futureage1
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Posts posted by futureage1
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No, apparently, the plan is to angrily post on the fan message board of a band that rose from the ashes of Uncle Tupelo. Wake the hell up, already.
From a guy that has been wrong about every issue since Obama was elected. I thought the bailouts were good and necessary and would save homeowners. I already know you're plan: sit back and do nothing and not talk about anything about what caused it. Funny I haven't been to this board for months and the same threads are still going. Given the mostly inane posts contained in these threads, I am well within my right to state my opinion, which I back up with facts, not denial, the angle you are coming from. Anytime you want to post counterpoints to show how am wrong I'll be sure to read them.
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I am awake, and I am upset too about the extermination of the middle class in this country. I myself am on the leading edge of those who grew up middle class but are being dragged into working poor. What's the plan for reversing the wealth disparity? Redistributing it? Outlawing capitalism? Making people who vote Republican who don't make over $100,000 a year get their head examined? Restoration of Eisenhower-era tax brackets?
Do you have any idea what you are talking about? What we have now is not capitalism it's corporatism. That's a big difference. I love capitalism when we had it our nation was prosperous. To blame only the Republicans is ridiculous. Clinton passed NAFTA and Obama is working on the Korean Free Trade deal Bush couldn't get through. Obama appointed the commission to privatize Social Security, just like Bush wanted to do.
We should stop subsidizing companies to offshore and then pay no taxes. At this point, I would take even the Clinton era tax brackets. 15 million jobs and counting lost should be unacceptable. Blaming one side or the other is futile when they both sell you out. These situations are not irreversible, but if everyone is happy to be working three jobs that's fine with me. I am not working poor and have been quite comfortable through this. That doesn't mean I don't see my neighbors and friends having their lives destroyed. I am sorry to hear that you are being dragged down. I wish you could recognize what caused that. My loyalty is to the American people, not a political party. Divided we fail.
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Shutting off America from the rest of the world economically isn't a feasible solution. We are part of the global community now and forever, and we had better hustle our asses.
We always were part of the global community. What's not feasible is continuing these policies. It's not cutting ourselves off. We had trade before, but I guess you overlook that,when America was actually prosperous. Our trading partners have the same safeguards in place themselves. We also should not be competing with slave labor wages. That is an unfair trade advantage. That is also not building up the world, but exploiting the third world for the benefit of a privileged few, who hoard their money,hamper progress and innovation.(think alternative energy) It has nothing to do with hustling. You are the one being hustled. Look at the wealth disparity. It is at an all time high. These policies are not working. Right now, we are being left behind. Wake the hell up already.
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Still trying to figure it out? Krugman didn't see this coming and doesn't address any of the larger issues that got us here. In fact, he still supports most of them. The truth is never going to appear in the New York Times, which is why they are bankrupt.Until the real reasons for the lack of jobs are dealt with there will be no changes. This is what happens when you have one-way free trade agreements that are nothing more than big corporate welfare bills to encourage the race to the bottom of the wage scale. The world never was and is not now flat.
We also now have a nation of monopolies and oligopolies who have no incentive to compete with their friendly competitors. They love free trade because they use it to increase their financial power to cut wages, jobs and eliminate competition. Until the anti-trust and free trade rules are fixed, there will be no real recovery in jobs. It all works great for the financial elite who are laughing all the way to the banks you bailed out, not so much for you as an individual. The people in this country need to learn they will never give enough to satisfy the bottom line of these companies that don't care about the U.S. or the people's well being. BP is a great example of this phenomenon. Has this country lost enough yet?
Doomed by the Myths of Free Trade
How the Economy was Lost
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts02242009.html
The American economy has gone away. It is not coming back until free trade myths are buried six feet under.
America’s 20th century economic success was based on two things. Free trade was not one of them. America’s economic success was based on protectionism, which was ensured by the union victory in the Civil War, and on British indebtedness, which destroyed the British pound as world reserve currency. Following World War II, the US dollar took the role as reserve currency, a privilege that allows the US to pay its international bills in its own currency.
World War II and socialism together ensured that the US economy dominated the world at the mid 20th century. The economies of the rest of the world had been destroyed by war or were stifled by socialism [in terms of the priorities of the capitalist growth model. Editors.]
The ascendant position of the US economy caused the US government to be relaxed about giving away American industries, such as textiles, as bribes to other countries for cooperating with America’s cold war and foreign policies. For example, Turkey’s US textile quotas were increased in exchange for over-flight rights in the Gulf War, making lost US textile jobs an off-budget war expense.
In contrast, countries such as Japan and Germany used industrial policy to plot their comebacks. By the late 1970s, Japanese auto makers had the once dominant American auto industry on the ropes. The first economic act of the “free market” Reagan administration in 1981 was to put quotas on the import of Japanese cars in order to protect Detroit and the United Auto Workers.
Eamonn Fingleton, Pat Choate, and others have described how negligence in Washington DC aided and abetted the erosion of America’s economic position. What we didn’t give away, the United States let be taken away while preaching a “free trade” doctrine at which the rest of the world scoffed.
Fortunately, the U.S.’s adversaries at the time, the Soviet Union and China, had unworkable economic systems that posed no threat to America’s diminishing economic prowess.
This furlough from reality ended when Soviet, Chinese, and Indian socialism surrendered around 1990, to be followed shortly thereafter by the rise of the high speed Internet. Suddenly, American and other first world corporations discovered that a massive supply of foreign labor was available at practically free wages.
To get Wall Street analysts and shareholder advocacy groups off their backs, and to boost shareholder returns and management bonuses, American corporations began moving their production for American markets offshore. Products that were made in Peoria are now made in China.
As offshoring spread, American cities and states lost tax base, and families and communities lost jobs. The replacement jobs, such as selling the offshored products at Wal-Mart, brought home less pay.
“Free market economists” covered up the damage done to the US economy by preaching a New Economy based on services and innovation. But it wasn’t long before corporations discovered that the high speed Internet let them offshore a wide range of professional service jobs. In America, the hardest hit have been software engineers and information technology (IT) workers.
The American corporations quickly learned that by declaring “shortages” of skilled Americans, they could get from Congress H-1b work visas for lower paid foreigners with whom to replace their American work force. Many US corporations are known for forcing their US employees to train their foreign replacements in exchange for severance pay.
Chasing after shareholder return and “performance bonuses,” US corporations deserted their American workforce. The consequences can be seen everywhere. The loss of tax base has threatened the municipal bonds of cities and states and reduced the wealth of individuals who purchased the bonds. The lost jobs with good pay resulted in the expansion of consumer debt in order to maintain consumption. As the offshored goods and services are brought back to America to sell, the US trade deficit has exploded to unimaginable heights, calling into question the US dollar as reserve currency and America’s ability to finance its trade deficit.
As the American economy eroded away bit by bit, “free market” ideologues produced endless reassurances that America had pulled a fast one on China, sending China dirty and grimy manufacturing jobs. Free of these “old economy” jobs, Americans were lulled with promises of riches. In place of dirty fingernails, American efforts would flow into innovation and entrepreneurship. In the meantime, the “service economy” of software and communications would provide a leg up for the work force.
Education was the answer to all challenges. This appeased the academics, and they produced no studies that would contradict the propaganda and, thus, curtail the flow of federal government and corporate grants.
The “free market” economists, who provided the propaganda and disinformation to hide the act of destroying the US economy, were well paid. And as Business Week noted, “outsourcing’s inner circle has deep roots in GE (General Electric) and McKinsey,” a consulting firm. Indeed, one of McKinsey’s main apologists for offshoring of US jobs, Diana Farrell, is now a member of Obama’s White House National Economic Council.
The pressure of jobs offshoring, together with vast imports, has destroyed the economic prospects for all Americans, except the CEOs who receive “performance” bonuses for moving American jobs offshore or giving them to H-1b work visa holders. Lowly paid offshored employees, together with H-1b visas, have curtailed employment for older and more experienced American workers. Older workers traditionally receive higher pay. However, when the determining factor is minimizing labor costs for the sake of shareholder returns and management bonuses, older workers are unaffordable. Doing a good job, providing a good service, is no longer the corporation’s function. Instead, the goal is to minimize labor costs at all cost.
Thus, “free trade” has also destroyed the employment prospects of older workers. Forced out of their careers, they seek employment as shelf stockers for Wal-Mart.
I have read endless tributes to Wal-Mart from “libertarian economists,” who sing Wal-Mart’s praises for bringing low price goods, 70 per cent of which are made in China, to the American consumer. What these “economists” do not factor into their analysis is the diminution of American family incomes and government tax base from the loss of the goods producing jobs to China. Ladders of upward mobility are being dismantled by offshoring, while California issues IOUs to pay its bills. The shift of production offshore reduces US GDP. When the goods and services are brought back to America to be sold, they increase the trade deficit. As the trade deficit is financed by foreigners acquiring ownership of US assets, this means that profits, dividends, capital gains, interest, rents, and tolls leave American pockets for foreign ones.
Dollar should be replaced as international standard, U.N. report says
http://www.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/06/29/un.report.dollar/index.html?hpt=T2
By Gabriella Casanas and Mick B. Krever, CNN
June 29, 2010 7:14 p.m. EDT
New York (CNN) -- The dollar is an unreliable international currency and should be replaced by a more stable system, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs said in a report released Tuesday.
The use of the dollar for international trade came under increasing scrutiny when the U.S. economy fell into recession. "The dollar has proved not to be a stable store of value, which is a requisite for a stable reserve currency," the report said.
Many countries, in Asia in particular, have been building up massive dollar reserves. As a result, those countries' currencies have become undervalued, decreasing their ability to import goods from abroad.
