in trust for all peoples, is the other extreme. As is blatantly apparent, the world today is also simultaneously headed in that direction too with neo-liberalism. The twain meet in the corporate boardrooms controlled by the same gluttonous hands on Wall Street whose principal share holders are usually the opaque "institutional investors". It would perhaps only shock the most naïve to learn that the largest of these "institutional investors" is the sole superpower on earth, the United States of America Corporation, at all levels: local, state, and federal. See the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) that is produced by each of these governmental bodies and public agencies (a public report which the public and its mainstream news media have evidently never heard about, see http://CAFR1.com ).
And it is noteworthy for privatization impetus that as a non-predatory socio-economics system design principle, when there is an infinite demand for something, and the very life of every man and every woman may depend on its availability, holding it as a social benefit, in public trust, is the mark of wisdom; whereas privatizing it in unaccountable gluttonous hands a mark of predatory social Darwinianism. All reformers can surely agree that a nation's monetary system falls into this category, of a public commons, to be managed in trust, by their government, for the common good of all its peoples. This is all the more true for a non-predatory international monetary system which ought to sensibly be held in global trust as a global public commons.
That is the one key central platform upon which all monetary reformers are united, and have always remain united throughout history. It forms one continuous resistance against aggregated wealth holders who have hijacked control of any nation's money supply.
This resistance is profoundly historical, and even today, brings to bear its entire weight of all historical arguments made against private monopolistic control of a nation's money – from Julius Caesar to Cicero to Thomas Jefferson to Andrew Jackson to Abraham Lincoln to William Jennings Bryan. The latter being the last of the great challengers to private wealth holders perpetually seeking to make a precious limited commodity like gold the standard currency, before the devilish orchestration in 1913, of the present day private banking cartel of the Federal Reserve System, did one better. Legally acquired exclusive private monopoly rights over the most common element, 'thin air'! [2]
Therefore, in these times, we resume that same thread of resistance – with a clearer understanding of the devil before us, and with an even greater force of cumulative arguments – right from where William Jennings Bryan left off, continuing with his own precise principled words of 1896: [3]
"We say in our platform that we believe that the right to coin money and issue money is a function of government. We believe it. We believe it is a part of sovereignty and can no more with safety be delegated to private individuals than can the power to make penal statutes or levy laws for taxation."
And of course, not neglecting to be inspired by America's famous "I killed the bank" President, Andrew Jackson's own motivating words: [4]
"You are a den of vipers. I intend to rout you out, and by God, I will rout you out."
The presumably earnest reformers who believe in the Gold Standard, like Congressman Ron Paul and the Mises Institute, just as those who believe in Lincoln's Greenbacks or the Colonial Scrip of the American colonies, like the American Monetary Institute (http://monetary.org), and just as those who believe in other systems, like the 'tally sticks' of the English, or the 'Natural Economic Order' of Silvio Gesell, all equally share in this fantastically rich inheritance of principled resistance against the handful of private aggregated wealth owners squeezing the public in their beguiling lender's perpetual debt trap.
These reformers evidently only disagree in the pragmatic matter of which alternate monetary system to introduce against their common mortal enemy! And while they disunite amongst themselves as to "who's the fairest", without a well-funded foundation backing them, an influential think-tank writing their policy papers, an effective political lobby-group pushing it to the Congress, or even a press-corps of editorial writers to their name to generate public opinion, their antagonists delight in this incapability of their rag-tag opposition to form effective coalitions on their own common grounds. The well-intentioned moral activist of modernity surely must intimately understand, beyond mindlessly parroting others, that the banking parasites have, in every epoch, very powerfully, and with much clever propaganda, attempted to gain control of this essential government function that President Lincoln called "the Government's greatest creative opportunity" [5]:
"The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of the consumers. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government's greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles ... the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity."
Therefore, it is all the more perplexing – given such profound intellectualism and advocacy for decentralized self-sufficiency on the one hand in the Austrian School of Economics, and such a rich historical legacy of resistance against private central banks controlling a nation's money supply on the other – why the return to Gold Standard is being so 'religiously' advocated by Ron Paul and the Mises Institute which only helps fatten the same "moneychangers"!
The Gold Standard is being projected by the reformers as the sine qua non of monetary reform to get the United States, and the world, out of its misery of debt burden and the imminent danger of financial collapse. It is surely well understood by Ron Paul, given that he talks about it a lot, that the collapse would be the pretext to create from its ashes, the pre-planned supra-national state of the North American Union, and a new currency called Amero. He also well understands the agenda for a centralized world government to be controlled by a cartel of private international central banks as the top of the ruling pyramid. Such an agenda is already being pursued at an accelerated pace, and the import of time-criticalness of any effective resistance to avert such an outcome that ends the sovereignty of nation-states is surely not lost on Ron Paul. Therefore, the inability to quickly comprehend the incongruence of this path of the Gold Standard with respect to their own aims seem rather Kafkaesque. Is this really rocket science that an ordinary person cannot think it through? Not according to Ludwig von Mises:
"Economics deals with society's fundamental problems; it concerns everyone and belongs to all. It is the main and proper study of every citizen."
The Gold Standard advocates seem to think that gold will magically materialize, in great abundance, in the Fort Knox secure vaults of the United States as a public property in trust. While a pocket full of gold and silver coins can be made laudable work-horses for local trade as local currency – with perhaps a defined conversion-rate to national-currency – it does not work as a national currency in modernity. This analysis explains why. Gold's ability to insure against inflation, as well as against the inflation-tax when it is a fully-backed reserve rather than a fractional reserve, is a cleverly planted red herring. Or so it would appear, given the impracticalities of creating fairness between the wealthy asset holders who own a large stock of hard assets, and real producers who are often without such hard property assets, and mainly have the sweat of their brow, the creativity of their intellect, or the courage of their arms, as their main production asset and which remains unprotected by such protection mechanisms of the wealthy. The unexamined axiom itself, that guarding against inflation must be the paramount factor to optimize, and all other factors need to be subservient to this one dominant factor in the design of a rational and fair monetary system, needs detailed scrutiny. That axiom is not scrutinized here, but several preliminary arguments can be made to show that the axiom itself may be mis-constructed based on assumptions made, or imperatives defined, by powerful landed wealth owners.
