Posted on 05/15/2010 7:56:54 PM PDT by bronxville
Bicycles instead of cars? Dense apartment clusters instead of single homes? Community rituals instead of churches? "Human rights" instead of religious freedom?
The UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) which met June 3-14 [1996]in Istanbul, painted an alarming picture of the 21st century community. The American ways-free speech, individualism, travel, and Christianity-are out. A new set of economic, environmental, and social guidelines are in. Citizenship, democracy, and education have been redefined. Handpicked civil leaders will implement UN "laws", bypassing state and national representatives to work directly with the UN. And politically correct "tolerance"-meaning "the rejection of dogmatism and absolutism" as well as "appreciation" for the world's religions and lifestyles-is "not only a moral duty, it is also a political and legal requirement."1
Hard to believe? Not for veteran UN observers who faced boos and hisses for expressing concern in open UN assemblies. Nor for pro-family members of NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) who faced exclusion from public dialogues for opposing feminist commander Bella Abzug and her radical agenda. And not for those who watched the ecstatic welcome given Fidel Castro and his anti-American diatribe.
Yet, our president and our non-elected American delegates, headed by U.S. Secretary Henry Cisneros, endorse this revolutionary plan, and our U.S. Department of Education is already establishing the framework for its local implementation. Why? What is happening?
continued...
“In 1992, seeking to find greater financial resources for entrepreneurial efforts in these communities, Ecotrust initiated discussions with ShoreBank Corporation, the Chicago-based leader in community development banking. In 1995, the two partnered in founding ShoreBank Enterprise (now ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia), a non-profit community development financial institution (CDFI), and in 1997 ShoreBank Pacific, the nations first environmental bank.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecotrust
They have 5 NONPROFIT Enterprises and 4 Partners:
The Ecotrust = ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia -?1992 ?1995
?1997
EcoTrust is a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a conservation economy in the Pacific Northwest and to mobilizing people around conservation of the regions resources. In 1997, Ecotrust and ShoreBank Corporation formed a partnership to create ShoreBank Pacific. EcoTrust raised capital for its own investment in ShoreBank, and the two organizations continue to collaborate broadly in the region.
To help build a conservation economy in the Pacific Northwest, Ecotrust has characterized a large portion of the region as Salmon Nation and articulated a strategy for its prosperity. A conservation economy promotes economic relationships that maintain ecological integrity while advancing social equity.
Salmon Nation represents a place that follows the coast from Alaska to California where salmon holds a keystone position in history and the economy. By promoting this notion, Ecotrust hopes to inspire a sense of pride, citizenship and environmental responsibility in the people who live in the region.
Northern Inititives = Northern Michigan University - 1992
rthern Michigan University (NMU) is a public university in Michigan’s spectacular Upper Peninsula. In 1992, NMU partnered with ShoreBank to re-form an acacdemic department as a nonprofit community development corporation, now called Northern Initiatives. It’s purpose is to improve economic conditions and develop communities in the Upper Peninsula.
Located in Marquette, Michigan, Northern Michigan University is a four-year, coeducational university with about 9,600 undergraduate and graduate students. NMUs vision is to become a the university of choice for students seeking to receive individualized attention from accomplished faculty delivering a quality academic program in a high-tech learning environment. NMU offers 140 academic programs and each student is issued a ThinkPad or iBook notebook computer as part of tuition and fees. Campus facilities include new art and design studios, clinical science labs, on-campus radio stations, and a public TV station. About 80 percent of NMUs faculty members hold doctorates or the highest degrees in their fields.
Detroit ShoreBank Enterprise = Detroit Renaissance - 1970
Detroit Renaissance is a private, nonprofit organization that brings the business communitys leadership and resources together to encourage the physical and economic revitalization of Detroit and Southeast Michigan. The organization was formed in 1970 by business leaders concerned with transforming the citys troubled past into a promising future. In addition to physical and economic development initiatives, Detroit Renaissance reviews public policy questions and develops a legislative agenda on selected issues.
The Detroit Renaissance board of directors is composed of the chief executive officers of major Southeast Michigan corporations. The Big Three automobile manufacturers and related supplier companies, utilities and financial institutions comprise the largest membership block. Service firms are also active participants.
Detroit Renaissance created The Detroit Investment Fund in 1995 as a for-profit private capital fund to provide financing to growth-oriented businesses, progressive, high-impact real estate projects and special projects which address strategic needs of the city of Detroit.
Cleveland Shorebank Enterprise = The Greater Cleveland Trust - 1994
The Greater Cleveland Partnership (GCP), the primary voice for businesses in Greater Cleveland, seeks to create jobs and wealth, and improve the economic vitality of the region. It was instrumental in bringing ShoreBank to Cleveland in 1994, and helped raise capital to make the expansion possible.
