With all the talk about 9-11. Is it fair to ask what we are investigating? What Bush knew, or didn't know, or didn't do, or ignored, or let happen?
Here is what the families want to know:
Was it luck or No Fault Government
Is it luck that aberrant stock trades were not monitored? Is it luck when 15 visas are awarded based on incomplete forms? Is it luck when Airline Security screenings allow hijackers to board planes with box cutters and pepper spray? Is it luck when Emergency FAA and NORAD protocols are not followed? Is it luck when a national emergency is not reported to top government officials on a timely basis?
To me luck is something that happens once. When you have this repeated pattern of broken protocols, broken laws, broken communication, one cannot still call it luck.
If at some point we don't look to hold the individuals accountable for not doing their jobs properly then how can we ever expect for terrorists not to get lucky again?
And, that is why I am here with all of you today. Because, we must find the answers as to what happened that day so as to ensure that another September 11th can never happen again.
Commissioners, I implore you to answer our questions. You are the Generals in the terrorism fight on our shores. In answering our questions, you have the ability to make this nation a safer place and in turn, minimize the damage if there is another terrorist attack. And, if there is another attack, the next time, our systems will be in place and working and luck will not be an issue.
Mindy Kleinberg is a founding member of September 11th Advocates, a family advocacy group that spearheaded the grassroots effort for the establishment of the independent commission on September 11th.
Her husband Alan Kleinberg was a NASDAQ security trader with Cantor Fitzgerald in the NorthTower of the WTC on the 104th Floor. He was 39 and had been a NASDAQ security trader for 15 years.
Mrs. Kleinberg is a Certified Public Accountant. She met her husband when they both worked at Deloitte-Touche, but she left the accounting profession to become a stay-at-home mom. She lives in New Jersey with her three children; Jacob 11; Lauren 8 and Sam 4.
9-11 commission hearings
Luck?
As luck would have it there are private individuals that have done some amazing work investigating the
insider trading aspect of 9-11. The results of course are not conclusive. This work was done by Mike Ruppert an ex LA cop who became a whistle blower after stumbling on CIA drug dealing. Mike has become an incredible investigative journalist and his work is sited as authority. It is well written, well researched, and, footnoted.
Is there a smoking gun? Yes and no. No in the sense of the funds do not go directly to Bush or Rumsfeld. Yes in the sense that the evidence suggests CIA complicity. Should this surprise us? I don't really think so after Iran-Contra, after BCCI, after the October Surprise. Conspiracy in government is proven fact. It happens. Folks have gone to jail for it. More folks should be in jail for it, Richard Armitage Assistant Secretary of State is one. George Bush the First is another. Increasingly, those of us that aren't afraid to take a hard look at the nature and structure of modern political power have been getting just a tad shrill. You either seem to get it, or, you never will.
I have always struggled with concepts like Economics. Too much Math involved for my feeble mind. What I do understand is this. The 90's bull markets seemed to be based on pure bull. The game was pump and dump. Make it look good by cooking the books and then dump the stock and take the money and run. These scandals were widespread and involved some of the biggest names in the business, Enron, World Com, Lucent, Citigroup, Arthur Anderson, Global Crossings, Goldman Sachs Merrill Lynch (pure bull)and of course Harken energy, the mother of all Enrons. Is this for real? Yes! Have folks gone to jail for it? Not nearly enough, Bush the Second should be locked up for one. Ken Lay is another.
I had the unfortunate experience of getting hired by an upstart Internet company in the 90's. The company was backed by ex executives from GE. I was one of the first 10 sales people hired. At the meeting they flew us into they told us we would all become very rich. The stock options they reasoned would make us all millionaires. The owners had a winning strategy they had been succesful before. Build the initial infrastructure, or looseley develop the idea on the web. Get a bunch of traffic to the site. Make an IPO, and laugh all the way to the bank. I remember one kid from New Jersey running to call his mother during a disco break from the rah rah sales rhetoric, and, who moved my cheese motivational, keep it simple salesperson mind numbing we were being subjected to, "Ma I'm going to be a millionaire!" The company folded in three weeks. I got a free copy of Who Moved My Cheese. Not being a rat, my observation is this: the someone moving my cheese is most likely easier to find than the location of said cheese. Again not being a rodent, my strategy would be to find the SOB and take their damn cheese. This is not covered in the book about mice and mazes and dairy products that for some seems to be an allegory of life in the big city. Wonder why? As the pie shrinks table manners change. Is the pie shrinking?
