I thoroughly agree with you on this situation.  I am not happy with this appoointment of one of Paulson's cronies, a Wall Street buddy.  There has got to be others out there with the knowledge, the brains/ability and the backbone to deal with this mess as should be done. I have let Pres. Elect Obama know that I am not happy with this choice.

by Wazi (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 6 comments) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 8:56:01 AM

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Can this be true?  Is someone finally catching on that the existence of finance and its malpractice is the biggest swindle of all time?

Hoo-bloody-rrah!  Finally.

You will find another little offering of mine on the same subject today, but it has been secreted away in the diaries to protect tender minds.

Sure.  Let the pirates swing.  They cause poverty and and death all over the planet, and get away with it laughing richly.

by Keith Pope (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 96 comments [29 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 8:56:55 AM

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I sit ambivalent, but hopeful.  Hope can be summed up in the short video of Obama's reply to the presidential talk of the week.  He has a plan and he's burrowing into Congressional sloth to start ASAP.  

I burrow, myself, and find sad stories from newspapers across the country where people line up for food baskets--good, solid, working families who have lost jobs and speak honestly about where they stand.  

And this is personal:  My friend, who does my heavier housekeeping chores, lost some work due to illness and now has discovered that her bank account is overdrawn, due to those insidious charges which can easily happen when payment comes from debit cards. 

This is a plea:  Please push Congress to make those 35 dollar charges illegal, NOW.  Chris Dodd was defeated when Congress passed the new bankruptcy law.  Let's try again.   Usury trumped Truth in Lending.  It's a problem of "biblical proportions."  

by Margaret Bassett (45 articles, 2909 quicklinks, 42 diaries, 1851 comments [99 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 9:13:46 AM

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While if  you do  not  take  into account the  harm  done  to  people and  their  retirement  futures  this  is  an  interesting  development. 

 But  it  is  real. You can  see  from  this  why  G.W. wanted  to privatize  retirement savings.  Imagine  if  all  the  Social  Security  money  had  been placed  into 401K plans.  God, ...  their  take  would  have  been magnified  beyond all  imagination.

 I  have  a  question.  These  people  will  be  dead before  long  just  like  the poor they  are  stealing  from.  What  will  they gain?

by DR (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 10 comments) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 9:16:53 AM

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and you, Rady.  Nice piece.

I really can not believe Rob, alone, has the time to do the substantial research included in this article.  But I'm always willing to be surprised.  A scientist at heart, as it were.

by GLloyd Rowsey (104 articles, 65 quicklinks, 60 diaries, 828 comments [4 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 9:21:24 AM

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Central Banking, and especially the practices of fractional-reserve (lending more than is deposited) and FED counterfeiting (printing of new paper money without real assets backing them), create the vast plunder these 'pirates' seek.  It is far easier for the politically connected to ask the DC elite for our money than to earn it from us fairly and legally.

It seems rather absurd to me, that some find value in lobbying the evil ones to use their evil tools for good.  That's what they've been trying so hard to convince us they've been doing for a hundred years (since 1913 or so), yet the people who print the new money always get to spend those improvements in productivity first, while the people who continually improve their own productivity continually get taxed more, though invisibly, through the central banks' inflationary principles - printing money for the government to spend on whatever they or their cronies want.

Every few years, we do the election dance, and the elite change seats, but never relinquish control of the system to anyone who would change it for the better of the people, only the better of the bureaucracy.

Unless you're a bureaucrat, government sucks.  Expecting it to change because there's a new bureaucrat in charge is like expecting pirates to just ignore an enormous pile of treasure because its not theirs.

by UncleSim (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 512 comments [74 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 9:24:40 AM

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By looting our treasury, the republicans and democrats have insured that no meaningful change will come anytime soon. Whatever Obama tries to do will have to be done with borrowed money. Any good produced will more than offset by further damage plus interest to our economy. Barack has been effectively "hamstrung". There are several types of transactions on Wall St. that while they have the potential to make money, stand no chance of creating wealth. Short selling, derivatives, and credit default swaps to name a few. They should be outlawed.

by Matthew Peters (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 171 comments [4 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 9:35:29 AM

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No one is targeting the American Pirates (Criminals).  Great article Rob.

