The totalitarian state

[Firestarter]

I’ve looked further into major shareholders in several of the largest weapons companies - Evercore Trust Company and T. Rowe Price Associates.

Evercore is a global “independent” investment banking advisory firm founded in 1995 by Roger Altman, David Offensend, and Austin Beutner, without shareholders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evercore_Partners

Thomas Rowe Price Jr. founded T. Rowe Price & Associates in Baltimore in 1937.
T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. offers funds, advisory services, account management, and retirement plans and services.
At the end of 2016, Thomas Rowe Price had more than $800 billion dollars assets under management: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Rowe_Price


Major Shareholders in T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. include – Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, and Capital, JP Morgan and Sarofirm Fayez: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TROW/holders?p=TROW
(http://archive.is/MrUPI)

I’ve done a “simple” investigation into who own 3 of the “Big Four”: BlackRock, State Street and FMR (Fidelity).
Vanguard isn’t a publicly traded company. The official story is that investors in Vanguard are the ultimate owners, who supposedly decide how Vanguard handles business. Because Vanguard is a private company, it’s not forced to disclose information…


Major Shareholders in BlackRock include – BlackRock (4.33%), Vanguard, State Street (3.34%), FMR (2.04%), and Capital (4.13%), Wellington Management Company LLP (4.53%), Norges Bank Investment Management (5.33%), Bank of America Corporation (3.39%), PNC Financial Services Group Inc.
The Vanguard funds own at least 14.2%.
PNC Financial Services Group Inc. owns a whopping 21.47% in BlackRock: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/blk/holders?ltr=1
(http://archive.is/oTUrK)


PNC Financial Services evolved from the Pittsburgh Trust and Savings Company that was founded in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1845.
PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. is a Pittsburgh-based financial services corporation, with assets, at the end of 2016, of approximately $366 billion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PNC_Financial_Services

Major Shareholders in PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. include – Vanguard (15.2%), BlackRock (5.84%), State Street (4.85%), FMR (3.28%), and Capital (8.58%, including Washington Mutual Investors Fund), JP Morgan Chase & Company (2.58%), T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. (2.26%), Massachusetts Financial Services Co. (2.15%), Wellington Management Company LLP (7.47%): https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/PNC/holders?p=PNC


Wellington Management Company LLP owns 4.53% of the shares in the biggest investment fund in the world, BlackRock, and it also owns 7.47% of the shares in the PNC Financial Services Group Inc. that owns an additional 21.47% of BlackRock.

In 1928, Walter L. Morgan from Philadelphia established the first balanced mutual fund in the US - the Wellington Fund. The Wellington Fund is one of the oldest surviving American mutual funds and has more than $1 trillion assets under management.
In 1979, after it had gone public, 29 partners bought back the firm.
John C. Bogle, who succeeded Morgan as chairman in 1970, later founded Vanguard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellingto ... nt_Company


Major Shareholders in State Street Corporation include – Vanguard (6.7%), BlackRock (5.74%), State Street (4.96%), FMR (4.59%), T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. (11.41%), Massachusetts Financial Services (7.51%): https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/STT/holders?p=STT
(http://archive.is/DNTFO)


Massachusetts Financial Services (MFS Investment Management) was founded in 1924, is one of the oldest asset management companies in the world and has been credited with pioneering the mutual fund.
As of 30 April 2017, MFS had $448.7 billion in assets under management: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MFS_Investment_Management


Fidelity (FMR) was founded in 1946 by Edward Johnson, and is run ever since by the Johnson family.
Edward eventually turned the reins over to his son, Edward “Ned” Johnson III, who was Fidelity’s chairman until his late 80s. Today Abigail Johnson, Ned’s daughter, is the CEO of Fidelity investments.
Fidelity Investments is owned by FMR LLC, which is controlled by the Johnsons.

According to Bloomberg, in 2012, the Johnson family is worth $22 billion. Ned Johnson is worth $6.9 billion.
His daughter, Fidelity president Abigail P. Johnson, has a net worth of $10.1 billion. Abigail’s 2 siblings, Edward C. Johnson IV and Elizabeth L. Johnson, each own $2.5 billion.

According to SEC filings, the Johnsons own 49% of Fidelity. The remaining 51% is split among 108 Fidelity executives.
In August 2005, Abigail Johnson owned 24.5% of Fidelity and her father 12%. The remaining 12.5% of FMR was split between Abigail’s younger sister and brother (Elizabeth and Edward IV).
Since that filing, Fidelity discloses only the total family ownership.

The Johnsons also own about 80% of Boston-based Northern Neck Investors LLC, which has $2.2 billion in assets: https://web.archive.org/web/20151007211 ... und-empire


The last part of this post about Fidelity really illustrates what happens when a small group of investment funds completely dominate the economy...
I can’t rule out that Reuters targets the Johnson family, as this is the only one that is still a competitor to Vanguard/BlackRock/State Street...

