http://www.augustreview.com
My guest this Friday, Patrick Wood:
The Global Elite: Who are they?
Introduction
There are two common misconceptions held by those who are critical of globalism.
The first error is that there is a very small group of people who secretly run the world with all-powerful and unrestrained dictatorial powers. The second error is that there is a large amorphous and secret organization that runs the world. In both cases, the use of the word "they" becomes the culprit for all our troubles, whoever "they" might be. If taxes go up, it is "they" that did it. If the stock market goes down, "they" are to blame. Of course, nobody really knows who "they" are so a few figureheads (people or organizations) are often made out to be the scapegoats.
Depending on a person's politics and philosophy, the scapegoats could be the U.S. President, the ACLU, the Ford Foundation, or Vladimir Putin. The point is, the real power structure is not correctely defined, and thus escapes exposure.
These misconceptions are understandable because when things are wrong, we all have a driving need to know who to blame! In some cases, elitist slight-of-hand initiates and then perpetuates false assumptions.
This writer has never been accused of charging that all large corporations are guilty of initiating and perpetuating globalization. There are many businesses, including banks, who are led by moral, ethical and good-hearted businessmen or businesswomen. Just because a company might touch globalism does not mean it and its management or employees are evil.
Every bit of thirty-five years of research indicates that there is a relatively small yet diverse group of global players who have been the planners and instigators behind globalization for many decades. The primary driving force that moves this "clique" is greed; the secondary force is the lust for power. In the case of the academics who are key to globalism, a third force is professional recognition and acceptance (a subtle form of egoism and power.)
It is also important to understand that core globalists have full understanding of their goals, plans and actions. They are not dimwitted, ignorant, missinformed or naive.
The global elite march in three essential columns: Corporate, Political and Academic. For the sake of clarity, these names will be used herein to refer to these three groups.
In general, the goals for globalism are created by Corporate. Academic then provides studies and white papers that justify Corporate's goals. Political sells Academic's arguments to the public and if necessary, changes laws to accommodate and facilitate Corporate in getting what it wants.
An important ancillary player in globalism is the media, which we will call Press in this report.
Press is necessary to filter Corporate, Academic and Political's communications to the public. Press is not a fourth column, however, because it's purpose is merely reflective. However, we will see that Press is dominated by members of Corporate, Political and Academic who sit on the various boards of directors of major Press organizations.
This report will attempt to identify and label the core players in the globalization process. The intent is to show the makeup and pattern of the core, not to list every person in it. Nevertheless, many people will be named and their associations and connections revealed. This is done for two reasons.
First, it will equip the reader be able to accurately identify other core players as they are brought into focus. Secondly, the reader will be able to pass over minor players who may sound like "big fish" but in fact are only pedestrians.
Organizational Memberships
The old saying, "Birds of a feather, flock together" is appropriate for the perpetrators of globalism. Sociologically speaking, they are like any other people group with like interests: they naturally tend to form societies that will help them achieve their common interests. A side-benefit of fellowship is mutual support and encouragement. Once formed, such groups tend to be self-perpetuating, at least as long as common interests remain.
In modern history, the pinnacle of global drivers has been the Trilateral Commission. Founded in 1973 by David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski, this group is credited with being the founder of the New International Economic Order that has given rise to the globalization we see today.
The Council on Foreign Relations
Prior to the founding of the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) was the most significant body of global-minded elitists in the United States. As far back as 1959, the CFR was explicit about a need for world government:
"The U.S. must strive to build a new international order... including states labeling themselves as 'socialist'... to maintain and gradually increase the authority of the United Nations."
The site for the United Nations headquarters in New York was originally donated by the Rockefeller family, and the CFR world architects worked for many years to use the U.N. as a means to develop an image of world order. Indeed, the CFR membership roster has been, and still is a Who's Who of the elitist eastern establishment.
The first problem with the CFR is that it became too large and too diverse to act as a "cutting edge" in global policy creation. The second problem is that it's membership was limited to north America: What group could effect global changes without a global membership?
The CFR continues to be significant in the sense that politicians often look to its membership when searching for people to fill various appointments in government. It also continues to be a policy mill through its official organ, Foreign Policy.
While there are a several core global elitists in the ranks of the CFR, they represent a very small percentage of the total membership. Conversely, there are many CFR members who are only lightly involved with globalism. For this reason, we do not count the CFR as being central to globalization today.
The Trilateral Commission
David Rockefeller recognized the shortcomings of the CFR when he founded the Trilateral Commission in 1973 with Zbigniew Brzezinski. Rockefeller represented Corporate and Brzezinski represented Academic.
Together, they chose approximately 300 members from north America, Europe and Japan, whom they viewed as being their "birds of a feather." These members were at the pinnacle of their profession, whether Corporate, Academic, Political or Press. It is a testimony to the influence of Rockefeller and Brzezinski that they could get this many people to say "Yes" when they were tapped for membership.
Out of the 54 original U.S. members of the Trilateral Commission, Jimmy Carter was fronted to win the presidential election in 1976. Once inaugurated, Carter brought no less than 18 fellow members of the Commission into top-level cabinet and government agencies.
Perhaps no one has described the Trilateral operation as succinctly as veteran reporter Jeremiah Novak in the Christian Science Monitor (February 7, 1977):
"Today a new crop of economists, working in an organization known as the Trilateral Commission, is on the verge of creating a new international economic system, one designed by men as brilliant as Keynes and White. Their names are not well known, but these modern thinkers are as important to our age as Keynes and White were to theirs.
"Moreover, these economists, like their World War II counterparts, are working closely with high government officials, in this case President Jimmy Carter and Vice President Walter Mondale. And what is now being discussed at the highest levels of government, in both the United States and abroad, is the creation of a new world economic system - a system that will affect jobs in America and elsewhere, the prices consumers pay, and the freedom of individuals, corporations, and nations to enter into a truly planetary economic system. Indeed, many observers see the advent of the Carter administration and what is now being called the "Trilateral" cabinet as the harbinger of this new era."1
The pernicious influence of the Commission and its dominance of the U.S. Executive branch remains unchallenged to this day.
Ronald Reagan was not a member of the Trilateral Commission, but his Vice President, George H. W. Bush, was a member. The Commission's influence was safely perpetuated into the Reagan years.
The 1988 election of George H.W. Bush to the presidency further consolidated Trilateral influence in the U.S.
In 1992, Trilateral member William Jefferson Clinton followed in the presidency and contributed greatly to the cause of globalization.
In 2000, George W. Bush assumed the presidency. While it can be demonstrated that Bush is closely aligned with and totally dedicated to Trilateral goals, he is not a member of the Commission. However, Vice President Dick Cheney is a member of the Commission.
Obviously, Corporate's partnerships with Political, Academic and Press has been very successful. The Original Membership: 1973-1978A short look at the first U.S. membership list is instructive. We have taken Liberty to organize the names according to broad functions, which is not fully adequate to explain the interrelationships. As one examines the biographies of these individuals, one sees a "revolving door" phenomenon where people rotate in and out of government, business, think-tanks, etc., on a regular basis. This is one several tests used to identify a member of the true core of global elite.
Trilateral Commission Membership, 19732
Banking Related
Ernest C. Arbuckle
Chairman, Wells Fargo Bank
George W. Ball
Senior Partner, Lehman Brothers
Alden W. Clausen
President, Bank of America
Archibald K. Davis
Chairman, Wachovia Bank and Trust Company
*Peter G. Peterson
Chairman, Lehman Brothers
*David Rockefeller
Chairman, Chase Manhattan Bank
Robert V. Roosa
Partner, Brown Brothers Harriman & Company
Bruce K. MacLaury
President, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
John H. Perkins
President, Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company
Press Related
Doris Anderson
Editor, Chantelaine Magazine
Emmett Dedmon
Vice-President and Editorial Director, Field Enterprises, Inc.
