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The process of 'neoliberal restructuring' for the benefit of multinational invasion across the world, through South America, Asia and Africa, as well as post-cold war Eastern Europe, has been executed through the simultaneous fulfilment of a combination of inter-related factors.
(i). Corporate colonisation, the Free-Trade mandate & the global food system:
An alternative, more accurate definition of "Free-Trade: 'The sanctioning of market concentration for monopoly capitalist multinationals & finance capital'.
The template for the whole process of neoliberalism is the global so-called "free trade" architecture of GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade) and other area-specific trade agreements such as FTAA (the Free Trade Area of the Americas), which have broken down the barriers-to-entry to financial speculation and the free movement of goods and services across the world. Robert Griffiths, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Britain: "Globalisation is not being driven primarily by an abstract ideological commitment to 'free markets' or to the free movement of goods, capital or labour. The US, EU and Japan all operate trade barriers of one sort or another; none operate an open-door policy to migrants. Rather, so-called globalisation is driven by the economic necessity of TNCs and other capitalist monopolies to maximise profit through exporting goods, services and capital with as few barriers as possible – except ones which suit their competing interests. These necessities are not new, and have featured prominently in the evolution of imperialism over the past century and more." (quotation from Robert Griffiths article entitled: "Globalisation: a new emerging phase of Imperialism").
Powerful trading blocks such as the United States and the European Union make a nonsense of the assumption that "freetrade" is what constitutes the world trading system, as they have instilled a degree of protection in the face of rigorously applied world trade rules which are fully applied to nations in the South (such as the farming sectors in the US and EU through a widely-acknowledged 'bending of the rules' on agricultural subsidies which has led to the dumping of agricultural produce on world markets, driving down world prices to the detriment of farming sectors in the South, quite apart from the political use of food-aid by the USA). "Subsidies are basically a transfer of money from the pockets of taxpayers to large corporate farmers, so that they can stay in business despite low prices, and to the ones who benefit the most – the Cargills and ADMs of the world who have all this grain that they're giving away at giveaway prices and using to capture markets around the world and drive small farmers out of business in Mexico, India , Africa, Asia and South America", (quote by Peter Rosset, who was executive director of the Oakland, California-based Institute for Food and Development Policy). Transnational corporations such as Cargill – the largest grain transnational corporation in the world – hold structural control of the global food system in terms of integration up and down the food chain in that it has mill, storage and port facilities all over the world for it's massive trading in grain supplies and processing (and so, holds the world-price of grain within it's grasp).
World market distortions are also caused by high tariffs for processed products originating from countries of the south being exported into developed world markets/trade blocks.
Distortions caused by the subsidy regime can be observed to have negatively affected the agricultural trade of countries in the south, particularly in the sugar trade where EU farmers are paid 3 times the world price and the US support-regime valued at a similar extent, affecting developing country exporters who sell at prices which barely cover the variable costs of growing and processing. However, there also exist the market distortions caused by the high level of concentration in the input and distribution side of the agri-food system, with the domination of a few large firms both upstream and downstream of the farming sector. In the sugar trade, the 3 main companies who trade across the globe are: Cargill, Tate & Lyle and Louis Dreyfus.
Within the global food system, the gap between producer prices and retail prices has grown over time, with the price-index of commodities falling by 47% between 1982 and 2001. According to the UN Commission on Trade & Development (UNCTAD), annual export earnings of coffee-producing countries in the early 1990s were US$10-12 billion, whilst the value of global retail sales were £30 billion. However, by 2002, while retail sales exceeded £70 billion, coffee-producing countries received only £5.5 billion, as global oversupply reduced prices. Coffee producers are involved in a global market where 3 TNCs (Nestle, Kraft and Proctor & Gamble) account for 45% of roasting activities, whilst 4 companies account for 40% of cocoa grinding, while in soy and livestock, 3 of the same companies have the lion's share of crushing and feed production in South America and Europe. (Vorley).
The global food system is crucial to the livelihoods of the majority of the world's population, being as it is the case that half of the population of the developing world is rural, with 1.3 billion working in agriculture (2003 figures – Vorley). Family-scale producers worldwide face downward pressure on market prices for many agricultural products because of large suppliers with their own value-chains. While across the industrialised world, farm incomes have fallen over time, in the developing world, the rural peasantry have been further pushed into poverty, migration and loss of livelihood. With 90% of total cocoa production estimated to come from smallholdings of less than 5 hectares, the developing country contribution to the value-added element of the retail product cocoa fell to 28% in 1998-2000 from around 60% in 1970/72 (Vorley).
Long term downward trend in the price of agricultural commodities can also be observed to have been managed on a worldwide systematic basis as well. Over the course of several decades, the World Bank and IMF encouraged scores of nations in the south to gear their agricultural export sectors to the production of a narrow range of primary commodities, resulting in the long-term trend of a wide range reduction in prices of primary commodities over time. For instance, between 1980 and 2000, the price of raw sugar fell by 71%, coffee by 64% and cotton by 41%. (Corbyn).
The food system is characterised as one which involves a large number of competitive, relatively powerless suppliers (producers) and a few large buyers (TNCs), and has evolved to one whereby production is buyer-driven, as the customer and producer components of the system are brought into a more direct relationship for the benefit of consumers in the north. For some products of large-supply to the global market, uniformity and high-quality standards are important factors for further processing and branding by the northern retail market (supermarkets). There has also been an increasing trend towards direct contracting between input suppliers (eg. of feed, seed), industrial-scale processors/suppliers and retailers, as production chains are shortened across the entire agri-food sector, driven by the need for traceability, product consistency and assurance of supply. So, whilst vertical integration characterises livestock in the north (farm to fork), for producers in the south, the situation is characterised as 'vertical disintergration', as farmers increasingly supply at lower cost, favouring large-scale producers at the expense of small farmers, with farmers locked into an 'expand or die' cycle. It is a precise continuation of colonial expropriation which swept through the African continent in the 19th century, albeit in a more subtle way, as the monopolising conduct of a few dominating TNCs hide behind the veil of 'market forces' – an abstract concept which justifies market trends in terms of what is accepted to be the competitive equilibrium state of the world market of a particular product.
In countries of the South, export-orientated farmers are increasingly engaged in contracts with the latter-day "colonial landlords", while now, the US government bribes countries in Africa to have their farming sectors accept GM technology in return for aid for HIV, armlocking farmers into chemical dependency and facilitating market share for biotech companies as farmers pay corporate royalties.
Cross-sector mergers are an increasing phenomenon, with amalgamation creating larger concentrations of corporate power. For example, this has been particularly the case in the 'holy trinity' of the pharmaceutical, seed and agrochemical industry, a combination that has served the interests of seed companies in particular respect of controversial GM technology – a technology perceived as a new frontier in market development.
In the late 1990's Monsanto spent over $8 billion buying up the worlds seed companies. In 1999 Du Pont chemicals paid $7.7 Billion to acquire the world's largest seed company, Pioneer Hybrid. Not to be outdone Aventis bought the largest seed companies in the third world in India and Brazil. The corporate gene giants also control two thirds of the worlds pesticide/herbicide market (Their aim has been simple- to genetically engineer the worlds food crops to be resistant to their own brand herbicides. These seeds are then sold as a patented package – their use boosts herbicide sales).
The 'Trade In-Related Intellectual Property Rights' (TRIPs) – signed in 1995 which were extended to less developed countries in an attempt by the North create a uniform and global intellectual property regime – has inadvertently compromised domestic sovereignty issues such as the right of a country to protect health or food security. In terms of GM food and seed, the consolidation of the seed sector by multinationals such as Monsanto has meant that in many remote areas of the rural South where only one seed company supplies everyone, the result is a reduction in the range of seed diversity and the free choice of seed. In Argentina, for example, Monsanto controls over half of the maize seed market. Ratification of the Biodiversity Protocol in 2003 largely allayed the threat to sovereignty worldwide in regard to a domestic government's right to refuse genetically-modified material. However, the immense market domination of these multinational seed and agrochemical conglomerates (for e.g. AgrEvo bought Cargill's North American seed business for $650 million in 1998) with their huge marketing budgets which allow them to have a highly influential effect on small farmers, enabling them to persuade them of the supposed high-yield benefits of GM crops, ensures that the market consolidation of these big players will be sustained in the medium term at-least.