Fidelity’s mutual funds manage $1.2 trillion in assets.
The Johnson family and higher Fidelity management also own Impresa Management, which runs partnerships and investments on F-Prime’s behalf. The Johnsons, with a small group of FMR executives, also invest in F-Prime Capital, the private venture capital arm of Fidelity.
Impresa oversees about $2.6 billion in assets, and “bets” on bioscience and tech start-ups.

Here’s the trick…
F-Prime regularly invests in companies before they’re brought to the stock markets (pre-IPO). Reuters analysed 10 pre-IPO investments by F-Prime since the beginning of 2013.
In 6 of those cases, Fidelity’s mass mutual funds became (one of) the largest shareholders after the IPO, buying shares at much higher prices than F-Prime.
This resulted in lower returns for Fidelity fund shareholders, and higher gains for F-Prime.

These investments by Fidelity mutual funds have effectively propped up the values of F-Prime’s pre-IPO investments.
F-Prime Capital bought Ultragenyx pre-IPO shares for $3.55.
After the January 2014 IPO, Fidelity’s public funds purchased about 1.1 million Ultragenyx shares for an average stock price of $41.17 a share.
Fidelity’s public funds didn’t gain 996% in this scheme (which was won by F-Prime). What does insider trading mean ...

See some of the most successful investments by F-Prime (Alibaba was even more “successful” with 6101% less gain for Fidelity’s public funds).


Fidelity’s elite, including top portfolio managers, get lucrative shares in F-Prime Capital Partners.
Key compliance executives have held dual roles controlling investments by both Fidelity and F-Prime Capital. For 3 years, until September 2016, the chief compliance officer for Fidelity mutual funds, Linda Wondrack, was also the chief compliance officer for Impresa Management LLC, the firm that manages the investments of F-Prime Capital.
Wondrack was only replaced in one of her 2 functions, after Reuters asked if this could be a “conflict of interest”.
Fidelity’s James Curvey chairs a board of trustees that oversees many Fidelity stock mutual funds, and also serves as a trustee for one of the owners of Impresa: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/sp ... ty-family/
(http://archive.is/j3oIB)

[Firestarter]

After my post about the $6.5 trillion for the US DoD: https://www.lawfulpath.com/forum/viewto ... =160#p4252

The first audit in history to increase the “confidence in DoD's management”, was announced by Department of Defense (DoD) officials.

According to the state media, the audit by at least 2,400 auditors will examine the Pentagon's estimated $2.4 trillion in assets, and “every aspect of the Defense Department, from personnel and supplies to bases and weapons”.

David Norquist said that beginning in 2018, audits of the Defense Department will be conducted annually as a measure to cut down on waste. Reports will be issued each year on 15 November: http://thehill.com/policy/defense/36400 ... cial-audit


The audit of the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) by “independent” auditor Ernst & Young of the fiscal year that ended 30 September 2016 was completed in mid-December.

They discovered:
1) Misstatements in the DLA’s books totalled at least $465 million for construction projects it financed.
2) For construction projects “in progress” it didn't have “sufficient documentation for another $384 million worth of spending.
3) Another $46 million in computer assets were “inappropriately recorded” as belonging to the DLA.
4) The DLA had no evidence for many documented items; including $100 million worth of assets in computer systems.

That’s a total of some $1 billion unaccounted for.
Did it really go down from $6.5 trillion, or is this another case of creative “political correct” reporting...
Paid for by the American taxpayer and approved by US Congress.

The DLA has 25,000 employees who process roughly 100,000 orders a day — everything from poultry to pharmaceuticals, precious metals to aircraft parts - on behalf of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and some other federal agencies.

Pentagon’s spokesman David Norquist said it will cost an estimated $367 million to carry out the audits and an additional $551 million to fix the accounting systems.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration proposed to increase defence spending to $716 billion in 2019: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/ ... nds-322860

[Firestarter]

After Professor Mark Skidmore discovered that in 2015 the US Department of Defense had $6.5 trillion of inadequately documented adjustments; he got a group of graduate students together to look at thousands of Office of Inspector General (OIG) reports for 1998-2015.
They were unable to get all the documents, discovered that the government didn’t co-operate with their requests for information, and even removed reports from the internet.
I haven’t out what percentage of documents they didn’t find…

They found that for the investigated 17 years, only for the reports they got access to, a whopping $21 trillion in adjustments weren’t properly documented.

They found out that for 13 of the 17 years for the Army (they didn’t get reports for 4 years) about $11.5 trillion is missing: http://projectcensored.org/21-trillion- ... al-budget/
(archived here: http://archive.is/KI0Fy)

For more information on the $6.5 trillion missing in 2015: https://www.lawfulpath.com/forum/viewto ... =160#p4252

[Firestarter]

It’s obviously dangerous for opponents of Vladimir Putin and Rothschild to reside in Britain…

Have you noticed the media hysteria surrounding the “poisoning” of former Russian spy Sergey Skripal and his daughter in Britain earlier this month? Skripal and his daughter are locked up in UK hospital and will probably not “escape” alive…
After being imprisoned for 6 of his 13-year sentence, in 2010 he was swapped, and settled in Britain.