In addition, as in any system design, whatever be its level of abstraction, there are always pragmatic tradeoffs. When one balances the entire system and looks at all the pros and cons of every aspect of any precious limited commodity based standard for a monetary system, the directions in which to make reasonable and rational tradeoffs to construct a well balanced system in the best public interest, with a rational operating envelop that is resilient to economic upheavals, become all the more clear. Only 'religion' may define absolutes without trade-off. Mercifully, heaven did not stipulate a specific monetary system, but only outlined its first-principle: don't transact in interest! A hundred viable systems can be architected with that quality. Jesus banished the "moneychangers" from the Temple in Jerusalem due to their fleecing their flock. He did not stipulate which exclusive money system to use, only what not to do. The needs of the people, and the times, determine what system to use. And William Jennings Bryan articulated that very need of the majority "man is small, and, therefore, small is beautiful" laboring man – which remains the same today – when he passionately orated at the 1896 Democratic National Convention:
"Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."
The preliminary analysis presented here is applicable, as first-principles, for any precious limited commodity-backed monetary standard. There is strong motivation brewing among many a 'malcontent' to take the power of coining money 'out of thin air' away from the Federal Reserve System, and to move the United States away from 'money as public debt' Hamiltonian principle. For background reading, please see the bibliographic recommendation at the end, and the afore-cited books.
The Hamiltonian principle: "The United States debt, foreign and domestic, was the price of liberty.", in action in the Bureau of the Public Debt of the US Department of Treasury: "Our job is to borrow the money needed to operate the federal government and to account for the resulting debt." (image source)
And it would be entirely appropriate to begin with these most eloquent words, as they precisely capture the raison d'être of Project Humanbeingsfirst's motto: "The Plebeian Antidote To Hectoring Hegemons":
"I would be presumptuous, indeed, to present myself against the distinguished gentlemen to whom you have listened if this were but a measuring of ability; but this is not a contest among persons. The humblest citizen in all the land when clad in the armor of a righteous cause is stronger than all the whole hosts of error that they can bring. ... I shall object to bringing this question down to a level of persons. The individual is but an atom; he is born, he acts, he dies; but principles are eternal; and this has been a contest of principle." (Ibid.)
The first-principle concerns with any precious commodity based monetary standard, are three:
1) Gold is precious, therefore, by definition, it is limited; hence again by definition, someone has a monopoly over it. Acquiring it in sufficient quantity ab initio requires a priori assets that must be exchanged that is valuable to those who have this monopoly. For a State, this means hawking one's independence to the precious commodity supplier in perpetuity each time it wishes to expand its money supply beyond the reserves. Unless of course, by fiat, the State is able to confiscate that precious commodity in the name of national security or national interest.
2) Because the commodity is precious and limited – and even if initially acquired by whatever bootstrapping means to launch the standard, including hawking national sovereignty to bankers and institutional investors who already own a lot of gold, or confiscating gold from the public as was done by Roosevelt in 1934 – Gold cannot be used to arbitrarily expand the money supply which it backs, in order to create extremely large infusions of cash.
In post-agrarian and fully industrialized societies – such as the G-7 Western nations – setting up capital intensive mega-industries and mega-factories, and undertaking mega-infrastructure national projects, can take billions of dollars. Even for developing nations where development cost is invariably of the same order of magnitude as the West for similar projects, if a nation does not have the equivalent amount of the precious commodity fully backing its currency, she must either make recourse to fractional-reserve banking away from the full-reserve banking just by the practicalities of the matter, and therefore, incur its concomitant baggage of inflationary-tax once again. Or the poorer nations must put automatic and entirely artificial breaks on their national growth and national wealth creation, or otherwise become borrowers again to the same cartel of banksters! Unless of course one discovers an endless monopolistic benevolent supplier, like god planting it in one's backyard and giving one enough smarts and courage to not lease it out to snake-oil salesmen who will invariably come calling on F-16s spreading the black-ops cheer blithely claiming "Hegemony is as old as mankind"!
Both factors 1) and 2) are a major problem for any nation adopting a limited precious commodity as a standard. But it is an even greater problem if it is forcibly created as an International standard. Then it is especially an unfair standard imposed upon disadvantaged nations who do not have that commodity in abundance, just as it is an unfair advantage for those rich nations who do have an abundance of such commodity, or can acquire it.
Based on those two first-principles, I do not like any "precious commodity" based standard that is by definition, limited. Which brings us to the third first-principle:
3) If it is not the limitedness of such a commodity, but its abundance, and its equitable distribution among all nations can be ensured, then I have no problem whatsoever with such a commodity backed national or International monetary standard.
Since fairness, and not 'might makes right', is the quintessential first-principle touchstone axiom of any rational analysis, Congressman Ron Paul's Gold penchant suffers from both factors 1) and 2). And it also does not have 3) as a mitigating characteristic. If a touchstone other than fairness is employed, such as how to fatten the gluttonous appetite of banksters, then surely the Gold Standard is a great plan-B in case the private central banks fiat money monopoly becomes too onerous for the sensibilities of the debt-laden strangulated public.
Apart from these three first-principle factors, the many theoretical advantages of a commodity based standard, as noted by Ron Paul, seem plausible. Specifically, a fully backed commodity based standard does not create an inflationary-tax upon the public when money supply is expanded within its fully-backed reserve limit. Beyond its reserve limit, fractional reserve mechanics kick-in to artificially inflate the money-supply which inherently creates the inflationary-tax. If one does not exceed the backing limit, money retains its value over long periods of time so long as the backing commodity retains its value. However, this necessitates the commodity be artificially protected from market capitalism, and its price not allowed to be subjected to market forces in order to retain its stability as a reliable and credible backing standard. The irony of protectionism being made the foundation of 'free-market capitalism' is surely lost to its enthusiastic advocates. But that's merely only of theoretical interest to purists, and of no practical significance to reality, since genuine free market capitalism also only exists in text books. No nation can survive its implementation, least of all, the developing and poor nations rich in natural resources surrounded by global predators forcing 'free-trade' down their throats to create banana republics for careful harvesting.
This price-fixing of gold bullion was the protectionist outcome of the Gold Equivalence Standard which President Roosevelt ushered into law in 1934, and which remained in force until 1971 when President Nixon abolished it. The Gold Equivalence Standard (GES) was not a fully backed standard, but a fractional reserve standard, and when other nations and institutional-agents demanded their gold in exchange for the dollar bill, the United States risked failure to deliver as its gold bullion reserves were not sufficient. It was the same principle as any vanilla run on banks by consumers when the banks' liquidity come into question. The GES was unilaterally abolished by the United States for fear of default when the gold reserves fell dangerously low when I believe France made its demand for gold.