Its priorities include technology, innovation and high-growth businesses; connected physical development; education and workforce development; and business attraction, retention and expansion. As the largest private-sector economic development organization in Ohio, GCP emphasizes service to its more than 16,100 members; advocacy on behalf of members and the region; diversity and inclusion; and internationalization of the region and its businesses.
FDIC NOTICE - ShoreBank is participating in the FDIC’s Transaction Account Guarantee Program. Under the program, through June 30, 2010, all noninterest-bearing transaction accounts are fully guaranteed by the FDIC for the entire amount in the account. General FDIC coverage for deposit accounts has also been increased to $250,000 per depositor through December 31, 2013
http://www.shorebankcorp.com/bins/site/templates/child.asp?area_4=pages/nav/partners/right_side.dat&area_7=pages/titles/partners_title.dat&area_2=pages/partners/landing.dat#cleveland
The 5th NONPROFIT - “A Certified Nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution (CDIF)they listed as ShoreBank Chicago Institute - 1978
I guess the rest are profit making? They’re listed as having $2B in 2008 and are emphatic they didn’t give SUBPRIME loans. Why did the face such significant losses in 2009? They now want $200 million to bail them out.
They mention TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE (TBL) in regards to Ecotrust which is apparently a United Nations order to equally prioritize profits, impact of people and the impact of a project on the environment.
TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE -
With the ratification of the United Nations and ICLEI TBL standard for urban and community accounting in early 2007, this became the dominant approach to public sector full cost accounting. Similar UN standards apply to natural capital and human capital measurement to assist in measurements required by TBL, e.g. the ecoBudget standard for reporting ecological footprint.
In the private sector, a commitment to corporate social responsibility implies a commitment to some form of TBL reporting. This is distinct from the more limited changes required to deal only with ecological issues.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_bottom_line
Bottomline - Spain is broke because they followed the dictates of the UN. Carbon footprints are a joke - my plants and I exchange gases daily. Climate Change happens daily. It’s obviously their vehicle to make money and keep the land and resources protected for themselves while they herd us like cattle into the urban zones they’ve designed for us. This is where we’ll work, sleep, walk, and shop without leaving our assigned sector. There will be no cars (except for them) we will travel via train only and with permission and PAPERS. It’s disgusting that we’re falling for their crap, and that we’re funding these nonprofit ecotrust people, who never actually do a days work, to chase our small business - farmers, fishermen, loggers etc., off their land and out of work thus emptying out small towns. It’s time to STOP this whole charade.
How can a nonprofit bank fund a nonprofit environmentalist movement anyway. It makes no sense unless they’re making mucho money on their profit areas aka non-CDFI’s which I don’t think they have in the first place. Ecotrust is now international. ShoreBank is also international. Whose money are they using? CLOSE THE MONEY SPIGOT!
ShoreBank International -
Selected SBI International highlights -
Assisted 77 partner banks advance $633 million of over 73,000 loans
The average charge-off rate in the above portfolios was less than 1.0%
Trained over 5,000 bank loan officers on small business lending
Helped microfinance institutions in Asia and East Africa convert to banks
The ShoreCap Companies
In 2003, ShoreBank formed the ShoreCap Companies based on the values and operating principles that have made SBI a leader in rebuilding local economies. ShoreCap also taps the resources of SBI.
Together SBI and SCE work with other like-minded organizations and individuals, to catalyze increased economic activity in under-invested communities. SCE provides financial support, operating systems and institutional support to create permanent, locally controlled financial institutions that serve small and micro businesses to achieve sustainable development impact.
http://www.sbksbi.com/index.php?p=601
http://www.sbksbi.com/index.php?p=602
This seems to be a United Nations project full of NGO’s. I just checked - they want to bring it to “Main Street”.
United States Department of Treasury
Remarks by CDFI Fund Director Donna Gambrell at the Association for Enterprise Opportunitys 2010 National Microenterprise Conference and Training Institute
May 11, 2010
Introduction
Thank you, Connie, for those kind remarks. It is an honor to be here today, and to be in the company once again of so many inspiredand inspiringmicrofinance professionals.
Our theme today is Visioning a Microenterprise Ecosystem for Main Street, and I must say, I appreciate the term Main Street in the title. It has a uniquely American connotation, and I believe that this is an ideal time to begin a serious discussion of microfinance with an American focus.
In recent years, as the microfinance industry has grown and matured, its profile has risen, sometimes in quite dramatic ways. I remember how moved I was back in 2006 when the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that it had decided to award the Nobel Peace Price to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank for their efforts to create economic and social development from below. The award was clear evidence that microfinance was no longer working in the shadows to transform the lives of disadvantaged individuals and communities, but had stepped into the full light of day and was gaining the admiration of an ever-growing audience.
