Japan Should Work Toward Asia Currency, Hatoyama Writes in NYT

For those building the emerging "New World Order", the pattern and plan has become abundantly clear: regionaliziation as a step toward globalization, and regional governance as a step toward global governance. As part of this process, we are seeing a push toward regional currencies as a step towards a single global currency.

Japan could seems set to play its part in the process of forming a regional Asian currency, as the world elites continue their push to replace the US dollar as the world's de facto "reserve currency".A leading Japanese politician (who could shortly be elected as their next prime minister in a few days), is now making the case for the formation of a regional Asian currency to replace the US dollar.

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Aug. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Japan should work with other Asian countries to create a single regional currency and bolster alliances to make it possible, opposition leader Yukio Hatoyama wrote in the New York Times.
Asia should “aspire to move toward regional currency integration,” wrote Hatoyama, who polls indicate may become the country’s prime minister after a national election on Aug. 30. “We must spare no effort to build the permanent security frameworks essential to underpinning” a single currency that “will likely take more than 10 years” to establish.

The global financial crisis and the Iraq war have diminished U.S. influence around the world and cast doubt about “the permanence of the dollar as the key global currency,” he wrote. “But at present no one country is ready to replace the United States as the dominant country. Nor is there a currency ready to replace the dollar as the world’s key currency.”

Hatoyama wrote that Japan will benefit from greater regional cooperation as it struggles to keep political and economic independence “when caught between the United States, which is fighting to retain its position as the world’s dominant power, and China, which is seeking” greater prominence.

Full article here.

UPDATE: On Sunday August 20th, Yukio Hatoyama was voted in as the next Prime Minister of Japan.

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See also: Africa, South America Marching Toward World Govt.
and Ex Mexican President: North American Currency On The Way.

Is it time for Universal Healthcare in America?

While the debate has raged on for years, I've been on the fence on that issue for a while now, but the more I think about it, the more I start to think that it's simply an idea whose time has come.

The British newspaper The Independent makes a compelling case in this article:

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Obama's healthcare plan

The brutal truth about America’s healthcare

An extraordinary report from Guy Adams in Los Angeles at the music arena that has been turned into a makeshift medical centre

Saturday, 15 August 2009

They came in their thousands, queuing through the night to secure one of the coveted wristbands offering entry into a strange parallel universe where medical care is a free and basic right and not an expensive luxury. Some of

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these Americans had walked miles simply to have their blood pressure checked, some had slept in their cars in the hope of getting an eye-test or a mammogram, others had brought their children for immunisations that could end up saving their life.

In the week that Britain's National Health Service was held aloft by Republicans as an "evil and Orwellian" example of everything that is wrong with free healthcare, these extraordinary scenes in Inglewood, California yesterday provided a sobering reminder of exactly why President Barack Obama is trying to reform the US system.

The LA Forum, the arena that once hosted sell-out Madonna concerts, has been transformed – for eight days only – into a vast field hospital. In America, the offer of free healthcare is so rare, that news of the magical medical kingdom spread rapidly and long lines of prospective patients snaked around the venue for the chance of getting everyday treatments that many British people take for granted.

In the first two days, more than 1,500 men, women and children received free treatments worth $503,000 (£304,000). Thirty dentists pulled 471 teeth; 320 people were given standard issue spectacles; 80 had mammograms; dozens more had acupuncture, or saw kidney specialists. By the time the makeshift medical centre leaves town on Tuesday, staff expect to have dispensed $2m worth of treatments to 10,000 patients.

The gritty district of Inglewood lies just a few miles from the palm-lined streets of Beverly Hills and the bright lights of Hollywood, but is a world away. And the residents who had flocked for the free medical care, courtesy of mobile charity Remote Area Medical, bore testament to the human cost of the healthcare mess that President Obama is attempting to fix.

Christine Smith arrived at 3am in the hope of seeing a dentist for the first time since she turned 18. That was almost eight years ago. Her need is obvious and pressing: 17 of her teeth are rotten; some have large visible holes in them. She is living in constant pain and has been unable to eat solid food for several years.

"I had a gastric bypass in 2002, but it went wrong, and stomach acid began rotting my teeth. I've had several jobs since, but none with medical insurance, so I've not been able to see a dentist to get it fixed," she told The Independent. "I've not been able to chew food for as long as I can remember. I've been living on soup, and noodles, and blending meals in a food mixer. I'm in constant pain. Normally, it would cost $5,000 to fix it. So if I have to wait a week to get treated for free, I'll do it. This will change my life."

Along the hall, Liz Cruise was one of scores of people waiting for a free eye exam. She works for a major supermarket chain but can't afford the $200 a month that would be deducted from her salary for insurance. "It's a simple choice: pay my rent, or pay my healthcare. What am I supposed to do?" she asked. "I'm one of the working poor: people who do work but can't afford healthcare and are ineligible for any free healthcare or assistance. I can't remember the last time I saw a doctor."

Full article here.

Faith: Even churches aren't immune

The economy is affecting everybody. And when I say everybody, I mean everybody -- even churches.
recent AP article:

Borrowing during boom years comes back to hit congregations during mortgage crisis

By RACHEL ZOLL
The Associated Press
Posted Jul 10, 2009

Metropolitan Baptist Church was bursting out of its home.

From a group of freed slaves in Civil War-era Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Baptist had grown into a modern-day megachurch and community service powerhouse. In 2006, construction began on the congregation's dream complex in Largo, Md. - a $30 million campus with a 3,000-seat church, an education center and an 1,100-car parking lot.

Last year, the congregation sold its church in Washington. Preparations began for the move to what leaders had taken to calling "God's land in Largo."

But on Oct. 20, their plans were abruptly put on hold.