Britain immediately accused Russia, while Russia vehemently denied and said it was all British “propaganda”. Moscow demands evidence, including access to samples of the nerve agent “Novichok” (that was reportedly used for the poisoning).
UK Ambassador Peter Wilson addressed the OPCW in The Hague, the Netherlands:

This horrendous incident is now the subject of a UK criminal investigation, and we have legal obligations as a result to ensure that we share our information only in accordance with the law.

.
Spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova said:

Undoubtedly, this is a political and propagandist show, which was started by the British prime minister and probably other representatives of special services and government. We don't know who was behind this but the prime minister was the face of this campaign which has been built on a rude provocation. We have witnessed many similar situations in recent history, but the way it was done this time, so rude and so obvious that it was all pieced together to attack Russia again.

Nebenzia said they were given a 24-hour ultimatum, but

We are ready to cooperate with the British government.

.
Britain kicked out 23 Russian diplomats after Russia didn’t give a good explanation for this attack.
Thousands of British soldiers will be vaccinated against anthrax poisoning.
Britain will invest £48 million to create a “cutting edge” Chemical Weapons Defence Centre at Porton Down, Wiltshire.

UN Ambassador Nikki Haley said the US believes Russia is responsible for the attack because Britain says so:

When our friends in Great Britain face a challenge, the US will always be there for them. Always.

Nikki Haley has also threatened to bomb Syria by the way…
Other European countries condemned the attack with a nerve agent in strong words and showed their support for Britain and call for Russia to co-operate with the “investigation”.

In one of those strange coincidences the Prince of Wales Charles, patron of the intelligence services, already had planned a private visit to MI5.
Bullingdon boy Boris Johnson says the international community stands with Britain: : (deleted, no archived version available) news.sky.com/story/live-spy-poison-deadline-passes-as-russia-threatens-response-11289189

New US sanctions against Russia have already been announced (bizarrely over interfering in the 2016 elections): https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/ ... ing-465475

EDIT - Does anybody remember the Sarin attacks in Syria last year, where incredibly brave White Helmets were pictured carrying victims without the necessary protective clothing?
I´ve found the following picture. These firemen are almost as brave as the White Helmets…



Ten days after former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were found poisoned, another Russian in exile, Nikolai Glushkov, was found death.
The circumstances of his death are still unexplained, but it’s “investigated” by London’s counterterrorism police.

Nikolai Glushkov had been a close associate and friend of Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who was found hanged in his London home in 2013. An inquest failed to determine whether Berezovsky had killed himself or died from foul play.
In the 1990s, Glushkov worked for Berezovsky’s LogoVAZ car company and the state airline Aeroflot. In 1999, when Berezovsky fled to the UK, Glushkov was charged with money-laundering and fraud. He spent 5 years in Russian prison and was freed in 2004 (before fleeing to Britain).
In 2017, Glushkov was sentenced in absentia in Russia to another 8 years in prison for stealing $123 million from Aeroflot.

Berezovsky accused Nat Rothschild’s associate Roman Abramovich of cheating him out of $5 billion in the 1990s in their partnership in oil firm Sibneft. Abramovich denied and won the court case.
In 2011, Glushkov gave evidence at the court case brought by Berezovsky against Abramovich. Abramovich remained on good terms with the Kremlin and Rothschild.

Glushkov didn’t believe that Boris Berezovsky had killed himself and continued to investigate.
He noted that many Russian émigrés had died under suspicious circumstances, including Berezovsky’s close friend Alexander Litvinenko (another Russian spy).

See from left to right Glushkov, Berezovsky and Patarkatsishivilli (who also died).

http://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/a ... ously-dead
(http://archive.is/RhDKa)


When Alexander Litvinenko worked for Russia’s FSB intelligence service in the 1990s, he was in charge of the surveillance and the protection of the oligarch and government official Boris Berezovsky.
In November 2000, in the same period that Berezovsky defected to Britain, Litvinenko had difficulty get his application for asylum granted - this only succeeded in May 2001.
Litvinenko accused Vladimir Putin of being a paedophile after he was pictured kissing the belly of five-year-old Nikita Konkin.


Then in November 2006, Litvinenko died of “polonium poisoning”: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -boys.html


The inquiry into Litvinenko’s death was only started in July 2014 and completed by January 2016. The findings were made public. William Dunkerley criticised that report and calls it inconsistent, unreliable, biased, of dubious credibility, and lacking evidence.

Boris Berezovsky was one of the powerful (and rich) oligarchs in the privatised Russia of the 1990s. Berezovsky was squeezed out of all official positions in Russia, and he was charged with abusing his powers, financial fraud, and other crimes.
In late 2000 he left Russia to settle in London.
A possible reason that he was “suicided” is that he was about to leave Britain for Israel on 25 March 2013.