I will go out on a limb and say yes. Purchasing power of our money seems to be on a steady decline. The cheese is right where its always been, in the market that's not free, just in case you are lost in the maze look for the sign that says "Ralph's," inside you will find everything from pasteurized processed cheese food substitute to fancy little packages of gorgonzola. Finding the damn cheese isn't the problem, the price of the cheese is. The stuff in the store seems to cost more dollars all the time. The purchasing power of my money seems to be going down, not up.
I like simple one to one relationships, mostly because I am a simpleton. I realize that a more complicated relationship exists. Let's just assume though that as the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer there is some concern that what the rich are getting richer with may in fact not be getting them any richer, in fact the money they have may not be worth the recycled underwear its printed on. What then? Can this happen? It seems the answer is yes.
There are some real world phenomena that complicate the rather straight-forward idea of purchasing power parities somewhat, but at the same time add a compelling explanation to the movements in the exchange rates.
First, we have exchange rate speculation. It seems hard to exclude the possibility that the fall in the dollar against the euro could be a case of mistaken speculation, i.e. that many people sell only because others do. That is known to have happened before, to say the least. It would simply mean that someone has bought a currency that was worse than the one they sold. Some would gain and some lose and there would sooner or later be some kind of correction of such a mistake. This is because it is hard to see how such mistakes can have any major effects on the value of either two currencies, at least not without it being a major speculative mistake.
Secondly, we have another explanation for the movements in the exchange rates and that is that the dollar in the last 30 years or so has become a reserve currency held by central banks and others around the globe[vi]. This means that the dollar has served as not only a medium of exchange in the US, but has had a second role. This latter role seems now have become questioned. If this is so, one would suspect investors to look for a substitute currency. It is conceivable that there have been large movements towards the euro because of this. It means that some people now choose to hold, for example, euros instead of dollars and that central banks the world over re-weight their portfolios.
I find some support for this in the fact that since mid-2001, the euro has dropped only a couple of percent against gold, while the dollar has dropped 30 percent. Gold is of course the ultimate and premiere form of money and has always been the object of those who want to hedge against poorly administered fiat paper money[vii]. The figures suggest a move away from the dollar towards gold and the Euro. After all, the dollar has lost a third against the euro and 30 percent against gold since mid-2001.
The Fundamentals of a Falling Dollar.
Wow! 30%!. Could it be that all these pump and dump schemes have something to do with that? Confidence in the dollar is fading and central banks the world over are reweighting their portfolios. So our dollar is not only worth less and less in terms of spending power it no longer serves the world over as the way to settle debt? I wonder what would happen if oil producing countries made this logical switch and wanted Euros instead? Could it be that in the year 2000 when Saddam Hussein changed his 10 billion in currency over to the Euro it signaled the end to dollar hegemony? Could it have been that under the sanctions and oil for food program of the UN that our hands were tied? That we had been trumped? Could it be that if the world does not pay for its oil in dollars that we are basically at risk of falling into the ranks of developing nations like Mexico? That the only real way to bolster the dollar would be to print more and more, or devalue it? Would it mean that the huge federal deficit, the national debt and the trade deficit combined with the loss of dollar hegemony would essentially bankrupt the federal government? That the FDIC that insures your money would actually not have the money to insure a 1988 Vanagon? Is it any wonder than that the housing market has gone up even though no one seems to be able to afford to buy a house? Other than gold what can the rich hold that would have real value, land? Could it in fact been that without drastic action, our entire way of life was threatened? That this action was war? World War, and, unpopular war, one that American people could not be told the truth about without a run on the banks and 1933 style depression times ten? Could it be that our government has decided to solve the economic crisis the only way it knows how, with a war? Could it be that 9-11 was a way to pull America into that war? Could it be that endless war is not the answer, but, the alternative is that you and I and our kids and parents would have gotten a reality check that quite frankly we are not prepared to deal with? Could it be that our time that we have now before this military option, which one would assume is a desperate one, fails, should be spent solving real problems and preparing for what lies ahead as a community, or, am I once again being a simpleton in assuming that we are all in this together