The World Economic and Social Survey 2010 is supporting a proposal long advocated by the International Monetary Fund to create a standardized international system for liquidity transfer
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Ok I will bite.
Another thread and another debate that completely misses the larger points. The drug wars in South America do contribute to the violence in Phoenix,but, that is not even half of the people caught trying to cross the border. Now, what would drive these other people, not involved with drug trafficking, to still cross our borders? Could it be the free trade agreements that are in place in their respective countries? Free trade does not build other nations up, but exploits them, which the statistics for illegal immigration into the USA, readily back up.
People have been coming to this country since um well it started several hundred years ago, because of the chance for a better more free life. Free trade does not exploit people. Government oppression, bribery and not enforcing laws exploit people. Free trade between countries needs a lot more work. I tend to look at free trade with United States as the example. If each state had their own trade laws, rules and regulations trade and prosperity would be quite inhibited. If the people of the US were not allowed to freely migrate from one state to another for work or leisure growth would for sure be retarded. However with a free trade agreement between all the separate states with the open door policy for foreigners, the US as a whole has experienced great growth.
Growth is not 15.3 million unemployed,record foreclosures and states collapsing around the country. Real growth is not based on personal debt to sustain your lifestyle. You have contradicted yourself. If Govt. interference is the root of our problems, then that would INCLUDE free trade agreements, since it is Govt. intrusion into industry. The issue is not our states immigration policies, but, why immigrants are sneaking into the country illegally, at record levels. That would prove the arguments about the benefits to the world of free trade wrong. It's a farce. Credit is not prosperity. This is easily explained when you look at wage suppression over the last 30 years, however.
In case you didn't notice, the EU is collapsing right now, even after throwing a trillion dollars at the "PIG" nations this week. France and Germany are threatening to pull out of the EU and stop using the EURO altogether. Mexico is on the verge of collapsing and many would argue it already did last summer when the US sent in troops to Mexico City.
EU is most definitely fucking up, but free trade and capitalism is not the reason. Many of those countries including Greece still fight the invisible hand, and rely on Government for full support. "The central cause is not the euro, even if it has meant Greece can't depreciate its own currency to ease the economic pain. Budget deficits and debt are the real problems; and these stem from all the welfare benefits (unemployment insurance, old-age assistance, health insurance) provided by modern governments." R. Samuelson - The Quote Can Be Found here
I did not blame capitalism. I also would not blame the Greek social safety net. Those were in place long before the Euro and were never a problem until Goldman Sachs got into the Greek Govt. Billions in fraudulent financial products are easily more responsible for Greece's problems than unemployment insurance. I'm surprised you didn't quote Thomas Friedman. That quote is laughable on logic and completely dishonest.
Globalization doesn't work and is a flat failure and until people recognize that fact and demand safeguards and to do away with the free trade agreements, expect nothing to change and for it to get worse. Has it been worth it? Are people forced to crawl through the weeds,in the middle of the night, in pursuit of a decent life the beneficiaries of these policies?
Free Trade does work and "is never more necessary—or vulnerable—than in times of economic distress.." http://reason.com/bl...h-bhagwati-on-f
This is a brilliant interview.
There is no such thing as Free Trade since it is Govt. enforced. You can't have it both ways. Austerity measures don't work. New Deal policies do and have a 70 year track record of doing just that.
This Arizona law is a ploy to get the National ID passed. I know it is just another coincidence that the former Arizona Governor now runs Homeland Security, but read the Immigration "reform" Bill to see the law that will go into effect once it is passed. This is for everyone, not just immigrants. Now, if you support this police state bullshit, it doesn't make you compassionate or progressive, instead, it makes you the opposite, since you are,in effect, supporting slave labor and working conditions beyond anything you could imagine. But,instead of talking about the free trade policies, the propaganda masters have you trained like seals, engaging in the debates that have nothing to do with the larger issues.
Not sure if Obama and Holder are working with Arizona. The past few days Holder has been made to look unprepared to respond about the bill. http://www.youtube.c...h?v=5U4tI_qzyH0 Despite it being almost the exact same bill as the federal law. I don't understand that if someone supports this bill then they support slave labor. If anything if the AZ bill did the job of eliminating illegals (this is all hypothetical - it won't) then the companies could not hire illegal immigrants for dollars a day. This bill would force companies to hire legal workers, on the books, and thus pay them higher wages. You calling us all trained seals and towing the line of the propaganda masters is a broken record - Dime a Dozen man, dime a dozen.
And if you didn't know that Phoenix has become something of a war zone, over the last couple of years, with a lot of abductions right out of people's homes, then you have no business calling other people out, since you have no idea what you are talking about. It is you who should be questioning the news sources you read if they never bothered to mention the kidnappings and murders that have overrun Phoenix specifically and Arizona in general. But go ahead and recite the talking points, don't bother to actually think about what causes people to flee their countries. And if you do support globalization, then put your money where your mouth is, and give up half your salary,since Americans are so overpaid. But my guess is, it's everyone else who is overpaid, and, not you, which, is as laughable as the Tea Party complaining about "entitlements" as they collect Social Security. The race to the bottom is great isn't it?
Kidnappings have gone up, but crime in general have gone down. I would love to see Social Security privatized. But I am not a Tea Party person. I don't think we are overpaid. I think we spend too much - on a personal level and societal/government level.
Really how does that work? I have heard nothing about crime going down until this law was passed. People that have paid 30-40 years into SS don't deserve their money? And you can't be serious about privatizing SS and leaving it to the market after the last two years. If you are then you must be slightly touched. You would argue that after the 1,000 point drop in the market in 30 minutes two weeks ago? I'm sure you believe it was just a computer or human error right?
We do spend too much on the military and wars. Deal with those and the money that was robbed out SS funds to pay for them and you wouldn't have a problem. Halliburton charging the Govt. $100 dollars to do a soldiers load of laundry is much more wasteful than anything you brought up, but, it's funny that the free marketeers never touch on that, only unemployment insurance and pension funds. Free trade doesn't work and never has. None of these countries were in trouble until the creation of the EU. Greece not being able to act on it's own, in it's own best interests, is the problem.
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Another thread and another debate that completely misses the larger points. The drug wars in South America do contribute to the violence in Phoenix,but, that is not even half of the people caught trying to cross the border. Now, what would drive these other people, not involved with drug trafficking, to still cross our borders? Could it be the free trade agreements that are in place in their respective countries? Free trade does not build other nations up, but exploits them, which the statistics for illegal immigration into the USA, readily back up.
In case you didn't notice, the EU is collapsing right now, even after throwing a trillion dollars at the "PIG" nations this week. France and Germany are threatening to pull out of the EU and stop using the EURO altogether. Mexico is on the verge of collapsing and many would argue it already did last summer when the US sent in troops to Mexico City.
Globalization doesn't work and is a flat failure and until people recognize that fact and demand safeguards and to do away with the free trade agreements, expect nothing to change and for it to get worse. Has it been worth it? Are people forced to crawl through the weeds,in the middle of the night, in pursuit of a decent life the beneficiaries of these policies?
This Arizona law is a ploy to get the National ID passed. I know it is just another coincidence that the former Arizona Governor now runs Homeland Security, but read the Immigration "reform" Bill to see the law that will go into effect once it is passed. This is for everyone, not just immigrants. Now, if you support this police state bullshit, it doesn't make you compassionate or progressive, instead, it makes you the opposite, since you are,in effect, supporting slave labor and working conditions beyond anything you could imagine. But,instead of talking about the free trade policies, the propaganda masters have you trained like seals, engaging in the debates that have nothing to do with the larger issues.
And if you didn't know that Phoenix has become something of a war zone, over the last couple of years, with a lot of abductions right out of people's homes, then you have no business calling other people out, since you have no idea what you are talking about. It is you who should be questioning the news sources you read if they never bothered to mention the kidnappings and murders that have overrun Phoenix specifically and Arizona in general. But go ahead and recite the talking points, don't bother to actually think about what causes people to flee their countries. And if you do support globalization, then put your money where your mouth is, and give up half your salary,since Americans are so overpaid. But my guess is, it's everyone else who is overpaid, and, not you, which, is as laughable as the Tea Party complaining about "entitlements" as they collect Social Security. The race to the bottom is great isn't it?
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U.S. suspects Goldman tip-off on Buffett deal: WSJ
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-suspects-goldman-tip-off-on-buffett-deal-wsj-2010-04-23-032240
LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. government is investigating whether Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS 159.78, +0.73, +0.46%) director Rajat Gupta informed the head of the the Galleon Group hedge fund about a pending $5 billion investment in the brokerage by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.A 118,400, +120.00, +0.10%) (BRK.B 78.89, +0.21, +0.27%) in 2008, according to a Wall Street Journal report Friday. The report cited a government filing alleging that Gupta told Raj Rajaratnam of the deal. Rajaratnam is currently under indictment on charges of insider trading. The report cited an unnamed source as saying Gupta himself told authorities about the tip-off to Rajaratnam. Gupta has not been charged in the case and is slated to resign his position with Goldman Sachs next month.
SEC Porn Probe: Staffers Watched Porn As Economy Crashed
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/23/sec-porn-probe-staffers-w_n_548931.html
WASHINGTON — Senior staffers at the Securities and Exchange Commission spent hours surfing pornographic websites on government-issued computers while they were being paid to police the financial system, an agency watchdog says.
The SEC's inspector general conducted 33 probes of employees looking at explicit images in the past five years, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press.
The memo says 31 of those probes occurred in the 2 1/2 years since the financial system teetered and nearly crashed.
The staffers' behavior violated government-wide ethics rules, it says.
It was written by SEC Inspector General David Kotz in response to a request from Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.