In this GES, gold bullion that comprised it, was priced outside the pale of market forces, at a fixed value of about $35 an ounce. But more disturbingly, all gold from the American public was forcibly confiscated in 1934. The public was given approx. $18 an ounce for their life's savings, with the price being immediately revised upwards to almost twice that as the stable value of the new backing standard. This protectionist value of gold bullion was used in International money-supply transactions of the dollar which was setup as the default reserve currency of the world at Bretton Woods Conference post World War II, based on the currency of the unparalleled economic and military power of its main victor. Whereas the price of actual gold continually fluctuated on the open market across the world. Ownership of gold was also made illegal for American citizens (except for numismatists and jewelers). So large institutional multinational investors and banksters with foreign affiliations could easily purchase the gold bullion from the US Treasury in foreign names, but not United States citizens. All of American public's gold was thus made out as a gratuitous gift to the banksters by the fiat of a simple executive signature by President Roosevelt. His New Deal ushered in massive deficit spending of paper money. In his three terms in office he outspent all his predecessors combined.
There is no a priori reason to believe that the future of any new proposed Gold Standard to orchestrate another 'New Deal' – as the remedy for the next Great Depression which is already upon the world's doorsteps – does not already have a precedent-setting paved super highway to travel on. The banksters I am sure are massaging both their gullet and their stomach with joyous glee as plan-B is eagerly put before them as the public's own 'desired solution' for the economic and financial crises of the banksters' own crafty manufacturing!
Since neither Congressman Ron Paul, nor does any other establishmentarian or contrarian exponent of the Gold Standard, address either 1) or 2), nor does anyone stipulate 3) as a mitigation, that is the Achilles heel of the Gold Standard mantra. Mises Institute is victim of the same considerations.
As the banksters already have a monopoly on Gold – or can soon monopolize it because they can create, by fiat, all the cash they need simply out of thin air to purchase what they don't already own – the Honorable Republican Congressman from Texas, in his well meaning enthusiasm, but also his apparent profound inability to clearly think matters through down to their core axioms (see "Open Letter to Hon. Ron Paul Supporters October 29, 2008"), makes a great patsy in their globalist conniving hands as the plan-B enabler already in-place in Congress!
If the above three factors can be satisfactorily addressed, along with practicable implementation modalities which do not impose a draconian burden upon the public as was imposed by President Roosevelt in 1934, then there is nothing inherently wrong with the Gold Standard. Clearly, that is merely a tautological statement since those very innate characteristics of Gold as a limited and precious commodity, and its hoarding in monopolistic hands, is what's wrong with the Gold Standard.
The 5 initial touchstone questions laid out in "Towards a Common Standard Benchmark for evaluating all Monetary Reform Proposals" [7] are reproduced below in context of Ron Paul's advocacy. All Gold Standard exponents must reply to all of these questions satisfactorily – before one can be sure of their proposals which are almost always couched in propagandistic sloganeering, syntactic sugaring over poison pills, prancing around with erudite gibberish to skirt the core issues, and of course outright bs.
a: Central Banking in private hands charges the public perpetual compound-interest for the public's own money. Nationalizing the money creation function solves this problem of 'money as public debt'.
Ron Paul's Gold Standard proposal, as did President Lincoln's Greenback fiat money, evidently addresses this, by eliminating all interest on the creation of money.
b: Private Central Bank is a legalized monopoly behavior that permits private banks to collude legally for 'price-fixing' the interest-rate. Thus it helps create the business cycle of expanding and contracting credit by modulating its availability in legal collusion – what I call the 'business rape cycle'. Bankers profit from this by buying up those businesses who can't cut it, pennies to the dollar during the bust periods which dutifully follow upon the heels of boom financing periods.
Nationalizing this function, by having the government manage the availability of credit, what Thomas Edison called "the proper ratio" for money supply – not too much to prevent wild speculation, and not too little to prevent stagnation – goes to a large extent in managing this 'price-fixing' of interest-rate and availability of credit in the greater common good of the public, rather than the banking cartel's now represented by the Federal Reserve System. But government management does not entirely eliminate this aspect – because the private banks can still secretly collude in managing credit availability as they have always done, since they have the same powerful handful of owners at the top!
How does Ron Paul address "the proper ratio" [8] and its implementation for managing the money supply?
c: A Central Bank's arbitrary money creation by fiat – whether the CB is public or private doesn't matter, and which is what Greenbacks were – creates an inflationary tax. Nothing new here.
There is no inflationary-tax in a fully backed Gold Standard as proposed by Ron Paul.
This tax will inevitably exist however, by definition, if the GS mutates into a fractional GES and the money supply exceeds the backing gold reserves.
This will happen by default as a matter of practicality, because supply of gold will always be limited in relation to the demand for capital in modern industrialized nations. Therefore, a full proposal needs to be made by the Gold Standard advocates which can be scrutinized in the light of these real-world constraints. Perhaps this is why not a single advocate of the GS fully addresses this specific point. Nor do they conveniently address where the Gold will come from to create the International reserves for such a global world currency, and nor do they ever focus their pious platitudes on the very real issues outlined in 1), 2), and 3) in the analysis of the Gold Standard above. At least, I have not encountered it as of this writing. I am sure these must have been sorted out in some super-classified documents at bis.org, or present in the underground vaults of their execution arm at the World Bank and IMF who will arguably field such global currency as the buck is passed, in the name of reform, from the Federal Reserve Bank to their international global money lender fraternity. See the next item.
d: In modern industrialized societies where the demand for capital can be enormous, far more than was prevalent in agrarian or early-developing industrialized societies, as Richard Cook, the former U.S. Treasury Department employee and now a monetary reformer, argues, how can this natural inflationary tax be avoided in such a fiat money system? In the time of the Greenbacks during the Civil War, while Lincoln printed around 400 million dollars, or some say 500, that is nothing compared to what is needed today in the capital intensive public and private mega-projects. For instance, simply to set up a class-1 semiconductor fab takes a billion+ dollars.