Hedley Donovan
Editor-in-Chief, Time, Inc.
Carl T. Rowan
Columnist
Arthur R. Taylor
President, Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc.
Labor Related
*I. W. Abel, President
United Steelworkers of America
Leonard Woodcock
President, United Automobile Workers
Lane Kirkland
Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO
Senate/Congress
John B. Anderson
House of Representatives
Lawton Chiles
United States Senate
Barber B. Conable, Jr.
House of Representatives
John C. Culver
United States Senate
Wilbur D. Mills
House of Representatives
Walter F. Mondale
United States Senate
William V. Roth, Jr.
United States Senate
Robert Taft Jr.
United States Senate
Other Political
James E. Carter, Jr.
Governor of Georgia
Daniel J. Evans
Governor of Washington
*William W. Scranton
Former Governor of Pennsylvania
Corporate
J. Paul Austin
Chairman, The Coca-Cola Company
W. Michael Blumenthal
Chairman, Bendix Corporation
*Patrick E. Haggerty
Chairman, Texas Instruments
William A. Hewitt
Chairman, Deere and Company
Edgar F. Kaiser
Chairman, Kaiser Industries Corporation
Lee L. Morgan
President, Caterpillar Tractor Company
David Packard
Chairman, Hewlett-Packard Company
Charles W. Robinson
President, Marcona Corporation
Arthur M. Wood
Chairman, Sears, Roebuck & Company
William M. Roth
Roth Properties
Academic
David M. Abshire
Chairman, Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International Studies
Graham Allison
Professor of Politics, Harvard University
Robert R. Bowie
Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs, Harvard University
*Harold Brown
President, California Institute of Technology
Richard N. Cooper
Provost and Frank Altschul Professor of International Economics, Yale University
Paul W. McCracken
Edmund Ezra Day Professor of Business Administration, University of Michigan
Marina von N. Whitman
Distinguished Public Service Professor of Economics, University of Pittsburgh
Carroll L. Wilson
Professor of Management, Alfred P. Sloan School of Management, MIT
Edwin O. Reischauer
University Professor, Harvard University; former U.S. Ambassador to Japan
Law Firms
Warren Christopher
Partner, O’Melveny and Myers
William T. Coleman, Jr.
Senior Partner, Dilworth, Paxson, Kalish, Levy & Coleman
Lloyd N. Cutler
Partner, Wilmer, Cutler, and Pickering
*Gerard C. Smith
Counsel, Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering
Cyrus R. Vance
Partner, Simpson, Thacher and Bartlett
*Paul C. Warnke
Partner, Clifford, Warnke, Glass, McIlwain & Finney
Associations
Lucy Wilson Benson
President, League of Women Voters of the United States
Kenneth D. Naden
Executive Vice President, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives
Think-Tanks
Thomas L. Hughes
President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Henry D. Owen
Director, Foreign Policy Studies Program, the Brookings Institution
Miscellaneous
Anthony Solomon
Consultant
* Indicates member of Executive Committee
Rockefeller and Brzezinski's strategy was nefarious, yet brilliant.
The election of democrat James Earl "I will never lie to you" Carter was assured by delivering the mostly democratic labor vote. This was accomplished by adding to the inner core: Leonard Woodcock (UAW), I.W. Abel (United Steelworkers) and Lane Kirkland (AFL-CIO).
By 1977, three more labor leaders were added to the membership: Glenn E. Watts (Communications Workers of America), Martin J. Ward (president of United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices), and Sol Chaikin, president of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.
Leonard Woodcock served as Chief Envoy to China under Carter, and was largely responsible for solidifying economic and political ties with Communist China. [Editor's note: Any reader who is or was a member of one of these unions will instantly have flashes of insight as to the enduring duplicity of labor management -- you were effectively "sold down the river" starting 1973 and continuing into the present.]
Those commissioners who Carter brought into his administration (the initial "steering committee", if you will) were Walter Mondale (Vice President), Zbigniew Brzezinski (National Security Advisor), Cyrus Vance (Secretary of State), Harold Brown (Secretary of Defense) and W. Michael Blumenthal (Secretary of the Treasury,) among others.
As the Washington Post phrased it:
"Trilateralists are not three-sided people. They are members of a private, though not secret, international organization put together by the wealthy banker, David Rockefeller, to stimulate the establishment dialogue between Western Europe, Japan and the United States.
"But here is the unsettling thing about the Trilateral Commission. The President-elect is a member. So is Vice-President-elect Walter F. Mondale. So are the new Secretaries of State, Defense and Treasury, Cyrus R. Vance, Harold Brown and W. Michael Blumenthal. So is Zbigniew Brzezinski, who is a former Trilateral director, and, Carter's national security advisor, also a bunch of others who will make foreign policy for America in the next four years."3
Before Carter's term was completed, no less than 18 members (thirty percent of the U.S. Commission membership) of the Trilateral Commission served in his administration. Coincidence? Hardly!
This article purposely leaves out discussion of the non-U.S. membership of the Commission membership, which will be saved for another day. Suffice it to say that the European and Japanese contingents were just as powerful and effective in their respective home countries. Approximately one-third of the membership came from Europe and the other third from Japan. The joint membership met annually (no press allowed) to formulate policy and action plans for their respective regions. Many, if not most, of their policies were published in the Commission's quarterly journal, Trialogue.
The most damning argument ever launched against the Trilateral Commission is the unconstitutional influence of other governments and forces upon the U.S. For instance, Commission members are not elected nor representative of the general population of the U.S., yet they effectively dominated the Executive Branch of the U.S. government. When the Commission resolved policies (behind closed-doors) with non-U.S. members, who were a mere one-third minority, could it be said that foreign influences effectively controlled U.S. policy?
These concerns were never addressed by Congress or the Judiciary. The Executive branch would have nothing to address because it has been continuously dominated by Commission members -- who repeatedly assured us that there was no such conflict of interest. Of course, the answer to these questions are self-evident: U.S. interests, economic and political, have been subverted.
The economic subversion of the U.S. was studied in The August Review's For Sale: The United States of America and was likened to the plundering of a nation, the likes of which have not been seen in modern history.
Current Trilateral Membership
The following list of north American members is not exhaustive. These are selected because of their high visibility in positions within Corporate, Political or Economic and Press. A future installment of The August Review will examine the entire membership list more carefully and completely. The purpose here is to show that the Trilateral Commission has grown, rather than declined, in strength over the years.
Keep in mind that there is no enrollment or application process to belong to the Trilateral Commission. One is invited to join in a manner similar to a college student being "tapped" for membership in a fraternity. Thus, the process is highly selective and discrete. Candidates are thoroughly screened before invitation is delivered. For this reason, one can be relatively sure that anyone who is or who has ever been a member of the Commission is in the core of the global elite. There are likely a few members who are not truly a part of the core, but for the sake of aggregate analysis, this is not an important issue. U.S. Members who have been subsequently added to the Commission over the years include, in part, the following list.