The memo was first reported Thursday evening by ABC News. It summarizes past inspector general probes and reports some shocking findings:
_ A senior attorney at the SEC's Washington headquarters spent up to eight hours a day looking at and downloading pornography. When he ran out of hard drive space, he burned the files to CDs or DVDs, which he kept in boxes around his office. He agreed to resign, an earlier watchdog report said.
_ An accountant was blocked more than 16,000 times in a month from visiting websites classified as "Sex" or "Pornography." Yet he still managed to amass a collection of "very graphic" material on his hard drive by using Google images to bypass the SEC's internal filter, according to an earlier report from the inspector general. The accountant refused to testify in his defense, and received a 14-day suspension.
_ Seventeen of the employees were "at a senior level," earning salaries of up to $222,418.
_ The number of cases jumped from two in 2007 to 16 in 2008. The cracks in the financial system emerged in mid-2007 and spread into full-blown panic by the fall of 2008.
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Goldman's White House connections raise eyebrows
WASHINGTON — While Goldman Sachs' lawyers negotiated with the Securities and Exchange Commission over potentially explosive civil fraud charges, Goldman's chief executive visited the White House at least four times.
White House logs show that Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein traveled to Washington for at least two events with President Barack Obama, whose 2008 presidential campaign received $994,795 in donations from Goldman's political action committee, its employees and their relatives. He also met twice with Obama's top economic adviser, Larry Summers.
Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/21/92637/goldmans-connections-to-white.html#ixzz0lq2hS9Cd
Goldman figure Paulson hosted Romney, Steele last week
"Republicans Mitt Romney and Michael Steele headlined a Republican National Committee fundraiser six days ago at the home of the hedge fund titan at the center of the Security and Exchange Committee's fraud charges against Goldman Sachs.
A spokesman for the RNC confirmed the Tuesday evening event at the Manhattan home of John Paulson, who made a fortune betting against the housing market, and whom Goldman is accused of working to structure products sold to unwitting investors."
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What a joke. A civil suit with a possibility of a fine? I'm sure Goldman Sachs is really scared. This attempt to look tough on Wall Street is more sad theatrics from the Obama administration, since the numbers tell such a vastly different story. Make sure to tune into CNBC where former Goldman Sachs Jim Kramer or former Goldamn Sachs/Citi Group publicist Erin Burnett will tell you how this is no big deal and Goldman is not criminal in destroying the U.S economy. It was those damn poor people and families who wanted to own a home. Or maybe tune into MSNBC so Alan Greenspan's wife,Andrea Mitchell, can give you some in depth "analysis" of how Obama is getting tough on Wall St, you know "reliable" sources of conventional wisdom and award winning Tiger Woods coverage.
The Financial Terrorists Who Destroyed Our Economy Will Pay Zero in Taxes -- and Get $33 Billion in Refunds
You and I are working our asses off, paying 30% of our limited income in taxes. Not the banks that triggered the financial crisis.
By David DeGraw
April 18, 2010-Journalist David DeGraw has put together a devastating report detailing how Wall Street continues to pillage the economy with the government's help. "The staggering level of theft continues unabated," writes DeGraw. "Our future is going up in flames and our government isn’t even making the slightest effort to put out the fire. In fact, they are purposely pouring gasoline all over it." DeGraw's investigation is a follow up to his previous report The Economic Elite Vs. The People of the United States of America -- check that one out to get caught up. AlterNet will run in a series of articles based on DeGraw's investigation. Here is part one.
The first thing people need to understand is that the economic crash wasn’t a crash for the people who caused it. In fact, these financial terrorists are now doing better than ever. In a recent report, titled “Social Inequality in America: Widening Income Disparities,” more evidence of the unprecedented transfer of wealth was revealed:
“As of late 2009, the number of billionaires soared from 793 to 1,011, and their total fortunes from $2.4 trillion to $3.6 trillion…. Despite the crisis, the list of billionaires has grown by 218 people and their aggregate capital has expanded by 50%. This may seem paradoxical, but only at first glance. This result was predictable, if we recall how governments all over the world have dealt with the economic crisis.”
The inequality of wealth in the United States between the economic top 0.5% and the remaining 99.5% of the population is now at an all-time high. The economic top 1% of the population now controls a record 70% of all financial assets. The point here is that while the economic crisis has been devastating for 99% of America, the Wall Street elite are awash in record breaking profits. The most profitable firm in Wall Street history, Goldman Sachs, just had their most profitable quarter in their 140-year history and Wall Street firms issued an all-time record breaking amount in bonuses.
All of this is occurring after giving these firms $14 TRILLION in taxpayer support - that works out to be $46,662 of your hard-earned money. That’s $46,662 for every man, woman and child in this country. If you have a family of four, sorry, your future just got robbed and you and your children just lost $186,648!
So what are all these firms doing with these record-breaking profits? Are they returning them into the tax system in which they came from, the tax system that was looted just to keep their scam running?
No!
Let’s start with Wells Fargo. After being bailed out with our money in 2008, their top five executives DOUBLED their compensation and each one of them made over $11 million in 2009. Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf made off with a cool $21.3 million last year.
And now comes news that Bank of America and Wells Fargo will pay zero, yes ZERO in federal taxes for 2009. Bank of America will net a $3.6 BILLION benefit from the federal government in 2009. Wells Fargo, after $8 BILLION in earnings for 2009, will net $4 BILLION from the federal government.
So you and I are working our asses off just to make ends meet, paying 30% of our limited income in taxes, and gizillionaire John Stumpf’s company is paying ZERO in taxes so that he can personally swipe another $21.3 million of tax payer funds.
Al Capone is a dime store thief compared to this guy!
Well, to be fair, Mr. Stumpf is just a small-timer himself in this all-time greatest heist.
JP Morgan Chase made $12 BILLION in profit in 2009, as a direct result of our tax money - yes, I need to keep repeating this fact. These are profits that would not exist if it weren’t for our tax dollars.
It’s also important to point out that this is just the level of theft that has already occurred. However, as I also can’t stress enough, the theft still continues without any let-up.
Now comes news that JP Morgan is on the verge of getting a $1.4 BILLION tax refund! Yes, you heard me right, a $1.4 BILLION TAX REFUND. But JP is not alone in this latest theft. In total, the financial terrorists are due to receive $33 BILLION IN TAX REFUNDS!
Do you comprehend how depraved it is to give these people another $33 billion in tax refunds? I assume that they’re thinking that after stealing $14 TRILLION, another $33 billion really isn’t all that much. After all, last year, Goldman Sachs, the most profitable firm Wall Street history, only paid 1% in taxes, so what’s another $33 billion kickback among friends?
Let’s be clear about this latest $33 billion of which the US tax system is being robbed. What could we do with $33 billion?
For one, we could put over one million unemployed people back to work and pay them the average national median wage for the next year. Add the record-breaking $150 billion in bonuses (our tax money) that Wall Street handed out this past year to the $33 billion and guess what? We can now put over six million people back to work making the average annual wage! Do you think that would stimulate the economy? Green shots galore.
But why do that? Jamie Dimon needs another new 40,000 square foot mansion and Goldman Sachs needs to upgrade their fleet of luxury jets filled with the finest wine, champagne, cigars and hot tubs.
Maybe we could use that $33 billion to save some of the hundreds of schools that are being forced to close this year due to devastating State budget deficits. Or maybe pay the thousands of teachers who just found out that their jobs have been cut. How about using that money to feed the 50% of US children who need to use food stamps during their childhood to eat? How about using it to give a raise to the 15 million US workers who work 40 hours or more a week and still fall below the poverty line.
Wait, I know, how about helping the millions of Americans who have been foreclosed upon due to JP Morgan’s predatory lending schemes and illegal subprime “liar’s loans.”
And don’t even get me started again on how we can better use the $14 TRILLION that Wall Street made off with.
People of the United States to Obama: Hello! This is happening on your watch!
Change We Can Believe In!
Oh, but wait… it gets even better. This just in from the Roosevelt Institute:
De facto bailout for Freddie and Frannie
Did the Fed and the Treasury orchestrate a de facto bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — at public expense and sans Congressional approval? John Hussman thinks so. He provides a detailed account of just how 1.5 trillion dollars got diverted to Freddie and Fannie — money that we can all kiss goodbye. American taxpayers, it seems, have gotten the middle finger once again.
And then in comes this little known, highly underreported news item: U.S. Taxpayers on Hook for $5 Trillion of Fannie, Freddie Debt
“After years of winks and nods, there’s no doubt that Fannie and Freddie now enjoy an explicit guarantee, according to most observers. The U.S. government placed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in conservatorship in September 2008: ‘This means that the U.S. Taxpayer now stands behind $5 trillion of GSE debt,’ according to the Congressional Research Service.”
Hank “Pentagon-Sachs” Paulson’s right-hand man Tim Geithner, now Obama’s hand-picked Treasury Secretary and point man for the continued looting, recently assured his friends on the Financial Services Committee: “We will do everything necessary to ensure these institutions have the capital they need to meet their commitments.” Geithner then acknowledged that US taxpayers will take “very substantial” losses on this bailout.
Yep, Obama’s Chief-of-Theft, Rahm “Freddie Mac Daddy” Emanuel’s former company now has unlimited ability to rob taxpayer money and is making off with $5 TRILLION. And I thought Cheney’s Halliburton was as bad as it could get.
Yes We Can… Get Robbed Even More!
But don’t worry, if you thought the past two years were bad, the history books will recall them as a walk in the park compared to what is coming our way. You don’t have trillions looted from the economy and continue to just keep going about your life business as usual. I wish I was wrong, and I wish this was just my opinion, but facts are facts and every societal and economic indicator says things are going to get worse, MUCH WORSE.