For TNCs in general, their power-base (involving exchange between them or between their subsidiaries) allows Multinationals to trade-off labour and environmental standards with the need for more profitability. They have the flexibility to move anywhere in the world, holding countries to ransom whose neoliberal economic-policy prescription relies upon foreign investment, as dictated by the imperialism of the IMF who in turn execute their will through conditionality of loan payments and the subsequent debt. Regional trade blocks such as the EU are also central to this process, since it is clear that trade agreements in the World Trade Organisation (geared in the interests of corporations by lobbying through groups such as the 'European Roundtable of Industrialists') are facilitating the supremacy of multinational capital over national sovereignty and the encroachment of financial capital.
Privatisation of state sectors
Whilst privatisation of national assets in the south is a process essential to ensuring that this process continues, privatisation is a process also underway in the North – an indication that a new era of corporate enclosure is well under way. The latest manifestation of the drive for greater and greater corporate enclosure is the proposed General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) which is being negotiated in the WTO – legislation which contains policy frameworks that will eliminate any government policy "interference" where liberalisation of a particular sector has gone ahead (for e.g. a multinational will have full discretion as to whether it enacts for instance, environmental legislation, or subsidy options for the poor as provider of water provision). A template of GATS in action was observed in the privatisation of the water industry in Bolivia in 1998, where those earning the minimum wage spent half of their income on water bills, while people were even charged for collecting rainwater! Re-connection costs in the country were said to be up to half a person's annual salary, for lower income Bolivians. In Trinidad and Tobago where British company Severn-Trent have sought to privatise their water supply, the local newspaper – the Trinidad Guardian – described how, "like Christopher Columbus they came bearing small gifts and big promises. And like Columbus, their allegiance is not to the people of Trinidad & Tobago, but to their backers and shareholders" (Article in "WDM in Action", World Development Movement, Dec 2000). The preparation of this agreement was lobbied with massive support by several US finance corporations such as American Express & Citicorp (WDM, December, 2000).
(ii). Dollar Imperialism, and the universally-applied model of debt-based money creation by private banks
"White man's economics is proving itself far more ruthless than white man's colonial rule" (quote from Mike Rowbotham in his book 'The Grip of Death' [1998], p-257).
Economic growth since the turn of the millennium has been identified as having been increasingly sustained by increased facilities for debt. This observation can even be seen to be relevant throughout history, in how the capitalist system relies upon the banking system to create finance for speculative wealth creation, by creating new money by lending it into existence through fractional reserve banking, which sustains economic growth for the part of the economic system it is widely acknowledged creates wealth – the private sector. The driving engine of financial capitalism itself is the banking system and debt-based money and the hegemony of private banks in this very process, and how financial capitalism cannot sustain itself without people and whole nations going into debt. It is the extent of the 'concentration' of the money creation process within the private-banking system which may be questioned.
At the heart of money creation by banks is the process referred to as 'Fractional Reserve Banking', which is where many times the amount of money is loaned out than actually exists in deposits ('reserve requirements') – a system based on usury (interest) which is largely accepted by most economists as the necessary means of providing the means for speculative investment to generate wealth creation and spread economic activity, namely bank credit as money created in parallel with debt. The vast bulk of money exists as numbers registered as credit in the banking system by virtue of the fact that numerical transfers have almost entirely replaced cash transactions in the western world (the North), and is a practice which is established now as the international norm across the world. However, through fractional reserve, the banking system brings about a 'loan-spiral', since money already loaned out and 'spent' in the economy returns into someone else's bank deposit and so is used as further collateral for further loans. The loan process could have the potential to be exponential if not for the fact that the private banking system's ability to loan money is curtailed through increasing private banks' reserve ratios (meaning that a % of their total assets must be held as deposits). In step with increased economic growth (GDP), the money supply logically expands over time. However, the extent of the banking system's loan spiral has meant that the rate of expansion accelerates over time, for e.g. the UK money supply has increased from £14.1 billion in 1963, to £680 billion in 1996, an increase in the total UK money stock of 98% in just 33 years (Rowbotham p-13). With most economic growth concentrated in the private sector, the long-term trend is towards the increasing privatisation of credit in western societies, emphasised by the case of the UK money supply whereby, while in 1946, the total money stock was comprised of 46% notes and coins printed into circulation, by 2000 it was less than 3%. [El Diwany].
Since much of the banking system's bank-loan system in concentrated in the mortgage market with the elevated market price of property in relation to peoples' income, it is no surprise that there is an obvious correlation between house prices and the expansion of banks' money stock. Banks, in the act of creating a mortgage create the money as a ledger entry; when a bank makes a loan (to a mortgager) it credits their bank account with a bank deposit the size of the mortgage. At that moment new money is created. Higher house prices need higher mortgages which is more profitable for banks, whilst also creating a house price credit-feedback cycle in which the creation of money for the purchase of existing property and land, inflates prices.
This is why the wealthiest nations and corporations are actually the most indebted (the United States is the most indebted nation on Earth: its combined national, private and commercial debt to the banking institutions as of 2016 was around $70 trillion and rising – many times all the dollars in it's economy – as compared to the total of US GDP – which was $18.7 trillion in the same year. Compare this to the total amount of debt sloshing around the world financial sector – colossal in size as compared to any one national economy; by the end of 2008, the level of total derivative debt in the world economy was estimated to be $700 trillion [Kostigen, 2009]. Allied to these ever-widening distortions, there prevails the hypocrisy of the USA who has allowed it's national debt to increase from $235 billion in 1960 to it's current level of over $22 trillion [Ref: US National Debt Clock], whilst at the same time, the "truly indebted" countries of the South are frogmarched through the macroeconomic straightjacket of restrictive fiscal (deficit) policy through Structural Adjustment Programmes by the Bretton Woods institutions. This extent of enduring a high national debt is also a trend similarly replicated in other leading industrialised economies such as Germany and Japan. Rather like the hypocrisy of the supposed free trade regime, which opens developing country markets which the rich nations resist adherence to themselves, all-in-all this amounts to a fully-evolved stage of imperialism.
However, long term trends in the banking system worldwide have seen reserve ratios on bank deposits increasingly set at arbitrary levels over time to ease the freedom of international finance capital, where levels of debt have become very large in comparison to the GDP of national economies, with regulatory reform under Basel I and II incorporating greater financial complexity within the financial system such as moving some liabilities off-balance sheet (securitisation – of which, more explanation below).
Within the US banking sector itself, some of the best-known names in American and European finance have been estimated to have liabilities of 40, 60 or even 100 times the amount of their capital. In the UK, by 1981, new monetary arrangements directed by the Bank of England meant the commercial banks were required to hold 0.5% of their eligible liabilities with the Bank of England in non-interest-bearing accounts, and additionally maintain an average of 6% of their eligible liabilities as liquidity reserves in the form of short-term money market instruments. By the time the Bank of England Act was passed in June 1998 the non-interest-bearing balance had been reduced to a ratio of 0.15% (the intermediate steps being 1986: 0.45%; 1991: 0.4%; 1992: 0.35%; and April 1998: 0.25%). [Elliot, & Atkinson, (2008)].