How does Ron Paul's Gold Standard address this large demand for mega-capital that would not also pose an inflationary tax? Where does Ron Paul propose to get all this gold from to fully back his currency? As he has himself noted, he was the member of the Gold Commission in the 1980s, and he could not even at that time say how much of the American public's gold was left in the secure vaults of Fort Knox – the speculation being that whatever remained after Nixon abandoned the GES in 1971, was subsequently sold off to private institutional investors by the United States Treasury, and only empty vaults today are being guarded in great pretense to hide the legal heist of what most might believe was a national asset. So many questions – and no answers by the Gold advocates. Who designs a system, or advocates it, under such conditions of ambiguous and incomplete comprehension? Perhaps there is indeed a secret plan to restock Fort Knox to the ceiling with lead-gold? If that's the case, do make sure there is a bathtub handy and every shiny gold brick first takes a dip in it, with someone reliable present to record each result!
e: Banking itself, indeed, all of International banking, is based on fractional reserve lending. This is the real source of any banker's continuous and perpetual wealth creation, and hence the source of their unmatched and unrivaled power.
Ron Paul's Gold Standard is fully backed at the time of money creation as a national public commons.
However, it is not clear how he addresses fractional lending at the institutional banking level as individual loans and deposits are made by borrowers.
Can Ron Paul show a practicable method, and not merely in platitudes, whereby the private capitalist banks of the world – owned by powerful trillionaires who also own the majority of lawmakers of the world not to mention in the United States Congress as just witnessed by the passage of the trillion dollar banksters bailout bill in October 2008 despite all the public opposition – can be made to agree to have a fractional reserve lending ratio of 1?
The entrenched forces of private banking are pulling in the opposite direction – towards global private central banking in a world government. How does Congressman Ron Paul along with his Gold Standard buddies plan to counter that powerful force in any efficacious measure?
The solution to the How Problem – for, the rest, is mere talk, mere rehashing of knowledge that is as old as hegemony, as old as mankind. [9]
There is clearly something awry when the World Bank itself proposes the Gold Standard as a barometer of the public mind through its official mouthpiece in sympathy with Ron Paul. The self-explanatory Reuter's headline of November 08, 2010 reads: World Bank chief surprises with gold standard idea (cached PDF).
[1] Ron Paul, The Revolution – A Manifesto, April 2008, First Edition, Grand Central Publishing.
[2] G. Edward Griffin, The Creature from Jekyll Island – A Second Look at the Federal Reserve, June 2002, 4th edition, American Media, book https://web.archive.org/web/20090202201212/http://realityzone.com/crfrjeiss.html
Audio-only of talk after the book's release, November 18, 1994 in Los Angeles CA, 71 minutes
Video interview which explains the Fed, 'What is the Federal Reserve System', 42 minutes
[3] William Jennings Bryan, July 9, 1896, Speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5354/
[4] Andrew Jackson, cited in The Money Masters – How International Bankers Gained Control of America, 215 minutes, http://www.themoneymasters.com/the-money-masters/
[5] Abraham Lincoln, Ibid.
[6] The entrenched notion of Public Debt in America – will take a gestalt shift to overcome! A seeding–prose for Collaboration, http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/10/monetary-reform-seeding-prose.html
Also see bibliography of this author's work on analyzing the monetary reform agenda in Re-visiting Money as Debt and Monetary Reform: The Secret of Oz, https://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2010/10/re-visiting-money-as-debt-and-oz.html
[7] Towards a Common Standard Benchmark for evaluating all Monetary Reform Proposals, http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/11/common-monetary-reform-benchmark.html
Questions initially framed to respond to Ellen Hodgson Brown, before having acquired her thick book 'Web of Debt', Second Edition, February 2008, for her monetary proposal: Return To The Greenback Dollar, https://web.archive.org/web/20090207235200/http://webofdebt.wordpress.com/monetary-proposal/
Also see inexplicable statements by Ellen Brown to this author: "Of course the oligarchy is the problem, but that doesn't mean we can't steer the Fed. Bernanke drives a Ford Falcon. I think he's one of us!", and "the U.S. is the last holdout, and the Fed is what's holding us out. Bernanke is standing up to the Gnomes of Zurich and Basel", in: Does Ellen Brown secretly work for the FED? January 10, 2011, http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2011/01/does-ellenbrown-secretly-work-for-feds.html
[8] For Reference to Thomas Edison's wisdom on monetary system, see its coverage in the NYT of December 6, 1921, Headlined: "FORD SEES WEALTH IN MUSCLE SHOALS; Says Development Will Bring Great Prosperity to That Section of the South. EDISON BACKS HIM UP He Will Urge Congress to Lease It to Ford as the Logical Man to Carry Out Great Project. SUPPORTS CURRENCY PLAN Old Way, He Asserts, Compels Us to Add to the Public Debt to Increase the National Wealth.", http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C04E0D7103EEE3ABC4E53DFB467838A639EDE
[9] For an appreciation of pragmatic difficulties and time-criticalness of the matter, please see:
[a] Monetary Reform: Who will bell the cat?, http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/10/monetary-reform-who-will-bell-thecat.html ;
[b] The Missing Link of Monetary Reform: How?, http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2009/09/response-ami-monetary-reform-conf.html
[a] Monetary Reform: Who will bell the cat?, http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/10/monetary-reform-who-will-bell-thecat.html ;
[b] The Missing Link of Monetary Reform: How?, http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2009/09/response-ami-monetary-reform-conf.html
[11] http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/11/monetary-conspiracy-world-government.html#Tobin
Addendum: News Epilogue
G7 sets sights on 'new world economic order', Roland Lloyd Parry, Agence France-Presse, Saturday, February 14 2009, 11:36 am ET
'ROME (AFP) – The world's richest nations called Saturday for urgent reform of global finance to save the world from the economic devastation that is dragging more and more countries into recession. Italy's Finance Minister called for a "new world economic order" as he wrapped up the crisis meeting of finance leaders from the Group of Seven leading economies over which he presided here. In a joint declaration, the G7 called for "urgent reforms" of the international financial system. ... "A new world economic order might seem rhetorical," he told reporters. "But it is a true goal we should be aiming towards... today right here in Rome we've embarked on a very significant journey, both technical and ethical." ... The global crisis "has highlighted fundamental weaknesses in the international financial system and that urgent reforms are needed," the statement said. US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner vowed that his country, the biggest economy in the world and the source of much of the financial drama in recent months, would work with other nations for a consensus on reforms. "We need to begin the process of comprehensive reform of our financial system and the international financial system, so the world never again faces a crisis this severe," Geithner said after the talks. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- the body coming to the rescue of some crisis-hit countries -- said restructuring banks damaged by the credit crunch was the main problem facing governments. ... The document hailed stimulus actions taken by other countries, singling out China which it also praised for its "continued commitment to move to a more flexible exchange rate." ' [1]
The New World Economic Order as the fundamental building block of a despotic world government is really pretty much a fait accompli. Being an ostrich doesn't really serve any function because arsonists have taken over all the fire brigades in town, and in every town and city. The hyperinflation of the dollar is an irreversible done deal. The following Glenn Beck video [2] from FOX News graphically shows the official United States debt, which is the same as the amount of U.S. currency in existence. See it by each decade from 1900 to 2006 in Van K. Tharp. [3]
This isn't even the tip of the iceberg however of what has deliberately been orchestrated by the financial houses in New York. The quadrillion+ dollar (1000 trillion dollars) derivatives paper-debt that nobody can exactly quantify nor fully comprehend – a mirage, a contrived and manufactured financial gibberish paper con-game calculatingly instrumented by the very arsonists who are now clamoring to lead the fire-brigade to save the world – is what is being referred to here: "We need to begin the process of comprehensive reform of our financial system and the international financial system, so the world never again faces a crisis this severe". And their solution is: "A new world economic order".