The Rev. H. Beecher Hicks learned that financing for the project had dried up. Construction stopped. And the congregation found that it was homeless - reduced to renting space and struggling to find new financing.

Add houses of worship to the list of casualties of the mortgage crisis.

Foreclosures and delinquencies for congregations are rising, according to companies that specialize in church mortgages. With credit scarce, church construction sites have gone quiet, holding shells of sanctuaries that were meant to be completed months ago.

Congregants have less money to give, and pastors who stretched to buy property in the boom are struggling to hold onto their churches.

"The economy has dramatically changed over the last year to 18 months in a way that very few, if any, had expected," said John Stoffel, administrative pastor at Seabreeze Church in Huntington, Calif.

Seabreeze spent about $12 million on a new complex that was completed in 2007. But a drop in donations, partly due to a rift between the pastor and some church members, forced the church to renegotiate for an interest-only mortgage. Stoffel said Seabreeze hasn't missed a payment, yet the mortgage is far from the church's only debt. The church also owes $1.2 million - due this year - on bonds that helped finance the project, and must repay a $200,000 loan that a couple took out on their house to help Seabreeze cover its costs.

It's hard to quantify just how many churches are at risk. Foreclosure records are scattered throughout county offices nationwide. Completing a foreclosure takes months or longer, so it's too soon for many failures to show up on a company's books. In financially stressed churches, clergy are often reluctant to discuss their plight. They don't want to alarm their congregants, and they fear that any complaints about their dealings with banks will backfire.

"Right now, when you're at the mercy of the lenders, you don't want to look like you're coming out against them," said Bishop Eugene Reeves of New Life Anointed Ministries International in Woodbridge, Va.

The 3,500-member Pentecostal church near Washington needs a couple of million dollars to finish its new $19 million complex. Construction stopped last spring when New Life's lender said it would make no new loans to the church, Reeves said.

"We now have children who don't have classrooms to get into, adults who have to go to an overflow room," Reeves said. "We have parking issues. We don't have enough spaces for cars."

Across the country, congregations large and small are struggling to pay off debt:

Full article here.

Whitney Houston: I Look To You

Whitney Houston's newest song is about to be released, and her new album is dropping on August 31. Although not explicitly marketed as a gospel song, the song clearly has a gospel flavor to it, and it's fairly clear she's singing to God in her upcoming single: "I Look To You". Whitney Houston has been through a lot over the years, with much of it playing out under the spotlight of public scrutiny. Perhaps this song represents the beginning of a new direction in her life; one can only hope so. 

Time For The Amero?

Interesting article from Michael McGruther from bighollywood.breitbart.com:

The post-George W. Bush world is a geopolitical power vacuum where, for a short period of time, America has a Macy’s perfume model as President going around with sweet little spritzes of kindness in hopes of closing the deal towards eternal world peace and prosperity. It’s not going to work. And this kind of diplomacy stinks because savvy world leaders know it’s entirely disingenuous. Change you can deceive in is all that’s going on here.

Let’s talk about real change, dramatic, game-changing change on a level no one understands, including me: The establishment of a North American Union, a super-nation comprised of Canada, the U.S.A. and Mexico all acting with one international interest and one unified currency: The Amero.

For as long as I can remember the dollar’s either been in trouble or strong. While I was bartending at one of New York’s most famous Italian restaurants during the 90’s, I could tell whose money was strong at the moment based on my customers. It’s as if everyone in Japan would visit at the same time, spending freely and having a blast. Then they would disappear and the English would suddenly be in town.

This trend always reverses, as well. There was a time in the mid-90’s where England was so cheap to visit Bengali bus boys would go there for weekend shopping visits. My wife and I visited Japan in the late 90’s and enjoyed a huge money advantage. I also went to Amsterdam before they stopped using gilders — and then came the Euro, followed by Saddam Hussein’s switch from accepting Dollars to Euros for oil. After that, 9-11. Nothing’s been the same since.

The events that led up to 9-11 are much more about geopolitical battle lines than radical Islam vs. the civilized world. Islamic terrorists are without a doubt the tool of a far-reaching, clandestine war being waged on American interests around the globe, and Iraq truly was the real-world version of Mos Eisley where villains would collect and plot. President Bush’s publicly stated reasons for the invasion were legitimate, but I suspect there was another heavy factor for our going to war with Iraq (and a President Obama would have done the exact same thing): the switch from Dollars to Euros, which shook an already delicate international money system to its core. Today we have the worldwide economic crisis that is in many ways a direct result of Saddam’s economic terrorism, and now there’s even calls from China and Russia for a one-world currency to replace the dollar. Islamic terrorism, economic terrorism and oil terrorism all have the same chilling effect: the whittling down of American power influence around the globe by way of the currency.

Is one-world currency likely? Probably not in the foreseeable future. But the emergence of an Amero, or North American Union currency, seems entirely plausible to me. What else can beat back the Euro in value and become the new global standard other than a gold-standard backed Amero? And when you compare China’s land, resources and population to ours, the odds are clearly in China’s favor. But when you include all of North America, the difference becomes nominal and more about who has better ideas about freedom and liberty for its citizens.

What does this mean for American jobs and illegal immigration? I don’t have those answers. But I’m curious as to what my fellow conservatives think about the whole concept of the North American Union and the Amero and how it could impact global markets. Could we all use one currency in North America and have more open borders yet retain our individual, national identities? I hope so. I never imagined that the future may in fact produce a North America that uses one currency, a European Union that uses one currency and most likely an Russian/Asian union of some sort that uses one currency.

America, as the centerpiece of the North American Union with the Amero could be a golden doorway to another American-led century, but only if conservatives are the architects of the final outcome and protect the individual identity of each nation.

This is change you can believe in because it just may be inevitable.

Original article: http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mmcgruther/2009/07/18/thatll-be-10-ameros-sirmigo/