In the United States, the reserve ratios set by the Federal Reserve have been relaxed over time, such as the Garn-St Germain Act of 1982 which exempted the first $2 million of reservable liabilities from reserve requirements, and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 ("GLB Act") which removed all remaining legal barriers to affiliations among banks, securities firms and life insurers. Relaxation of minimum capital requirements was lobbied for around this time in particular by leading US banks as they came under pressure from competition from off-shore banks. The relaxation in a 1980 administrative ruling led to a reinterpretation of minimum capital requirements which meant that reserve requirements only applied to a narrower range of deposits, as well as greater flexibility in the regulatory framework to allow commercial banks to affiliate with firms engaged in investment banking [Tarullo, Daniel K. (2008]. In recent years, a credit boom was fuelled by a shift away from the traditional "originate to hold" banking model towards an "originate to distribute" (securitisation) model by major US and European banks – meaning greater lending capacity and so greater opportunity to raise total capital return with more loans issued. {NOTE: Securitisation is the process of conversion of existing assets or future cash flows into marketable securities.}
In the UK, the extent of how much total debt – public and private – increased over the 10-year period between 1997 and 2007 is shown by economists Larry Elliot and Dan Atkinson who wrote in their book 'The Gods that Failed' that in October 2007 there was: "£1,200 billion outstanding on mortgage debt and £222 billion outstanding on unsecured consumer credit, giving a grand total, in round numbers, of £1.4 trillion. In other words, using an admittedly imperfect statistic of 46 million for the adult population in the UK gives an average mortgage debt per adult of £26,086 and average consumer credit debt of just under £5,000. Seven years earlier, in Oct 2000, the figures looked like this: on mortgages, £525 billion was outstanding (£11,413 per head) and on consumer credit £125 billion (£2,717 per head), giving a grand total, in round figures, of £650 billion. The increase, in other words, has been of the order of 115% in 7 years. During these same 7 years, earnings rose on average less than 30% ". [Elliot & Atkinson, (2008)]. By 2008, average household debt reached 141% of disposable income in the United States and 177% in Britain. [Elliot & Atkinson, (2008)].
Over recent years, the US and UK economies in particular have been sustained by a prolonged debt-fuelled consumer boom, with both balance of payment deficits and the government's budget deficits largely financed by borrowing abroad. Economist Martin Wolf explained in July 2012 that government fiscal balance is one of three major financial sectoral balances in the U.S. economy, the others being the foreign financial sector and the private financial sector. The sum of the surpluses or deficits across these three sectors must be zero by definition. In the US, a foreign financial (capital) surplus exists because capital is imported (net) to fund the trade deficit. Further, there is a private sector financial surplus due to household savings exceeding business investment. Therefore, by definition, there must exist a government budget deficit so all three net to zero. The government sector includes federal, state and local. For example, the government budget deficit in 2011 was approximately 10% GDP (8.6% GDP of which was federal), offsetting a capital surplus of 4% GDP and a private sector surplus of 6% GDP. [source: Financial Times-Martin Wolf-The Balance Sheet Recession in the U.S.- July 2012].
The US trade deficit, which stood at $566 billion in 2017-18, is effectively financed by the holding of dollar reserves in banks across the world, by persuading the rest of the world to keep buying U.S. Treasury bonds, and through investment income from investments in the newly emerging market economies of Asia (particularly the mega-growth region of China), Eastern Europe and South America, or inward capital investment into America (by late 2002, foreigners had total claims on the US economy of $2,600 billion net of US claims on the rest of the world – equal to 25% of US GDP in 2002). However, it is the US deficit which is sustaining the world economy. If US consumers stopped spending for whatever reason, then the world economy would slow down considerably.
From Gold Standard to Dollar Domination
Since the US economy's departure from the Gold Standard in 1971 to flexible interest rates and exchange rates, the Dollar has remained the international medium of exchange used by foreign business. In order for investors to buy American stocks or bonds, they exchange their currency for U.S. dollars and so, these countries have to hold more U.S. dollars in reserves to accommodate all the exchanges. Nations around the world keep high reserves of dollars to facilitate their own export trade to America and to ensuring there are enough reserves to withstand currency market fluctuations. The volatile nature of capital flows has exacerbated the liquidity shortage and forced other countries (particularly developing countries) to keep far higher reserves of foreign exchange than used to be necessary, as a protection against sudden market feelings. During the same time as the dollar proportion of global reserves has increased, so has the sensitivity of other countries to its value. Because of the US trade deficit, international liquidity has risen very speedily since 1998. In 2001, total world foreign reserves also rose to $1.53 trillion, a rise of 11% of which 68% was in dollars. (P.Bowring, "From Poor to Rich: Capital is flowing in the wrong direction", International Herald Tribune, 12/12/2001).
This flow of dollars generated by the US economy because of the dollar's importance as the world's main currency on account of the international oil trade being denominated in the dollar is the collateral treadmill that feeds financial credit markets across the world, benefiting the entire world economy. The dollar itself has been the oil that has lubricated world trade, making globalisation a reality. Without the outflow of capital from America, many nations would not have been able to develop their economies as they have over the last 30 years (development concentrated in corporate-driven investment, with much of it's expropriated value siphoned-off to feed the pension and investment income of the wealthy sections of the populations in the North). At the same time, the extent of the American Empire is such that other national economies' export markets hugely depend on the buying power of American consumers. Meanwhile, the US trade deficit increases over time, as America's "waistline of consumption" has no bounds (the American population constitute 10% of the world population, but consume nearly a third of total world consumption – Total World GDP). With China now the major epicentre of capital accumulation in the world, with the burgeoning level of China's export trade, many surplus dollars are coming into the Chinese Central Bank and have been used to buy US government treasury bills – effectively granting the US short-term loans.
High rates of saving in Japan, China and the Far East have also long been said to be funding the US economy, because these countries' large flows of money from their savings end up being invested in the US, such as in asset-investment portfolios, to the extent that at the end of 2006, foreigners held 44% of federal debt held by the public, with about 66% of that 44% held by the central banks of other countries, in particular the central banks of Japan and China. [Office of Management & Budget, Executive Office of the President of the United States (2008)].
Without the extraordinary power of money creation by international and large commercial banks, financial markets would not operate to such a massive extent. It is obvious that as the amount of debt that can be recycled into loans increases, this generates greater and greater capital for speculative investment. Due to the volatile nature of the stock exchange – effectively gambling shops or dens of predatory speculation – the value of companies ride on the crest of the wave of the market. What is at the centrepiece of this roulette-table of stock and shares, where the chips are peoples' lives and livelihoods, is the power of international finance – banks, pension and trust funds, investment houses and hedge funds – which is simply colossal and dwarfs even the power of multinationals. Companies can even use this 'easy credit' to buy their own stock which drives the price up, making fortunes for the stockholders. From 2014: "Last year, the corporations in the Russell 3000, a broad U.S. stock index, repurchased $567.6 billion worth of their own shares — a 21% increase over 2012, calculates Rob Leiphart, an analyst at Birinyi Associates, a research firm in Westport, Conn. That brings total buybacks since the beginning of 2005 to $4.21 trillion—or nearly one-fifth of the total value of all U.S. stocks today." (Zweig, "Will Stock Buybacks Bite Back?", Wall Street Journal, Mar 21, 2014).
(iii). The long-term effects of international financialisation
As greater financial liberalisation has further deepened over the years, further increasing the phenomenon of speculative flows across international financial markets, financial capital and the interests of shareholders are ordained a predominance of extraordinary weight, to the extent that whilst in 1970, 90% of total world financial flows were specifically trade related (trade in actual goods or services), by 1990, 90% of these financial flows were purely speculative. Data from the IMF suggests that the year 2001 was the second year in a row when capital flowed from developing countries to support consumption in the west (P.Bowring).
The volatile nature of capital flows experienced in 1997 with the Asian financial crisis in Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea increased awareness of the risk of liquidity shortage. Thereafter, central banks across the world involved in international financial markets and trading with the US ensured they had a buffer of currency in the form of mainly US dollars to insulate the economy, as a protection against sudden economic shocks.
The trend towards financialisation – the banking systems' ever-increasing pressure for 'yield':
Over recent years, as debt has expanded as an impetus for growth (the credit-fuelled booms of the early 21st century), particularly in the US and UK, further reliance on the growth of international finance for domestic wealth generation has created a constant pressure for 'yield'.