I am sure there is no one here today who hasnt been profoundly inspired by the visionary work of Professor Yunus and the Grameen Bankand of the many other outstanding microfinance organizations that are helping to take the industry to a new level.
I am also aware, however, that the success of microfinance around the world has had a curious effect on the way that many perceive microfinance in the United States. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say they dont perceive microfinance in the United States. Rather, they see it as something that is effective in distant lands. And they largely overlook the vital role that microenterprise can and does play right here on our own Main Streets.
So I welcome a discussion with an American focus. And I am confident that, working together, we can develop new ways to build a strong future for American microfinance and start taking some new steps towards raising the recognition and value of microfinance at home.
A holistic vision of community economic development
A strong future must begin with a clear vision. And at the CDFI Fund, we have a clear vision of the role of microenterprise.
Our vision is a product of our own experience working with CDFIs. There are now 860 certified CDFIs in the United States. They range from substantial organizations with staff in cities across the nation to tiny mom-and-pop outfits that focus on the neighborhoods where they are based. And they do a wide range of workfinance businesses large and small, develop affordable housing, and provide funding for community-based social service organizations.
So there is no such thing as a typical CDFI. Each one is different. And that diversity is our greatest strength, because each CDFI has an important role to play.
You see, at the CDFI Fund we believe that strengthening our nations low-income communitiesand, in fact, restoring our nations economyrequires a holistic approach. For a community or an economy to be strong and vibrant, it needs to have strong and productive businesses of every typelarge businesses, small businesses, microenterprisesand businesses in a wide variety of market segments. And it needs much more. It also needs high-quality, affordable housing, effective community service organizations, and a host of other vital institutions.
In other words, there can never be one, big solution; there can only be many small solutions. And the strength of the community development finance industry is that its partsthe separate organizations of which the industry is madeare so diverse that the whole industry by its very nature provides many types of solutions. Indeed, our industry embodies the holistic approach that the task of building stronger communities and rebuilding our economy requires.
The CDFI Fund sees microfinance as an important part of that approach. Once again, that view is a product of our direct experience. In the work of CDFIs, we have seen just how powerful microfinance can be in effecting the kind of individual transformations that are critical steps in the transformation of entire communities.
We have seen, for example, how microloans helped people along the Gulf Coast start new businesses and rebuild their lives in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrinaand are now helping people whose jobs are threatened by the recent oil spill move forward with their lives.
We have seen how microloans have enabled young entrepreneurs in our nations Native Communities to launch businesses in their towns and villages, and to stand as role models for others in their communities.
We have seen how microloans have helped disabled Americanswho suffer disproportionately from unemployment and the effects of povertyto create home-based businesses and discover new opportunities for financial well being.
Yes, the CDFI Fund has seen microfinance in action, and we believe in the power of microfinance.
When I spoke at this conference a year ago, I noted that we were at the beginning of a new day for the CDFI industry. With funding from the Recovery Act in 2009 and a significant increase in our budget for FY2010, the CDFI Fund has been able to expand its impact. And we have been given the responsibility for implementing some new initiatives that will enable us to continue building momentum in 2010 and beyond.
That momentum is evident among CDFIs involved in microfinance as well.
Just consider this: In 2007, the CDFI Fund provided financial assistance awards to 36 Small Business/Microenterprise CDFIsthose are CDFIs whose primary line of work is small business and microenterpriseand the awards totaled $9.6 million.
In 2009, we provided financial assistance awards to 77 Small Business/Microenterprise CDFIs, and the total reached $89.2 million.
And in the current, 2010 round, were committed to increasing both TA-only awards and SECA awards.
Microfinance continues to be a major focus of CDFIs. Of all business loans made by CDFIs, 58.9 percent are microloans. Approximately 53.3 percent of these loans go to minority-owned or minority-controlled businesses, and 40.2 percent go to women-owned or controlled businesses. And nearly half54.1 percentgo to low-income-owned or controlled businesses.
I can also report that the CDFI Fund has taken significant steps to support the growth of Small business/Microenterprise CDFIs.
Through our SECA programSECA stands for Small and Emerging CDFI Assistancewe make it easier for newer and smaller CDFIs to gain access to financial assistance and technical awards. The basic idea is that when these smaller CDFIs apply for awards, we place them in a separate pool so that they compete for the awards against organizations much like themselves rather than against larger, more established CDFIs. Its our way of leveling the playing field for smaller organizations.
Another initiative we have that is critical to the development of CDFIs is our Technical Assistance (TA), which offers smaller grants to both established and emerging CDFIs for the purpose of enhancing their capacity.