Meanwhile, the arsonists are crashing the dollar in the guise of fighting that lighted fire by the various open-ended deficit spending Bills in trillions, as the new mantra of "stimulus". This includes payout of billions for overpriced bank bailouts – up to 10 and 20 times the asset value – in the name of shoring up the equity side of the equation since, as the financiers argue, nothing may now be done about the astronomical liability side of the equation incurred by the derivatives bubble. How convenient! See The Bank Swindle in Perspective [4] in order to appreciate the complex looting of the public treasury in legal guise, sanctioned by the mighty United States Congress, and then forced across the world as the only solution to the financial crisis. To acutely comprehend why the "stimulus" is just another mantra, a Rand/CFR joint production like the "WMD in Iraq" and "Al Qaeeda" mantras, see "Mr. Obama's New Deal". [5] As Captain Rhett Butler had shrewdly observed in Margaret Mitchell's famous novel:
"Oh, yes! What most people don't seem to realize is that there is just as much money to be made out of the wreckage of a civilization as from the upbuilding of one." -- Gone With The Wind
Soon the arsonists will go back to Congress and lament: 'oops!, the stimulus didn't work; sorry, the dollar is now worthless, we are in the middle of the worst depression known to mankind, there are riots everywhere, food shortages everywhere, global warming is gonna cause floods, Osama bin Laden has unleashed a bio-terror nuclear attack; so we need to create a new economic union, a new full spectrum mutual defense union, and a new world order Constitution for the American continent to protect our peoples and address the global threats'.
That baby-step solution for the collapsed dollar will be the North American Union under a common central bank. It has been under subversive instrumentation as part of the Trilateralists' agenda for as long as the European Union, and will be just as rapidly deployed with an iron fist despite similar popular public opposition, because, "World government could only be kept in being by force". Understand Glenn Beck's and Bill O'Reilly's mocking-chutzpah and facile double entendres displayed in the video clip in "Why Not Be An Ostrich". [6]
And the most fruitful realization of Captain Rhett Butler's swashbuckling truism is yet to come, the profiting "from the upbuilding" of civilization: the new Gold Standard which will be pitched with Congressman Ron Paul's help as the panacea demanded by the peoples. Since all the world's gold bullion supply, and the world's gold mines, are already under monopoly control of the same arsonists, no problem.
In the New Economic World Order, with global central banks – themselves controlled from behind the scenes by the same handful of private family banks owned by the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers – managing the world's merged global monetary system as well as all the world's political governments in a global governance architecture, it won't be a problem returning to the Gold Standard.
All the fine gold will have to be purchased from the same private international banksters in order to back the trillions in new common currency issued for transacting the entire world's commerce. How convenient once again!
The new monetary system will be happily made inflation averse amidst cheers from the foolish goyem of the world. The new gold based standard after all, does have to protect the enormous wealth of the private banksters from inflationary-erosion in a largely serf-world of the New World Order, wherein, the only real asset owners are the banks. The new financial empire also has to be stable enough to last a millennium! Can't have inflation eroding away all its loot as it did moms and pops meager assets and life savings in the twentieth century. Why indeed the Gold Standard will now make perfect sense for the banksters and the handful of real wealth owners of the world, was so passionately explained over a hundred years ago by William Jennings Bryan, [7] that it is best refreshed in the goy's mind directly from the horse's mouth. The contorted dialectical brilliance of the devilish banksters is truly unsurpassed!
When my friends routinely inform me in pious excuse for their own voluntary servitude: "god is running the world", and I retort back: "seems like it's the devil who is", they think I am heretical. I say, poor poor god, the most blamed scapegoat ever! And what an amazing coup d'état of the devil: it puts mankind in eternal bondage in every new generation, and calmly cements the voluntary servitude of its hope-dwellers with fantastic divine dogmas of karma, fate, destiny, and prophecy! None rise too frequently to overthrow the tyrants! But sometimes, they do!
The solution to the international banksters 'servicing' their 'dumb goy' is so straightforward even today that if any political leaders really wanted to take genuine salvaging action – if the fire brigades across the world weren't already staffed with arsonists – they could so trivially do it with a mere signature that there will be no further updates to the Monetary Reform Bibliography.
It now appears rather pointless to repeatedly flog a dead horse with each new proclamation from the pulpits and the ditches. Many a 'psychohistorian' has already foreseen the not so un-subtle future and already laid it all out. Instead, perhaps it is time to dust out Henry David Thoreau and nail the only dreaded wrinkle in the final 'Hari Seldon' plan for a millenium of servitude.
Addendum Footnotes
[1] http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090214/bs_afp/financeeconomyg7 Also see: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/G7_sets_sights_on_new_world_0214.html
[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DPfKxOQGHU
[3] Van K. Tharp, 2006, Pg. 158, Figure 6.1 http://books.google.com/books?id=Q6XnsJRb7QwC&pg=PA158&lpg=PA157&ots=T60ZNJrqry
[4] https://web.archive.org/web/20090220044014/http://www.chartingstocks.net/2009/02/the-bank-swindle-putting-it-in-perspective/
Source URL: http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-gold-standard-boondoggle-revisited.html
Source PDF: https://sites.google.com/site/humanbeingsfirst/download-pdf/the-gold-standard-boondoggle-revisited-by-zahirebrahim.pdf
Original Source URL: http://humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/11/monetary-reform-firstlook-gold-standard.html
Original Print URL: http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/11/monetary-reform-firstlook-gold-standard.html
Addendum News Epilogue Source URL: http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/10/monetary-reform-bibliography.html#News-Epilogue
First Look first published November 13, 2008 | Boondoggle Revisited published March 26, 2013
Links fixed, Addendum from First Look 2008 added to sync the two on August 25, 2016 7686
Open letter to public's experts added as prologue Wednesday, September 28, 2016 06:00 am 8684
The Gold Standard Boondoggle Revisited by Zahir Ebrahim 22/22


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Diseñadores de todas las partes del mundo están proponiendo diseños creativos a sunnyJ en la categoría de diseño logotipo - custom.
we require a logo and stationery for this online youth network. i am 23 and trying to set up an innovative space for young people who are socially minded. i want a logo and with that stationery set that show this new network...
http://www.GlobalYouthFutures.org Global Youth Futures
Connect Collaborate Create
Desired Color Scheme:
Anything that looks good!