The structure of the U.S. financial services industry (and that of world financial services) were transformed during the past 30 years, with the combined forces of new technologies, deregulation and increased competition removing legal and market barriers that separated banks from securities firms and insurance companies. From the late 1980s onwards, the nature of international private capital investments underwent a change …with a new form of equity and debt financing through the issue of standardised bonds which could be traded on the exchange markets but which remained unregulated unlike bank lending (in terms of reserve ratios), and so, had a tendency to get out of control, (as happened across Asia during the 1990s, culminating in the Asian financial crisis of 1997). New computer systems and new financial instruments (e.g. commercial paper, junk bonds and asset-backed securities) made it possible to "securitise many types of business and consumer debt, allowing many business firms and consumers who previously relied on bank loans to gain access to credit from non-bank sources, including finance companies, mortgage companies and the markets. Securities brokers, credit card banks and mutual fund companies offered low-cost cash management and investment management services to the general public. As a result of these innovations, consumers moved a greater and greater share of their investment funds from traditional bank deposits and life insurance policies into investment vehicles linked to capital markets, including high-risk activities closely tied to the capital markets involving underwriting and dealing in securities and derivatives.
The importance of the growth of China to the future growth of US and world capital is wrapped up with the predominance of financial expansion and the liberalisation of international investment flow. However, it has been the extent of this liberalisation process which was the cause of the banking crisis of 2008 and the resulting worldwide downturn.
During 2001 and the first half of 2002, a general slump in the world's equity markets caused sharp drops in investment banking revenues at the five largest global banks – J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and Amro – as well as the "big three" securities firms (Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley). Ever increasing pressure to create quick profit due to the pressure to sustain liquidity and cash flow for bank reserves, where liabilities were increasingly extended in an environment of low interest rates worldwide, put pressure on the banks and financial institutions to constantly find innovative ways of raising profit through greater consolidation within the industry including cross-mergers, but also new conventions in financial liberalisation ('securitisation') which involved the use of new high-risk market assets with greater opportunities for short-term profits, but which carried with them much greater risk of default (eg. 'Mortgage-Backed Securities' & 'Collateralized Debt Obligations'). These new financial inventions in international banking also included 'Credit Default Swaps'. Mortgage-Backed Securities and Credit Default Swaps, in particular, achieved massive growth in short-term profits through vast expansion of leverage and increased risk exposure, doing so at the expense of long-term risk-management strategy as regulators didn't understand these new complex securities and the bank managers themselves gambled upon these new conventions of 'securitisation'.
Mortgage-Backed Securities were themselves related to the sub-prime mortgage market in the US, a market that had grown in importance having first started in 1993. The deregulation in the housing market involved the dismantling of previously-defined underwriting standards for home mortgages to allow mortgages to be sold to borrowers with lower income, who previously wouldn't have qualified to be offered a mortgage under the previously stricter set of guidelines (with sub-prime typically initially fixed, then adjustable as determined by the market interest rate).
With the growth of the sub-prime mortgage market and associated securitisation came a housing bubble in the US caused by a precise combination of low interest rates, a constant escalation of this securitisation and the deregulation in the housing market. This escalation occurred because as mortgage-backed securities paid dividends, the return was so profitable in the short-term that the demand for these types of investments grew and grew. As a result, investment banks such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers were encouraged to find more mortgages to re-finance into MBSs. Mortgage companies were, in turn, happy to sell on mortgages to investment banks dealing in MBSs who had unlimited incentive to supply this product. However, the investment banks themselves also borrowed money to purchase mortgages which they then transferred into MBS. The result was a house-price spiral. Agencies approved the new securities on a continuous basis. However, it emerged only later that "the mortgage-default model that the rating agencies used predated the MBS-fuelled housing market" [Eastland, (2009)]. Furthermore, in the US, the investment banks insured MBS assets against default by insurance companies such as AIG under the agreement that if the MBS no longer yielded a dividend because of default, the insurer would provide the Special Purpose Vehicles (securitisied assets) with money to pay the dividend, for which SPVs had to pay the insurance company insurance premiums, which in effect, was payment for holding amounts of debt.
This further put at risk of default the whole financial sector in the US and worldwide over time since the sub-prime mortgages in themselves were susceptible to large levels of default with approximately 80% of U.S. mortgages issued in recent years to subprime borrowers being adjustable-rate mortgages, therefore leaving these low income mortgage holders in danger of being unable to maintain repayments as interest rates went up.
As the sub-prime market itself was causing the house-price spiral, the demand for yield in the market for MBSs was escalating the demand for sub-prime property, a self-perpetuating positive-feedback loop which was getting out of control, where as profits were made in the short-term at greater and greater speed, the risk of massive default was building-up until such a time as the housing market may stop growing. By mid-2007, financial institutions investing in mortgage backed securities started suffering large losses from mortgage payment defaults. With the rise in interest rates in the US, the amount of people defaulting on their sub-prime mortgages began a steady rise after these sub-prime adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) began to reset at higher rates. This trend intensified as the U.S. house price bubble burst in 2006-07, with these sub-prime mortgage holders suddenly then going into negative equity. As a result, the steep rise in the rate of subprime mortgage defaults and foreclosures caused more than 100 subprime mortgage lenders to fail or file for bankruptcy, most prominently New Century Financial Corporation, previously the nation's second biggest subprime lender. [Morgenson, Gretchen (2007)].
It was this crash in the sub-prime mortgage market which resulted in widespread havoc and panic across the entire world's financial system because many of these MBSs and associated Derivatives, Hedge Funds and Credit Default Swaps were linked to this sub-prime market. The risk of default on these mortgage losses had been transferred onto the investors who purchased these assets. Turmoil was extended to other financial markets such as credit derivative markets, equity and corporate bond markets, as there was a freeze of 'redemption', that is to say of repayment at maturity of shares, bonds, etc. In April 2009, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported in its latest Global Financial Stability Report that losses resulting from the world financial crisis may reach $4 trillion, about two-thirds of which would be incurred by banks, with an estimate of write-down on US-originated assets (to be suffered by all holders) to be $2.7 trillion, with estimates for write-downs extended to include other mature market-originated assets [Xinhua News Agency, (21/04/2009)]. The total provision of the 'Troubled Asset Relief Program'(TARP) was $439.6 billion (in the end, TARP didn't cost the taxpayers anything with the Treasury receiving $3 billion more than the $439.6 billion it disbursed within TARP). At the time, the report published by the 'Troubled Asset Relief Program'(TARP) in July 2009 of the final cost projection of the total cost of the US government bailout of the financial crisis, estimated it could have been potentially as much as $23.7 trillion (£14.3tn) in a worst possible scenario. The report examined the cost of exposure if all parties requested maximum assistance on all aspects of the relief programme involving large capital infusions into hundreds of financial institutions, to a mortgage modification programme, to public-private partnerships using tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to purchase 'toxic' assets from banks. [Kopecki, Dawn and Dodge, Catherine (20/07/2009)]
Debt peonage replaced by financial liberalisation:
For those countries in World Bank/IMF assistance programmes with HIPC status, forced to raise the money they would have paid back to creditors and then spend it according to Western diktat dependent on this international loan capital, the World Bank and IMF are complicit in continually imposing neocolonial conditionality of these countries as a condition of accepting new loans.
Since 2005, the North have been consistently pushing free trade deals which demand that developing countries follow a deregulated and liberalised banking model. Concern with the liberalisation process is attached to how foreign banks can cherry-pick richer customers, which results in an overall decline in services and credit for poorer customers and smaller businesses, because foreign banks shift credit away from investment in productive activities such as agriculture or manufacturing which boosts local economic development. The worry is that fully deregulated and liberalised banking services in less-developed countries will lead to hundreds of millions of people in developing countries lack access to affordable and sustainable banking services. Financial services liberalisation through the WTO or through Europe's planned bilateral trade deals threatens to worsen this situation.