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Naomi Wolf Thinks the Tea Parties Help Fight Fascism -- Is She Onto Something or in Fantasy Land?
Naomi Wolf, author of 'End of America,' talks about why she has become an improbable Tea Party darling, and if progressives can learn from the conservative activists.
March 30, 2010-In her bestselling End of America, Naomi Wolf outlines the 10 warning signs that America is headed toward a fascist takeover. Using historical precedents, she explains how our government is mimicking those of Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin through practices like surveillance of ordinary citizens, restricting the press, developing paramilitary forces and arbitrarily detaining people.
The book was lauded by liberals under Bush: the Independent Publishers gave it the Freedom Fighter Award; John Nichols at the Nation named it the most valuable political book of 2007. Now, under President Obama, Wolf's book is providing ammunition for the Tea Partiers, Patriots, Ron Paul supporters and Oath Keepers, who also warn of impending tyrannical government. Even when the book first came out pre-Obama, Alex Jones, Michael Savage and Fox News invited her on their shows, and agreed with her.
It’s not just her message. She speaks their language, referring to the Founding Fathers and American Revolution as models, admitting to a profound sense of fear, warning of tyranny, fascism, Nazism and martial law. When Glenn Beck warns of these things we laugh. When Wolf draws those same connections, we listen. How can both sides be speaking the same language, yet see things so differently? Or are we just not listening to each other? I telephoned Wolf to ask her what it means when your book ends up bolstering policies you oppose...
Justine Sharrock: First off, is your book still relevant under Obama?
Naomi Wolf: Unfortunately it is more relevant. Bush legalized torture, but Obama is legalizing impunity. He promised to roll stuff back, but he is institutionalizing these things forever. It is terrifying and the left doesn’t seem to recognize it.
JS: Did you realize that your book is being lauded within the Tea Party and patriot movements?
NW: Since I wrote Give Me Liberty, I have had a new audience that looks different than the average Smith girl. There is a giant libertarian component. I have had a lot of dialogue with the Ron Paul community. There are [Tea Partiers] writing to me on my Facebook page, but I figured they were self-selective libertarians and not arch conservatives. I am utterly stunned that I have a following in the patriot movement and I wasn’t aware that specific Tea Partiers were reading it. They haven’t invited me to speak. They invited Sarah Palin.
JS: If they did invite you, would you speak at a Tea Party?
NW: I would go in a heartbeat. I’ll go anywhere to talk about the Constitution. I believe in trans-partisan organizing around these issues. When I went on Fox News people asked me why I was going on those shows. Are you kidding? You have to go, especially to people you don’t agree with. We need to get back into grappling with people we disagree with if we want to restore the Republic.
I was invited by the Ron Paul supporters to their rally in Washington last summer and I loved it. I met a lot of people I respected, a lot of “ordinary” people, as in not privileged. They were stepping up to the plate, when my own liberal privileged fellow demographic habituates were lying around whining. It was a wake-up call to the libertarians that there’s a progressive who cares so much about the same issues. Their views of liberals are just as distorted as ours are of conservatives.
JS: Why do you think the sides don’t understand each other?
NW: Frankly, liberals are out of the habit of communicating with anyone outside their own in cohort. We have a cultural problem with self-righteousness and elitism. Liberals roll their eyes about going on "Oprah" to reach a mass audience by using language that anyone can understand even if you majored in semiotics at Yale. We look down on people we don’t agree with. It doesn’t serve us well.
There is also a deliberate building up of two camps that benefits from whipping up home team spirit and demonizing the opposition. With the Internet there is even more fractioning since we are in echo chambers. With so much propaganda it is hard to calm down enough to listen.
JS: What do you think is the biggest misconception about the Tea Parties?
NW: The Tea Party is not monolithic. There is a battle between people who care about liberty and the Constitution and the Republican Establishment who is trying to take ownership of it and redirect it for its own purposes.
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Obama signs one-year extension of Patriot Act
Ralph Nader Was Right About Barack Obama
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/ralph_nader_was_right_about_barack_obama_20100301/
By Chris Hedges
We owe Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney an apology. They were right about Barack Obama. They were right about the corporate state. They had the courage of their convictions and they stood fast despite wholesale defections and ridicule by liberals and progressives.
Obama lies as cravenly, if not as crudely, as George W. Bush. He promised us that the transfer of $12.8 trillion in taxpayer money to Wall Street would open up credit and lending to the average consumer. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), however, admitted last week that banks have reduced lending at the sharpest pace since 1942. As a senator, Obama promised he would filibuster amendments to the FISA Reform Act that retroactively made legal the wiretapping and monitoring of millions of American citizens without warrant; instead he supported passage of the loathsome legislation. He told us he would withdraw American troops from Iraq, close the detention facility at Guantánamo, end torture, restore civil liberties such as habeas corpus and create new jobs. None of this has happened.
He is shoving a health care bill down our throats that would give hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to the private health insurance industry in the form of subsidies, and force millions of uninsured Americans to buy insurers’ defective products. These policies would come with ever-rising co-pays, deductibles and premiums and see most of the seriously ill left bankrupt and unable to afford medical care. Obama did nothing to halt the collapse of the Copenhagen climate conference, after promising meaningful environmental reform, and has left us at the mercy of corporations such as ExxonMobil. He empowers Israel’s brutal apartheid state. He has expanded the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where hundreds of civilians, including entire families, have been slaughtered by sophisticated weapons systems such as the Hellfire missile, which sucks the air out of victims’ lungs. And he is delivering war and death to Yemen, Somalia and perhaps Iran.
The illegal wars and occupations, the largest transference of wealth upward in American history and the egregious assault on civil liberties, all begun under George W. Bush, raise only a flicker of tepid protest from liberals when propagated by the Democrats. Liberals, unlike the right wing, are emotionally disabled. They appear not to feel. The tea-party protesters, the myopic supporters of Sarah Palin, the veterans signing up for Oath Keepers and the myriad of armed patriot groups have swept into their ranks legions of disenfranchised workers, angry libertarians, John Birchers and many who, until now, were never politically active. They articulate a legitimate rage. Yet liberals continue to speak in the bloodless language of issues and policies, and leave emotion and anger to the protofascists. Take a look at the 3,000-word suicide note left by Joe Stack, who flew his Piper Cherokee last month into an IRS office in Austin, Texas, murdering an IRS worker and injuring dozens. He was not alone in his rage.
“Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours?” Stack wrote. “Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political ‘representatives’ (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the ‘terrible health care problem’. It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.”
The timidity of the left exposes its cowardice, lack of a moral compass and mounting political impotence. The left stands for nothing. The damage Obama and the Democrats have done is immense. But the damage liberals do the longer they beg Obama and the Democrats for a few scraps is worse. It is time to walk out on the Democrats. It is time to back alternative third-party candidates and grass-roots movements, no matter how marginal such support may be. If we do not take a stand soon we must prepare for the rise of a frightening protofascist movement, one that is already gaining huge ground among the permanently unemployed, a frightened middle class and frustrated low-wage workers. We are, even more than Glenn Beck or tea-party protesters, responsible for the gusts fanning the flames of right-wing revolt because we have failed to articulate a credible alternative.
Don't Be a Sucker - 1947
Video Description:
In this anti-fascist film produced by US Military in the wake of WWII, the producers deconstructs the politically motivated social engineering of Germany by the Nazi regime.
Its argument is just as timely and relevant today.
China's investments in U.S. up sharply
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-china-invest4-2010mar04,0,4637026.story
Reporting from Washington - Made in China now has a fast-growing sibling: Bought by China.
Beijing is using its accumulation of billions of American dollars to step up its investments around the globe. In the last year, Chinese acquisitions in the U.S. have ranged from a relatively obscure theater in Branson, Mo., to stakes in such famous brands as Coca-Cola and Johnson & Johnson.
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Senate votes to extend Patriot Act
Democrats retreat from adding new privacy protections to the law
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35571223/ns/politics-capitol_hill
WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Wednesday to extend for a year key provisions of the nation's counterterrorism surveillance law that are scheduled to expire at the end of the month.
In agreeing to pass the bill, Senate Democrats retreated from adding new privacy protections to the USA Patriot Act.
The Senate approved the bill on a voice vote with no debate. It now goes to the House.
Woody Guthrie~ All You Fascists Bound To Lose
In a entry dated March 4 1942 in his notebook for a letter to his unborn son, Woody had this to say:
“Maybe I should talk to you about fascism. It is a big word and it hides in some pretty little places. It is nothing in the world but greed for profit and greed for the power to hurt and make slaves out of the people… But fascism can no more control the world than a bunch of pool hall gamblers and thugs can control America. Because all of the laws of man working in nature and history and evolution say for all human beings to come always closer and closer together…
“How come me launching into a talk about fascism to you – only 4 months on the way – not even here yet? Because in the whole big world… fascism and freedom are the only two sides battling… every other shades into the fight somewhere, I’m not worried about where you’ll be standing – but – how could I ever get this book wrote full unless some of it was cussing out fascism?
Like Tom Joad said to his dying mother in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, “wherever working people are fighting for their rights, I’ll be there”.
"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."-James Madison
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Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995
The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.
Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.
Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organizational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.
The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.
Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.
And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.
The admissions will be seized on by skeptics as fresh evidence that there are serious flaws at the heart of the science of climate change and the orthodoxy that recent rises in temperature are largely man-made.
Professor Jones has been in the spotlight since he stepped down as director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit after the leaking of emails that skeptics claim show scientists were manipulating data.
The raw data, collected from hundreds of weather stations around the world and analyzed by his unit, has been used for years to bolster efforts by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to press governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions.