Additional Trilateral Commission Membership through 20054
Banking Related
Paul Wolfowitz
President,
Paul A. Volker
Former Chairman, Wolfensohn & Co., Inc., New York; Frederick H. Schultz Professor Emeritus, International Economic Policy, Princeton University; former Chairman, Board of Governors, U.S. Federal Reserve System; Honorary North American Chairman and former North American Chairman, Trilateral Commission
Alan Greenspan
Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Board of Directors of Bank for International Settlements
Geoffrey T. Boisi
former Vice Chairman, JPMorgan Chase, New York, NY
E. Gerald Corrigan
Managing Director, Goldman, Sachs & Co., New York, NY; former President, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Jamie Dimon
President and Chief Operating Officer, JPMorgan Chase, New York, NY
Roger W. Ferguson, Jr.
Vice Chairman, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System, Washington, DC
Stanley Fischer
Governor of the Bank of Israel, Jerusalem; former President, Citigroup International and Vice Chairman, Citgroup, New York, NY; former First Deputy Managing Director, International Monetary Fund
Richard W. Fisher
President and Chief Executive Officer, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Dallas, TX; former U.S. Deputy Trade Representative
Michael Klein
Chief Executive Officer, Global Banking, Citigroup Inc.; Vice Chairman, Citibank International PLC; New York, NY
*Sir Deryck C. Maughan
former Vice Chairman, Citigroup, New York, NY
Jay Mazur
President Emeritus, UNITE (Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees); Vice Chairman, Amalgamated Bank of New York; and President, ILGWU's 21st Century Heritage Foundation, New York, NY
Hugh L. McColl, Jr.
Chairman, McColl Brothers Lockwood, Charlotte, NC; former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Bank of America Corporation
Robert S. McNamara
Lifetime Trustee, Trilateral Commission, Washington, DC; former President, World Bank; former U.S. Secretary of Defense; former President, Ford Motor Company.
Kenneth Rogoff
Professor of Economics and Director, Center for International Development, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; former Chief Economist and Director, Research Department, International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC
John Thain
Chief Executive Officer, New York Stock Exchange, Inc.; former President and Co-Chief Operating Officer, Goldman Sachs & Co., New York, NY
Lawrence H. Summers
President, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury
Press Related
David G. Bradley
Chairman, Atlantic Media Company, Washington, DC
David Gergen
Professor of Public Service, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Editor-at-Large, U.S. News and World Report
Donald E. Graham
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Washington Post Company, Washington, DC
Karen Elliott House
Senior Vice President, Dow Jones & Company, and Publisher, The Wall Street Journal, New York, NY
Gerald M. Levin
Chief Executive Officer Emeritus, AOL Time Warner, Inc., New York, NY
Fareed Zakaria
Editor, Newsweek International, New York, NY
Mortimer B. Zuckerman
Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, U.S. News & World Report, New York, NY
Labor Related
Sandra Feldman
President Emeritus, American Federation of Teachers, Washington, DC
John J. Sweeney
President, AFL-CIO, Washington, DC
Intelligence Related
John M. Deutch
Institute Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA; former Director of Central Intelligence; former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense
Henry A. Kissinger
Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc., New York, NY; former U.S. Secretary of State; former U.S. Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
James B. Steinberg
Vice President and Director of the Foreign Policy Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC; former U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor
William H. Webster
Senior Partner, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP, Washington, DC; former U.S. Director of Central Intelligence; former Director, U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation; former Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
Susan Rice
Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC; former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs; former Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs, National Security Council
Senate/Congress
Richard A. Gephardt
former Member (D-MO), U.S. House of Representatives
Jim Leach
Member (R-IA), U.S. House of Representatives
Charles B. Rangel
Member (D-NY), U.S. House of Representatives
John D. Rockefeller IV
Member (D-WV), U.S. Senate
Dianne Feinstein
Member (D-CA), U.S. Senate
*Thomas S. Foley
Partner, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, Washington, DC; former U.S. Ambassador to Japan; former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (D-WA); North American Chairman, Trilateral Commission
Other Political
George H. W. Bush
President of the United States
William Jefferson Clinton
President of the United States
Richard B. Cheney
Vice President of the United States
Paula J. Dobriansky
U.S. Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs
Robert B. Zoellick
Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, U.S. Trade Representative
Madeleine K. Albright
Principal, The Albright Group LLC, Washington, DC; former U.S. Secretary of State
C. Fred Bergsten
Director, Institute for International Economics, Washington, DC; former U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs
William T. Coleman, Jr.
Senior Partner and the Senior Counselor, O’Melveny & Myers, Washington, DC; former U.S. Secretary of Transportation
Lynn Davis
Senior Political Scientist, The RAND Corporation, Arlington, VA; former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security
Richard N. Haass
President, Council on Foreign Relations, New York, NY; former Director, Policy Planning, U. S. Department of State; former Director of Foreign Policy Studies, The Brookings Institution
*Carla A. Hills
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Hills & Company, International Consultants, Washington, DC; former U.S. Trade Representative; former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Richard Holbrooke
Vice Chairman, Perseus LLC, New York, NY; Counselor, Council on Foreign Relations; former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; former Vice Chairman of Credit Suisse First Boston Corporation; former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs; former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs; and former U.S. Ambassador to Germany
Winston Lord
Co-Chairman of Overseeers and former Co-Chairman of the Board, International Rescue Committee, New York, NY; former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs; former U.S. Ambassador to China
*Joseph S. Nye, Jr.
Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; former Dean, John F. Kennedy School of Government; former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs
Richard N. Perle
Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC; member and former Chairman, Defense Policy Board, U.S. Department of Defense; former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy
Thomas R. Pickering
Senior Vice President, International Relations, The Boeing Company, Arlington, VA; former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs; former U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation, India, Israel, El Salvador, Nigeria, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and the United Nations
Strobe Talbott
President, The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC; former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State
Miscellaneous
Ernesto Zedillo
Director, Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, Yale University, New Haven, CT; former President of Mexico [Ed . Note: not an American citizen]
David J. O'Reilly
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Chevron Corporation, San Ramon, CA
* Indicates member of Executive CommitteeThe More Things Change, the More They Remain the Same
The occupational makeup of the Trilateral Commission has obviously changed over time, but that only represents the maturing of the globalization process. What was needed in 1973 is not what is needed today. Still, there are some consistencies that are easily observed.
The most obvious consistency (and expansion) is the very large representation by the banking cartel: two chairmen and two board members of of the Federal Reserve System, two presidents of the World Bank, director of the International Monetary Fund, and chairmen/CEO's of several prominent global banks. This does not take into account any linkages from Commission members who are also directors of commercial and investment banks. Financial representation is not incidental because money is the life-blood of globalism. The August Review's coverage in Global Banking: The Bank for International Settlements detailed the apex and makeup of global banking.
Through membership, the Trilateral Commission dominates the executive branch of the U.S. government, the Federal Reserve System, and is closely aligned with the Bank for International Settlements, which controls the world's currencies and money supply. This is seen even without analyzing the remaining two-thirds of Commission membership that resides outside of the U.S.The Institute for International Economics (IIE)
The IIE is an example of a key organization in which one might identify other core members of the global elite. Founded in 1981, IIE is a small policy-wonk organization with only 60 employees and an annual budget of $7 million. According to its own web site,
"The Institute for International Economics is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research institution devoted to the study of international economic policy. Since 1981 the Institute has provided timely, objective analysis and concrete solutions to key international economic problems.