(iv) Old Empires/New Empires – the power of Trade Blocks like the EU
The European Union (EU) have been negotiating with 76 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to bring in Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) – bilateral trade agreements seeking to replace longstanding preferential trade agreements between these countries for products such as sugar and bananas. "Interim EPAs" cover the liberalisation of goods (agricultural or manufactured products). "Full EPAs" include goods, services, and investment (anything from banking, water services and construction). Under EPAs, in return for wider market access, the EU is demanding these countries open up a range of their industries to international businesses (83% of their markets to European imports), which could prevent the development of domestic businesses. The European Union (EU) has recently signed new agreements with 6 countries within the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) in regard to the liberalisation of goods (agricultural or manufactured products), services and investment (anything from banking, water services and construction). Under the new revised EPAs with these 6 countries (Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland), in return for wider market access, the EU has committed these countries open up a range of their industries to international businesses, with exemptions for these 6 SADC countries for sensitive products from liberalisation so as to take account of their level of development. Kenya is among the countries that refused to sign. In response, the EU imposed import tariffs on multiple Kenyan products effective from 1 October 2014. For more info, read: https://furtherafrica.com/2016/11/10/why-african-states-are-refusing-to-sign-on-to-eu-trade-deals/
Mike Rowbotham in "The Grip of Death": "The failure by the Western world to grasp the validity and importance of the criticisms put forward by Douglas and the other monetary reformers must rank as a terrible missed opportunity for us to steady our own social development. But history will surely one day draw attention to the greatest missed opportunity of all time: a missed opportunity which has had the most tragic consequences for generations in the Third World. There was a chance for the imperial powers to end their imperialism with a gift; a gift which is truly beyond measure, and which would have cost the western powers absolutely nothing. The chance existed for the developing nations to learn from our history; to see us choose a different path to economic progress and themselves take a less destructive and more peaceful path to development" (p-257, [1998]).
1). Robert Griffiths, General Secretary of the Communist-Party-of-Britain: "GLOBALISATION: A NEW EMERGING PHASE OF IMPERIALISM", 2003
2). Bill Vorley: "FOOD, INC, CORPORATE CONCENTRATION FROM FARM TO CONSUMER", published by the UK Food Group (2003)
3). Jeremy Corbyn, "Africa: a casualty of Empire-Building", Morning Star, 23 March 2005
4). David Timms: Article taken from "WDM IN ACTION" by World Development Movement, Dec 2000, & Article in the 'Morning Star' by David Timms of the WDM, p-7, Thursday 28th December 2000
5). Mike Rowbotham: "THE GRIP OF DEATH", 1998 [Jon Carpenter] A study of modern money, debt slavery and destructive economics
6). Tarek Elhttp://bookstore.petersoninstitute.org/book-store/4235.html Diwany: "FRACTIONAL RESERVE BANKING AND THE INTEREST-BASED MONEY SUPPLY"- A paper presented by at a meeting of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists, London School of Economics, London, October 1999.
7). Kostigen, Thomas (Mar 6, 2009), "The $700 trillion elephant", Market-Watch – Ref: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-700-trillion-elephant-room-theres
8). Tarullo, Daniel. K. (2008) "Banking on Basel: The Future of International Financial Regulation'', Peterson Institute for International Economics – Ref: http://bookstore.petersoninstitute.org/book-store/4235.html
9). Larry Elliot and Dan Atkinson: 'THE GODS THAT FAILED: HOW BLIND FAITH IN MARKETS HAS COST US OUR FUTURE', (2008)
10). Financial Times-Martin Wolf-The Balance Sheet Recession in the U.S.- July 2012
11). P.Bowring: "FROM POOR TO RICH: CAPITAL IS FLOWING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION", International Herald Tribune, 12/12/2001
12). Jason Zweig, "Will Stock Buybacks Bite Back?", Wall Street Journal, (Mar 21, 2014)
13). Office of Management & Budget, Executive Office of the President of the United States (2009) 'Analytical Perspectives of the FY 2008 Budget' – Budget of the United States Government – Fiscal Year 2008, Ref: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy08/pdf/spec.pdf
14). Craig Eastland (2009) "Understanding the Financial Crisis or How We Got In the Mess We're In"- Compensation and benefits for Law Offices, Issue No 09-06, pp-6
15). Gretchen Morgenson (11th March 2007), "Crisis Looms in Market for Mortgages", The New York Times, Ref: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/business/11mortgage.html?_r=1
16). Xinhua News Agency, (21/04/2009)
17). Dawn Kopecki & Catherine Dodge (20th July 2009) "U.S. Rescue May Reach $23.7 Trillion, Barofsky Says", Ref: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aY0tX8UysIaM
18). New Economics Foundation/Jubilee Research: "The US as an HIPC or 'heavily indebted prosperous country'"; April 2002
Go to Chapter-6: Financial Capitalism – the rollercoaster ride on the flow of the oil/dollar empire coming to the end of the line?


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Afghan agents pour 3,000 litres of liquor into Kabul canal
Syrian family dies after burning coal for heat in Lebanon
Record cargo shipped through Egypt's Suez Canal last year
2021 in pictures: Striking images that defined the MENA
Syrian mother, three children die after burning coal for heat in Lebanon
The family used coal to warm their room on a cold night in a house in Kharayab, a southern Lebanon village.
Lebanon, a country of six million people, is home to 1.5 million Syrians who fled the now decade-old civil war in their country [Getty]
A Syrian mother and her three children have died in their sleep after inhaling toxic fumes from burning coal to heat their room in a village in southern Lebanon, local reports said on Sunday.
Youssef al-Dor, an official with rescue group Resala Health Ambulance Association, said he transported the bodies to be buried from a hospital where the four were pronounced dead.
Al-Dor said the family used coal to warm their room on a cold night in a house in Kharayab, a southern village overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
An official from Fakih Hospital said the mother, 31, and her kids ages 8, 7 and 4 were already dead on arrival. They were declared dead of asphyxiation. Lebanon's state National News Agency said the four died in their home.
Lebanon, a country of six million people, is home to 1.5 million Syrians who fled the now decade-old civil war in their country. They often live in squalid camps and shoddy homes.
As Lebanon grapples with an unprecedented economic crisis, poverty has deepened for both Lebanese and Syrians. The United Nations estimates that 90% of Syrian refugee households live in extreme poverty.
Syrian refugee
Concern over Palestinian prisoner on hunger strike

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Swimming Pigs Tour is our most popular tour!
Visit the famous swimming pigs featured on our Instagram page of White Bay Cay, swim & play with wild stingrays, view the endangered Bahamian Rock Iguanas, stop at a pretty island with a unique blow hole, reef snorkeling (conditions permitting), and island hop on this exciting half day tour.
Adults: $150 + tax per person.
Children ages 5 - 12: $100 + tax per person.
The group tour is not appropriate for smaller children, so for the safety and comfort of our guests, we require children under 5 be accommodated on private charters only.
This excursion gives you a great introduction to Exuma, allows you to see the highlights, you spend a ton of time out of the boat and you still have time to spend some of the day at the pool or beach back at your hotel or villa.
The boat utilized for this tour varies depending on the amount of guests booked. Our largest boat will accommodate groups of up to 46.
Tour includes complimentary ice cold beers, bottled water and cokes/diet cokes.
We require a Visa or MasterCard on file to hold the space, but your card is not charged until you are at the dock.
STAYING IN NASSAU/PARADISE ISLAND? CONTACT US BEFORE BOOKING!
Exuma Water Sports is not associated with any airline. Guests joining a tour on a day they arrive or depart to the island are doing so at their own risk of missing their tour or their flight. Exuma Water Sports cannot guarantee the weather and is not responsible if you arrive on the island and are we are unable to operate.
We are not located near the cruise ports and are unable to accommodate guests on cruises.
Your credit card will not be charged until the day of the tour, unless in the event you cancel.