More on Prof. Jones...
Jones may submit a correction to his 1990 paper – Keenan responds
African crops yield another catastrophe for the IPCC
Ever more question marks have been raised in recent weeks over the reputations of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and of its chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri. But the latest example to emerge is arguably the most bizarre and scandalous of all. It centres on a very specific scare story which was included in the IPCC's 2007 report, although it was completely at odds with the scientific evidence – including that produced by the British expert in charge of the relevant section of the report. Even more tellingly, however, this particular claim has repeatedly been championed by Dr Pachauri himself.
Only last week Dr Pachauri was specifically denying that the appearance of this claim in two IPCC reports, including one of which he was the editor, was an error. Yet it has now come to light that the IPCC, ignoring the evidence of its own experts, deliberately published the claim for propaganda purposes.
One of the most widely quoted and most alarmist passages in the main 2007 report was a warning that, by 2020, global warming could reduce crop yields in some countries in Africa by 50 per cent. Dr Pachauri not only allowed this claim to be included in the short Synthesis Report, of which he was co-editor, but has publicly repeated it many times since.
The origin of this claim was a report written for a Canadian advocacy group by Ali Agoumi, a Moroccan academic who draws part of his current income from advising on how to make applications for "carbon credits". As his primary sources he cited reports for three North African governments. But none of these remotely supported what he wrote. The nearest any got to providing evidence for his claim was one for the Moroccan government, which said that in serious drought years, cereal yields might be reduced by 50 per cent. The report for the Algerian government, on the other hand, predicted that, on current projections, "agricultural production will more than double by 2020". Yet it was Agoumi's claim that climate change could cut yields by 50 per cent that was headlined in the IPCC's Working Group II report in 2007.
What made this even odder, however, was that the group's co-chairman was a British agricultural expert, Dr Martin Parry, whose consultancy group, Martin Parry Associates, had been paid £75,000 by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) for two reports which had come to totally different conclusions. Specifically designed to inform the IPCC's 2007 report, these predicted that by 2020 any changes were likely to be insignificant.
British taxpayers poured out money for the section of the IPCC report for which Dr Parry was responsible. Defra paid £2.5 million through the Met Office, plus £330,000 for Dr Parry's salary as co-chairman, and a further £75,000 to his consultancy for two more reports on the impact of global warming on world food supplies. Yet when it came to the impact on Africa, all this peer-reviewed work – including further expert reports by Britain's Dr Mike Hulme and Dutch and German teams – was ignored in favour of a prediction from one Moroccan activist at odds with his own cited sources.
However, the story then got worse when Dr Pachauri himself came to edit and co-author the IPCC's Synthesis Report (for which the IPCC paid his Delhi-based Teri institute, out of the £400,000 allocated for its production). Not only did Pachauri's version again give prominence to Agoumi's 50 per cent figure, but he himself has repeated the claim on numerous occasions since, in articles, interviews and speeches –such as the one he gave to a climate summit in Potsdam last September, where he boasted he was speaking "in the voice of the world's scientific community".
Only last week, in an interview available on YouTube, Dr Pachauri was asked about errors in the IPCC's 2007 report and his own Synthesis Report, with specific reference to the loss of North African crops. His reply was that – aside from the prediction that the IPCC has now had to disown, that Himalayan glaciers could vanish by 2035 – the reports contained "no errors". Passages such as those on African crops were "not errors and we are absolutely certain that what we have said over that can be substantiated".
In the wake of all the other recent scandals, "Africa-gate" may be the most damaging of all, because of the involvement of Dr Pachauri himself. Not only is the reputation of the IPCC in tatters, but that of its chairman appears irreperably damaged. Yet the world's politicians cannot afford to see him resign because, if he goes, the whole sham edifice they have sworn by would come tumbling down.
Core Publications
Agenda 21
http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/res_agenda21_00.shtml
This is the "green" agenda we have been operating under from the UN since 1992. If you have not read or heard of it etc. then you really have no idea what you are talking about and are going on blind assumptions.
Global Governance
Our Global Neighborhood
The Report of the Commission on Global Governance
http://www.libertymatters.org/globalgovernance.htm
From Chapter Seven-"A Call To Action"-
The role of the IMF should be enhanced by:
*enlarging its capacity for balance- of- payments support through low conditionality compensatory finance;
*having oversight of the international monetary system and a capacity to ensure that domestic economic policies in major countries are not mutually inconsistent or damaging to the rest of the international community;
*releasing a new issue of Special Drawing Rights; and
*improving its capacity to support nominal exchange rates in the interest of exchange rate stability.
I'm not even arguing the science more the solutions. The very financial institutions that brought down the world economy are now to be entrusted with trading carbon credits to save the planet. It's so ridiculous,just on the surface, I can't believe people are still going along with it. Global warming may indeed be real but carbon credits will do nothing to solve this. That is their solution as they propose more wars in the same breath. You are expected to pay carbon credits as private contractors charge the US $100 for a gallon of gas in the mideast. To not be questioning these proposals is laughable.
Yet, any discussion of these policies on this board degenerates into name calling and bickering. Absurd charges come my way and derails the entire discussion. To think that the name calling and arrogance is necessary or warranted is dead wrong. For the record, I have made no claims of FEMA camps and don't believe in aliens. I have studied this subject for 15 years and have tried to tell others that they were indeed wrong about camps. They are not however wrong knowing there is a push for Global Govt. In this subject there is a lot crap you have to sift through. Some claims regarding global government are ridiculous. To continue to equate those claims with ones that are backed up with the people in question own words and documents is totally irrational thinking and ultimately not my fault. There is a push for a global currency but then pictures are posted of fake Ameros, many times without even bringing up the subject. I agree with the article Sparky posted. They will tie it in with carbon credits and it will be cashless and GLOBAL. I have no way of knowing when this will happen but inflation takes 3 years to reach the actual economy. California's debt is larger than the entire country of Greece alone. We are headed for the same scenario. If you want to see it in action with the same banks and international bodies like the IMF, then I recommend this documentary.
Argentina's Economic Collapse (FULL VERSION)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4353655982817317115#
For those interested in sifting past the Alex Jones & Glenn Beck misinformation and fearmongering I will leave these links with an interview with Carroll Quigley. He wrote Tragedy & Hope, which is one of the original sources of information about this network. You can look up his biography on your own, if you want. He has a flawless reputation. Groups like the John Birch Society misquoted and twisted the meaning of a lot of the book. He refutes them and discusses the FACTUAL and DOCUMENTED workings of these think tanks,foundations and stated goals. Chomsky and Zinn also both have written extensively about it, but somehow I bet this board won't consider them crackpots. Nothing done in secret in Governmental bodies has ever been for the benefit of mankind and Global govt. will be no exception.
So to still be denying there is such a thing is juvenile,ridiculous and utterly ignorant. There is a lot of misinformation put out so you don't look into it for yourselves, by, the very media with a vested interest to see that it is accomplished. It's incredible how much information is out there and how many politicians speak openly about it and people still deny it exists. It is mind boggling. I don't care if you don't agree with me but the hostility really needs to be taken down a few notches,no matter what your opinion is. Some of it's not true. They don't want to put you in a camp. You should not so much be worried about that as the quality of your life, which is headed down, while the people perpetuating the "solutions" fly around in private chartered jets. These things can be reversed,but,first you must acknowledge they exist and that there is a problem. BTW The Rockefeller Bros. Fund is set to be in charge of the carbon credit exchange in the USA. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of this family and specific fund should have red flags going up with that detail and the proposed "solution" to global warming. OK, now everyone please assemble into goups of right and left, D and R and start fighting amongst yourselves while the oligarchs loot your country. Shouting that it is "socialism for the working classes", when in fact it's socialism for Wall St., is exactly what the sponsors of the Red Team vs Blue Team Games want.
“The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief.” Jacques Ellul
"There are none so enslaved as those who delude that they're free."
-Goethe
U.S. Economic Terrorism the New 'Winning Trade'
When Wall Street planned and executed the U.S. housing-bubble (and all its related scams), it destroyed the lives of tens of millions of Americans. Then, when it subsequently 'crashed' global markets, it inflicted hardship on most of the world. But the Oligarchs were just getting started.
As governments responded in a totally predictable manner, Wall Street began to collect on its interest-rate swap scam (see “WHO were the WINNERS in Interest Rate Swaps?”). With this scam the Oligarchs progressed from merely destroying companies and individuals to destroying schools, hospitals, towns and even states.
However, as we are now finding out, those were merely Wall Street's “appetizers”. For their “main course”, the Oligarchs have moved up to destroying nations. Here, I must confess to once again underestimating the Oligarchs. I had thought that the latest propaganda campaign was merely a tactic to pull the worthless, U.S. dollar out of yet another nose-dive. How wrong I was!
I should have been tipped-off by the obsessive/excessive “coverage” from the U.S. media of Greece's (and now the rest of the “PIGS”s) financial problems. The indifference of Americans to any and all events which take place outside of their own borders is legendary. Apart from wars, Americans generally have as much curiosity about the “rest of the world” as the average house-fly.
Even if a massive earthquake had swallowed-up Greece like some modern-day Atlantis, such an event would have interested Americans for no more than a few days. To illustrate this, we only need to observe how grossly disproportionate has been the “coverage” of Greece's financial problems compared to the devastating earthquake which struck Haiti – a close neighbour to the U.S.
For those propaganda-numbed sheep who would argue that Greece's budget crisis warrants weeks of around-the-clock coverage, you need to acquire some perspective. As has been frequently mentioned outside of the U.S. propaganda-machine, the Greek economy constitutes less than 3% of the EU. In other words, this would be like the rest of the world writing commentary-after-commentary predicting disaster for the United States because of financial problems in the state of Oregon.