"The Institute attempts to anticipate emerging issues and to be ready with practical ideas to inform and shape public debate. Its audience includes government officials and legislators, business and labor leaders, management and staff at international organizations, university-based scholars and their students, other research institutions and nongovernmental organizations, the media, and the public at large. It addresses these groups both in the United States and around the world."5
This would be easily overlooked unless you examine IIE's board of directors. Trilateralist Peter G. Peterson is chairman of the board. Anthony M. Solomon is honorary chairman of the executive committee. Solomon is the former chairman of Warburg (USA) Inc., former president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and former Under Secretary of the Treasury for Monetary Affairs. Solomon was listed only as "Consultant" on the 1973 Commission membership list.6
There are 12 other Trilateral Commission members (including David Rockefeller) on IIE's board of directors! Having established Trilateral influence (if not total domination), consider the following non-Commission IIE board members who might well be candidates for inclusion in the core of the global elite:
Chen Yuan - Governor, China Development Bank; former Deputy Governor, Peoples Bank of China.
Jacob A. Frenkel - Former governor of the Bank of Israel and former IMF economic counselor and director of research.
Maurice R. Greenberg - Chairman, American International Group.
David O'Reilly - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, ChevronTexaco Corporation.
James W. Owens - Chairman and CEO of Caterpillar.
Lawrence H. Summers - President, Harvard University; former Secretary of the Treasury.
These are just a few of the non-Trilateral board members, and are reviewed only to show the process by which one might identify additional global elite core members.
There are other organizations like IIE that could stand similar analysis of purpose, leadership and directorship. Conclusion
As was declared in the beginning of this analysis, the stampede to globalism is conducted by a small group of individuals with aspirations for global dominance. It should be noted again that there are members of the global "core" who are not members of the Trilateral Commission.
In general, they are driven by lust for money and power. They have clearly made an end-run around the American people in order to achieve personal goals that, in many cases, are diametrically opposed to U.S. interests. If the American people fully understood the magnitude of the deception and power-grab, they would immediately and totally repudiate these individuals and their self-serving global schemes.
In 1971, Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in Between Two Ages: The Technetronic Era,
"...the nation-state as a fundamental unit of man's organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state."7
Brzezinski could not have been more clear than this. Of the few people who paid attention to Brzezinski previously, only one person needed to receive his message fully: David Rockefeller, chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank and consummate globalist. When they teamed up to start the Trilateral Commisison in 1973, the rest, as we say, "became history."
So, how can one determine if an individual is a member of the core of the global elite? There is a good chance that such a person will be:
closely aligned with and accepted by many of the people already identified as core;
often family-related to other core members (i.e., the Bush family, Rockefeller family, etc.);
part of the "revolving-door" that switches them in and out of important and critical positions in government, academia and business;
a member (director or high-level executive) of an organization identified as a core company, such as J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Caterpillar Tractor, etc.;
educated at a prestigious and global-minded university;
belong to one or more organizations that are dominated by people already identified as core.
This list is not comprehensive, nor is it meant to be some simplistic litmus test. It is important to realize that many names being bandied about are NOT part of the core of the global elite, but rather become decoys that shift the focus away from the real elite core. Discretion, common sense and study is required to understand the difference between the two.
Footnotes
Novak, Jeremiah, Christian Science Monitor (February 7, 1977)
The Trilateral Commission, Membership List, www.trilateral.org
Washington Post, January 16, 1977
op. cit.
About Us, http://www.iie.com/institute/aboutiie.cfm
Board of Directors, http://www.iie.com/institute/board.cfm
Brzezinski, Zbigniew, Between Two Ages: The Technetronic Era, (Penguin Books , 1971)
The Home Of The Bruce Collins Show
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Casey Serin says goodbye...
No more iamfacingforeclosure.com
Not sure what that means for the interview on July 6th but I'm guessing he won't be available...
Bruce
Not sure what that means for the interview on July 6th but I'm guessing he won't be available...
Bruce
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
This Friday on the Big Finale
Patrick Wood will join me on The Big Finale this Friday night at 7pm. Patrick is the founder of www.augustreview.com and wrote "Trilaterals Over Washington" with the late Dr. Antony Sutton in the 70's. He has been tracking the globalist elite for over thirty years.
This program can be accessed thru radiohaven.net
This program can be accessed thru radiohaven.net
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Ron Paul getting momentum...
Ron Paul gets 91% in straw poll: not the work of spammers
Glad to see John Rubino add Ron Paul news to his website, www.dollarcollapse.com.
Go, Ron, go!
Glad to see John Rubino add Ron Paul news to his website, www.dollarcollapse.com.
Go, Ron, go!
News of Interest for May 29th...
Congress Considers Web Taxes
Caution: Some Soft Drinks May Seriously Harm Your Health
Immigration Disaster Looming
Metal Stocks Rise Worldwide; Alcan Gains on Report of Norsk Bid
No Jobs for US Citizens Without Homeland Security Approval
Housing is Falling Much Faster than Reported
Housing Collapse Is Much Worse Than Fed Says
US housing market deteriorates at faster pace than expected
New House Sales Fall 11 Percent, Prices Plummet
Broad-based Price Decline In California
Economist: Foreclosure 'bloodbath' on horizon
Foreclosures Nearly Double In Chicago
Bakersfield Foreclosures Way Up
Caution: Some Soft Drinks May Seriously Harm Your Health
Immigration Disaster Looming
Metal Stocks Rise Worldwide; Alcan Gains on Report of Norsk Bid
No Jobs for US Citizens Without Homeland Security Approval
Housing is Falling Much Faster than Reported
Housing Collapse Is Much Worse Than Fed Says
US housing market deteriorates at faster pace than expected
New House Sales Fall 11 Percent, Prices Plummet
Broad-based Price Decline In California
Economist: Foreclosure 'bloodbath' on horizon
Foreclosures Nearly Double In Chicago
Bakersfield Foreclosures Way Up
Saturday, May 26, 2007
News to ponder this weekend...
Making less than Dad did
The insidious effects of inflation...as the Fed devalues the currency, we have slowly lost purchasing power.
From the start of the Central bank in 1913 in the US until today, our dollar's value is now worth about four pennies. Unbelievable.
Find the things that long term will protect your purchasing power. With the growing economies of China and India, things will become more scarce against the backdrop of a flood of currency.
Commodities may be a good way to go.
The insidious effects of inflation...as the Fed devalues the currency, we have slowly lost purchasing power.
From the start of the Central bank in 1913 in the US until today, our dollar's value is now worth about four pennies. Unbelievable.
Find the things that long term will protect your purchasing power. With the growing economies of China and India, things will become more scarce against the backdrop of a flood of currency.
Commodities may be a good way to go.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Happy Friday!
Happy 'three day weekend' Friday!
Tonight, I will be on the "World's Most Hated Blogger's" webcast (iamfacingforeclosure.com) at 5pm PST and then will be broadcasting my program, The Big Finale, at 7pm PST.
Have a good one!
Tonight, I will be on the "World's Most Hated Blogger's" webcast (iamfacingforeclosure.com) at 5pm PST and then will be broadcasting my program, The Big Finale, at 7pm PST.
Have a good one!
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Yamana Gold
I love this stock long term- Yamana Gold- AUY. I originally invested in this stock back when it was only $3.12. Today it is hovering around the 12-13 mark. Not bad eh?
It's a good stock, has great management and long term (with the prospects of an ongoing dollar devaluation), it's a good investment and hedge against inflation.
Last year, I took some of my Yamana stock, purchased low and I took a risk- I put that money in Battle Mountain Gold- BMGX. This one lost me money, but not too much.