Desired Style:
Neat not busy
Accepted File Formats:
.psd or .ai
i would prefer that this be neat and smallish with fresh colour that stands out... i want it to say what we stand for in innovation, creation, inspiration and action! its about changing the world whilst having fun, so i need these to reflect that! its new and creative and spanning cultures and languages, hope thats not too much to ask for in an image...
This contest was originally listed in multiple categories:
- Logo Design
- Stationery Design
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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For over a hundred years, photographers have been using Leica cameras to capture special moments all over the world. Some of these remain timeless artefacts.
How does an image become an icon? It is the aim of the Leica Akademie and its students to explore this art in detail, to scrutinize it technically and to decipher what gives a picture allure, as well as to have fun and experience the joy of good photography. This wasn't always the case. Leica's focus, in 1930s Germany, was initially on science, research, and documentation.
The Leica Akademie has a long tradition of training photographers.
For almost ninety years, this oldest and most renowned of all modern photography schools has been guiding ambitious photographers on the path to achieving the very best pictures.
The Leica Akademie's origins hark back to the year 1930, when the "Lehr-Atelier Wetzlar" teaching studio became the basis for training courses at the Leitz factory in Wetzlar. Two darkrooms and a daylight room quickly became insufficient for demand. When the "Leica Schule" was then founded in 1938, it was given an entire floor of the building.
Classes filled up quickly right from the beginning. Their main focus, however, was on the application of the technology for physicians, scientists, and criminologists.
Activities at the Leica Schule were interrupted by the Second World War. As early as 1945, however, it began to offer photography courses for American soldiers stationed in Germany, under the name "Leica School". During the course of the German reconstruction, the founders of the former Leica Studio began to expand its educational services with the establishment of "Leica Technik" alongside "Leica School", both open to national and international Leica dealers as well as to aspiring amateur photographers. Course offerings have expanded considerably since the 1970s. Customers are now given the opportunity to perfect their skills with the use of Leica products under the expert guidance of professionals in courses for portrait photography, flash photography, and image design.
The Leica School was renamed the Leica Akademie in 1988, a logical consequence of the school's growing aspirations.
As was the relocation, in 1990, to new its premises in the Leica Camera GmbH headquarters in Solms, where training has now taken on an even greater international dimension. Photo dealers come to Solms from all over the world in order to refresh their knowledge and become acquainted with new products. The seminars are supplemented by photo excursions, as a considerable part of the program is also aimed at Leica buyers. Demand for the seminars was so great that they were often sold out just two days after they were announced. Hence, the team, workshops, and photo excursions continue to be expanded.
User training courses are now to be held separately from worldwide photo trade events. Satellite facilities have been established in Upper Bavaria, Zingst on the Baltic Sea, and Dachstein in Austria, in order to spare many Leica customers the long trip to Solms, and where regular workshops are offered under the guidance of renowned photographers and with the competent assistance of a local professional. The program in Germany is continually growing, with for example the annual "Leica Akademie Erlebnistag" for photo enthusiasts in Wetzlar, slide and projector presentations, high-quality photo exhibitions resulting from the workshops and excursions, the Leica Akademie's lab service for black and white photography, and much more. The Leica Akademie has undertaken successful international expansion over the last decade to meet growing demand from abroad.
Leica Akademie Worldwide carries the fascination of Leica around the globe, offering premium workshops in cities in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Whether you're an experienced Leica photographer or a novice, there is no better way to learn more about Leica than through the Leica Akademie and the comprehensive program it offers throughout the entire year. There is, however, one place where you can experience the Leica legend like nowhere else on earth: the Leica Experience Center in Wetzlar, known as the optics city , where the international slogan "made in Germany" was born 100 years ago with the manufacture of optics. At the new Leica headquarters in Wetzlar you'll find an exclusive program of events similar to that offered by the Leica Akademie. Here, however, you have the exclusive opportunity to immerse yourself in the past and present of Leica in the state-of-the-art Experience Center. Take a journey through time through milestones of Leica product development, rare models and collector's items, historic cameras, lenses, and binoculars.
The entire Leica expertise is thus passed on to a new generation of photographs, to help emerging new talent of the next 100 years to capture their special moments. And to allow us a moment of fascination and reverence.


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Hi. We are a design/style LA based company specializing in mixing eclectic styles on moderate budgets. Also we have a strange amount of fun blogging about all our design and style adventures. Right now I'm happy to say that I'm Target's home spokesperson, bringing accessible/stylish design to the masses.
Click through to see recent press articles that feature and highlight Emily's work
For all blog partnership and sponsor requests, please contact Caitlin at
For all general inquires, product reviews, and gifting please contact us at
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For TV appearances contact Benjamin Simone
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It's an 'Ask the Audience' day, except less about trim colors and more about the fate of our country and all our children. Waking up this morning was pretty horrifying for many of us. And staring at two tiny children who want to build rockets out of legos with their mama and dada for two… Read More …


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Canon EOS 5DS User Manual
document was written in English and published by the official Canon brand in PDF (Portable Document Format) file. We provide the user manual that you can view or download free from here. Canon EOS 5DS User Manual is a helpful information for the user, such as how to use, the guide to maintenance, device accessories, warranty information, prevent the damage and even repairment for the device. The user manual is free to download although you lost the product box. The document is available below, but if the preview didn't load correctly due to error or region limitations, we strongly recommended to click pop-out button and download instead.
Please keep in mind that we only provide Canon EOS 5DS User Manual from third-party original sources. We have no permissions to change or modify the file and all responsibilities belong to host. Some user manual might contain a serial number of the product that almost certainly not same with your own. Please contact the Canon customer service for further information that not shows in the user manual.
