Month: June 2016

South China Sea – Media Hype

Posted on by Helena

According to the media, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have all joined with the US and NATO in filing joint actions against China’s provocations in the South China Sea. According to the media, China is building air defense and sea defense that is offensive in nature and flexing it’s muscles which the US perceives to be an act that may lead to war. According to the media, the tensions are high and these five countries feel that their safety is at risk and have asked the US to secure their borders against China.

Ummmm  Really?  Somethings smells fishy…

According to the newly elected Prime Minister of Vietnam, Nguyen Phuc, they have no intention of threatening force and claim to have a great relationship with China in a joint resolution of peace…they plan to continue talks for a resolution regarding the South China Sea.

According to the newly elected Philippine President, Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines has great admiration and respect for China, and President Xi, and asks the US to kindly not interfere in peaceable negotiations.

And according to the Malaysian Foreign Minister, “Malaysia and China have agreed to settle South China Sea-related issues through the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) and to speed up the completion of the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea (COC).

Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said the agreement was reached at his meeting with visiting China State Councillor Yang Jiechi after the latter called on him at Wisma Putra in Putrajaya today (May 10, 2016).”

So while the US and Europe are declaring the actions of China as hostile moves and directing military intervention for these poor Asian ally countries caught in the dispute, these Asian countries are actually telling the US and Europe to kindly – butt out. But we aren’t. Instead we are being quite provocative.

So why does the US really care?

Because in a report put out by the UN in 2007, the South China Sea is a goldmine – not for gold or oil, but for Aquaculture:


“Aquaculture in Southeast Asia is ideal in places like southern Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei where there are coastal intertidal swamps, mud flats of rapidly extending coasts, embayments as well as the ponds and reef flats, the report said.

Such topographical and geographical advantages are given tooth by the fact that Brunei is typhoon-free, typhoon being the most destructive enemy of sea farming.

The Programme has been carried out in cooperation with Director-General of Fisheries of Malaysia and the Sabah Fisheries Department by the Marine Colloids, Inc, of Rockland, Maine, in the United States. It covered and studied in detail Malaysia, Brunei, southern Philippines and southern Bali and southwestern Sulawesi of Indonesia.

Seaweeds are a multi-billion dollar industry because they are used as medicine, food, agars, colloids, gels and gums for industries; and lately as synthetic material for spaceships in outer galactic exploration.

The most important but highly expensive seaweed is carrageenan, which reaches US$10 ($15) per pound.”


Like the land-grabs in Africa, the South China Sea is about fish-grabs, aqua-grabs, who has the right to the perfect waters for sustainable farm fisheries. Like the African land-grabs – it is about FOOD supply. If China asserts its right, and the five Asian countries switch alliance, the US will lose a food source, and, by default, a profit source.

Over fishing has nearly collapsed the wild fish market. With a growing world population and hungry mouths to feed, the seas have a limited supply that is dwindling rapidly. The solution is aquaculture, or farm fisheries. But even farm fisheries require sustainable waters, and apparently the South China Sea offers this solution. But, territorial disputes over the waters plagued this solution. China decided to ignore the disputes and try to work with these regional countries. That left Europe and the US out of the mix.

Five of the ten top aquaculture producers are South China Sea countries. Vietnam and Thailand are major exporters of farmed products. Asia accounts for 90% of global aquaculture. Nearly all shrimp, salmon, scallops, tilapia, clams, mussels and oysters are farm raised. Since the 1980’s, New England Bay scallops are actually from China… Most of our shrimp is farmed in China.

90% of fish consumed in the US is imported which accounts for a trade deficit of over $10 billion annually. But even more bizarre is that upwards of 75% of wild fish caught in US waters is – exported. To Asia. Weirder still:  “Because foreign labor is so cheap, many Alaskan salmon are caught in American waters, frozen, defrosted in Asia, filleted and boned, refrozen and sent back to us.”

