From the June 2006 Idaho Observer:

CBS Evening News story shows government flexing majority shareholder muscle, vindicates CAFR man, foreshadows Orwellian financial future

CBS Evening News story shows government flexing majority shareholder muscle, vindicates CAFR man, foreshadows Orwellian financial future

by The Idaho Observer

A Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) is the yearly report all government agencies and tax districts file per federal law. Unlike the annual budget which is highly public to show government expenditures as a means to raise taxes, the less-public CAFR shows liabilities (government debts and expenses) as well as government assets (property holdings, retirement accounts and other liquid holdings. In 1998, commodities trader Walter Burien exposed CAFRs and the $millions city and county governments are holding, the $billions state governments are holding and the $trillions in publicly-generated monies that are continually being invested and reinvested in various securities. At one time, Burien estimated that 62 percent of all monies traded in the stock market were public funds. The public is generally unaware that, while their governments are continually justifying the raising of taxes to meet budgetary shortfalls, governments have become extremely wealthy—and powerful—off investments made with their money. For instance, as of 2004, the state of Idaho, according to the state comptroller, had enough wealth in highly liquid assets to run the state for three years without collecting a penny in taxes.

But like any money-making scheme, hard assets are leveraged with securities that have little intrinsic value of their own and are based purely on speculation—speculation that stocks and bonds will continue to generate dividends. But what happens if they begin to lose value? The house of cards begins to tumble and the hard assets of the people, foolishly gambled away by profit-drunk politicians and their investment brokers, will end up in the hands of the shrewd and ruthless traders at the top of the investment heap.

But while the getting is still good, there is another side to the CAFR equation to consider: State ownership of goods and services through majority shares in publicly traded corporations. Henry Morgan was watching the CBS Evening News May 31, 2006, when a story caught his attention. "The Exxon/Mobil Board of Directors had done something a couple of states didn’t like..(I missed that part)...and the state official involved said that they were going to "withhold their votes" on something having to do with the Board of Directors and further went on to say that they own enough shares of stock to ‘Fire the Board of Directors’ if they decide to. It was reported that New York State alone owns a million shares of Exxon/Mobil stock and the other state (one of the Carolinas I think) owns substantially more than that if I heard the report correctly," Morgan stated.

What Morgan saw and understood was verification of Burien’s work. "Here, on the evening news, was verification of Burien’s assertions—that government (federal, state, and local) actually owns over half of the stock market. That is over half of every major corporation, which includes all of the major media companies. What you are seeing in this reporting is an open, public declaration, that, as in every Communist Country the government owns the means of production."

Morgan drove the point home in an attempt to get some of the millions of Americans who saw the CBS Evening News that night to understand what was really being said: "What you are seeing is an open admission that the government has controlling interest (i.e. owns) enough interest in major corporations [including oil companies and major media] that it has the ability to fire their boards of directors if they (government) wishes."

Who owns the means of production in the land of the free?