So, here is what I have decided to do with that portion:
I sold the stock BMGX and took the cash. Why? At the end of the year, I will post it as a loss on my taxes (because I bought BMGX for .55 per share and sold at .43 per share) yet, I am collecting 3-4 times my initial investment with AUY.
So, if I can save on my taxes and still take a hefty profit on it, why not leave the dead fish, BMGX? It's a total win.
Happy investing.
Bruce
It's a good stock, has great management and long term (with the prospects of an ongoing dollar devaluation), it's a good investment and hedge against inflation.
Last year, I took some of my Yamana stock, purchased low and I took a risk- I put that money in Battle Mountain Gold- BMGX. This one lost me money, but not too much.
So, here is what I have decided to do with that portion:
I sold the stock BMGX and took the cash. Why? At the end of the year, I will post it as a loss on my taxes (because I bought BMGX for .55 per share and sold at .43 per share) yet, I am collecting 3-4 times my initial investment with AUY.
So, if I can save on my taxes and still take a hefty profit on it, why not leave the dead fish, BMGX? It's a total win.
Happy investing.
Bruce
Tomorrow night on the Big Finale- plus Casey Serin's webcast...
Casey Serin has invited me to be on his webcast tomorrow night (as well as all of his sponsors). I have happily accepted.
Tomorrow night on the Big Finale, my guest is Dr. Stanley Monteith. Dr. Monteith is the host of Radio Liberty. He is the author of "Brotherhood of Darkness" and he has been tracking the globalists/transnationalists for decades. I'm sure he will have some interesting things to say on Friday (in light of the President's ever increasing dictatorial powers).
Tomorrow night on the Big Finale, my guest is Dr. Stanley Monteith. Dr. Monteith is the host of Radio Liberty. He is the author of "Brotherhood of Darkness" and he has been tracking the globalists/transnationalists for decades. I'm sure he will have some interesting things to say on Friday (in light of the President's ever increasing dictatorial powers).
Stories of Interest for May 24th
Why a Chinese Monetary Tightening Could Be Followed By a Global Depression
Pricey Gasoline Costs U.S. Consumers Extra $20 Bln
Tomato-Killing Virus Detected in Calif.
New home sales surge 16% in April as prices plunge Wow, credit is still fast and loose...
Toll Brothers profit falls on housing downturn
California Slow to Curb Subprime Lenders
Economic Tsunami Warning
Pricey Gasoline Costs U.S. Consumers Extra $20 Bln
Tomato-Killing Virus Detected in Calif.
New home sales surge 16% in April as prices plunge Wow, credit is still fast and loose...
Toll Brothers profit falls on housing downturn
California Slow to Curb Subprime Lenders
Economic Tsunami Warning
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
For the record...
I've been studying this housing bubble for a long time. I was saying that this thing was going to be a bad scene someday.
Although this wasn't written until 2006, here is some proof of what I am saying:
Yes, Virginia, There Is A Housing Bubble!
February 21, 2006
by: Bruce Collins
For clarification: My advertising on iamfacingforeclosure.com is not in any way to advocate flipping houses, obviously. I accomplished what I wanted on that site, which was to simply generate more buzz. I've done some of that already as I have been able to talk about my program on Monster Radio in over 50 markets (Monster is produced by RadioAmerica.org)
In retrospect, I might not have wanted to proclaim Casey Serin as a 'genius' across the board. I think he has some good marketing abilities but he's no tycoon, by any means.
Hope that clarifies some.
This is a great book which will provide further clarification on where the economy is headed (you've been warned):
Book Review: The Coming Collapse Of The Dollar And How To Profit From It
February 15, 2006
by: Bruce Collins
Although this wasn't written until 2006, here is some proof of what I am saying:
Yes, Virginia, There Is A Housing Bubble!
February 21, 2006
by: Bruce Collins
For clarification: My advertising on iamfacingforeclosure.com is not in any way to advocate flipping houses, obviously. I accomplished what I wanted on that site, which was to simply generate more buzz. I've done some of that already as I have been able to talk about my program on Monster Radio in over 50 markets (Monster is produced by RadioAmerica.org)
In retrospect, I might not have wanted to proclaim Casey Serin as a 'genius' across the board. I think he has some good marketing abilities but he's no tycoon, by any means.
Hope that clarifies some.
This is a great book which will provide further clarification on where the economy is headed (you've been warned):
Book Review: The Coming Collapse Of The Dollar And How To Profit From It
February 15, 2006
by: Bruce Collins
Retirement Interrupted by Bad Real Estate Decisions....
Very sad! -Bruce
By Donna Rosato, Money Magazine staff writer
May 22 2007: 4:17 PM EDT
(Money Magazine) -- Walking along a pier in Daytona Beach with their youngest grandson on a recent Saturday afternoon, Steve and Carol Daimler stopped to see what fish the locals were catching. The fishermen wowed 10-year-old David with a big flounder they'd just landed and photos of a 500-pound, nine-foot shark they'd once caught.
After a day spent playing miniature golf, eating homemade ice cream and splashing around in his grandparents' in-ground pool, David declared, "This is the best day of my life."
Such perfect afternoons are exactly what Steve, 61, and Carol, 60, had in mind when they retired to Florida from Virginia two years ago. But those days are rare. Instead, the Daimlers spend most of their time consumed with selling two investment properties they bought shortly after the move - holding open houses, distributing fliers, cold-calling realtors and catering to prospective buyers.
A more typical day: On a midweek afternoon, Carol got a call from a prospect who said he and his wife were just outside one of the houses and wanted to see the interior. The only hitch: The house is an hour's drive from where the Daimlers live. The caller said he'd wait, so Carol and Steve jumped in the car. But by the time they arrived, the phantom buyers had disappeared - the frantic trip was a bust.
To this day, the properties remain unsold, draining nearly $6,000 a month from the Daimlers' dwindling retirement kitty. The couple had thought the properties would help finance the lovely new life they planned to lead in Florida. They had retired from their jobs - Steve was a sales executive and Carol a benefits consultant - and moved to Florida to be closer to David and twins Mark and Nicole, 13, their oldest daughter's kids.
To supplement their retirement savings of $260,000, they figured they'd buy fixer-upper homes to renovate, then sell at a profit in the state's hot housing market. "We thought we'd make $100,000 without batting an eye," says Carol.
But when the housing bubble burst, so did their dreams of a real-estate funded retirement. The properties have been on the market for nine months without a serious offer, and the carrying costs are killer: The Daimlers pay more than $65,000 a year on their mortgages (including loans for their primary residence and a vacation house in North Carolina), plus tens of thousands more for property taxes, insurance and maintenance.
The couple are pulling out $15,000 a month from savings to cover their expenses, and they've already run through more than half of their nest egg. The irony: On paper they seem to be in great shape, with a net worth of $1.6 million. But since most of that money is tied up in real estate - assets they can't easily sell - it doesn't ease their current cash crunch.
Money is so tight that Carol has stopped filling prescriptions for her cholesterol medicine. Steve says he has no choice but to go back to work. "The financial pressure is too great," he says.
The Daimlers are certainly not the only retirees to have miscalculated financially. In fact, nearly two-thirds of workers who retired and subsequently returned to work say they went back because they needed the income.
But being in good company is no comfort to the couple. "We're in this beautiful area and see our neighbors doing fun things like cruises, golfing and going to the country club, and we can't enjoy any of it," says a frustrated Carol.
Watching their savings drain away, she admits, "is scary." Worst of all, Steve confesses quietly: "I feel like I've let down Carol and the kids." She counters, "We both made this decision, but now it feels like a failure."