For the record, while there are a handful of European nations with serious financial crises, these nations represent no more than 1/3 of the EU economy. In contrast, as has been frequently published, there are at least forty U.S. states struggling to ward off insolvency – and representing somewhere around 80% of the U.S. economy.
People can hate on Joe Bag ODonuts and imagine that Mr. & Mrs. Average Joe has more power than the lobbyists who write the legislation all you want, but who exactly is being subsidized and bailed out by the govt takeover of Fannie & Freddie? Is it the home-mortgage owner or the owner of the bonds?
Carroll Quigley Interview (part 1 of 5)
He starts discussing the book starting at about 6 mins into the video.
Carroll Quigley Interview (part 2 of 5)
Carroll Quigley Interview (part 3 of 5)
Carroll Quigley Interview (part 4 of 5)
Carroll Quigley Interview (part 5 of 5)
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Talk about recycling! This is simply the communist rhetoric of Stalinism and Marxism. It is no more relevant today than it was when they were coined 80 years ago.
Europe's latest socialist experiment is starting to crumble with the Euro crisis .
So that we are clear you are utterly ignorant of the history of this country and the Republican party,here are some quotes and speeches. This is what some of the most notable REPUBLICAN Presidents and founders had to say about corporate power. Funny, it sounds nothing like Glenn Beck,Sarah Palin,Ron Paul,Alex Jones or the Tea Party.
“Now, this means that our government, national and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. ... We must drive the special interests out of politics. That is one of our tasks today. Every special interest is entitled to justice - full, fair, and complete - and, now, mind you, if there were any attempt by mob-violence to plunder and work harm to the special interest, whatever it may be, and I most dislike and the wealthy man, whomsoever he may be, for whom I have the greatest contempt, I would fight for him, and you would if you were worth your salt. He should have justice. For every special interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office. The Constitution guarantees protections to property, and we must make that promise good. But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation. The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man's making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being."
Teddy Roosevelt-"The New Nationalism"
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the (Civil) war, corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic is destroyed. I feel, at this moment, more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."
Toward the end of the Civil War, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln wrote, in a letter to Col. William F. Elkins, November 21, 1864
"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."-James Madison
"Guard against the impostures of pretend patriotism."-George Washington
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Talk about recycling! This is simply the communist rhetoric of Stalinism and Marxism. It is no more relevant today than it was when they were coined 80 years ago.
Europe's latest socialist experiment is starting to crumble with the Euro crisis .
Don't ever call me a Marxist you misinformed brainwashed fool. I recycled nothing. Idiots like you who think they are "awake" are fast asleep, following groups funded by the same exact people who fund Obama. Wake up for real. This nation wasn't founded on corporations ruling us. There is nothing communist about that, except to brain dead fascists like yourself. Now go watch some Glenn Beck so he can tell how Christian it is to make preemptive war and kill women and children for ExxonMobil and Blackwater or should I say Xe?
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Totally-inco-fucking-herent. If you really believe what you just wrote, and are not simply lashing out, you haven't been reading my posts for the past few years - especially where the war, bailouts and defending the status quo are concerned. I read several books a week, from all sides, conservative, liberal or otherwise, but I stopped reading conspiracy minded shit in high school, more than twenty plus years ago. I grew up.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, because I think it bears repeating - you're a total fucking idiot. Using Ameros, go buy yourself a pack of gum, come back and I'll show you how to chew it.
Translation: I disapprove of the facts so I will ignore them and change what they mean. I have no facts to counter what the UN's statement has been about what carbon taxes will be used for, so I will call people idiots who don't agree with me and see things my way. I will only complain about war and bailouts when a Republican is in office, because I am deluded, and think there is an actual difference between the political parties. I read only books and conclusions I know I will agree with, so I know and nobody else knows what they are talking about, except for those on "my side"
Seriously, you are the poster child for what is wrong with America. I look forward to more of your rants and raves that ignore facts, just so you can claim you are "right", which of course you aren't. And congratulations, lots of people read books, that doesn't make you special or an expert on anything.Can any of the Amero mindset explain this to me?
It means they are all working on the same team. It's to illustrate there is no difference between the parties. You got tricked. Get it? It's a bit over the top but not untrue. Here is the remedial course:
One World Government = Transnational Corporations.
Transnational Corporations = Loyal to no country
Transnational Corporations = owners of Supreme Court, Senate, House & President of this and almost EVERY country around the globe, except those referred to as "rogue"
Transnational Corporations = loved by Palin/Ron Paul/Tea Party & Obama and the Dems=No difference
Transnational Corporations = shhhh NSA Glenn Beck & Alex Jones won’t talk about ExxonMobil or their record profits or where they are getting new sources of oil in certain countries in the Mid East we currently occupy
Transnational Corporations = modus operandi of how REAL “nwo” is accomplished
I think some of these people really believe this is a good thing but don’t realize they are letting a monster get a foot in the door.
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
- Martin Luther King Jr -
This board is the embodiment of that quote. I'm sure there will be wiki links and Rolling Stone articles to say it's all ok so why worry? Everything is fine. We are on the verge of a third war with Iran and currency collapse, but it's going to turn around any day now. Just watch some tv and don't worry about it. Carbon taxes and global government will make it all better.
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Unless you can provide compelling evidence to the contrary (and you cant, because, outside of the cottage conspiracy industry, none exists), the UN is doing (more or less) precisely what it was established to do, from wikipedia (I know I know, the New World Orderers have their hands all over that site, but maybe take your foil cap off for a second and like, humor me):
“…it is primarily associated with the ideological notion of global governance only in the sense of new collective efforts to identify, understand, or address worldwide problems that go beyond the capacity of individual states to solve.”
So, when you view a statement such as this through the preceding lens, it is stripped of its menace, which is not to suggest I find it menacing, I’m talking in your terms.
The idea that the US is somehow (or in growing danger of becoming) subservient to the UN is absurd, and simply not supported by the facts.
Whether or not you believe in climate change, we would be extremely fucking wise to do everything within our power to conserve, conserve and then conserve some fucking more, the earth’s remaining petroleum reserves, cause, when it’s gone, it’s gone, and it ain’t coming back – well, it will, eventually perhaps, but when it does, we along with lots of other organic matter might serve as its source. Many credible folks within the petroleum industry have indicated that we’ve already passed peak (oil), or, if not, we will within the very near future. Our entire civilization is entirely dependent on petroleum, and not just petroleum, but cheap and (relatively) easy access to it. As of today, we do not have a replacement, at least nothing that comes even remotely close to providing a viable alternative, one (or more) that will provide a similar bang for the buck, so to speak, as petroleum. Our entire infrastructure rests upon continued access to it. Alternatives are in their infancy, and time is running short.
The following article written by James Kunstler, though, on the whole, maybe a little too hyperbolic, is a good place to start.
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/7203633/the_long_emergency
Like I said, always changing the definition to suit you is laughable. Your wiki arguments are as pathetic as your personal attacks and denials. Obviously you don't know the definition of the word collective. You have no clue about politics or how the world works. If the UN chief mentioning global governance from MAJOR MAINSTREAM sources is conspiracy sites, then that's your mental block. Maybe it's time to realize you have more in common with your conservative neighbor than any political pundits; you might finally figure out the world. You are not better and most definitely not smarter than anyone else. You thrive on division, may people like you in this country become the minority. Now go make yourself feel better and defend wars and bailouts and the status quo that is working so well. Go curse and scream, with your most feeble grasp of history and current events. Go quote Rolling Stone some more. With the responses you post and you are telling other people to be an adult? Your hypocrisy knows no bounds. Sparky has a point don't read anything YOU don't agree with. What a awesome way to live life. In case you didn't notice, no one is particularly interested in your viewpoint. We can turn on the TV and get your arguments anytime we want. And now I'm done in this thread it's too remedial to even be entertaining at this point.
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Not to mention that eating pork would expose you to swine flu.
Don't eat pork from infected animals: WHO
http://www.nationalpost.com/m/story.html?id=1570736
Meat from pigs infected with H1N1 flu should not be eaten by humans, a World Health Organization official said yesterday, while emphasizing existing checks were sufficient to safeguard the food supply from the new virus strain.
Jorgen Schlundt, director of the WHO's department of food safety, zoonoses and foodborne diseases, said care must be taken to ensure pigs and their meat were checked for all diseases, including the H1N1 virus that may be present in the blood of infected animals.
"Meat from sick pigs or pigs found dead should not be processed or used for human consumption under any circumstances," he said.
Flu viruses such as the new H1N1 strain could survive freezing, and contaminate thawed meat and blood, he added. But there was no risk of infection from eating or handling pork so long as normal precautions were taken.
I know what an outlandish question to ask the doctors and nurses on the board before anyone knew what was up. Nice try at deflection. Thanks for proving once again you have no clue what you are talking about, which the UN chief's statement on carbon taxes makes clear. Get it? You're wrong no matter how much you say it's not true, it is. You can debate the definition of what global government means, but the definition has never changed. They are not kidding. So if you want to still believe people lying to your face and saying it's not what the UN states it is, then be my guest. Now go calculate how many breaths you take in a day, so you can be accurately taxed for your "carbon footprint".
Watch this video again you are exactly what he is talking about.
How To Brainwash A Nation
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You, sir, are the absolute fucking king of drawing false inferences. As was the case when you quoted “facts” regarding the Amero, and the internment camps that would be created in response to the H1N1 virus.
And you are the king of denial.