Alexander Perepelichny was a Russian entrepreneur who specialised in “private banking services” - money laundering.
In Jan 2010 he fled to Britain, where he sold sensitive information to British investor and reported MI6 agent William Browder. Perepelichny was a key witness in the Magnitsky case.
On 10 November 2012, Perepelichny was found dead outside his mansion in London. The police investigation did not yield any tangible results.

See from left to right: Alexander Litvinenko, Boris Berezovsky, Chechen leader Ahmed Zakaev, and the hired-gun writer Yury Felshtinsky in London, January 2006.

https://archive.is/Vony4


Reporter Slovakia murdered for exposing Mafia links
On 26 February, 27-year-old investigative reporter Ján Kuciak and his fiancée, Martina Kusnírová, were found shot dead in their home in Slovakia.
It’s suspected that Ján Kuciak was murdered for exposing mafia links to the political elite of Slovakia. Kuciak’s last story shows that criminal clans from Italy infiltrated Slovakia and developed close ties with politicians to launder money, evade taxes and get millions of Euros in agricultural and energy subsidies from the EU.

Kuciak detailed that Slovakian prime minister, Robert Fico, hired Mária Trosková, then a 27-year-old former topless model and Miss Universe contestant in 2007. Trosková had earlier been recruited to work for Member of Parliament Viliam Jasan (of Fico’s ruling Smer Party).
Trosková had been a business partner of Antonino Vadala, an Italian living in Slovakia with close ties to the Italian mafia organisation - ‘Ndrangheta. In August 2011, Vadala and Trosková founded the Slovak company GIA Management. Trosková left the company after a year and after another 3 years was hired by Fico.
Vadala owns agricultural companies in the east of Slovakia. Kuciak discovered that Italian prosecutors accused Vadala as a participant in cocaine smuggling by 5 ‘Ndrangheta crime families.

We don’t have to worry that unexpected scandals will be exposed, as Scotland Yard, the FBI and other foreign agencies assist the Slovakian authorities with the “investigation”.
Reporters will think twice before digging too deep into this scandal: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... -shot-dead
(http://archive.is/rHwsY)


When Vadala faced charges in Italy, he eloped to Eastern Slovakia.

Jasan explained to the media that he hired Trosková on the recommendation of an unnamed friend (probably Vadala). In March 2015, after less than a year, she left Jasan’s office to work for then PM Fico at the Government Office. A year later, Jasan joined her there when Fico named him director of the office and secretary of the State Security Council.
Jasan and Vadala had cooperated in several business activities. Jasan owned private security company Prodest that was bought by Vadala and his associates. Jasan's son Slavomír is still in a joint venture with the Italians called AVJ Real.

In the last 2 years, Smer was charged with covering up the tax frauds of businessman Ladislav Basternák, who was in business with interior minister Robert Kalinák.
Former minister of economy Pavol Rusko referred to Vadala as an "energy entrepreneur". Rusko is accused of ordering murder. Rusko met Vadala through chief state councillor Mária Trosková.

In February 2003, the Italian court sentenced 9 defendants of the Libri clan (one of the most powerful within the ‘Ndrangheta). Among the accused was Antonino Vadala.
In 2017, members of Antonino Vadala's family were amongst 18 gang members prosecuted for smuggling hundreds of kilograms of cocaine into Europe for 'Ndrangheta.
Antonino Vadala was directly involved in tax fraud in Slovakia. Palombi said that Vadala advised him to transfer real estate to AV - Real via Genna Ltd in a scheme to evade taxes.
Antonino’s relative Sebastiano Vadala, was prosecuted by the Trebisov district court for extortion. According to the Prosecutor, Vadala threatened to murder somebody that didn’t want to cooperate. Sebastiano was eventually cleared of all charges.

Apart from the Vadalas and the Cinnantes, also the Rods and Catropoves families are active in Slovakia. In 2015 and 2016, the companies these families control received more than 8 million Euros from the Agricultural Payments Agency (PPA).
From 2012 to 2017, 3 companies of the Diego Roda family alone received € 8.3 million in agriculture subsidies.

Fourteen years ago, the Italian Carmine Cinnante (also a member of this crime organisation) arrived in Slovakia. A few months later the Italian police arrested him for smuggling weapons to Italy for the Mafia boss Guirin Iona Ndrangheta.
Money laundering is the main business of ‘Ndrangheta also abroad.