Putting faith in real estate
Of course, when home prices were rising fast - especially in hot spots like Daytona Beach - the Daimlers' plan to turn a quick profit flipping houses seemed to make sense. Especially since, unlike many hopeful flippers, the couple were experienced home buyers and investors.
The high school sweethearts - Steve spotted Carol at a pizza parlor across from their Long Island high school - bought their first house at 19, shortly after they married. It was in Florida, where Steve was working as a technician at the Kennedy Space Center.
When the couple moved back to New York seven years later, they sold the house for a $10,000 profit and bought a fixer-upper. Four years later they sold that house too and bought a more spacious home in northern Virginia, where they settled down to raise their two daughters and son (now ages 38 to 42).
Shortly after the move, Steve changed careers and began selling computers. Eventually he became a sales director, earning about $150,000 a year. Carol focused on raising the kids when they were young, later getting her real estate license. By 1991, though, she was working for the state of Virginia as a disability case consultant, raising their income to $200,000 a year.
The family lived well but not lavishly. They saved enough to put the kids through college without loans and steadily put away money for their own retirement too - although not enough, they readily admit. But they weren't worried because they had made a conscious decision to finance their retirement largely through real estate investments.
"I know you should have a diversified portfolio," says Steve. "But I believed real estate would give us bigger returns." In 1986 the couple bought their first investment properties - two townhouses near their home in Springfield, Va. - using money Carol inherited from her mom.
In the early 1990's they sold one of the houses and used the proceeds to build a vacation home in the Outer Banks. Current estimated value: $900,000. They sold the other townhouse in 2001 and used the money to add on to their Virginia home, which they sold in 2005 for nearly $700,000.
A life-changing move
The idea of retiring and moving to Florida came to the Daimlers after a family Christmas gathering at their home in 2004. When their grandkids, then 7 and 11, went home to Daytona Beach after the holidays, Steve and Carol were heartbroken.
"They seemed to be growing up so fast, and we were missing out," says Steve. Plus, he'd become weary of the extensive job-related travel that kept him away from home for long stretches.
To supplement their savings, the couple planned to launch a sideline business, buying houses in need of a little TLC, fixing them up and then selling them for a profit. "We knew prices wouldn't keep going up like they had been," says Steve. "But we figured with demand from baby boomers retiring, homes in Florida would keep appreciating."
Carol quit her job first, in the spring of 2005. Shortly after, the couple sold their house in Virginia and paid cash for their retirement dream home: a $640,000, 3,700-square-foot house with a game room and an in-ground pool in a gated community in Port Orange, south of Daytona Beach.
The couple took real estate investing courses online and joined the Central Florida Realty Investors Association to network with local experts. When Steve retired in March 2006, their daughter, an area real estate agent, helped them search for properties to launch their business.
Exactly how fast the local real estate market was deteriorating wasn't clear in August when the Daimlers bought two three-bedroom, two-bath houses: one in a Daytona gated community for $235,000; the other in Palm Coast for $120,000.
To finance the purchases, they took out a $400,000 mortgage on their home. They spent $31,000 on renovations and listed the houses in September. But since then the market has been flooded with homes for sale, and the Daimlers have been caught in the changing current.
They've tried every strategy they can think of: holding dozens of open houses; offering a higher-than-usual 4 percent commission to buyers' agents; distributing brochures; running thousands of dollars' worth of newspaper ads; lowering the prices on the homes by $40,000; and offering rent-to-own and other financing options.
They've met with countless buyers but have yet to close a deal. Time and money are running out. The Daimlers' only income is the $36,000 a year they get from renting their vacation house in peak season. They're reluctant to tap Carol's small $25,000 lump-sum government pension. Plus, they're too young to collect Social Security. And they have $31,000 in credit-card debt from the renovations of the investment properties.
Perhaps worst of all, they're so busy trying to sell the houses, they see their grandkids - the primary motivation for the move - only once a month.
With just $120,000 left in his 401(k), now all in money-market funds, Steve decided in March to go back to work. He's an energetic man who likes to rock climb and run. But at 61, he's concerned that he'll find it hard to get a job or earn close to his former six-figure salary. "I know he doesn't want to go back but we don't have a choice," Carol says.
One thing hasn't changed: The Daimlers remain staunch believers in real estate. "If the financial pressure was off, we'd still look for opportunities to invest," says Steve. "For now, though, we just don't have the means to hang on."
The advice
The Daimlers have a few good options to help them get back on track, says the team of experts Money recruited to help them. Here are their recommendations.
Make local connections. Steve needs to land a good job quickly and has already reached out to former business associates in Virginia. But since he now lives in Florida, he should also work on developing professional contacts in his new home state, says Russ Jones, president of First Transitions, a Chicago career counseling firm.
He suggests Steve join a couple of local networking groups, such as the Glazer Kennedy Inner Circle for sales professionals and Execunet, an online executive-recruitment firm that holds meetings in nearby Orlando. Steve should also ask his Virginia contacts if they know of any jobs in Florida.
Sell the vacation home. To alleviate their cash shortage and help rebuild their savings, Michael Cirino, a financial planner with Lincoln Financial Group in Jacksonville, Fla., urges the Daimlers to sell their beach house in the Outer Banks. Probable net: $650,000. But while Steve is open to the idea, Carol is reluctant. "I have an emotional attachment to that home," she says, "and I don't want to make any more fast decisions."
Institute bargain pricing. To expedite the sale of their investment properties, Greg Antonich, a Daytona Beach real estate agent, urges the Daimlers to cut the prices to at least 5 percent less than those of other homes for sale in the area. To bring in more prospects, he also suggests offering incentives, such as paying half of a buyer's closing costs.
Spread the wealth. The Daimlers have too much of their net worth tied up in real estate and low-growth cash investments, Cirino says. He suggests creating a more balanced portfolio by shifting most of the money left in their retirement account out of money markets and into stock and bond funds. The planner urges the couple to pay off their credit cards and start rebuilding their savings as soon as Steve starts working.
Consider what lies ahead. Within the next couple of years, both Daimlers will be eligible to take early Social Security benefits, which would give them an additional $32,000 a year in income. That means Steve may not need to work for as long as he thinks, says Cirino. One drawback: Taking benefits ahead of their full retirement age of 65 will permanently reduce their take by about 20 percent.
After hearing the experts' advice, the Daimlers feel relieved. While their life in Florida isn't what they imagined, they now know that they have options to ease their financial crunch.
They're determined to unload their investment properties, even if it means taking a loss. And once they have a cash cushion from the sale, they're looking forward to doing all the activities they haven't had time for, like going boating with friends and traveling to Europe.
"We want to enjoy the last third of our life," says Steve. "And now we finally see ways that we can." Making a comeback after retirement
By Donna Rosato, Money Magazine staff writer
May 22 2007: 4:17 PM EDT
(Money Magazine) -- Walking along a pier in Daytona Beach with their youngest grandson on a recent Saturday afternoon, Steve and Carol Daimler stopped to see what fish the locals were catching. The fishermen wowed 10-year-old David with a big flounder they'd just landed and photos of a 500-pound, nine-foot shark they'd once caught.
After a day spent playing miniature golf, eating homemade ice cream and splashing around in his grandparents' in-ground pool, David declared, "This is the best day of my life."
Such perfect afternoons are exactly what Steve, 61, and Carol, 60, had in mind when they retired to Florida from Virginia two years ago. But those days are rare. Instead, the Daimlers spend most of their time consumed with selling two investment properties they bought shortly after the move - holding open houses, distributing fliers, cold-calling realtors and catering to prospective buyers.