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Ha Ha Sparky big mistake opening this subject on this board. They are immune to facts outside of corporate media propaganda. Since the original thread was about climate change, I thought quoting the UN Secretary general about what a carbon tax will be used for would be appropriate. Curiously, he says something about global governance. Of course, you won't get the same answers questioning his mental stability. But then you will be told how it's good and the details have been kept secret for your own good. Seriously why bother some people can see it and comprehend what they read and some can't. What are you going to do?
Q & A
U.N. chief weighs in on climate talk expectations
December 16, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-climate-ban16-2009dec16,0,1781040.story
Is a political deal in Copenhagen still possible?
We need to have a very strong, robust, binding political deal that will have an immediate operational effect. This is not going to be a political declaration, just for the sake of declaration. It is going to be a binding political deal, which will lead to a legally binding treaty next year.
We will establish a global governance structure to monitor and manage the implementation of this.
We Can Do It
By BAN KI-MOON
Published: October 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/opinion/26iht-edban.html?_r=1
Every country must do its utmost to reduce emissions from all major sources, including from deforestation and emissions from shipping and aviation. Developed countries must strengthen their mid-term mitigation targets, which are currently nowhere close to the cuts that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says are needed. Developing countries must slow the rise in their emissions and accelerate green growth as part of their strategies to reduce poverty.
A deal needs to be backed by money and the means to deliver it. Developing countries need funding and technology so they can move more quickly toward green growth. The solutions we discuss cannot be realized without substantial additional financing, including through carbon markets and private investment.
A deal must include an equitable global governance structure.
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I'm not sure what to make of the whole global warming debate. The solution of carbon taxes is definitely a fraud. But I can't help thinking that people are being deliberately led to both of these false conclusions. Having lived in L.A. for many years, I can tell you pollution is real and it leaves a physical dusting all over everything out there. You can see it flying into L.A. on a clear day. I also recognize the doublespeak of Obama when he talks about "climate change" and then proposes in his State Of The Union about drilling for oil in this country and "clean" coal. There is no such thing. So the problem is either not real or manipulated for politics. I can't decide which it is. Pollution is real. Global warming is a theory. Where I differ from the Ron Paul crowd is I do blame the corporations and the govt,since these days they are one in the same.
Ron Paul with his Ayn Rand bullshit is leading his followers to a system just as controlled, which leads to anti-intellectual cultural populism a la Palin. I know they are not the same but they really don't disagree on much, mostly foreign policy. Economically they see eye to eye. I mean Rand Paul just got endorsed by her and called her a "giant of American Politics." If you can't see the corporations owning our Govt. is the problem, then you are truly blind. Ron Paul finds no fault with the corporations, just the banks. Both are equally problematic. Ron Paul says he follows the Constitution but refuses to support tariffs to fix our trade imbalances. Read how many references there are to tariffs in the Constitution. Our nation has always prospered with protective tariffs in place. Look up and see how many tariffs George Washington had in place during his administration, which is about as American as you can get. Ron Paul is nothing more than fraud preaching the same economics as the Chicago School.(Rockefeller Funded) Is it a coincidence that both he and Greenspan worship Ayn Rand and both are Libertarians? What is amusing is that Ron Paul supporters always think they are educating everyone else when they are just as light on facts. This is what Ron Paul is about... F*** Ron Paul and his dumb ass supporters. Who owns Russia Today? Ron Paul's favorite media outlet is owned by Russian intelligence. Wake up about Ron Paul and stop posting his talking points, just like Obama he is the exact opposite of what he claims to be.
Ron Paul: The Deep Dark Details (1 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4P87p-Arcw&feature=PlayList&p=2EB51C8E00386D06&index=1
Ron Paul: The Deep Dark Details (2 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCSZRuS2YfU&feature=response_watch
Ex KGB describing the exact playbook that anti American traitor/racist Ron Paul and "Campaign For Liberty" are running right now.
How To Brainwash A Nation
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The Quiet Coup
by Simon Johnson
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice
The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.
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Demise of The United States of America, An American Tragedy
By: Darryl_R_Schoon
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article16208.html
The 20th century will be remembered as the century when America became a world power. World Wars I and II would decimate the then great powers of the world, e.g. England, Germany, Russia, France, Japan, etc., leaving the US as the last nation standing—the world’s sole superpower.
At mid-century, in 1950 the US would be the world’s banker, its only creditor and repository of the greatest hoard of gold in history; but in only 20 years most of the gold would be gone, the remaining owed but never paid and the US would soon become the world’s largest debtor, a virtual deadbeat who could only pay its debts by borrowing more.
The 21st century would speed America’s decline. In the first decade, the US would launch an expensive war in Iraq then Afghanistan, further destabilizing its already heavily indebted balance sheet; and by 2009, China and Japan, its primary creditors, would significantly slow their purchases of US debt, forcing the US to begin borrowing from itself in order to continue spending what it did not have.
When the creditor of last resort is the borrower, economic fundamentals will inevitably reassert themselves.
Since the 1950s, Americans have serially and collectively blamed communists, socialists, hippies, feminists, Mexicans, environmentalists, gays, abortion, entitlements, Japan, China, etc. for their mounting problems; and, like the veritable alcoholic, the real cause of its problems is always assiduously avoided.
It is little wonder that as America’s serial enemies have come and gone, America’s problems have increased. This is because the real cause of America’s problems is not others—America’s real problem is itself.
AMERICA’S DEFACTO RECALL OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
America, if measured by the lofty ideals of its birth, is a failed experiment. The US Constitution is but another reminder that written words are no protection against future transgressions, that the lessons of one generation cannot be passed on to the next and that the desire to dominate others is alive and well even in freedom’s birthplace.
I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.
Thomas Jefferson
America’s founding fathers warned of the dangers the young republic would face. Thomas Jefferson, perhaps the greatest of America’s forbearers, saw those dangers clearly—the greatest being banks and standing armies.
I sincerely believe… that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Taylor, 1816
Were armies to be raised whenever a speck of war is visible in our horizon, we never should have been without them. Our resources would have been exhausted on dangers which never happened instead of being reserved for what is really to take place.
Thomas Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806
Two hundred years after Jefferson’s prescient warnings, America has both the word’s largest banking establishment and the world’s costliest standing army. It would be America itself, not its perceived enemies, who would betray the lofty ideals of the American Revolution.
As a consequence, the US is now broke and indebted beyond its ability to repay. These circumstances did not come about by accident; and although the consequences are clear, the cause is not; as those who profited by America’s fall do not want the truth known—but, until it is, the tragic decline of America will continue…and accelerate.
THE QUIET COUP
The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.
The above words prefaced The Quiet Coup, an article in The Atlantic Magazine, May 2009, written by Simon Johnson, in 2007 and 2008 chief economist at the IMF and currently a professor of economics at MIT.
Johnson contends that a coup has occurred in America, that a financial oligarchy has taken control of the nation’s affairs and that America’s situation will soon worsen unless the power of that oligarchy is broken.
Johnson’s article is one that should be read by all; but, unfortunately, it will not as denial is preferable to the truth, especially in America where citizens would rather believe themselves free than realize they are not. Nonetheless, for those interested, Johnson’s article is at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice.
In actuality, the financial oligarchy seized control in America long before the current crisis. The actual coup took place in 1913; and, by virtue of that coup and the consequent consolidation of its power, America’s demise was set in motion.
Almost one hundred years later, bled dry by the financial interests who seized power in 1913, America’s fall is almost complete. The coup of 1913 gave the banking interests who profited from the rise and fall of England’s empire access to the vast productivity of America; and like England before it, America’s wealth would be completely drained by the banker’s debt-based banknotes in less than a century.
BUBKES BANKNOTES AND POWER
Mao Tse-tung’s proverb, political power grows out of the barrel of a gun, may be true in certain circumstances but it is most certainly true that since 1694, global power has come from the ability of central banks such as the Bank of England to substitute capital, bubkes, i.e. credit and debt-based paper banknotes, for gold and silver and to take advantage of countries that did not.
Central banking was the secret of England’s two hundred year reign of imperialism that peaked in 1850. The revolt of England’s American colonies in 1776 was to be its only setback after the Bank of England, England’s central bank, gave the king of England the ability to wage war on credit in 1694.
The Bank of England’s ability to do so, of course, was a quid pro quo for the king’s allowing the Bank of England to issue its debt-based paper banknotes as money. The king got to wage unlimited war provided, of course, the king (and consequently the nation) repaid the Bank of England the principle and compounding interest on the sums owing.
This England was able to do as long as its empire grew. But, in 1850, England’s empire peaked. England’s trade balances went negative in the 1870s and by the end of the century England was a power in decline.
What happened next explains why America, too, is now a declining power, why America like England is indebted beyond its ability to repay, and why the US dollar has lost over 95% of its value since 1913—and will soon lose what little left remains.
THE COUP SUCCEEDS THE US SUCCUMBS
In 1913, the US was the victim of a coup that bestowed upon it the failings of a falling empire. That coup occurred when US corporate and banking interests and President Woodrow Wilson established the Federal Reserve Bank in America, a central bank owned by private bankers that would henceforth control the nation’s money supply and, ultimately, its destiny—as Thomas Jefferson had earlier warned.
The establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913 brought England’s debt-based monetary system to the US. The Federal Reserve Bank was a carbon copy of England’s central bank, the Bank of England. Central banking lies at the core of capitalism and is both its blessing and its curse. The blessing, credit, comes first and debt, its curse, comes later.
In capitalist economies, central bank debt-based banknotes circulate as capital and are treated equally as money. Capitalism, in actuality, is any economic system where capital, i.e. credit and debt, replaces savings as the primary source of economic growth.
