Here’s what the numbers say about percentage gains in after-tax income from 2003 to 2005:

• Bottom quintile: 2%
• Next quintile: 2.4%
• Middle quintile: 3.9%
• Fourth quintile: 3.7%

• Top quintile: 16%
• Top 10%: 20.9%
• Top 5%: 27.7%
• Top 1%: 43.5%

If you include inflation from energy prices, food prices, and housing (which is easily 50 to 90% of the income of eighty percent of the country) there have been no economic gains in the bottom four quintiles.

Quintiles are 20% population blocks, ie. 20 percent of the population. What you do is rank everyone based upon total value (income and capital assets) and than divy up the 20% blocks from top to bottom. That's why 80% of the country is represented by the bottom 4 quintiles. Each quintile is a way to group the population based upon rank, except the richest person in the country isn't exactly the valedictorian of some graduating class. He may just be some ruthless lucky dumbass with a ton of money and a bad attitude.

This post is an awesome description of why the media is strangling the ability of the citizens to effectively choose their leaders.

It's a long article, so grab a cup of tea before you start reading.

Here is a small snapshot : an example of how the media punditry are just showcasing liars and deceitful hacks to make them seem viable and news-worthy.

One of the more contrived Clinton storylines the media have played up in recent weeks is the idea that if she were elected, there would be some grave crisis provoked by having "two presidents" in the White House. This theme seems to have started with Sally Bedell Smith, who invoked the "extraordinary" complications such a situation would present -- something, Smith gravely noted, "people have not focused on" until she brought it to our attention. Smith brought this up again and again on television, radio, and in print while promoting her recent book about Bill and Hillary Clinton, For Love of Politics.

Smith and her book were warmly embraced by much of the media. Chris Matthews welcomed her to Hardball with a friendly "Sally, old buddy"; CBS anchor Harry Smith called her book "meticulous"; and the Houston Chronicle declared it "well-written and detail-rich."

"Meticulous" might not be the best description of Smith's book; as Media Matters detailed this week, For Love Of Politics is filled with errors large and small, from her apparent wholesale fabrication of quotes attributed to John Podesta that appear neither in the source material she cited nor in any source available on Nexis or retrievable via Google, to her repetition of the long- ago-debunked myth that Bill Clinton delayed air traffic at the Los Angeles airport while getting a haircut, to her false claim that Bill Clinton didn't mention the minimum-wage increase during his 1996 Democratic convention speech.

That last one was so transparently false -- quick, try to think of a Democratic presidential nominee who hasn't talked about the minimum wage -- that it almost wasn't worth checking. But we did; it took about 11 seconds to prove Smith wrong. Go to Google; type "Bill Clinton 1996 Democratic convention speech"; click on the first result -- a transcript available via PBS -- and search for "minimum wage."

That's what passes for "meticulous" these days -- a book that contains quotes that seem to be made up out of whole cloth and highly implausible claims that can be debunked in less time than it takes to type this sentence.

But Sally Bedell Smith wasn't just greeted with open arms by her "old buddy" Chris Matthews; her "two presidents" theme was eagerly repeated by other journalists.

Turn off the TV. All you do is lose your self.

Click here for the Der Spiegel story on how the Bali conference on global climate change turned out.

The last-minute deal came on Saturday after the US delegation made a U-turn in a final negotiating session, where Paula Dobriansky, leader of the US delegation, and her colleague James Connaughton were the target of naked animosity. When Dobriansky announced that the US would not sign up for the Bali roadmap, boos echoed through the room. Afterward the Americans were sharply attacked by several delegations. “If you’re not willing to lead, please get out of the way,” said a US environmental activist representing Papua New Guinea.

The US was opposing a proposal by the G77 bloc, which represents developing countries, for rich nations to do more to help developing countries combat increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

However opponents of binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions, such as Japan or Russia, did not come to the defense of the US, and the Americans gave in. “We will go forward and join consensus,” said Dobriansky. This time the delegation was rewarded with a standing ovation from some participants.

And here is the proof, provided by the National Security Network.

Here's the cliff notes:

The findings of the recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran represent positive news for American security. Yet, a small group of neoconservatives have challenged the findings of the nation’s 16 intelligence agencies - despite having no access to the classified intelligence - because it conflicts with their view of the world. It appears that when it comes to the Iran NIE, neocons are once again trying to generate smoke where there is no fire.