The user manual or also known as the manual book is a simple book made by electronic manufacture which bundled with original product in order to help using the product. It usually contains useful guide or assistance to people using a particular product. Every user manual designed to be clear and simplified visual that intended easy to understand for most people. Unfortunately, the most of consumer are throwing away the box including the user manual book because think it wasn't really necessary and the device would be fine or some others lost it somewhere. In the different case, the user manual might help for the consumer before decide to buy the product. That's why we keep distributing PDF version of the user manual to help.
If the Canon EOS 5DS User Manual wasn't what you have really wanted, go to the Request Manual page or search through header page. You also free to download the document in PDF format.


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Jonathan Schoop was hanging out at his locker Wednesday afternoon when Orioles manager Buck Showalter, who had been talking with shortstop J.J. Hardy nearby, pointed to Schoop and said, "You and J.J. today."
"That's when I knew I was going to play second and he was playing shortstop," Schoop said. "My heart started beating a little bit."
The 21-year-old Schoop, the organization's top position prospect, has been with the Orioles since being recalled from Triple-A Norfolk on Sept. 3. But he hadn't yet appeared in a game.
With the Orioles officially eliminated from playoff contention on Tuesday, Schoop was in the lineup Wednesday, batting eighth and playing second base in his major league debut. He singled up the middle on the second pitch he saw from Toronto right-hander Esmil Rogers in the third inning.
He later scored the first run of his career on Ryan Flaherty's homer and in the sixth inning added a home run of his own.
"I've waited for a while and I am excited. I'm excited to step on the field and play," Schoop said before the game. "It's been a long time I've worked for this moment, and it feels good."
If the Orioles do not re-sign second baseman Brian Roberts, a free agent at season's end, Schoop would be considered a candidate to be the club's starter in 2014. Showalter wanted the Curacao native to be with the team this year and experience how things worked at the major league level, even if he didn't play this September. Showalter liked what he saw.
"He's been very good at watching, alert, he's seen every pitch. One thing about Jonathan, Jonathan loves baseball. He's engaged, you look for that a lot with young players," Showalter said. "Doesn't take himself too seriously, but he's also serious about the right things, maybe to a fault. He wants to be a contributor up here at some point in his career."
Schoop, who hit .256 with nine homers and 34 RBI in 70 games with Norfolk, said he believes his time on the big league bench this month was invaluable.
"It was a good experience. I was learning a lot, being here is a big thing," Schoop said. "Some guys, they tell you what's going on in the big leagues, but if you are here, you know. You see it."
Jones sits for first time in exactly two years
Adam Jones was not in Wednesday's starting lineup, the first time he has not started a game in exactly two years. The last time was Sept. 25, 2011 — a streak of 322 consecutive games.
"I want to play every day. That's why I signed up to play," Jones said. "OK, I get a day off. I probably have been playing like I need a day off. The manager knows best. I never question what Showalter does."
Jones has hit just .228 with a .294 on-base percentage this month and has been dealing with myriad bumps and bruises. Showalter said he sat Jones for "both" mental and physical reasons — but it had nothing to with halting Jones' streak before it gets unmanageable.
"It's got nothing to do with trying to stop something before it gets out of control or whatever," Showalter said. "For me, it's kind of a tough love. Nobody likes writing a lineup out without Adam Jones in it. It's one of those things you don't miss 'til it's gone."
Jones — usually joking — has often talked about how he would like to make a run at Cal Ripken Jr.'s major league-best streak of 2,632 consecutive games played. He's only about 14-plus seasons away.
"Yeah Cal's record is still on lock right now," Jones said. "I wanna approach that. It's such an impressive streak. But I need a day, man."
Pridie gets call
Because the Orioles wanted to give Jones a rest and Chris Dickerson is dealing with a right hamstring strain that required an MRI on Wednesday, the club decided to select the contract of 29-year-old outfielder Jason Pridie.
Pridie, who was immediately inserted into the club's starting lineup Wednesday despite not getting to the ballpark until around 5 p.m., hit .269 with 15 homers in 118 games with Norfolk. He grounded out in his first at-bat as an Oriole.
Showalter said the club had considered adding Pridie, a favorite of Norfolk manager Ron Johnson, throughout the year, but he never fit exactly what the roster needed at the time.
"Ronny said he was one of, if not his best, everyday player," Showalter said. "He just never fit the whole season, but he was close quite a few times."
To make room for Pridie on the 40-man roster, the Orioles placed Manny Machado, who tore the medial patellofemoral ligament in his left knee Monday, on the 60-day disabled list.
Around the horn
Baltimore native Steve Clevenger (Mount St. Joseph's) made his first home start behind the plate for the Orioles on Wednesday. He said before the game he called his mother to tell her he was starting at Camden Yards and, "I'm sure she'll spread the word." … Showalter said he hasn't decided whether Chris Tillman, who set a career high with 201 1/3 innings pitched this year, will make Sunday's start or whether the club will shut down the 25-year-old. ... If Tillman doesn't pitch Sunday, the start won't go to lefty Tsuyoshi Wada. Showalter said he doesn't expect Wada to be recalled. … Lefty T.J. McFarland is leaving Thursday morning to deal with a family issue in Chicago, but should be back by game time Thursday evening.


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Error AP203 occurs when you launch Forza Motorsport 6: Apex
You get the following error code when you try to launch Forza Motorsport 6: Apex:
This means that Forza Motorsport 6: Apex has detected an unsupported graphics processing unit (GPU). A GPU with resource Binding Tier 2 is required to run this game. Some older cards may support DirectX 12 but not the features required to run this title.
To resolve this issue, you'll need to upgrade your GPU card. To check what kind of card you have, follow these steps:
- Go to Start, select Settings, and then select System.
- On the Display tab, scroll to the bottom and select Advanced display settings.
- Scroll to the bottom and select Display adapter properties. The "Adapter Type" will display the name of the GPU, and "Dedicated Memory" will display the adapter type.
Examples of supported GPUs:
- NVIDIA 980ti
- GeForce GT 740
- Radeon R9 290X
- Radeon R7 250X
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text:
So, the Heartbleed vulnerability has made me look more closely at how I use passwords, and in doing so, I noticed something about Atheist Nexus. There is no SSL here to be hacked. The sign-in page uses a regular POST method to submit our usernames and passwords straight to http://www.atheistnexus.org/main/authorization/doSignIn?target=http..., with no protection at all so far as I can tell.