The average size of the award was under $90,000 in 2009, and they are used to pay for things like consulting services, technology purchases and operating expenses. And you dont have to be certified to receive TA. When an uncertified group is awarded TA, they have two years to become certified. Out of 27 of these awards made in FY 2009, 21 went to first time applicants, so this is a great tool that you can apply for every year to build your capacity.
One beneficiary of the Financial and Technical Assistance programs has been ACCION Texas-Louisiana. In her testimony to the House Financial Services Committee last March, Janie Barrera, the president and CEO of ACCION Texas-Louisiana, spoke of the tremendous impact that the financial and technical assistance provided by the CDFI Fund organization:
Since 1996, the Fund has awarded ACCION Texas over $6.8 million total in a combination of grants and loans for loan capital, all of which was deployed, on average, within twenty-four months of receipt. We have also received $132,000 in technical assistance grants used to support technology upgrades. These funds have been essential in our expansion beyond our initial office in San Antonio to 14 offices across Texas and Louisiana.
Taking the next step -
Microfinance has made tremendous progress in the United States in recent years. And we can do even more in the years to come. Now is the time to begin envisioning the next steps we must take.
And now is the time to rededicate ourselves to working together.
We all share a common goal. We all want to help microfinance organizations to become stronger and more skillful so that microfinance can become every bit as effective and as widespread in the U.S. as it is elsewhere around the globe.
Indeed, we all want to bring forth a new day for microfinance.
So, I would like to conclude my remarks today by offering a couple of thoughts of my own about how we might begin working together to achieve that goal.
My first thought is simple and very timely. On March 2, the CDFI Fund announced that we are undertaking a comprehensive review of our entire authorizing statute, the Riegle Community Development and Regulatory Improvement Act of 1994. As part of that process we have asked CDFI applicants, community development trade groups, and the general public to provide written comments that we will use to formulate future policy and legislative proposals that will increase our support to CDFIs. In addition, we have conducted a series of national listening sessions in distressed communities around the country to really draw out feedback.
These efforts are a critical part of our strategy to position the CDFI Fund to lead another 15 years of growth for CDFIs and the entire community development finance sector. As I mentioned, the CDFI Fund has a keen appreciation of the importance of microfinance and we would like to find ways to do more. So we welcome suggestions from microfinance professionalsfrom youabout what the CDFI Fund can do to promote the growth of microfinance in the U.S.
My second thought is actually more of a challenge for you. As I was preparing my remarks for my presentation today, I happened to learn that the number of AEO members that are certified CDFIs is
. Well, lets just say that the number isnt quite what it could be. And I wondered why that is.
Perhaps you have thought that the CDFI Fund doesnt provide a lot of assistance to smaller organizations that specialize in either is the case, I invite you to take another look.
I assure you, the CDFI Fund has the resources and we want to help. As I mentioned, our SECA program is designed to make it easier for small and emerging organizations to gain access to our awards, our TA is an excellent resource for first time and established applicants alike and we now provide one-on-one assistance to applicants to make the application process easier.
So my suggestion is to become a certified CDFI. It is the only way that you will be able to take advantage of the tremendous resources that the CDFI Fund has to offer. To learn more about how to start becoming certified and about how the CDFI Funds financial assistance and technical assistance programs can help your organization, please contact us. We will be happy to answer your questions.
I hope that this conference, and this session in particular, mark the beginning of a new era in the development of microfinance in the United States. I look forward to hearing your thoughts about how we can launch that era. And I look forward to working with you as we explore new ways to bring new opportunities to Main Streets across the nation.
http://www.cdfifund.gov/speeches/Gambrell-2010-4-Assoc-for-Enterprise-Opp-2010-National-Micro-Conf-and-TrainingInst.asp microfinance
They’re pushing this Islamic microfinance. She says it’s all over the world. It’s NOT...ShoreBank International has just recently started pushing it over there especially in Eastern Europe which brings Soros to mind. No wonder they want ShoreBank! Why this push to microfinance all of us? There’s nothing for free in this world. You get the loan only if you do the ECO thing - they call it the “three pillars” - isn’t there 3 pillars in Islam? It’s also a good way to finance when they’ve herded us into our sector areas. We can get a loan to buy wool, if that’s permitted, to knit sweaters as a business. They just “awarded” $5 billion to this project.
“The first ShoreBank was started in Arkansas.”
Correction - the first one was started in Chicago.
