Your correction is showing up on the dashboard comments, but hasn’t regenerated here yet.

Update: Ah. There it is.

There IS a reference to a DOD sponsor. Sorry for my hasty response.

And don’t miss my “for what its worth post” above. This report has been around for a while now.

But I must confess, its very good black propaganda. I should have been alerted by the list of usual suspects, Al-Quaeda, Sharia Law, Hugo Chavez…

Something for everyone.

Apparently, others have already trod this path…

http://dickdestiny.com/blog1/2011/03/01/a-whoopie-cushion-moment-financial-terrorism-caused-the-great-recession/

The “Ah-ha!” moment is furnished by a quick search of the Web for Kevin Freeman in Keller, TX.

A list of political contributions, conveniently from here:

Kevin Freeman (Freedom Global Investment/Counsel), (Zip code: 76248) $250 to BACHMANN FOR CONGRESS on 10/16/06

Kevin Freeman (Artist/Cross Graphics), (Zip code: 76248) $500 to BACHMANN FOR CONGRESS on 06/27/05

Kevin Freeman (Cross Graphics/Artist), (Zip code: 76248) $527 to BACHMANN FOR CONGRESS on 05/18/06

Kevin Freeman (Cross Graphics/Artist), (Zip code: 76248) $750 to BACHMANN FOR CONGRESS on 05/18/06

Marnie Freeman (Cross Graphics/Artist), (Zip code: 76248) $1800 to BACHMANN FOR CONGRESS on 05/18/06

The paper’s author, Kevin D. Freeman, identifies on its title page as belonging to Cross Consulting and Services, LLC.

The Private Fund Transparency Act was proposed by Sen. Jack Reed in June of 2009, when the Democrats controlled the House, Senate, and Presidency. It was referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and was, as far as I can find out, never heard from again.

The committee chairman at the time was Christopher Dodd. There’s something to chew on.

Similar proposals that year also seemed to die on the vine. If this was a high priority for the Democrats, it didn’t seem like it for the two years they ran the whole show.

The processes aren’t necessarily the result of Democratic or Republican policies but more global growth and development. GWB did dramatically squander the American military and economic dominance in a quiotic chase to buy the Middle East, but it was coming anyway. Maybe not that rapidly.

A good example of what is happening is what is occurring in Space and the military. The US dominance is on the verge of eclipse by other countries and we can’t afford to outdo the entire rest of the world. The same thing is happening with the military, though slower. Many countries recognize there is no need to waste money on enormous military strength, and aren’t sapping their economies to feed that tapeworm. And those who are stepping up have more managed economies and lower standards of living and are better able to absorb the costs.

Another example is the global warming matter. The US is finding itself more cut off, more isolated, on this issue and the rest of the world is working around US. We aren’t able to dictate to what used to be US puppets when they were more dependent upon US economically and militarily.

It will be interesting to see how Americans adapt to being more vulnerable and weaker. If the past holds true, each party will blame the other, and the conservatives will be more successful as portraying themselves as being able to return US to our past glories. Which won’t be possible.

I’m not saying that America as a superpower is done. I’m saying that America as the only superpower is over, although it’s a combination of countries which add up to the second one. It’s only a matter of time before China, India, Brazil, Europe and Russia are able to meaningfully threaten American markets and influence.

I’m just happy that at least someone is paid to look these things over and try to present an evaluation of what is going on. Or at least, it appears that in summer of 2009 someone was actually doing that. In the laissez-faire environment of the Bush administration, it’s unlikely that this sort of activity would have received much interest.

The Obama administration‘s recent
call for greater financial regulation stipulates to the facts that hedge fund activity has been virtually unregulated and that dark-pool trading, Credit Default Swaps, and naked short selling provide tremendous vulnerabilities in the system. This report concurs with these concerns as recently outlined by the heads of the SEC, US Treasury, and Federal Reserve and provides supporting data. Beyond that, this report exposes the fact that these vulnerabilities are subject to exploitation not only by greedy capitalists seeking profit but also by financial terrorists, intent on destroying the American financial system.

…

It should be noted that the Obama administration has very recently acknowledged the serious gaps in the regulatory framework that have left the American financial system vulnerable. These gaps include virtually no oversight of dark trading pools, credit default swaps, hedge funds, and naked short selling. There should be no doubt that these gaps were exploited and this, at a minimum hindered financial system stability (and possibly triggered the entire crisis). While calls to address these gaps are essential, without knowing who exploited them and why, the system will remain vulnerable through currently unidentified mechanisms.

Let’s hope that someone with enough expertise to critically evaluate this monograph effectively either dismissed it as irrelevant, or made sure it made it to the President’s desk if it was indeed relevant.

The question still remains, is this report genuine? That is, is it a real report written by a real contractor? In other words, was this ever actually read by someone in the White House, or is it document prepared for other purposes, and for a different audience, and for totally different motives. I’m not qualified to determine that myself, but I must confess it reads like a certain type of science-fiction story classified as being in the “report-to-the Commission” sub-genre.