A more typical day: On a midweek afternoon, Carol got a call from a prospect who said he and his wife were just outside one of the houses and wanted to see the interior. The only hitch: The house is an hour's drive from where the Daimlers live. The caller said he'd wait, so Carol and Steve jumped in the car. But by the time they arrived, the phantom buyers had disappeared - the frantic trip was a bust.
To this day, the properties remain unsold, draining nearly $6,000 a month from the Daimlers' dwindling retirement kitty. The couple had thought the properties would help finance the lovely new life they planned to lead in Florida. They had retired from their jobs - Steve was a sales executive and Carol a benefits consultant - and moved to Florida to be closer to David and twins Mark and Nicole, 13, their oldest daughter's kids.
To supplement their retirement savings of $260,000, they figured they'd buy fixer-upper homes to renovate, then sell at a profit in the state's hot housing market. "We thought we'd make $100,000 without batting an eye," says Carol.
But when the housing bubble burst, so did their dreams of a real-estate funded retirement. The properties have been on the market for nine months without a serious offer, and the carrying costs are killer: The Daimlers pay more than $65,000 a year on their mortgages (including loans for their primary residence and a vacation house in North Carolina), plus tens of thousands more for property taxes, insurance and maintenance.
The couple are pulling out $15,000 a month from savings to cover their expenses, and they've already run through more than half of their nest egg. The irony: On paper they seem to be in great shape, with a net worth of $1.6 million. But since most of that money is tied up in real estate - assets they can't easily sell - it doesn't ease their current cash crunch.
Money is so tight that Carol has stopped filling prescriptions for her cholesterol medicine. Steve says he has no choice but to go back to work. "The financial pressure is too great," he says.
The Daimlers are certainly not the only retirees to have miscalculated financially. In fact, nearly two-thirds of workers who retired and subsequently returned to work say they went back because they needed the income.
But being in good company is no comfort to the couple. "We're in this beautiful area and see our neighbors doing fun things like cruises, golfing and going to the country club, and we can't enjoy any of it," says a frustrated Carol.
Watching their savings drain away, she admits, "is scary." Worst of all, Steve confesses quietly: "I feel like I've let down Carol and the kids." She counters, "We both made this decision, but now it feels like a failure."
Putting faith in real estate
Of course, when home prices were rising fast - especially in hot spots like Daytona Beach - the Daimlers' plan to turn a quick profit flipping houses seemed to make sense. Especially since, unlike many hopeful flippers, the couple were experienced home buyers and investors.
The high school sweethearts - Steve spotted Carol at a pizza parlor across from their Long Island high school - bought their first house at 19, shortly after they married. It was in Florida, where Steve was working as a technician at the Kennedy Space Center.
When the couple moved back to New York seven years later, they sold the house for a $10,000 profit and bought a fixer-upper. Four years later they sold that house too and bought a more spacious home in northern Virginia, where they settled down to raise their two daughters and son (now ages 38 to 42).
Shortly after the move, Steve changed careers and began selling computers. Eventually he became a sales director, earning about $150,000 a year. Carol focused on raising the kids when they were young, later getting her real estate license. By 1991, though, she was working for the state of Virginia as a disability case consultant, raising their income to $200,000 a year.
The family lived well but not lavishly. They saved enough to put the kids through college without loans and steadily put away money for their own retirement too - although not enough, they readily admit. But they weren't worried because they had made a conscious decision to finance their retirement largely through real estate investments.
"I know you should have a diversified portfolio," says Steve. "But I believed real estate would give us bigger returns." In 1986 the couple bought their first investment properties - two townhouses near their home in Springfield, Va. - using money Carol inherited from her mom.
In the early 1990's they sold one of the houses and used the proceeds to build a vacation home in the Outer Banks. Current estimated value: $900,000. They sold the other townhouse in 2001 and used the money to add on to their Virginia home, which they sold in 2005 for nearly $700,000.
A life-changing move
The idea of retiring and moving to Florida came to the Daimlers after a family Christmas gathering at their home in 2004. When their grandkids, then 7 and 11, went home to Daytona Beach after the holidays, Steve and Carol were heartbroken.
"They seemed to be growing up so fast, and we were missing out," says Steve. Plus, he'd become weary of the extensive job-related travel that kept him away from home for long stretches.
To supplement their savings, the couple planned to launch a sideline business, buying houses in need of a little TLC, fixing them up and then selling them for a profit. "We knew prices wouldn't keep going up like they had been," says Steve. "But we figured with demand from baby boomers retiring, homes in Florida would keep appreciating."
Carol quit her job first, in the spring of 2005. Shortly after, the couple sold their house in Virginia and paid cash for their retirement dream home: a $640,000, 3,700-square-foot house with a game room and an in-ground pool in a gated community in Port Orange, south of Daytona Beach.
The couple took real estate investing courses online and joined the Central Florida Realty Investors Association to network with local experts. When Steve retired in March 2006, their daughter, an area real estate agent, helped them search for properties to launch their business.
Exactly how fast the local real estate market was deteriorating wasn't clear in August when the Daimlers bought two three-bedroom, two-bath houses: one in a Daytona gated community for $235,000; the other in Palm Coast for $120,000.
To finance the purchases, they took out a $400,000 mortgage on their home. They spent $31,000 on renovations and listed the houses in September. But since then the market has been flooded with homes for sale, and the Daimlers have been caught in the changing current.
They've tried every strategy they can think of: holding dozens of open houses; offering a higher-than-usual 4 percent commission to buyers' agents; distributing brochures; running thousands of dollars' worth of newspaper ads; lowering the prices on the homes by $40,000; and offering rent-to-own and other financing options.
They've met with countless buyers but have yet to close a deal. Time and money are running out. The Daimlers' only income is the $36,000 a year they get from renting their vacation house in peak season. They're reluctant to tap Carol's small $25,000 lump-sum government pension. Plus, they're too young to collect Social Security. And they have $31,000 in credit-card debt from the renovations of the investment properties.
Perhaps worst of all, they're so busy trying to sell the houses, they see their grandkids - the primary motivation for the move - only once a month.
With just $120,000 left in his 401(k), now all in money-market funds, Steve decided in March to go back to work. He's an energetic man who likes to rock climb and run. But at 61, he's concerned that he'll find it hard to get a job or earn close to his former six-figure salary. "I know he doesn't want to go back but we don't have a choice," Carol says.
One thing hasn't changed: The Daimlers remain staunch believers in real estate. "If the financial pressure was off, we'd still look for opportunities to invest," says Steve. "For now, though, we just don't have the means to hang on."
The advice
The Daimlers have a few good options to help them get back on track, says the team of experts Money recruited to help them. Here are their recommendations.
Make local connections. Steve needs to land a good job quickly and has already reached out to former business associates in Virginia. But since he now lives in Florida, he should also work on developing professional contacts in his new home state, says Russ Jones, president of First Transitions, a Chicago career counseling firm.
He suggests Steve join a couple of local networking groups, such as the Glazer Kennedy Inner Circle for sales professionals and Execunet, an online executive-recruitment firm that holds meetings in nearby Orlando. Steve should also ask his Virginia contacts if they know of any jobs in Florida.
Sell the vacation home. To alleviate their cash shortage and help rebuild their savings, Michael Cirino, a financial planner with Lincoln Financial Group in Jacksonville, Fla., urges the Daimlers to sell their beach house in the Outer Banks. Probable net: $650,000. But while Steve is open to the idea, Carol is reluctant. "I have an emotional attachment to that home," she says, "and I don't want to make any more fast decisions."