This is a group of 2,000 ex and retired national security officials appauled at the way Bush has run the state department and the government. Wesley Clark, Ted Sorensen, Lesley Gelb, and Richard Holbrooke are on the twelve person advisary board. Rand Beers is the President. Rand Beers

"entered the foreign service in 1971, working for the Department of State in the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs, where he held a number of positions, including: deputy assistant secretary for regional affairs and export control, deputy for strategy and the operations coordinator for regional affairs and security assistance, director of the Office of Security Analysis and the Office of International Security Policy, and deputy director of the Office of Policy Analysis. He then served on the National Security Council staff in various positions, including senior director and special assistant to the President for intelligence programs.

"After a decade with the National Security Council, President William J. Clinton appointed Beers first principal deputy assistant secretary of state, and then assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs (1998). Beers remained in this position for four years, returning to the National Security Council in 2002 as special assistant and senior director for combating terrorism.

"Beers left the Bush administration in March 2003, signing on with Sen. John F. Kerry (D-MA) as national security adviser for Kerry's 2004 presidential election bid."

This story is too important to link to ... here it is anyway. It's from the London Guardian.

Here is the google news page of the same story in different newspapers.

Jurors Deadlock in 6 of 7 Defendants

Thursday December 13, 2007 8:46 PM

By CURT ANDERSON

MIAMI (AP) - One of seven Miami men accused of plotting to join forces with al- Qaida to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower was acquitted Thursday, and a mistrial was declared for the six others after the federal jury deadlocked.

The mistrial means prosecutors will have to decide whether to retry the six men.

The outcome was a setback for the Bush administration, which had seized on the case to illustrate the dangers of homegrown terrorism and trumpet the government's post-Sept. 11 success in infiltrating and smashing terror plots in their earliest stages.

Lyglenson Lemorin, who was not the alleged ringleader, was acquitted.

The jury gave up on the other defendants after nine days of deliberations on four terrorism-related conspiracy charges that carry a combined maximum of 70 years in prison. The jury of six men and six women twice sent notes to the presiding judge indicating they could not reach verdicts but were told to keep trying. The mistrial came after their third note.

Prosecutors said the ``Liberty City Seven'' - so-named because they operated out of a warehouse in Miami's blighted Liberty City section - swore allegiance to al-Qaida and hoped to forge an alliance to carry out bombings against America's tallest skyscraper, the FBI's Miami office and other federal buildings.

The group never actually made contact with al-Qaida. Instead, a paid FBI informant known as Brother Mohammed posed as an al-Qaida emissary.

Here is the same story from the AFP, the French Press Agency (Agence France- Presse.)

MIAMI (AFP) — A US judge declared a mistrial Thursday in a case against six alleged homegrown terrorists, while a seventh defendant was acquitted of charges of plotting with Al-Qaeda to bring down the US government.

Shortly after judge Joan Lenard granted a motion for mistrial, prosecutors said the Miami case would be retried on January 7.

The jurors unanimously found one defendant, Lyglenson Lemorin, not guilty on all four counts but said they failed they were deadlocked over the other six men.

The defendants, known as the "Liberty City Seven" after the predominantly African-American Miami neighborhood where they lived, were accused of conspiring to provide assistance to Al-Qaeda, conspiring to carry out acts of terror and conspiring to bring down the US government.

US prosecutors claim that conspiracy included a plot to blow up the 108-story Sears Towers in Chicago and other buildings, and shoot any survivors.

The defense maintained the group had merely tried to scam Al-Qaeda, but instead ended up being conned by paid FBI informants, one of whom posed as an envoy of the terror network's leader Osama Bin Laden.

The government's case centered largely on secretly-taped video footage of the defendants pledging an oath to Al-Qaeda, in the presence of an undercover FBI informant posing as a member of the terrorist network.

Prosecutors said the whole plot was discovered after a man who had recently left Miami for his native Yemen called the FBI to say the leader of the Miami group had asked him to get in touch with Al-Qaeda.

The man was flown back to Miami, infiltrated the group and later brought in another FBI informant, who posed as an Al-Qaeda member.