See Róbert Madej of the Smer Party and Antonino Vadala (on the right).

https://spectator.sme.sk/c/20770432/ita ... itics.html
(http://archive.is/vKjyt)


This case reminds me of the murder of the Maltese reporter, blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=713&start=170#p4398

For information on the destruction and looting of (former) Yugoslavia by the Rothschild crime syndicate: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1038#p3773

[Firestarter]

On the following link is a video, where brave firemen without protection stand by looking from a couple of yards away as officers in spacesuits dump goods contaminated with nerve agent “Novichock” in a plastic container: https://www.voanews.com/a/white-house-a ... 95542.html

EDIT - added information.
It looks like the writer of this "Novichock" script, watched the British-American spy drama Strike Black: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_Back:_Retribution

Blaming Russia for a poison "of a type developed by Russia" (they should claim Soviet Union...) is like blaming Germany for all Heroin addicts because the Nazi Bayer company developed the mass-production of Heroin.

The components used to make Novichok are readily available, but their short lifespan and the risks involved in using it demand professional expertise, scientific and arms experts said.

On March 9, it was said that the poison likely came from inside Skripal's house.
On 13 March, it was smeared on the door handle of Skripal’s car.
On 16 March, it supposedly came out of the suitcase of Skripal's daughter.
All these claims are based on anonymous official sources. Certainly not all of them are true, and possibly none is true.

Besides Skripal and his daughter a police officer was affected. It is unclear where the officer contacted the alleged poison: http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/03/go ... ished.html

EDIT 2 -
On 16 March, a letter from Stephen Davies (Consultant in Emergency Medicine, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust) was published by the Times.

Sir, further to your report (‘Poision Exposure Leaves Nearly 40 needing Treatment’), may I clarify that no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury and there have only ever been three patients with significant poisoning. Several people have attended the emergency department concerned that they may have been exposed.
None has had symptoms of poisoning and none has needed treatment. Any blood tests performed have shown no abnormality. No member of the public has been contaminated by the agent involved.

https://medium.com/hello-humans/the-art ... c67bb83af8
If Davies’ statement is correct, it was certainly not "novichock" that was used...


What a stupid move!
On 15 March, shortly after my post about the murder of the Slovak reporter, Slovak PM Robert Fico resigned, after 2 ½ weeks of mass demonstrations.

President Andrej Kiska had said that Slovakia needed either a deep restructuring of the government or new elections. On 14 March, Fico said at a news conference that he had offered Kiska “to solve the political crisis by resigning my post as prime minister”.
Peter Pellegrini, former speaker of the Parliament who was deputy prime minister, will now become PM.

So Fico resigned, to prevent new elections and the ruling Smer Party can remain in power?!?

Earlier this week, interior minister Robert Kalinak resigned. Kalinak oversaw the police, and protesters say that it wouldn’t be possible to have a thorough investigation of the murders with him overseeing.
The justice minister and culture minister, and other officials, will also be replaced.

To add to the discontent in Slovakia, on 15 March, another journalist, Lukas Milan, was sentenced in a defamation lawsuit to either 18 months in prison or a three-year probation during which he would be banned from journalism.
Milan will appeal the judgement.
The case stemmed from a magazine article in which Milan showed the corruption of high government officials: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/15/worl ... uciak.html
(archived here: http://archive.is/n0tHm)


Fico had been prime minister for 10 of the past 12 years.
His position became untenable after one of his coalition partners announced this week that it would support early elections unless he went.
President Andrej Kiska mandated Peter Pellegrini to form a new government.

Fico will remain Smer chairman.
Editor of Slovakian newspaper Denník N, Matús Kostolný, said he expects the street protests to continue:

Fico has left office, but will remain in power.
The question is whether people will be satisfied with his departure, or whether they will continue to fight the system he left behind.

In a strange twist, earlier this month, Fico accused Kiska of colluding with Rothschild agent George Soros to bring down his government after a public broadcast by the president: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... ist-murder
(archived here: http://archive.is/2xNkM)

[Firestarter]

One of the leading owners of the tax exempt Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) - that own many of offices, shopping centres, apartments, hotels, warehouses, and data and storage centres across the US - is Vanguard.
According to William Crow, Vanguard, BlackRock, and other index funds “own about 30 percent of REIT stocks, and Vanguard is by far the largest”.

Vanguard owns:
18% of Host Hotels & Resorts (including Ritz-Carlton, Marriott, and Westin hotels);
16% of Brandywine Realty Trust, which owns a majority of Center City’s highest buildings;
16% of Liberty Property Trust, which develops offices for Comcast and is a landlord to... Vanguard;
16% of the Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (including Cherry Hill Mall and Willow Grove Park);
15% of Simon Property Group, the national mall owner (including King of Prussia Mall);
15% of Prologis, the warehouse giant.

Vanguard also owns more than 10% of pesticide maker FMC Corp., whose headquarters is the lead tenant in a 49-story tower owned by Brandywine.
For obvious reasons, REIT tax protections ends when the owner of 10% of a REIT landlord also owns 10% of a REIT tenant. Tax deducted renting to itself – money laundering and/or tax evasion. But that restriction is void for mutual funds with many owners.