There is a 20% Cancellation Fee. Tours cancelled within 48 hours of the tour time are subject to a 100% fee.
You may pay cash at the dock, or split the charges on separate cards.
Exuma Water Sports charges in Bahamian Dollars (BSD) and is not responsible for any Currency Exchange differences or Credit Card fees at any time, including in the event of refunds.
In the event the Captain determines the weather to be unsafe, we will work with you to reschedule to the next available date. If rescheduling is not possible, you will be refunded for the tour. Weather and safety calls are the sole decision of the captain.


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Albuquerque New Mexico online Form 4598e 2017-2023
Form 4598e by City
Albuquerque New Mexico online Form 4598e
Albuquerque New Mexico online Form 4598e: What You Should Know
Developer Forms. Sep 1, 2023 — NEW MEXICO (KROE) — New Mexico State Taxpayers' Assistance Commission is a new tax assessment agency authorized to collect New Mexico State taxes. New Mexico State Taxpayers' Assistance Commission Gov. Susana Martinez has named her new State Taxpayers' Assistance Commissioner, Karen E. Rood, to the governorship effective Oct. 1, 2022. Sep 1, 2023 — NEW MEXICO (KROE) — New Mexico State Taxpayers' Assistance Commission is responsible for collecting all taxes on behalf of the State of New Mexico. All New Mexico citizens who pay New Mexico State taxes and receive a bill from the State Taxpayers' Assistance Commission will need to submit all tax forms they may have to the Taxpayer Assistance Commission, New Mexico Taxpayer Assistance Call Center,. Forms in Spanish, Deutsche and Español are available via our website. Sep 1, 2023 — NEW MEXICO (KROE) — New Mexico Department of Health has released more information regarding the Department of Health budget. The Department has identified 2.7 million in General Fund savings through the elimination of the Medical Center and University Care program. This change in the department's budget will be paid for with existing General Fund savings and some anticipated program fee increases. Department of Health Budget Sep 1, 2023 — NEW MEXICO (KROE) — New Mexico Department of Health is requesting an additional 35.5 million in funding to expand behavioral health services. Health Fund Sep 1, 2023 — NEW MEXICO (KROE) — New Mexico Department of Housing and Economic Development has updated plans for the next five years. Under the plan, the agency will grow the rental housing stock and continue to increase housing and urban development across New Mexico. New Mexico Housing and Urban Development Budget Sep 1, 2023 — NEW MEXICO (KROE) — A total of 6.4 million in new funding has been authorized for Albuquerque Public Schools. All new funding is for construction of schools and community centers. Apartment and Community Building Program Sep 1, 2023 — A total of 14 million in new funding has been authorized for New Mexico Public Radio. All new funding is for operation and maintenance of New Mexico Public Radio.
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How To Enable/Disable Dark Mode In Google Docs, Sheets, & Slides
Olivia Wilson August 13, 2022 3 min read
Google recently launched a dark mode option for its Docs, Sheets, and Slides apps, and how to turn them on and off is easier than you'd think.
Dark mode for all its wonders, is of course not to everyone's tastes. And that's ok. Personally though, I prefer it as it's less harsh on my eyes. I'm already staring at a bright PC monitor all day. So I don't need the blinding light from a totally white phone screen too.
If you're like me and tons of other users and prefer dark mode in your apps, here's how to get dark mode set up in these ones from Google's G Suite offerings.
How to enable/disable dark mode in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides
In many cases you may not need to enable dark mode if you're using a device with Android 10 or above. This is because in these newer versions of Android you can enable dark mode as a system default.
Which changes the theme of plenty of apps even before the dark mode option is baked into the app itself. If you don't have your system default theme set to dark mode though, then you have to set each app to dark on an a separate basis.
And now Docs, Sheets, and Slides offer that capability
You'll need the latest version of the app for the dark mode theme to be accessible. Most users should have the update available, but if you're not sure whether or not you're already on it you can check.
Go to your settings, tap on the apps section, then look for and tap on Docs. From there tap on the advanced dropdown which should be at the bottom, and then the version number is at the bottom of this extended segment.
It should say version 1.20.282.03.40. If you're on that version of the app then you should be able to enable dark mode separately from the system.
Once you know you're on the latest versions of these apps, open whichever one you want to switch to the dark mode theme.
Tap the hamburger menu in the left side of the search bar at the top of the app UI. Then scroll and tap on settings. Theme will be the very top option you can select, and your dark mode option will be in there.
When you tap on themes you should see system default, light, and dark. Tap dark to enable dark mode and you're done. Alternatively, tap light to change it back to light mode.
There's also an option to view documents or spreadsheets in the light theme if your app or system default is set to dark mode. This will let you view that specific document in light mode but keep the app set to dark.
If this is the case, simply tap on any document or spreadsheet and then tap the overflow menu (the three dots in the top right corner). The option will be right at the top.
Keep in mind you will need to set the themes for each of these apps separately. The good thing is the option to enable dark mode is in the same spot in each app. So open hamburger menu, tap, settings, then tap theme. Dark mode will be there with the other two options.
Tags: Dark Mode
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These picture of cat dog bird coloring pages is really cute cat coloring pages for your kids. You get permit to download without charge by clicking the DOWNLOAD button under the image. It will be connected to a new window. Do right click on the picture, then pick save picture as… After that you get permit to changed the file name and the folder where you want to save the file. Then click the save button.
Check out these photographs corresponding to cat dog bird coloring pages, hopefully useful.


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The Crime Stoppers Golf day is being held in Beaudesert, South East Queensland on the 30th of October, the Day for Daniel.
The Golf day is primarily to raise support for Crime Stoppers to continue the essential partnership that exists between the Police and the Community. The day also recognises the Morcombe Foundation's efforts with raising awareness of child safety within the community, one of the many.
The Day for Daniel has been chosen by the Crime Stoppers committee to further raise awareness for child safety one of the many principles.


There is then 2 RGB Pod controllers (1x for each side of the table), the 32×12 LED grid controller PCB and the Master PCB which contains the microcontroller. I have created a component list for each category and added up the total amount of components that are needed to assemble the required amount of PCBs in that category. The majority of these components can be found on eBay but there are a select few which may prove more difficult to find.
It isn't like we only made it to the second round, we made it to the final and that is not easy. I have said this in other interviews: It is not easy. We were very close and we lost to Germany, a great national team with great players and they just got past us.
But why Oklahoma? For one, Oklahoma didn exist at the time. Indian Territory belonged to the federal government throughout the war. The various tribes of Indian Territory were divided on what side to support; allegiance to the Union or CSA was on a tribe by tribe, and sometimes a person by person basis.
Will happen at the end of this is the Left will turn around and say we supported Jair. Who MAY WELL BE an actual FASCIST. And we be STRAWMANNED as Fascist Supporters. It's a drawing machine hydro flask colors, that takes a pen (a human tool) and uses it to draw in a singularly robotic way, with some grand results. It doesn't draw at all like we would (though it could), and we would struggle to draw exactly as it does (though we could). It can draw on things bigger than itself the question is really "how long is a piece of string?" when it comes to working out it's maximum area.
hydro flask bottle Junior and senior year were some of the memorable years of my life. Got a few calls my senior year, offers to play for a few D2 and D3 schools. No scholarships, just offers. In the bottom you can see the SD (already divided per game) of every season and below that there the average SD of the league in the past decade hydro flask colors, the league with the smallest average SD is the one that usually the most competitive.This time I added a bunch of countries to add to the 21 in the other post, not all could be included because they don use a league format so that leaves us with 36 countries:Algeria, Morocco and South AfricaChina, Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Thailand and UAEArgentina hydro flask colors, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and UruguaiUEFA top 20 leagues and PolandFirst Place: Morocco (SD=0,2681)Not many people could guessed this (me included) but having the most competitive season should be a good hint that this league is super competitive and the gap between the champion and the relegated teams rarely gets to 30 points, so it always close.Second Place: Portugal (SD=0,2867)Portugal has one the least competitive first divisions in the world but compensates with one the best second divisions, it so competitive that in the last 6 years 6 clubs won the Segunda Liga but only 5 clubs won the Primeira Liga in 84 years. We joke that it the best league in the world because it impossible to leave it. Teams finish in the relegation zone but stay up because those from the third tiers (regional divisions) have no money to compete at this level.5 teams get relegated from FNL hydro flask bottle.