Why bother? I’m beginning to wonder if it’s even worth it to try to fight them if they’ve already won! So many posters on here keep talking about these things as if they’ve already happened, or are going to happen. Why do we even bother to vote or fight back? This is depressing! (or maybe I’m defeatist)
BRAC In Business
Fazle Hasan Abed has built one of the worlds most commercially-minded and successful NGOs (on our dime)
Feb 18th 2010
SMILING and dapper, Fazle Hasan Abed hardly seems like a revolutionary. A Bangladeshi educated in Britain, an admirer of Shakespeare and Joyce, and a former accountant at Shell, he is the son of a distinguished family: his maternal grandfather was a minister in the colonial government of Bengal; a great-uncle was the first Bengali to serve in the governor of Bengals executive council. This week he received a very traditional distinction of his own: a knighthood. Yet the organisation he founded, and for which his knighthood is a gong of respect, has probably done more than any single body to upend the traditions of misery and poverty in Bangladesh. Called BRAC, it is by most measures the largest, fastest-growing non-governmental organisation (NGO) in the worldand one of the most businesslike.
Although Mohammed Yunus won the Nobel peace prize in 2006 for helping the poor, his Grameen Bank was neither the first nor the largest microfinance lender in his native Bangladesh; BRAC was. Its microfinance operation disburses about $1 billion a year. But this is only part of what it does: it is also an internet-service provider; it has a university; its primary schools educate 11% of Bangladeshs children. It runs feed mills, chicken farms, tea plantations and packaging factories. BRAC has shown that NGOs do not need to be small and that a little-known institution from a poor country can outgun famous Western charities. In a book on BRAC entitled Freedom from Want, Ian Smillie calls it undoubtedly the largest and most variegated social experiment in the developing world. The spread of its work dwarfs any other private, government or non-profit enterprise in its impact on development.
None of this seemed likely in 1970, when Sir Fazle turned Shells offices in Chittagong into a refuge for victims of a deadly cyclone. BRACwhich started as an acronym, Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee, and became a motto, building resources across communitiessurmounted its early troubles by combining two things that rarely go together: running an NGO as a business and taking seriously the social context of poverty.
BRAC earns from its operations about 80% of the money it disburses to the poor (the remainder is aid, mostly from Western donors). It calls a halt to activities that require endless subsidies. At one point, it even tried financing itself from the tiny savings of the poor (ie, no aid at all), though this drastic form of self-help proved a step too far: hardly any lenders or borrowers put themselves forward. From the start, Sir Fazle insisted on brutal honesty about results. BRAC pays far more attention to research and continuous learning than do most NGOs. David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World, called it as near to a pure example of a learning organisation as one is likely to find.
What makes BRAC unique is its combination of business methods with a particular view of poverty. Poverty is often regarded primarily as an economic problem which can be alleviated by sending money. Influenced by three liberation thinkers fashionable in the 1960sFrantz Fanon, Paulo Freire and Ivan IllichSir Fazle recognised that poverty in Bangladeshi villages is also a result of rigid social stratification. In these circumstances, community development will help the rich more than the poor; to change the poverty, you have to change the society.
That view might have pointed Sir Fazle towards left-wing politics. Instead, the revolutionary impetus was channelled through BRAC into development. Women became the institutions focus because they are bottom of the heap and most in need of help: 70% of the children in BRAC schools are girls. Microfinance encourages the poor to save but, unlike the Grameen Bank, BRAC also lends a lot to small companies. Tiny loans may improve the lot of an individual or family but are usually invested in traditional village enterprises, like owning a cow. Sir Fazles aim of social change requires not growth (in the sense of more of the same) but development (meaning new and different activities). Only businesses create jobs and new forms of productive enterprise.
After 30 years in Bangladesh, BRAC has more or less perfected its way of doing things and is spreading its wings round the developing world. It is already the biggest NGO in Afghanistan, Tanzania and Uganda, overtaking British charities which have been in the latter countries for decades. Coming from a poor countryand a Muslim one, to bootmeans it is less likely to be resented or called condescending. Its costs are lower, too: it does not buy large white SUVs or employ large white men.
Its expansion overseas may, however, present BRAC with a new problem. Robert Kaplan, an American writer, says that NGOs fill the void between thousands of villages and a remote, often broken, government. BRAC does this triumphantly in Bangladeshbut it is a Bangladeshi organisation. Whether it can do the same elsewhere remains to be seen.
http://www.economist.com/node/15546464?story_id=15546464
“Although Mohammed Yunus won the Nobel peace prize in 2006 for helping the poor, his Grameen Bank was neither the first nor the largest microfinance lender in his native Bangladesh; BRAC was. Its microfinance operation disburses about $1 billion a year.”
Actually Ron Grzywinski and the University of Chicago who started it all and the American taz-payer continues to pay big bucks on it’s neverending expansions around the globe....