So while the media would have us believe that China is flexing muscle and all the neighboring Asian countries are shaking in their boots, that is not the Truth. It is a plague of convoluted lies that mask reality and feeds us a limp shrimp…

Hillary? Trump University vs Laureate Education…uh-oh

Posted on by Helena

Hillary firmly believes that Trump University should be charged according to the two class action lawsuits pending.  She has rallied to have Trump University remanded and fined for its heinous preying on the misfortune of students who sought a better life…she has declared the school a scam and a fraud…  Uh-oh 

Hillary needs to check her bin of deleted emails, because Laureate University for which Mr. Bill was honorary Chancellor raking in $16.46 million for his honor, is in the midst of a number of honorary class action lawsuits and is having severe financial difficulties with four of its institutions in the US… Despite these actions against Laureate, the President, Douglas Becker, received a base salary in 2014 of just shy $1million after which ‘performance awards’ bumped that number well over $1.7 million and total compensation is listed at $2.46 million according to Bloomberg. Mr. Becker is a high school graduate. He has been said to be a good pitch man and hustler.

But Laureate is hardly a gem in a field of coal, it spends 41% of its revenue on marketing, and just 18% on instruction. The students and alumni at Walden, one of their US schools, have accumulated the second highest Federal loans of any school in the US with only 44% of its undergraduates attempting to pay after three years of graduating. Reviews are scandalous, and a class action lawsuit is pending. Laureate has over $4.5 billion in outstanding debt coming due in 2017, and a caving attempt at an IPO to manage even the interest on it’s debt.

The other Laureate US school undergoing a class action lawsuit is the University of St Augustine claiming omissions, negligence and misrepresentation.
Telemarketers and sales people are paid bonuses for luring people across the world to sign up for this online university which preys predominantly on Latin American, African and Malaysian enrollment. During his tenure as honorary Chancellor, Mr. Bill traveled to Malaysia, Brazil, Peru, and Chile. It is considered the ‘school of choice when you flunk out elsewhere’. And accreditation in one Chilean university has been withdrawn due to poor performance.

Embroiled in the mix is the fact that Laureate contributed to the Clinton Foundation, Becker was deeply involved in the Clinton Initiative, and while Hillary was head of the State Department, they pumped $55 million to a group run by Douglas Becker, International Youth Foundation. IYF is a foundation whose mission statement is: to prepare young people to be healthy, productive and engaged citizens. Their five highest paid consultants are all from – Jordan. And their revenue source is government grants and other contributions. The focus of its grants are the Middle East and Sub-Sahara Africa.

On total expenses of $34 million, roughly $9 million went to grants – roughly 26% – incurring a net loss of $10 million.

Effectively, this is a Jordanian company operating as a US company based in Baltimore, raising money through USAID and the US federal government to support children in Jordan while spending the vast majority on consultants, employees, and executives.

Soros, a private equity group, KKR, and a subsidiary of the World Bank are prominent investors in Laureate. Laureate recently agreed to sell the France program to APAX Partners, a UK private equity company.

Could Clinton be named in the lawsuits given he was acting as Chancellor from 2010 through 2014?   While he would most likely attempt to state he had no knowledge of any misleading or false advertising, as Chancellor, he would have purported knowledge. A Chancellor is considered the leader or ceremonial head of an educational institution. They operate in the same function as that of a CEO for a private company, including complete oversight responsibility, including values, quality control, budgets, economic development, etc…

But Clinton’s role in specifically recruiting students who couldn’t afford the tuition, misleading them into what the potential degree could do for them financially, and making misleading and potentially fraudulent statements could put him at the center of Laureate Education lawsuits – and thus by default The Clinton Foundation, The Clinton Global Initiative, and Mz. Hillary. During his tenure, enrollment went from 550,000 to 800,000 making them the largest for-profit education institution in the world.  To say Clinton didn’t act for  Laureate in the capacity of ‘economic development as Chancellor’, is short-sighted at best.

As of 2015, a bill co-authored by Elizabeth Warren, aka Pocahontas, Students Before Profit, holds executives of for-profit schools accountable for deceptive practices.

Mr Bill? Mr. Bill?

The Clinton Foundation – Grease two

Posted on by Helena

Chelsea Clinton got her Masters in Public Health Education. That means you work on health education – to the public, as in explaining how it works. Ironically, she goes to work for McKinsey and Company, a company that specializes in business acquisitions and management consulting performing quantitative and qualitative consulting including restructuring and downsizing. Odd, but I don’t see what that has to do with ‘Public Health’. Because, it doesn’t.