1 Owner From New With Service History (Last Stamp At 21k) - Distinctive Design And Head-Turning Features Make This Ultra-Athletic SUV Hard To Miss - 16In Alloy Wheels, Air Conditioning, Front And Rear Electric Windows, Bluetooth Wireless Smartphone Connectivity, Cruise Control, Hill Holding Assist, Engine Start/Stop Fuel Saving Technology, Rain Sensing Windscreen Wipers, Tinted Glass, Flat Tyre Indicator, All our vehicles may have previously been used for business purposes. Please check in store for the specific history of this car., RAC Approved & Price Checked Daily For Guaranteed Value. PX welcome. Please Note. Deposits up to 500 can be paid through debit or credit card. All balance payments are via bank transfer in full, in-store finance or GBP up to 7,000 limit. This vehicle is based at our Lympsham branch (BS240JN). Buy with Confidence. Carbase, the largest independent used car dealer in the South West.


I'm thrilled to announce that I'll be running a webinar class with The Next Web Academy on 21st November at 6pm GMT.
The class is normally $99 (but worth every penny for the free resources you'll discover, I promise you!), but if you use the link in the banner below you will get a rather tasty discounted price of $69. There are only 40 discounted tickets – so make sure you grab them while they are hot!!


The luksmeta utility enables an administrator to store metadata in the gap between the end of the LUKSv1 header and the start of the encrypted data. This is useful for storing data that is available before the volume is unlocked, usually for use during the volume unlock process.
The metadata is stored in a series of UUID-typed slots, allowing multiple blocks of metadata. Although the luksmeta slots are inspired by the LUKS slots, they are functionally independent and share only a casual relationship. Slots merely provide a hint that a given chunk of metadata is associated with a specific LUKSv1 password (in a slot with the same number). However, luksmeta itself is indifferent to the relationship between a LUKSv1 slot and the correspondly numbered luksmeta slot, with one exception (detailed below).
After a LUKSv1 volume is initialized using cryptsetup(8), it must also be initialized for metadata storage by luksmeta init. Once this is complete, the device is ready to store medata.
Data can be written to a slot using luksmeta save or read from a slot using luksmeta load. You can also erase the data in an existing slot using luksmeta wipe or query the slots using luksmeta show.
It is often presumed that saving metadata to a slot requires a specific UUID or that there is an official registry of UUID types. This is incorrect.
UUID stands for Universally Unique IDentifier. UUIDs are a standardized, widely-used data type used for identification without a central registry. For the relevant standards, see ISO 9834-8:2005 and RFC 4122.
UUIDs are large enough that collision is practically impossible. So if your application wants to store data in a luksmeta slot, just generate your own UUID and use it consistently to refer to your type of data. If you have multiple types of data, feel free to generate multiple UUIDs.
The easiest way to generate a UUID is to use uuidgen(1). However, any compliant UUID generator will suffice.
Before reading or writing metadata, the LUKSv1 block device must be initialized for metadata storage. Three commands help with this process: luksmeta test, luksmeta nuke and luksmeta init.
The luksmeta test command simply checks an existing block device to see if it is initialized for metadata storage. This command does not provide any output, so be sure to check its return code (see below).
The luksmeta nuke command will zero (erase) the entire LUKSv1 header gap. Since this operation is destructive, user confirmation will be required before clearing the gap unless the -f option is supplied.
The luksmeta init command initializes the LUKSv1 block device for metadata storage. This process will wipe out any data in the LUKSv1 header gap. For this reason, this command will require user confirmation before any data is written unless the -f option is supplied. Note that this command succeeds without any modification if the device is already initialized. If you would like to force the creation of clean initialization state, you can specify the -n option to nuke the LUKSv1 header gap before initialization (but after user confirmation).
The luksmeta show command displays the current state of slots on the LUKSv1 block device. If no slot is specified, it prints a table consisting of the slot number, the corresponding LUKSv1 slot state and the UUID of the data stored in the luksmeta slot (or "empty" if no data is stored). If a slot is specified, this command simply prints out the UUID of the data in the slot. If the slot does not contain data, it prints nothing.
Managing the metadata in the slots is performed with three commands: luksmeta save, luksmeta load and luksmeta wipe. These commands write metadata to a slot, read metadata from a slot and erase metadata in a slot, respectively.
The luksmeta save command reads metadata on standard input and writes it to the specified slot using the specified UUID. If no slot is specified, luksmeta will search for the first slot number for which the LUKSv1 slot is inactive and the luksmeta slot is empty. This represents the only official correlation between LUKSv1 slots and luksmeta slots. In this case, the metadata is written to the first applicable slot using the specified UUID and the slot number is printed to standard output. In either case, this command will never overwrite existing data. To replace data in a slot you will need to execute luksmeta wipe before luksmeta save.
The luksmeta load command reads data from the specified slot and writes it to standard output. If a UUID is specified, the command will verify that the UUID associated with the metadata in the slot matches the specified UUID. This type check helps to ensure that you always receive the type of data you are expecting as output. If the UUIDs do not match, the command will fail.
The luksmeta wipe command erases the data from the given slot. If a UUID is specified, the command will verify that the UUID associated with the metadata in the slot matches the specified UUID. This type check helps to ensure that you only erase the data you intended to erase. Because this is a destructive operation, this command will require user confirmation before any data is erased, unless the -f option is supplied. Note that this command succeeds if you attempt to wipe a slot that is already empty.
The amount of storage in the LUKSv1 header gap is extremely limited. It also varies based upon the configuration used by LUKSv1 at device initialization time. In some LUKSv1 configurations, there is not even enough space for all the metadata slots even at the smallest possible slot size.
During the design of this utility, we considered it likely that users would want to reduce the number of usable slots in exchange for more storage space in the slots used. In order to provide this flexibility, the amount of storage available per-slot is dynamic. Put simply, slots are not a fixed size. This means that it is possible (and even somewhat likely) to encounter an error during luksmeta save indicating that there is insufficient space.
This error is not a programming bug. If you encounter this error it likely means that either all space is being consumed by the already-written slots or that the metadata you are attempting to write simply does not fit.
You can attempt to resolve this problem by calling luksmeta wipe on slots that are no longer in use. This will release the storage space for use by other slots. Note that luksmeta does not, however, currently perform defragmentation since the number of usable blocks is rather limited. You can attempt to manually get around this by extracting all slot data, wiping the slots and reloading them in order. However, this operation is potentially dangerous and should be undertaken with great care.
-d DEVICE, --device=DEVICE : The device on which to perform the operation.
-s SLOT, --slot=SLOT : The slot number on which to perform the operation.
-u UUID, --uuid=UUID : The UUID to associate with the operation.
-f, --force : Forcibly suppress all user prompting.
EX_OK : The operation was successful.
EX_OSERR : An undefined operating system error occurred.
EX_USAGE : The program was called with invalid parameters.
EX_IOERR : An IO error occurred when writing to the device.
EX_OSFILE : The device is not initialized or is corrupted.
EX_NOPERM : The user did not grant permission during confirmation.
EX_NOINPUT : An error occurred while reading from standard input.
EX_DATAERR : The specified UUID does not match the slot UUID.
EX_CANTCREAT : There is insufficient space in LUKSv1 header.
Additionally, luksmeta save will return EX_UNAVAILABLE when you attempt to save data into a slot that is already used. Likewise, luksmeta load will return EX_UNAVAILABLE when you attempt to read from an empty slot.