Doesn't that mean that anyone who cared to could read our Atheist Nexus passwords anytime we sign in? If that's the case, shouldn't we be warning people when they sign up? Is there who knows AN's design who can address this?
Views: 212
Mention it to Richard Haynes (a.k.a. "Brother Richard"), the founder of A|N. Granted, he can't do much about it, but he can let NING know our concerns. Since NING is responsible for a LOT of other sites in addition to ours, one would think they'd be concerned about this issue.
Here are two test pages, where you can check sites that do use https.
https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/ (checks for many problems, in addition to Heartbleed)
Yes, our passwords are going over the wire unprotected. This can especially be an issue on public Wifi.
It's good advice in general to use different passwords for different sites. (So if one site gets hacked, your password is useless for others.) This means using a better scheme than "sekritAtheistNexus", "sekritGoogle", "sekritHotmail", etc. :-)
It's not a big deal to reuse passwords for a few noncritical sites where you need it only to, say, read articles. But rethink that if someone could leave comments "as you".
I agree with Loren. I became concerned when I learned you can Google any name on here and see the postings in results. At least, you can do that IF you know what you are looking for. I'm not ashamed or disturbed by anything that I have posted, but I changed my name on here so as not to be recognized to everyone. Some theists do not like hiring atheists.
Ouch. Security is never what I'd want it to be.
© 2020 Atheist Nexus. All rights reserved. Admin: The Nexus Group. Powered by


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An elderly gentleman with a walker entered Il Fornaio just before me late one morning.
"You still serving breakfast?" the man inquired rather loudly of the receptionist.
"No, sir. Breakfast ended at 10:30. We're serving lunch now."
"Okay, I'll have lunch then, and I want to sit on the patio, please."
Il Fornaio has established a longtime comfort level with its customers in the 34 years it has been open in downtown Palo Alto's Garden Court Hotel on Cowper Street. Like an old friend, it's familiar and comfortable. Not that the food is antiquated in any way; it is fresh, vibrant, thoroughly modern and authentically Italian, prepared by chef-partner Luigi Mavica, a Sicily native.
The original Howard J. Backen design is classic. Other than behind-the-scenes kitchen upgrades, the dining rooms, garden patio and open-kitchen concept have remained basically unchanged, inviting and stylish since opening.
Two weeks each month, Il Fornaio celebrates the cuisine of a different region of Italy, with supplemental menus for both food and wine. Festa Regionale offers constantly changing bills of fare, highlights the regional differences in Italian cuisine and delivers excellent values more on that later.
For starters, the capesante con riso di venere ($13.29) featured a succulent grilled sea scallop with a dash of cayenne on a black-rice salad of fennel, radicchio, parsley and red-wine vinegar, all drizzled with basil olive oil and lemon dressing. The taste balance and visual harmony of the plate was appealing.
The Caprese salad ($11.79) was sliced tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and whole basil leaves sprinkled with basil-infused olive oil. Nothing wrong with the attractive plate, but I expected better tomatoes as it was the peak of heirloom tomato season. In this instance, it seemed the kitchen sacrificed palatability for a pretty presentation.
Il Fornaio offers a half-dozen pizzas. I liked the vegetariana ($14.59) with mozzarella, tomato sauce, artichokes, zucchini, eggplant, sliced tomatoes, mushrooms and fresh basil. Just enough ingredients to make it tasty without overload. The just-right crust was semi soft, pliable and chewy.
Pasta? Of course. A half-dozen, dry, house-made options plus lasagna, cannelloni and specials. Ravioli magro ($12.99) was filled with rainbow chard, kale, onions, pine nuts and pecorino cheese, and tossed with sauteed artichokes, white wine, tomatoes and parsley. The ravioli were plump and mouthwatering, the toppings more than ample. As artistic as it was tasty.
The special vegetarian tortelloni ($18.59) were appealingly plump house-made pasta pockets filled with red beets, ricotta and pecorino cheeses, and topped with silky sage cream sauce sprinkled with poppy seeds.
For main courses, the mixed fish grill ($25.99) of salmon, petrale, prawn, sea scallop and calamari with lemon parsley sauce was an enormous plate of seafood. Add to that grilled polenta and sauteed seasonal vegetables, and it was more than any diner could have hoped for. The plate was zesty and fresh and the fish perfectly prepared.
Veal scaloppine ($24.99) did not disappoint. Three not too thinly sliced pieces of fork-tender veal had been sauteed with fresh baby artichokes and lemon, then served with roasted Yukon Gold potatoes and a medley of seasonal vegetables quintessentially Italian.
As mentioned earlier, Festa Regionale offers excellent value. During this review time, "Taste of Veneto" was featured. On that menu we tried the capesante ($13.29), the tortelloni ($18.59) and the mixed fish grill ($25.99). That added up to $57.87 but was priced at $31.99. That's a deal. The Veneto menu offered a choice of four antipasti, three pastas and three main dishes.
As for desserts, the crema doppio ($7.99) was a fennel-infused custard with chocolate mousse and caramelized sugar topping. A chocolate-covered creme brulee by another definition. It was delicious but a bit overwhelming after a big dinner.
More to my taste was the bianco mangiare ($7.99), an almond custard topped with caramel sauce, toasted almonds and fresh berries. In essence, a delicate panna cotta topped with toasted almond slivers, fruit on the side. A perfect conclusion.
Steve Boyden, longtime Il Fornaio managing partner, has covered all the bases. Besides the regular and Festa Regionale menus, there are a children's menu, a gluten-free menu and banquet menus, and every dish on the menu lists its calorie content.
The wine list is not overwhelming, quantity wise or pricewise, and selections complement the food. There are many drinkable wines in the $35-$75 range. Naturally, Italian and California wines dominate the list.
Few restaurants survive three decades and many that do have a fierce and loyal clientele who never want the menu changed. Il Fornaio has preserved its classic dishes while infusing new and intriguing options each month. It's a great formula.
Il Fornaio
520 Cowper St., Palo Alto
Breakfast: Weekdays 7-10:30 a.m.; Sat.-Sun. 8-11 a.m. Brunch:
Sat.-Sun. 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Lunch & dinner:
Mon.-Thu. 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m.; Sun. 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m.
Reservations: yes
Credit cards: yes
Parking: city lots & valet
Alcohol: full bar
Children: yes
Outdoor dining: covered patios
Party and banquet facilities: yes
Noise level: moderate
Bathroom cleanliness: excellent
Corkage: $15 unlimited