Of course there is no real competition between these corporate giants. This causes (tax deducted) lower landlord costs, but higher tenant rents: http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq- ... 70823.html
(http://archive.is/5fgtU)


In the crash of 2008, orchestrated by the big banks, the value of real estate plummeted...
Blackstone Group spent more than $10 billion buying distressed residential real estate all over the US, pennies for dollars.

Bonesman, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman claims to have said:

Oh my goodness, this could be huge. Nobody is going to be able to borrow, they’re going to need housing. So we went out and started to buy houses to rent to people.

Oh my goodness, that sounds almost philanthropic. It would have been better if the big banks had not orchestrated the crash in the first place: https://web.archive.org/web/20170227075 ... es-ipo-bx/


In 2013, Blackstone was the largest of the big house buyers. Wall Street keeps “lending” so the big investors can keep buying. In the fall of 2013, Invitation Homes, a subsidiary of the Blackstone Group, raised $479 million in a bond offering.
Invitation Homes purchased homes from banks, foreclosure auctions or individual sellers, and turned them into rentals. Invitation Homes averagely paid $150,000 to buy a house and another $21,000 for renovation.

This prevents “normal” people from owning their homes and inflates real estate prices.
Robert Shiller said:

I don’t quite understand why the housing market shot up so much in the last year when expectations didn’t go up, at least not among homebuyers.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/w ... r-rentals/


Because of the orchestrated crisis, the big investors could buy the real estate cheap, knowing that in time riches will follow.

After Europe was ravaged by the financial and economic crisis, the giant investment bank Goldman Sachs (THE major orchestrator of the 2008 crisis) snapped up huge amounts of distressed debt in Ireland, including the loans of Tyrrelstown’s developer in 2014. Tyrrelstown wanted out of the rental game and sold its properties.
Wall Street has become the biggest new landlord in Europe. From 2012 to 2016, Goldman Sachs, Cerberus Capital Management, Lone Star Funds, Blackstone Group and others big US investment funds bought more than 223 billion Euros’ worth of troubled real estate loans around Europe, nearly 80% of the total sold.

Some tenants northwest of Dublin received a letter ordering them to leave their homes when their lease expired. In Ireland, homeowners seeking protection have demonstrated outside Parliament.
In 2016, protesters in Barcelona occupied empty apartments whose mortgages had been bought by Blackstone, and rallied around tenants in Madrid who were served eviction by a Goldman-run subsidiary.

The firms pay little or no tax, by simple strategies.
The Goldman subsidiary Beltany earned interest income of €44 million on debt portfolios in Ireland by the end of 2014. After lowering taxable profit to €1,000, the net tax charge was only €250.

To buy the debt, Cerberus’s Dutch Promontoria companies lent money to Cerberus’s Irish Promontoria firms at a high interest rate. The Irish Promontoria paid almost the same amount in interest that was earned on the real estate investments. Since the interest was deductible, Cerberus drastically cut its tax bill in Ireland.
In 2014, the Irish subsidiary Promontoria Eagle earned interest income of £111 million (around $140 million). After deducting interest charges and fees, taxable profit was only £7,788, resulting in a tax charge of just £1,947: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/10/busi ... gages.html
(http://archive.is/AN5yy)


In short “free market” economy at its finest...

[Firestarter]

My “friends” in the media have found out that some British politicians are involved with the same big investment funds that are majority shareholders in the military industrial complex.They argue that this could lead to a conflict of interest when Syria is bombed…


Since 2005, Philip May (husband of PM Theresa May) is an investment relationship manager at Capital Group, which owns more than 10% of Lockheed Martin.
Each JASSM bomb, used by the US army to bomb Syria, costs over a million dollars. Lockheed Martin made a nice profit and its shareholders, including Capital Group, made a fortune as the shares soared.

Philip May met Theresa at the notorious Oxford University. In 1979, Philip personally escorted Richard Nixon to a debate for the Oxford Union.

Capital Group also has investments in other corporations that will profit from the war in the Middle East. Capital owns 5% of Boeing and 10% of Royal Dutch Shell: https://theswamp.media/how-philip-may-s ... ital-group


Capital is the second largest shareholder in Lockheed Martin.
Capital is also the largest shareholder in arms manufacturer BAE Systems, with over 360,000 shares, whose share price has also soared. Coincidentally Capital increased its share in BAE with 11% in the previous quarter.

The UK army fired 8 “Storm-Shadow” missiles, manufactured by BAE Systems, at an alleged chemical weapons facility, that cost £790,000 ($1.13 million) a piece – for a total of £6.32 million ($9 million).

Former Chancellor of the Exchequer and present editor-in-chief at the Evening Standard and MP George Osborne works for BlackRock; the fifth largest shareholder in BAE systems: https://www.globalresearch.ca/theresa-m ... es/5636857


Bullingdon Boy George Osborne gets paid £650,000 a year for “working” just 48 days (4 days a month), or £13,000 per day, as an adviser for BlackRock (in addition to share rewards).
Osborne also made almost £800,000 for 15 speeches.