Astronomers from the BICEP collaboration announced on 17 March that, using a modest-sized telescope near the South Pole, they had detected gravity waves that have been rippling through the cosmos since the Big Bang. This is extraordinary news for our understanding of gravity generally, and for our understanding of how the universe probably evolved during the earliest moments of its history.
Last month an international team of physicists and astronomers working with the Planck satellite released a remarkable set of baby photos: images of the universe taken with light emitted when it was a mere 378,000 years old, less than 0.003 per cent of its present age.
I wasn't the only person in the United States who counted an extra reason to enjoy the parades and festivities this week. The announcement at CERN that two independent experimental groups had each collected convincing evidence that the long-sought Higgs particle had been found prompted the physicist and blogger Matthew Strassler to declare 4 July 'IndependHiggs Day'. I couldn't imagine a better reason for fireworks.
One of the T-shirts you'll see quite often around MIT says: 'Speed limit: 186,000 miles per second. It's not just a good idea. It's the law.' The speed in question is the speed of light, and the law comes from Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. Relativity is predicated on the notion that the speed of light is unsurpassable, and most of modern physics is predicated on relativity. So this morning's announcement that a team of physicists at CERN may have measured tiny particles, known as neutrinos, travelling faster than light has the potential to eclipse all other news that ever has or may yet come out of CERN – Higgs particles, supersymmetry and all else combined. The key word, though, is 'potential'. By the physicists' own reckoning, their results require a lot more scrutiny before anyone concludes that physics has one fewer leg to stand on.
Last week a team of physicists based at CERN announced that they had coaxed a handful of elusive antihydrogen atoms into existence: 38 of them, to be exact. Simply creating antimatter is no longer newsworthy; a competing team fabricated tens of thousands of antihydrogen atoms using a different method back in 2002. What's new about the latest experiment – the result of five years' work – is that the fragile atoms stuck around for as long as 172 milliseconds: nearly one-fifth of a second, about half as long as the blink of an eye. And when it comes to atoms of antimatter, that is an astonishingly long time.
Fourteen years in the making, the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva spun to life in September 2008, sending the first batches of protons whirling around its 27-kilometre track at very nearly the speed of light. The goal was to smash the revved-up protons into each other at tremendous energies, mimicking conditions that would have been found moments after the big bang and unleashing new particles and interactions for physicists to scrutinise. The machine came screeching to a halt a few days later. One of the tanks holding liquid helium (to keep the superconducting magnets ultracold) had ruptured. No one could get close to the affected area to inspect the damage or begin repairs until the entire region had been taken off-line and ever-so-slowly warmed up. Fourteen months and £24 million later, the tank had been repaired, new equipment installed to bolster the LHC's resistance to similar spikes in electrical current, and the entire machine cooled back down to its operating temperature.


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Arizona woman accused of shooting husband's 2 stepchildren, killing 1
Peoria Police
Bernadette De La Garza
PEORIA, Ariz. (TCD) -- A 43-year-old woman allegedly shot her husband's two stepchildren, killing one of them.
According to KSAZ-TV, Peoria Police officers responded to a residence near 91st and Olive avenues on Friday, Dec. 10, shortly before midnight. Bernadette De La Garza reportedly dialed 911 and said she had shot two people.
The Arizona Republic reports that police located De La Garza with a gun in her hand on the front porch of her home. Two victims were reportedly found at the scene lying on the driveway with apparent gunshot wounds.
According to the Arizona Republic, paramedics pronounced one of the victims dead at the scene. A second victim is reportedly in stable condition after being transported and treated at the hospital. Police told KSAZ that De La Garza's husband was found heavily intoxicated lying on the ground.
According to KSAZ, De La Garza said the two victims were her husband's estranged stepchildren. They had reportedly come over to visit, and according to KSAZ, her husband and the kids were smoking outside. De La Garza reportedly went outside and allegedly saw her husband bleeding from the mouth on the ground. According to the police report cited by KSAZ, the husband's stepchildren were "instigating and egging him on to get up."
The Arizona Republic reports that De La Garza thought her husband was dead, so she grabbed a gun and told authorities she fell and the gun fired, shooting one of the stepchildren. She reportedly shot the other stepchild in fear of retaliation.
KSAZ said De La Garza told authorities she fired about six shots in total, though she does not know how many times each stepchild was shot individually. According to KSAZ, De La Garza also told authorities that the stepchildren did not make any direct threats, nor did they have any weapons on them.
De La Garza was arrested and charged with second-degree murder and one count of aggravated assault. According to the Arizona Republic, De La Garza remains held on a $1 million bond and is scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 20.
Woman accused of shooting 2, killing 1 outside her Peoria home - KSAZ
Peoria police: Woman admits to shooting husband's 2 stepchildren, killing 1 - Arizona Republic
#Arizona #Peoria
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Virginia Gun Shows – Virginia Citizens Defense League Needs Voluteers
Ammoland Inc. Posted on October 22, 2009 by F Riehl, Editor in Chief
ATTENTION! We still need volunteers for all shifts at Fredericksburg this weekend! See below for more info.
Virginia Citizens Defense League
Virginia – -(AmmoLand.com)- As an all volunteer organization, VCDL depends on YOU to volunteer your time at our area events, where we recruit new activists and keep gun owners informed.
No experience necessary; if it's your first time we'll pair you with a veteran volunteer.
To find out more about helping at our gun show tables, go to: http://www2.vcdl.org/cgi-bin/wspd_cgi.sh/vcdl/gs.html and click on any of the blue links, or contact the coordinator for the show/event listed below with which you are interested in helping.
Here are the upcoming gun shows & events with which we need YOUR help:
a. FREDERICKSBURG http://www.guns-knives.com, October 24-25
Saturday, October 24 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Sunday, October 25 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Contact Robert Herron at [email protected] to help in
Fredericksburg.
b. ROANOKE http://www.showmasters.us, October 24-25, 2009
Sunday, October 25 9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. 12:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Please contact Al Steed, Jr. at [email protected] to help in
Roanoke.
c. RICHMOND http://www.guns-knives.com, Oct 31-Nov 1, 2009
Sunday, November 1 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
*** NEW GUN SHOW ***
Please contact our coordinator at [email protected] to help
at the Meadow Event Park.
d. DALE CITY http://www.olddominionshows.com, November 7-8
Saturday, November 7 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Sunday, November 8 9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. 12:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Please contact Sam Childress at [email protected] to help in
Dale City.
e. NORFOLK http://www.showmasters.us, November 7-8
Please contact Ed Burton at [email protected] to help at
the Norfolk Scope.
f. RICHMOND http://www.showmasters.us, November 14-15
Saturday, November 14 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Sunday, November 15 9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. 12:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Contact our coordinator at [email protected] to help at
the Richmond Raceway Complex.
g. CHANTILLY http://www.cegunshows.com, November 20-22
Friday, November 20 3:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, November 22 10:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. 1:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Please contact Danny Paulson at [email protected] to help in
Chantilly.
h. HAMPTON http://www.guns-knives.com, November 28-29
Please contact Ron Lilly at [email protected] to help
in Hampton.
i. RICHMOND http://www.cegunshows.com, December 5-6
Saturday, December 5 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Sunday, December 6 10:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. 1:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Contact Audrey Muehleisen at [email protected] to help at
the Showplace in Mechanicsville.
j. HARRISONBURG http://www.showmasters.us, December 12-13
Saturday, December 12 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Sunday, December 13 10:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. 1:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Please contact Bob Schmidt at [email protected] to help
in Harrisonburg.
k. FREDERICKSBURG http://www.guns-knives.com, December 12-13
l. DALE CITY http://www.olddominionshows.com, December 19-20
Sunday, December 20 9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. 12:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
m. SALEM http://www.cegunshows.com, December 19-20
Please contact Al Steed, Jr. at [email protected] to help in Salem.
Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. (VCDL). VCDL is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots organization dedicated to defending the human rights of all Virginians. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a fundamental human right.
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