As Jefferson noted: The art and mystery of banks....is [that] private debts, called bank notes, become active capital, and … instead of paying, they receive an interest on what they owe from those to whom they owe; for all the notes, or evidences of what they owe, which we see in circulation, have been lent to somebody on an interest which is levied again on us through the medium of commerce.
In capitalist economies, debt-based banknotes are the accepted medium of exchange, i.e. money, and through the use of such “capital”, debt is introduced into all areas of commerce and social intercourse; thus enabling bankers to profit from the levying of interest accruing from all commercial and societal activities.
Thomas Jefferson understood that this monetary sleight-of-hand would eventually bankrupt society; and although the American Revolution was successful in banishing England’s debt-based banknotes in 1776; the coup of 1913 returned England’s debt-based banknotes to America in the form of US Federal Reserve notes and US dollars.
The rest is history—or soon will be.
THE COUP AND THE CONSOLIDATION OF POWER
The financial oligarchy that took power in 1913 has since consolidated its control in America by the subversion of the democratic process. This it did by exploiting the division that naturally exists between conservatives and liberals.
By expertly baiting each against the other, the social divide between the two has increased exponentially as have the profits of bankers. This is not by coincidence. It is by design.
As America’s attention was increasingly diverted to hot-button social issues, laws were passed during both Republican and Democratic administrations that would give the financial industry unlimited access to America’s savings with minimal oversight and virtual immunity from criminal prosecution.
Republicans loved Ronald Reagan as Democrats loved Bill Clinton and, later, Barack Obama with the same result. All three rallied their political constituencies and expertly diverted their attention as America’s financial oligarchy plundered the nation’s wealth.
Though politicians may speak with the tongues of angels, they are not
The financial industry’s consolidation of power in America began with Ronald Reagan. As Simon Johnson writes in The Quiet Coup [The rise of the financial sector] began with the Reagan years, and it only gained strength with the deregulatory policies of the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations…From 1973 to 1985, the financial sector never earned more than 16 percent of domestic corporate profits. In 1986, that figure reached 19 percent. In the 1990s, it oscillated between 21 percent and 30 percent…This decade it reached 41 percent. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice
It was, however, during the Democratic administration of Bill Clinton, that the financial industry gained its greatest foothold in Washington DC. The nation’s capital and the nation itself would never be the same after Wall Street bank, Goldman Sachs, bought off the Democratic opposition and, along with it, the keys to the US Treasury.
AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY
Americans still do not understand the significance of what has happened. The tragedy of America is that Americans see the present crisis in material terms. Americans still believe they are facing a crisis that can be cured with more jobs, more credit, a rising stock market and perhaps, God willing, another bubble to rescue them from the last.
Today, as long as Americans qualify for a loan they believe themselves free. They also believe themselves better than those who do not qualify…at least until they no longer qualify themselves.
America long ago chose material security over liberty; but now that its material security is threatened and its liberties gone, it is clear America chose badly. Still, Americans prefer to imagine themselves as heroic, capable of understanding and overcoming life’s myriad challenges, unique in their ability to do so.
But, today, America’s founding fathers are nowhere to be found, its political process a cesspool of corruption and its treasury increasingly filled with IOUs issued to itself. Today, the America of 1776 is but a faded memory Americans use to soothe themselves in their now troubled sleep.
Dream on, America, dream on. But if you want to survive, you’d better wake up—and soon.
GOLD’S RISE PAPER’S DEMISE
Ten years ago the price of gold was $300 per ounce and the economic power of the US was unchallenged. Today, gold is $1100 per ounce and the US and global economy is on government life-support.
We are at the end of a three-hundred year era of global expansion and exploitation made possible by central banking’s fraudulent banknotes. That the fraud lasted 300 years is remarkable. That it is now ending is to be expected. Nothing lasts forever, not even a well-constructed fraud—ask Bernie Madoff.
The banker’s banknotes could not have gained a foothold had not they purported to be “as good as gold” (anyone remember the gold standard?). The banknotes were always bubkes, worthless, but as long as they were nominally convertible to gold, they were accepted.
Now, paper banknotes are no longer convertible. They are simply government-issued coupons with expiration dates written in invisible ink. The banker’s long-running confidence game that produced imperialism then globalization, however, is about to end—and the freedom from economic tyranny envisioned by America’s forefathers may again soon be possible.
JOHN Law’s Legacy and summers’ end
John Law (1671-1729), Scottish economist and banker, is credited by some as being the “father of paper money”, a rather dubious accolade, but if John Law is to share in the paternity of paper money it is only so in the West as in the East paper money had circulated in China several centuries before it did in the West.
Nonetheless, Law did leave his mark on monetary history. In the 1700s, Law proposed to stimulate industry by replacing gold with paper credit and then increasing the supply of credit, and to reduce the national debt by replacing it with shares in economic ventures… Though they ultimately failed, [Law’s] theories were 300 years ahead of their time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Law_(economist)
John Law believed that money need not possess any intrinsic value, that “money” was only a means of exchange, a view later promoted by Milton Friedman. But Law’s theories about paper money and credit would bring financial ruin to many in his lifetime just as they would in the future.
In a significant way, John Law shares many attributes with current monetary theorist and economist, Lawrence Summers. For just as Law’s theories would end in disaster in 18th century France, Summers’ theories are about to prove just as disastrous in 21st century America.
Both men were considered brilliant although clever is a far more appropriate description. Between 1715 and 1720 John Law’s paper money and issuance of credit led to the speculative Mississippi Bubble whose collapse brought the French monarchy to its knees.
Today, Larry Summers is playing a similar role in America’s finances. Summers, along with Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin, is responsible for the toxic and explosive brew of financial derivatives that now threatens financial markets.
In addition, Summers is also currently the White House Director of the National Economic Council and a standing member of the financial oligarchy that Simon Johnson credits with being responsible for America’s financial crisis.
Summers inside high ranking position at the Obama White House insures the continued power of the financial oligarchy in America, an oligarchy that Johnson says must be removed if America is to avoid another depression.
Summer’s presence in the Obama White House is our assurance that the depression will happen; and, when it does, it is possible that such a depression will destroy not only America’s economy but the two-party system that has allowed the financial oligarchy to dominate the nation.
John Law’s destructive influence on the economy of France is credited by many with destroying the French monarchy. We should be so lucky if Larry Summers’ similarly destructive influence brings about the destruction of the financial oligarchy that has ruled America since 1913.
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Experts On Third World Banana Republics: The U.S. has Become a Third World Banana Republic
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/03/experts-on-third-world-banana-republics.html
Who are the leading experts on third world banana republics?
Probably those at the International Monetary Fund with years of experience lending money to corrupt regimes after their excess became so out of hand that they needed emergency assistance. Today, two top IMF officials said that the U.S. has become a third world banana republic.
First, Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the IMF, says recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform, and calls the U.S. a banana republic. In his essay "The Quiet Coup" (which includes sections like "Becoming a Banana Republic"), Johnson writes:
Typically, these countries are in a desperate economic situation for one simple reason—the powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks. Emerging-market governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit—and, most of the time, genteel—oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company in which they are the controlling shareholders. When a country like Indonesia or South Korea or Russia grows, so do the ambitions of its captains of industry. As masters of their mini-universe, these people make some investments that clearly benefit the broader economy, but they also start making bigger and riskier bets. They reckon—correctly, in most cases—that their political connections will allow them to push onto the government any substantial problems that arise. . . .
The downward spiral that follows is remarkably steep. Enormous companies teeter on the brink of default, and the local banks that have lent to them collapse....
Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among emerging-market governments. Quite the contrary: at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break, or—here’s a classic Kremlin bailout technique—the assumption of private debt obligations by the government. Under duress, generosity toward old friends takes many innovative forms. Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk—at least until the riots grow too large. . . .
In its depth and suddenness, the U.S. economic and financial crisis is shockingly reminiscent of moments we have recently seen in emerging markets (and only in emerging markets): South Korea (1997), Malaysia (1998), Russia and Argentina (time and again). . . .But there’s a deeper and more disturbing similarity: elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive.The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them.
Second, Desmond Lachman - a long-time official with the IMF and former chief strategist for emerging markets at Salomon Smith Barney - agrees, writing in an essay entitled "Welcome to America, the World's Scariest Emerging Market":
The parallels between U.S. policymaking and what we see in emerging markets are clearest in how we've mishandled the banking crisis. We delude ourselves that our banks face liquidity problems, rather than deeper solvency problems, and we try to fix it all on the cheap just like any run-of-the-mill emerging market economy would try to do. And after years of lecturing Asian and Latin American leaders about the importance of consistency and transparency in sorting out financial crises, we fail on both counts....
In visits to Asian capitals during the region's financial crisis in the late 1990s, I often heard Asian reformers such as Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew or Japan's Eisuke Sakakibara complain about how the incestuous relationship between governments and large Asian corporate conglomerates stymied real economic change. How fortunate, I thought then, that the United States was not similarly plagued by crony capitalism! However, watching Goldman Sachs's seeming lock on high-level U.S. Treasury jobs as well as the way that Republicans and Democrats alike tiptoed around reforming Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae -- among the largest campaign contributors to Congress -- made me wonder if the differences between the United States and the Asian economies were only a matter of degree....
If we insist on ... not facing our real problems, we might soon lose our status as a country to be emulated and join the ranks of those nations we have patronized for so long. While such statements are generally taboo among officials or bankers in the U.S., even the former Vice President of the Dallas Federal Reserve agrees:
Gerald O'Driscoll, a former vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said he worried that the failure of the government to provide more information about its rescue spending could signal corruption. "Nontransparency in government programs is always associated with corruption in other countries, so I don't see why it wouldn't be here," he said.
Obama on Fiscal Responsibility
in Tongue-Tied Lightning
Posted