She then goes on to work for Avenue Capital Group – a Hedge Fund that focuses on distressed debt and equity securities. Not exactly sure how that matches ‘Public Health’ education.

From there she worked for the “Clinton Foundation”, no surprise. Then NBC suddenly hires her as a ‘special correspondent’... with absolutely NO experience at a whopping starting salary of $600,000 which was more than many of the seasoned ‘journalists’!  Whoa!

Okay, so maybe her Bachelors Degree was something of worth…. Nah, it was in History. As in I want to be researcher or librarian, or some such thing. So now we have a history major with a switcheroo to Public Health working in one of the largest and most prestigious business acquisition companies, then in a hedge fund company and finally as a journalist given obvious preferential treatment – but the Clinton’s are just your “Average Family, Guy Girl”… Certainly, no strings pulled there…  Awwww, how sweet….

Her esteemed husband just tanked his hedge fund losing 90% of its value in just a few short years. The value loss is purported to be in excess of $25 million. Oops. Like father – like son…

According to the latest Clinton Foundation Form 990 filed for 2014, Chelsea is now considered a part and parcel of the foundation – although she receives no salary or compensation as an officer or director because those individual salaries are required to be specifically illustrated.   SURPRISE!  A total of $2.2 million was reported, in contrast to the official ‘other category’ of wages reported as a whopping $24.9 million for which delineation is not required. Hmmmm, do you think that’s where her salary was hidden? Hello?  Hello?  Gee whillakers, can’t imagine…

Again, total salaries, benefits and such amounted to about $34.5 million, IT expenses – as in Hillary’s email server – amounted to over $2 million, travel and conferences were over $20.4 million (that’s for ONE year people), office rent was $4.6 million (that’s $383,333 per MONTH), and some ambiguous expenses listed as ‘Other’ totaling about $4.3 million – as in not representative or worthy of discussion.

After all was said and done – they spent $5.1 million on actual grants – as in their total charitable contributions, on total expenditures of $91 million. That equates to about 5.5% on expenses and about 2.8% on revenues, which were $177.8 million… Yeehah!! Included in revenue was government grants of about $15.2 million – as in which governmentz??… The Saudis and Qataris??  Hello?

Yawn. They lost money on ‘program related investments’, as in they invested money and lost it so they decided to call it a Foundation investment instead of a personal investment which would be subject to an annual cap on losses of $3000. Whohooo!   Now it is 100% a write-off.

They lost money on fundraising, to the tune $1.1+ million, and lost money on their CDI Farming Program, which of course is one of their mainstay definitions for their 501(c)(3) status as a Foundation.

However, they did spend $12.3 million on the Clinton Presidential Center, more than TWICE as much as they spent on Grants, and a fancy way of saying a museum for Bill and Hillary, against feeble revenues of just $3.5 million. Another loss. Tch. Tch.

Their fundraising events showed a net Loss of about $1.1 million. Their largest Grant, $2 million, was to the Alliance For A Healthier Generation which is chaired by Chelsea Clinton. Oops..  Again, no conflict of interest there. Oddly, this organization is apparently also funded by The Department of Defense Healthy Base Initiative. What’s that?  Sounds like a Clinton arm twist to me.

Endowment Funds have gone from a minimal $250,000 just three years prior to $150,791,965 as of 2014. WOW! That’s a 600% increase in three years!  Gimme!

About $55 million in contributions to the Foundation came from just 8 ‘unnamed’ individuals. Ewww, we can guess who these unnamed are – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait – come to mind… Soros, of course.

They had $3.6 million in ‘speech revenues’ that went to the tax free Foundation as opposed to Bill and Hillary individually. Huh, how does that work? I think it’s called “tax evasion”.

Most importantly, they took a whopping $177.8 million in revenue and spent just $91 million leaving a nice tax free package of $86.5 million or about 50%. Gee, for a charitable organization, they sure aren’t very ‘charitable’.    But then – they believe government should fund welfare, not silly wealthy, mainstream wealthy – individuals… Unless, of course, they are running for office, and then any guy, person, who has more money than them – is subject to defamation and denigration and should be anteing up or be ridiculed hence forth!  Oh, but that only applies to those making more than ummmm  $250 million per year – as in the “Middle Class”.

Because it isn’t about wealth, it’s about how pissed they are that someone else has – more!