Institute bargain pricing. To expedite the sale of their investment properties, Greg Antonich, a Daytona Beach real estate agent, urges the Daimlers to cut the prices to at least 5 percent less than those of other homes for sale in the area. To bring in more prospects, he also suggests offering incentives, such as paying half of a buyer's closing costs.
Spread the wealth. The Daimlers have too much of their net worth tied up in real estate and low-growth cash investments, Cirino says. He suggests creating a more balanced portfolio by shifting most of the money left in their retirement account out of money markets and into stock and bond funds. The planner urges the couple to pay off their credit cards and start rebuilding their savings as soon as Steve starts working.
Consider what lies ahead. Within the next couple of years, both Daimlers will be eligible to take early Social Security benefits, which would give them an additional $32,000 a year in income. That means Steve may not need to work for as long as he thinks, says Cirino. One drawback: Taking benefits ahead of their full retirement age of 65 will permanently reduce their take by about 20 percent.
After hearing the experts' advice, the Daimlers feel relieved. While their life in Florida isn't what they imagined, they now know that they have options to ease their financial crunch.
They're determined to unload their investment properties, even if it means taking a loss. And once they have a cash cushion from the sale, they're looking forward to doing all the activities they haven't had time for, like going boating with friends and traveling to Europe.
"We want to enjoy the last third of our life," says Steve. "And now we finally see ways that we can." Making a comeback after retirement
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Gloomy News For The Housing Market
By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
Last Update: 12:01 AM ET May 20, 2007
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The spring housing market is turning out to be something of a dud, dashing hopes of a turnaround.
The spring season typically sets the tone for the last half of the year. This year, that tone is pretty gloomy.
"The housing market is struggling to get back on its feet," according to Sal Guatieri, economist at BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc.
"The spring-selling season is coming well below expectations," agreed Mario Ricchio, a housing analysts with Zacks.com.
At the beginning of the year, there was hope that housing had turned the corner. But these expectations seem to have faded away. "We were seeing signs of recovery last year, but a lot of that reflected warmer than usual weather," Guatieri said.
Economists say housing is bumping down near the bottom. "We think the housing market will remain weak right through this year. It probably won't be until early next year that we see a stabilization and some recovery," he added.
Many factors are at work. Buyers are hesitant to buy a home if they think prices are falling. Sellers have pulled homes off the market, waiting for prices to rebound.
"It is a buyers' market and except for certain places, not too much of good property is available to be sold," said Rajeev Dhawan, director of the Georgia State Economic Forecasting Center.
In addition, tightening lending standards are hurting home buyers. At the same time, speculators are fleeing the market, Ricchio pointed out.
New-home sales are expected to fall 0.1% to 857 million units in April. New-home sales fell 2.6% in the previous month and are down 23.5% compared with March 2006.
Existing-home sales are expected to only inch higher by 0.5% to 6.15 million units in April, after a sharp 8.4% decline in March -- the biggest decline in 18 years.
Numbers on new-home sales will be released Thursday at 10 a.m. Eastern, while existing-home sales data will come out at 10 a.m. Friday.
The other main indicator of the week comes on Thursday, the durable-goods report.
Economists are looking for a 0.8% rise in orders in April after a 3.7% jump in March.
An increase in aircraft orders for Boeing Co (BA :
The strong increase in orders would be good news, as analysts feared that a slowdown in business spending, combined with the sluggish housing sector, could push the economy into recession.
"We think that is behind us now," BMO Nesbitt Burns' Guatieri said. "We're encouraged by the recent positive numbers in capital goods orders." Greg Robb is a senior reporter for MarketWatch in Washington.
Last Update: 12:01 AM ET May 20, 2007
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The spring housing market is turning out to be something of a dud, dashing hopes of a turnaround.
The spring season typically sets the tone for the last half of the year. This year, that tone is pretty gloomy.
"The housing market is struggling to get back on its feet," according to Sal Guatieri, economist at BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc.
"The spring-selling season is coming well below expectations," agreed Mario Ricchio, a housing analysts with Zacks.com.
At the beginning of the year, there was hope that housing had turned the corner. But these expectations seem to have faded away. "We were seeing signs of recovery last year, but a lot of that reflected warmer than usual weather," Guatieri said.
Economists say housing is bumping down near the bottom. "We think the housing market will remain weak right through this year. It probably won't be until early next year that we see a stabilization and some recovery," he added.
Many factors are at work. Buyers are hesitant to buy a home if they think prices are falling. Sellers have pulled homes off the market, waiting for prices to rebound.
"It is a buyers' market and except for certain places, not too much of good property is available to be sold," said Rajeev Dhawan, director of the Georgia State Economic Forecasting Center.
In addition, tightening lending standards are hurting home buyers. At the same time, speculators are fleeing the market, Ricchio pointed out.
New-home sales are expected to fall 0.1% to 857 million units in April. New-home sales fell 2.6% in the previous month and are down 23.5% compared with March 2006.
Existing-home sales are expected to only inch higher by 0.5% to 6.15 million units in April, after a sharp 8.4% decline in March -- the biggest decline in 18 years.
Numbers on new-home sales will be released Thursday at 10 a.m. Eastern, while existing-home sales data will come out at 10 a.m. Friday.
The other main indicator of the week comes on Thursday, the durable-goods report.
Economists are looking for a 0.8% rise in orders in April after a 3.7% jump in March.
An increase in aircraft orders for Boeing Co (BA :
The strong increase in orders would be good news, as analysts feared that a slowdown in business spending, combined with the sluggish housing sector, could push the economy into recession.
"We think that is behind us now," BMO Nesbitt Burns' Guatieri said. "We're encouraged by the recent positive numbers in capital goods orders." Greg Robb is a senior reporter for MarketWatch in Washington.
iamfacingforeclosure.com
Well, I am advertising on one of the hottest websites right now, iamfacingforeclosure.com. Needless to say, the hits to this website have gone up as well as the mp3's are getting a lot more use.
I encountered some 'hate' mail for doing it but, actually, I find it funny. People are mad at me for advertising on the site- yet they, apparently, read his website. Crazy, huh? Makes no sense? I think so, too.
I'm looking forward to Friday's show with Dr. Stanley Monteith. I've heard he will be at Conspiracy Con '07 this weekend at the Doubletree Inn in San Jose. Anyone going to be there? Let me know, maybe we can meet. I know last Friday's guest, Jerry E. Smith, is one of the featured speakers on Saturday.
Since I haven't mentioned it here, Tom Horn has been graciously enough to let me write a column and also to do book reviews at www.raidersnewsnetwork.com.
Have a great week all and keep your chin up and your eyes 'on the prize'!
God bless,
Bruce
I encountered some 'hate' mail for doing it but, actually, I find it funny. People are mad at me for advertising on the site- yet they, apparently, read his website. Crazy, huh? Makes no sense? I think so, too.
I'm looking forward to Friday's show with Dr. Stanley Monteith. I've heard he will be at Conspiracy Con '07 this weekend at the Doubletree Inn in San Jose. Anyone going to be there? Let me know, maybe we can meet. I know last Friday's guest, Jerry E. Smith, is one of the featured speakers on Saturday.
Since I haven't mentioned it here, Tom Horn has been graciously enough to let me write a column and also to do book reviews at www.raidersnewsnetwork.com.
Have a great week all and keep your chin up and your eyes 'on the prize'!
God bless,
Bruce
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