In March, Osborne accepted a Kissinger fellowship at the Rothschild affiliated McCain Institute: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ock-salary


From 2006 to 2015, Rupert Harrison served as George Osborne’s Chief of Staff. Harrison was also schooled at Eton College and Oxford.
In August 2015, Harrison became a Portfolio Manager and Chief Macro Strategist at BlackRock…

Harrison was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in August 2015.
Harrison has published opinion pieces for Rothschild’s Financial Times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Harrison


Employee of BlackRock, Lilian, was so frustrated over Osborne’s salary that she blew the whistle on him not even coming to the office for his £650,000 pay check.
She told Darren Adam:

I can assure you that, I'll never see George Osborne in the office. I can tell you he won't be in the office and I can tell you won't be sitting at a desk for one day a week.
He's being paid because these are people of influence and absolutely the caller earlier said, if he wasn't in this role, he wouldn't be attractive.
This is for organisations to have access to the inside of government, so they have a sense about what economic and policy decisions as they're going on.

https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/ ... blackrock/


Rothschild Capital Partners also made a bundle as it holds 2.8% of Lockheed Martin shares, coincidentally raising its stake in the third quarter of 2017: (deleted no archived version available) bzweekly.com/2018/02/21/lockheed-martin-lmt-shareholder-rothschild-capital-partners-has-raised-stake-by-1-58-million-as-share-price-rose-ecolab-ecl-holder-jensen-investment-management-lowered-stake/


Too bad our wonderful media isn’t able to see that the big investment funds don’t only control the industrial military complex, but the whole economy…

[Firestarter]

On 20 April 2010, BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and over the next 87 days gushed out at least 200 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, afflicting the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. The disaster is ongoing.

An ongoing National Institutes of Health (NIH) study of 30,000 oil cleanup workers shows symptoms like coughing, wheezing, tightness in the chest and burning in the eyes, nose, throat and lungs. Also kidney, liver and lung cancers are rampant.
In 2015, NIH sources estimated that 170,000 Gulf residents will die of spill-related illnesses until 2020.

Corexit makes the oil 52 times more toxic.
The dispersants are highly toxic to wildlife, and have harmed fish, crabs, deep-sea coral and sperm of whales. The used dispersants even hamper the growth of oil-eating bacteria, which weakens nature's ability to clean up.

According to Jonathan Henderson, more than 37,000 medical benefit claims have been submitted by cleanup workers, first responders and coastal residents, yet only 40 of them have been paid for chronic conditions – a sum of $60 million.
The plaintiff's steering committee for this disaster got paid $350 to $700 million and the claims administrator walked away with $155 million, but only a small fraction of the victims were compensated.
In July 2015, the federal government and Gulf Coast states reached an $18.7 billion settlement with BP for the disaster; the payment spread out over 18 years.

With the help of the crooked attorneys, not a single case has gone to trial.
Jacob Boudreaux said he went to BP’s crooked doctors, who said his health problems have nothing to do with his cleanup work and refuse to give him his test results.
Boudreaux said:

I worked that spill for more than six months, BP was supposed to give us all kinds of Tyvek suits and respirators, but they gave us water, Gatorade and baseball hats for the sun.
My vision and lungs are not the same, and I suffered from headaches for a month straight, even when I was off the boat.

Boudreaux has been fighting for his rights for 6 years, and so far received a whopping $650.
His long-term chronic claim has not been addressed, his attorney helps BP to prolong the court case and simply told him to wait 3 more years. It looks like Boudreaux doesn’t even realise that his own attorney stabs him in the back.

Nalco's Corexit remains listed on the EPA's list of acceptable chemical dispersants. Despite evidence of its dangerous impacts: https://www.alternet.org/bps-toxic-gulf ... man-health
(archived here: http://archive.is/WMKmd)


A recently published scientific looking report (not freely viewable on the internet) shows how the dispersants can turn oil into a toxic mist that can easily travel 50 miles and penetrate deep into human lungs.
Thousands of people helping in the cleanup and coastal residents were within that range (the Deepwater Horizon oil rig was 41 miles from Louisiana’s coast).

The only thing needed is a bit of wind, some waves or raindrops; and the ultrafine particles go airborne and can travel 50 miles. After the oil-dispersant reaches the lungs it continues to be dispersed. This helps the oil to absorb into the cells.
Afshar-Mohajer explains that the dispersants break the oil up into smaller droplets and loosen the tension between oil and water making it easier for the oil to go airborne:

The surface of seawater becomes softer. And wind, breaking waves and raindrops can make the particles leave the surface.

https://www.nola.com/environment/index. ... spill.html
(archived here: http://archive.is/Bj3ZD)


Also see my previous 4 posts on the 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster.

Here are my posts on this topic from 25, 27 January 2017: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=713&start=100#p3515
Here’s the (third) post on this topic from 5 February: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=713&start=110#p3555

[Firestarter]

Rose McGowan as an actress is maybe best known for starring in the TV-series Charmed for years.