The defense team insisted the informants, who were paid a total of 100,000 dollars, planted the idea of the attacks, and that the cash-strapped defendants feigned interest in the plot, hoping to get money out of Al-Qaeda.

When the seven were arrested in June 2006, the FBI admitted they did not have the means to carry out the attacks, calling the alleged plot "more aspirational than operational."

A Miami Herald editorialist recently called the case "a bittersweet farce" that offered the illusion authorities were making progress in the "war on terror." Columnist Ana Menendez dubbed the defendants "bumbling jihadists."

The seven men are members of a faction of the Moorish Science Temple, a sect that mingles elements of Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

Now go check the state- side stories.

The interesting thing I found was that a lot of the Newspapers in the states did not mention the FBI informant, and mostly dramatized the case about a government that based their case on 12,000 pieces of video and wire-tapes, but the defendents only had hearsay.

Remember this: the story you read in a state-side newspaper could very well be a drastically edited version, or even the same story with 2 or 3 important paragraphs dinged out. If you want to know something, do the research, or find sources that you trust, and don't rely on any one for your information.

Unless you like to be lied to repeatedly, day after day, confounded by the merchants of messaged perspectives. Go for it.

No I'm not talking about sexual apparati. I'm talking about the coming recession. Will it be a "soft" or a "hard" landing?

In other words, how many people will get wiped out, and how many sectors of the economy will suffer price declines and bankruptcy. Already, COMPUSA will be going out of business after the first of the year. Washington Mutual is under tremendous pressure because of the Housing implosion. The fall of the dollar is causing adjustments all across the economy as various businesses have increased costs because the value of their assets are now worth less.

For instance: if you invested $1,000,000 in dollar-denominated assets, this asset lost 30% over the last year, and is now worth the equivalent $700,000 in the world markets. Thus the need for cash balances has soaked up the available credit and has halted spendingas businesses look to cover this paper loss on their balance sheets.

Click here and read the first 12 comments to the article as well. Here is a great summary of the current economic events by someone who goes by the moniker of ashkan.

Recap:

A U.S. Credit Bubble of fictitious capital has been circulated through the international system. Fictitious capital is the gap between price and value.

U.S. Dollar imperialism may be coming to an end soon.

The central banks of Asia are stuck with trillions of Green inflating dollars.

The pyramid of credit has been inflating for years.

The Fed is now trying to reflate the U.S. credit system to prevent a deflationary meltdown.

The fictitious Capital of finance securitization 'investnments' may be $100 trillion(?) globally. These paper claims or liens of wealth have fictitious values and will be liquidated for their 'market' prices or a sell-off crisis. Deregulation and non-regulation of debt securitization has allowed for a looting of holders of U.S. debt. This with the declining value of dollars held will be a huge loss for foreign holders.

Owners of securitized investments will meet government intervention with a flood of lawsuits.

Asian nations are stuck and will go down as the dollar and the fictitious Capital goes down.

Will there be a shift to the Asian nations as the center of the capitalist system after this deflation plays out? There is an unraveling of the international credit system. Is the U.S. plan to manage the empire through bankruptcy going to work?

The bailouts won't work because this bubble has to burst as all bubbles have burst and reinflation just buys time. Credit right now to insolvent businesses and consumers is political damage control. With the size of the finance bubble to blow up, this has to go beyond 'recession'.

Also the amount of lawsuits coming against the government and investment banks will be staggering.

Any attorneys here with input. The ads for 'investment loss' lawsuits are beginning to surface.

Considering the securitization investments are bad deals, will litigation concerning losses be successful and what will that do for the markets and the credit availability?

what happens

Click here for this CBS News story (and accompanying PDF document) about the inspector generals report on $1 billion dollars of missing military equipement in Iraq.

One. Billion. Dollars. Lost. Gone. Bye bye.

And that's in addition to the current running total, that was recently assessed by Nobel Prize winning Joseph Stiglitz as topping $2 trillion, closing in on $3 trillion.

We could have treated the "terrorism" issue by uniting the world and using cooperative action from multiple police agencies, after the Afghanistan operation. But no, the cabal of narcissists had to link this to their dreams of invading Iraq and Iran, and in the process completely bungled the entire operation, while allowing massive fraud and corrupt practices in the procurement and privatization process. Private contractors were used to perform the torture routines, because US military are trained that it is their duty to apprehend and stop any abuse of prisoners of war , as is required by the Geneva Conventions. The Bush administration has tried to avoid the "Geneva issue" (as ex-Attorney General Gonzalez said) by creating a legal term called "enemy combattants" which enabled US military to hold people in offshore prison camps indefinately without rights of habeus corpus.