1966-69 - Ronald Grzywinski was president of Chicagos Hyde Park Bank, where he created a successful urban development division focused on lending to minority entrepreneurs. Milton Davis, Jim Fletcher and Mary Houghton worked with him in this unique program -
Continue with Ronald Grzywinski’ Timeline here -
http://www.shorebankcorp.com/bins/site/templates/child.asp?area_4=pages/nav/story/right_side.dat&area_2=pages/about/company_info.dat&area_7=pages/titles
/shore_story_title
Senator Pleaded for Bank Bailout that Cost Taxpayers( cost taxpayers $2.3 billion)
[...]Indeed, ShoreBank obtained $35 million in federal stimulus funds, then used Rep. Schakowsky, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), and former president Bill Clinton to press Illinois authorities for another $100 million.
Finally, unable to raise the necessary capital from a near-bankrupt state, ShoreBank was able to obtain apparently politically-brokered favors from Wall Street, with personal help from Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.
More info here with links...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2527823/posts
‘Glenn Beck’: ShoreBank’s Tangled Web (corruption democrats)
Glenn Beck TV Show episode videos exposing the nexus of anthropogenic global warming, Obama, Joyce Foundation, Chicago Climate Exchange, ShoreBank, Fannie Mae, Franklin Delano Raines, Cap ‘n’ Trade, Crime Inc., Global Governance, Maurice Strong: Glenn Beck TV Show episode videos exposing the nexus of anthropogenic global warming, Obama, Joyce Foundation, Chicago Climate Exchange, Cap ‘n’ rade, Crime Inc., Global Governance, Maurice Strong...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2521506/posts
Interior Secretary Salazar's Secretarial Order 3310 permitting him to decree "wildlands" plays right in with the UN plan, declaring "Wilderness Areas" (only with a different name)--with no Congressional participation nor oversight.
Obamas Shorebank Connections Go Way Back (old newspaper clipping at source)
John on May 20, 2010 at 8:29 am
“There is now a demand by congressional republicans for a probe into the mysterious survival of Shorebank. The letter they sent to the President yesterday asks why did government-supported Wall Street banks decide to save ShoreBank rather than the numerous others [failing banks] that faced a capital shortage?
As the sidebar notes, Obamas connections to the world of socially responsible investing are both longstanding and personal. His friend John Rogers later became one of his campaign fundraisers. John Rogers was also the husband of Desiree Rogers who became the White House social secretary (she was let go after a couple of reality TV stars crashed a state dinner).
The sidebar also gives some more detail on the photo:
Obama is pictured above in 1988, honoring one of the founders of ShoreBank, one of the largest Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) in the US.
And you have to love the second part of the sidebar, which notes (favorably) Obamas connection to Saul Alinsky:
The first social shareholder proxy initiative was organized by the iconic Chicago-based community organizer Saul Alinsky against Eastman Kodak in the late 1960s. Alinsky died in 1972. Barack arrived in Chicago 13 years later to work with the Developing Communities Project, an offshoot of Alinskys network, a context which must have made him conversant with proxy voting strategies.”...
http://www.verumserum.com/?p=14805
socialinvest.org
THE SHOREBANK, OBAMA, CHICAGO CLIMATE EXCHANGE SCAM!
...A small bank in Chicago called SHOREBANK almost went bankrupt during the recession. The bank made a profit on its foreign micro-loans (see below) but had lost money in sub-prime mortgages in the US. It was facing likely closure by federal regulators. However, because the bank’s executives were well connected with members of the Obama Administration, a private rescue bailout was arranged. The bank’s employees had donated money to Obama’s Senate campaign. In other words, ShoreBank was too politically connected to be allowed to go under.
ShoreBank survived and invested in many “green” businesses such as solar panel manufacturing. In fact, the bank was mentioned in one of Obama’s speeches during his election campaign because it subjected new business borrowers to Eco-litmus tests.
Prior to becoming President, Obama sat on the board of the JOYCE FOUNDATION, a liberal charity. This foundation was originally established by Joyce Kean’s family which had accumulated millions of dollars in the lumber industry. It mostly gave funds to hospitals but after her death in 1972, the foundation was taken over by radical environmentalists and social justice extremists.
This JOYCE FOUNDATION, which is rumored to have assets of 8 billion dollars, has now set up and funded, with a few partners, something called the CHICAGO CLIMATE EXCHANGE, known as CXX. It will be the exchange (like the Chicago Grain Futures Market for agriculture) where Environmental Carbon Credits are traded.
Under Obama’s new bill, businesses in the future will be assessed a tax on how much CO2 they produce (their Carbon Footprint) or in other words how much they add to global warming. If a company produces less CO2 than their allotted measured limit, they earn a Carbon Credit. This Carbon Credit can be traded on the CXX exchange. Another company, which has gone over their CO2 limit, can buy the Credit and “reduce” their footprint and tax liability. It will be like trading shares on Wall Street.