These days she is probably best known as one of the women that accused film producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault. Weinstein claims that the sex was consensual.
McGowan claims that after she was assaulted by Weinstein in 1997, she got $100,000 to settle her accusations of rape.

McGowan claims that last year, through her lawyer, she was offered $1 million hush money, to sign a nondisclosure agreement.
McGowan tells that she thought about this:

I figured I could probably have gotten him up to three. But I was like — ew, gross, you’re disgusting, I don’t want your money, that would make me feel disgusting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/28/us/r ... stein.html


In January, Rose McGowan published her memoirs “Brave” in which she refers to Weinstein as “the Monster” (for legal reasons she didn’t use his name)…
McGowan claims to have told A-list actor Ben Affleck about the sexual assault.

Actress Rose McGowan also spent some years of her childhood in “The children of God” in Italy. She confirms the sexual activity, but was never molested because her father protected her (he was the head of the chapter), before her family escaped: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/ar ... -cult.html

McGowan writes in her book that as a child she was physically abused by the leaders of The Children of God, and that:

I saw an 11-year-old girl being forced to sit next to a naked man, with his floppy d**k on his leg. They made her sit between his legs so he could ‘massage’ her back.

At 15, McGowan appeared as an extra in the film Class of 1999; one of the "very famous" men involved in the film called her up to his hotel room and sexually assaulted her:

It all happened so fast. He promptly pulled down my shirt and fondled my breasts. Of course, it was me who felt dirty and ashamed…
It didn’t occur to me to say anything. For years I thought of the incident as a sexual experience versus sexual assault. Later, when I became an adult, I realized that it actually was assault.

McGowan soon realised that Hollywood:

that town is really built on sickness. Very early on I looked at the power structure, the figureheads, the silence, the closed ranks. Nobody tells. It operates like a cult.

https://www.etonline.com/rose-mcgowan-t ... ions-95401
(archived here: http://archive.is/K1IrL)

[Firestarter]

There are lots of stories on the internet about big pharma that for example claim that: drug prices are too high; big pharma manipulates medical trials; and sells pharmaceuticals that cause harm.
None of these stories focus on the major shareholders of big pharma; that effectively controls what these companies do. I haven’t even found a single story on how these investment giants “strangle” us through their complete control of our “health care”.

Following are some of the major shareholders in the 10 largest pharmaceutical companies in the first quarter of 2018 in the US by revenue. I focus on the US, because it’s the easiest information to get.
In all of these pharmaceutical giants; Vanguard owns more than 12.5% (and is the single largest shareholder).


Major Shareholders in Johnson & Johnson include – Vanguard Group (more than 13%); Blackrock; State Street: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/jnj/hol ... ccounter=1
(archived here: http://archive.is/Pf63b)


Major Shareholders in Pfizer Inc. include – Vanguard Group (more than 13%); Blackrock; State Street: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/PFE/holders?ltr=1
(archived here: http://archive.is/KMJV3)


Major Shareholders in Merck & Co., Inc. include – Vanguard (more than 14%); Blackrock; State Street; Wellington; Capital; Price (T.Rowe): https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MRK/holders/
(archived here: http://archive.is/IoGQj)


Major Shareholders in AbbVie Inc. include – Vanguard (more than 12.5%); Capital (more than 12%); Blackrock; State Street; Investment Company Of America: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/abbv/holders?ltr=1
(archived here: http://archive.is/LwFSo)


Major Shareholders in Abbott Laboratories include – Vanguard (more than 14.5%); Blackrock; Capital; State Street; Wellington: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ABT/holders?ltr=1
(archived here: http://archive.is/2df3u)


Major Shareholders in Eli Lilly and Company include – Vanguard (more than 18%); Lilly Endowment, Inc (more than 11%); Blackrock; Wellington; Primecap; State Street: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/lly/holders?ltr=1
(archived here: http://archive.is/SwzST)


Major Shareholders in Amgen Inc. include – Vanguard (at least 14%); FMR (Fidelity); Blackrock; Capital; State Street; Primecap: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/amgn/holders/
(archived here: http://archive.is/zhHlk)


Major Shareholders in Bristol-Myers Squibb Company include – Vanguard (more than 18%); Wellington; Blackrock; State Street; Capital; FMR (Fidelity): https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BMY/holders/
(archived here: http://archive.is/ObGzo)


Major Shareholders in Gilead Sciences, Inc. include – Vanguard (more than 12.5%); Blackrock; State Street; Capital; FMR (Fidelity): https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GILD/holders/
(archived here: http://archive.is/08PzH)


Major Shareholders in Biogen Inc. include – Vanguard (more than 19%); Blackrock; Primecap; FMR (Fidelity); State Street; ClearBridge; Price (T.Rowe) Associates; Wellington.
In Biogen, more than 90% of the shares are hold by institutions: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BIIB/holders/
(archived here: http://archive.is/3d9A5)