Here is video and transcript of attorney general gonzalez explaining to Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania that there is no right of habeus corpus in the constitution.

Oh really. Ladies and Gentle, here is your constitution. Scroll all the way down to Section 9 (note Cornell Law will ask for a donation, click "No Thanks" and the constitution page will appear).

The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.

Most of those held at Guantanamo for 3,4,5,and 6 years have no evidence against them. Some were sold and turned over by various tribal clans or groups. Some were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some were accidentally picked up in place of someone else. More than 200 were forced to be released by Britain 2 years ago, because they were British citizens, and the British government would have none of this nonsense. It was the British lords who first brought to life the right of habeus corpus, which occurred when a group of them banned together and surrounded the King in the 1200's and forced him to sign the Magna Charta which listed various rights of the Lords in relationship with the King. One of these was the right to not be thrown in jail without public notification and without a trial where you can defend yourself and have the government explain why you are going to jail.

Go ahead. Watch some more Television. Meanwhile, the history of events passes you by like a whispering hurricane, and your brain becomes a receptacle for advertizing and psychic manipulation.

"The wealth of an individual naturally measures itself by one's aptitude to command the work of other persons, but the organization(s) of wealth, where there is a division of labor, is motivated by the desire to save ourselves from disagreeable work and impose it upon others. In this way a man increases his wealth or the goods that he possesses by increasing the quantity of work done by other people ..."

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776) , Chapter 5.

Click here to read Ray McGovern's commentary on the NIE report which judged "with high confidence" that Iran stopped it's nuclear program in 2003. Yes, because of pressure from Russia and China, which don't really want the crazy man in the White House to go through with the next step in the PNAC doctrine, written in 1997.

• “We judge that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program...

• “We assess with moderate confidence Tehran has not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007.

• “We do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently whether Tehran is willing to maintain the halt of its nuclear weapons program indefinitely...

• “We judge with moderate confidence Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium sometime during the 2010- 2015 time frame.

• “We judge with high confidence that Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015.”

  Having reached these conclusions, it is not surprising that the NIE’s authors make a point of saying up front (in bold type) “This NIE does not (italics in original) assume that Iran intends to acquire nuclear weapons.”

Iran is not a threat. Nuclear terrorism is a very real threat, but invading and bombing a nation is not the way to deal with that very real threat. It is a waste of lives, a waste of money, and will only worsen the situation by further destabilizing the region. If the Bush administration were truly concerned about terrorism they would not be completely defunding bolstering security at vulnerable sites in the USA, or slashing the budgets of first responders so they can siphon more money into the hands of private contractors who skim their percentage while they provide less than adequate services and create public relations fiasco's. Halliburton and Blackwater should both be dismantled as shameful institutions, and their CEO's should be imprisoned for their treachery and treasonous behavior. Young people and innocent civilians are dying and whole societies are being devastated and polluted by this horrific bad idea.

Americans might be stupid, but the world is not. We Americans are so used to the corporate media's stranglehold that we have no clue about international news. When is the last time you heard about Africa, Columbia, or France's current upheavel against newly elected President Sarkozy -- who is by the way calling out the police to quell the riots. Pakistan seems to have disappeared off the news. And when is the last time you heard about Howard Dean, who had the gall to say the media giants are monopolies in need of being dismantled under the Sherman Anti-Trust Law of 1890 (there is also The Clayton AntiTrust Act of 1914 - part of the brief Progressive spate of legislation that occurred from 1912 to 1915) you know so much, eh? Watch some more TV, and get more stupider (sic).

Russia has a dominion that stretches from Poland to the Caspian Sea and to the Pacific North of China. India and China combined have 10 times the population of the United States. Brazil has become virtual independent of the world financial banking syndicate. The days of New York Banking hegemony in the world are over. And now, thanks to Bush's incompetence and wasted surplus, America is on the verge of an incredible Financial precipace. The stress on the financial system is enormous right now, and the government is completely bankrupt.