Well, it was the same JOYCE FOUNDATION, along with some other private partners and Wall Street firms that funded the bailout of ShoreBank. The foundation is now one of the major shareholders. The bank has now been designated to be the “banking arm” of the CHICAGO CLIMATE EXCHANGE (CXX). In addition, Goldman Sachs has been contracted to run the investment trading floor of the exchange.
So far so good; now the INTERESTING parts.
One ShoreBank co-founder, named Jan Piercy, was a Wellesley College roommate of Hillary Clinton. Hillary and Bill Clinton have long supported the bank and are small investors.
Another co-founder of Shorebank, named Mary Houghton, was a friend of Obama’s late mother. Obama’s mother worked on foreign MICRO-LOANS for the Ford Foundation. She worked for the foundation with a guy called Geithner. Yes, you guessed it. This man was the father of Tim Geithner, our present Treasury Secretary, who failed to pay all his taxes for two years.
Another founder of ShoreBank was Ronald Grzywinski, a cohort and close friend of Jimmy Carter.
The former ShoreBank Vice Chairman was a man called Bob Nash. He was the deputy campaign manager of Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid. He also sat on the board of the Chicago Law School with Obama and Bill Ayers, the former terrorist.Nash was also a member of Obama’s White House transition team.
(To jog your memories, Bill Ayers is a Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He founded the Weather Underground, a radical revolutionary group that bombed buildings in the 60s and 70s. He had no remorse for those who were killed, escaped jail on a technicality, and is still an admitted Marxist).
When Obama sat on the board of the JOYCE FOUNDATION, he “funneled” thousands of charity dollars to a guy named John Ayers, who runs a dubious education fund. Yes, you guessed it. The brother of Bill Ayers, the terrorist.
Howard Stanback is a board member of Shorebank. He is a former board chairman of the Woods Foundation. Obama and Bill Ayers, the terrorist, also sat on the board of the Woods Foundation. Stanback was formerly employed by New Kenwood Inc., a real estate development company co-owned by Tony Rezko.
(You will remember that Tony Rezko was the guy who gave Obama an amazing sweet deal on his new house. Years prior to this, the law firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland had represented Rezko’s company and helped him get more than 43 million dollars in government funding.Guess who worked as a lawyer at the firm at the time. Yes, Barack Obama).
Adele Simmons, the Director of ShoreBank, is a close friend of Valerie Jarrett, a White House senior advisor to Obama. Simmons and Jarrett also sit on the board of a dubious Chicago Civic Organization.
Van Jones sits on the board of ShoreBank and is one the marketing directors for “green” projects. He also holds a senior advisor position for black studies at Princeton University. You will remember that Mr. Van Jones was appointed by Obama in 2009 to be a Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the White House. He was forced to resign over past political activities, including the fact that he is a Marxist.
Al Gore was one of the smaller partners to originally help fund the CHICAGO CLIMATE EXCHANGE. He also founded a company called Generation Investment Management (GIM) and registered it in London, England. GIM has close links to the UK-based Climate Exchange PLC, a holding company listed on the London Stock Exchange. This company trades Carbon Credits in Europe (just like CXX will do here) and its floor is run by Goldman Sachs. Along with Gore, the other co-founder of GIM is Hank Paulson, the former US Treasury Secretary and former CEO of Goldman Sachs. His wife, Wendy, graduated from and is presently a Trustee of Wellesley College. Yes, the same college that Hillary Clinton and Jan Piercy, a co-founder of Shorebank attended. (They are all friends).
Interesting? And now the closing...
Because many studies have been exposed as scientific nonsense, people are slowly realizing that man-made global warming is nothing more than a money-generating hoax. As a result, Obama is working feverishly to win the race. He aims to push a Cap-and-Trade Carbon Tax Bill through Congress and into law.
Obama knows he must get this passed before he loses his majority in Congress in the November elections. Apart from Climate Change he will “sell” this bill to the public as generating tax revenue to reduce our debt. But, it will also make it impossible for US companies to compete in world markets and drastically increase unemployment. In addition, energy prices (home utility rates) will sky rocket.
But, here’s the KICKER (THE MONEY TRAIL).
If the bill passes, it is estimated that over 10 TRILLION dollars each year will be traded on the CXX exchange. At a commission rate of only 4 percent, the exchange would earn close to 400 billion dollars to split between its owners, all Obama cronies. At a 2 percent rate, Goldman Sachs would also rake in 200 billion dollars each year.
But don’t forget SHOREBANK. With 10 trillion dollars flowing though its accounts, the bank will earn close to 40 billion dollars in interest each year for its owners (more Obama cronies), without even breaking a sweat.
It is estimated Al Gore alone will probably rake in 15 billion dollars just in the first year. Of course, Obama’s “commissions” will be held in trust for him at the Joyce Foundation. They are estimated to be over 8 billion dollars by the time he leaves office in 2013, if the bill passes this year. Of course, these commissions will continue to be paid for the rest of his life.
Some financial experts think this will be the largest “scam” or “legal heist” in world history. Obama’s cronies make the Mafia look like rank amateurs. They will make Bernie Madoff’s fraud look like penny ante stuff.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/shorebank.php
Politically Connected Shorebank Rescued by
GE?
John on May 18, 2010
http://www.verumserum.com/?p=14779
Shorebank Fails but is Reborn with Help from Financial Titans
John on August 20, 2010
http://www.verumserum.com/?p=16655
http://knowledgecreatespower.blogspot.com/2010/05/shore-bank-obamas-mother-and-geithners.html
Bottomline - microfinancing has been a failure for a long time...yet they continue to get funding...
http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/microfinance_misses_its_mark/
Building communes in Cleveland...
http://www.ssireview.org/opinion/entry/from_housing_projects_to_farmland_clevelanders_build_largest_contiguous_urb
The leftie banks aren’t working anyway and would fall if we didn’t fund them. But that doesn’t matter to the marxists just shutup and give them the money which is what it amounts to...
When did all this start as i recall one of the dunhams—zeros relatives was involved in micro finance in the third world
Great posts, insight, thanks so much.
...an alarming picture of the 21st century community. The American ways-free speech, individualism, travel, and Christianity-are out. A new set of economic, environmental, and social guidelines are in. Citizenship, democracy, and education have been redefined. Handpicked civil leaders will implement UN "laws", bypassing state and national representatives to work directly with the UN.
Not just no, but [unladylike word]ING HELL NO!
The latest...
Bangladesh minister says Yunus must quit Grameen bank
Feb 16th, 2011
DHAKA (Reuters) Bangladeshs finance minister on Wednesday said Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus should stand down from his role in microlender Grameen Bank following alleged irregularities in its operations.
Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith called Yunus a man of high standing and respect, but said: He is now old and we need to redefine the banks role and bring it under closer regulation.
Yunus, 70, who tried to set up his own political party in 2007, did not respond directly to the finance ministers comments.
When time will come, any transition will essentially require a friendly environment and support from the inside and outside stakeholders of the bank to ensure that we continue to be totally committed to our mission for and with the poor, he told Reuters.
A Norwegian television documentary last year said Grameen, led by 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Yunus, had for tax purposes SHIFTED FUNDS provided by Norways aid agency in the 1990s from one legal entity to another.
The documentary sparked criticism in Bangladesh and abroad of Yunus, whose bank has provided some $10 billion in small loans to individuals, mainly women, to fund businesses and help them escape poverty.
Later, the Norwegian government said an investigation into the allegations against Grameen had found no evidence of misuse of the funds or corrupt practices.
The allegations came at a time when microlending faced political hostility in several developing countries including India, where politicians have accused the bankers of profiteering from the poor.
In January, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina accused Yunus of resorting to a trick to avoid paying taxes.
The government has set up a review committee with very specific terms of reference and will await their recommendations due in three months in taking any action, if need be, in respect of the Grameen Bank, said Muhith.
Friends and admirers have launched a campaign to support Yunus and the microlender, in which the Bangladesh government has a 25 percent stake.
While the campaign of misinformation against Professor Yunus and Grameen Bank continues with increasingly aggressive attacks, support in favour of the Nobel Peace Prize laureates is also getting organised, the Paris-based Friends of Grameen said in a statement issued on Tuesday.
Chairperson of the group Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said:
The members of Friends of Grameen are all deeply concerned by the continued attacks against Professor Yunus and Grameen Bank, that are politically orchestrated.
http://www.ekerala.net/news/bangladesh-minister-says-yunus-must-quit-grameen-bank/
There’s something going on with this bank and, imo, most of the other micro-banks. It’s been shown that it doesn’t work - all it does it put people in an even deeper bind as the interest rates are too high and they never get the debt paid. It’s obvious that the “elders” were selected and placed to protect them.
...Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus..., 70, who tried to set up his own political party in 2007, did not respond directly to the finance minister's comments... A Norwegian television documentary last year said Grameen, led by 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Yunus, had for tax purposes SHIFTED FUNDS provided by Norway's aid agency in the 1990s from one legal entity to another. The documentary sparked criticism in Bangladesh and abroad of Yunus, whose bank has provided some $10 billion in small loans to individuals, mainly women, to fund businesses and help them escape poverty... The allegations came at a time when microlending faced political hostility in several developing countries including India, where politicians have accused the bankers of profiteering from the poor. In January, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina accused Yunus of resorting to a "trick" to avoid paying taxes.Another Nobel Peace Prize winner involved in a scam? What were the *odds*?!?
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