We voted, now these mega corporations are going to use their power of money to influence our Congress people and keep things very much the same.  Our new leaders, at least so far, have not talked about overhauling the rules and creating a way to hold these top level executives and thieves accountable.

We have checks and balances within the government, but no checks and balances on these corporations.

They are legal people - super human - able to bankrupt hundreds of thousands without so much as an investigation.  Able to make empty retirement promises and then raid their pension plans.  Able to create a health care system that robs people while they are healthy and then becomes worthless when people are sick.

Hard to hold criminals responsible when they are inside our government writing the rules...

Nice article, Rob... 

by August Adams (11 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 585 comments [11 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 9:43:26 AM

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I like how you phrased it an "us verses them" issue. So many right wingers do this type of "us verses them" and look how they gain momentum on an issue. However, you cast all Americans together in this matter rather than their lame BLAME game (R v.D, Libs v. Cons) of a Rush, Savage or Beck nature. You done good Rob!

So now we need a mission statement, a vision, and a strong support system of Americans to get to work on this pirate ship. Gawd, I'm thinking a giant iceberg could take care of the pirate ship (heh heh). How about we pull a plug on their ship and it will slowly sink? Can we think of a way to do that? Just one leak and a vacuum hose could take them down. Or we can sit back and wait for the US Justice Dept to do something. I've been waiting for my dog to take out the garbage and odds are about the same.

This article needs to be in the NYT. Rob, I love you and OEN. Thanks for this article.

Here are the smallest words that get the most done:

IF

IT

IS

TO

BE

IT

IS

UP

TO

ME.

Together we make up a LOT of me's.

by shirley reese (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 592 comments [98 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 10:40:28 AM

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We are the ones we have been waiting for.

by GLloyd Rowsey (104 articles, 65 quicklinks, 60 diaries, 828 comments [4 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 11:41:56 AM

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We are the ones we have been waiting for. I have to admit that I am dismayed by some of Obama's appointments, its not the change I thought he would bring it's the same old business as usual. The corporate strings have won out over the voice of the people in regards to Obama. It is now time that we the people speak out louder and stronger, we are the only ones who can bring change to this nation. The meltdown continues. The pirates are just changing shifts to rob us even more.

Don't go to sleep on this one. Stand up. Speak out. Organize. Organize.

by Sharon Roach (15 articles, 0 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 184 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 8:06:19 AM

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Let's kick Lucy and forget the football for a change.

by John Hanks (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1760 comments [39 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 10:44:50 AM

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... so what is the solution?

I have the following on my website -- (paraphrasing) "Many prominent men complain about the money system, without (1) being more specific as to what is wrong or (2) offering any suggestions as to how it can be fixed. Shame on them. 

Check my website <> for specific plans on how to solve our monetary problems. My wife and I will be travelling to Washington D.C. in May of '09 to deliver a report to every member of the Banking Committees in both houses of Congress.

Please read what we have so far on our site and tell us how we can polish and improve our arguments. We need good advice.

Between now and May -- we hope to start a grass-root monetary discussion group in a local library. We hope it will be a prototype for discussion groups across the country -- including the Library Of Congress.

Send us ideas on how we can get this movement going.

Marty Carbone (martycarboneatyahoodotcom) - fix "at" and "dot"

by Martin Carbone (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 12 comments) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 10:58:30 AM

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I hope this means that Rob is no longer going to vote, or promote voting, in our pirated electoral system. The lesser of two pirates will always be a pirate and will always promote piracy. Are we getting closer to a national strike yet? 

by Jim Eldon (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 253 comments [15 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 11:01:04 AM

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For years these pirates or should I say folks who have a very large income due to unethical,dishonest and basically underhanded manipulations have complained about being overtaxed. These complaints about over taxation have lead many to automatically assume that they actually earned their excessive income and didn't steal it.

To me there is a big difference between a person who built a successful business from the ground up and after decades of hard work and playing by the rules and paying fair wages has gotten to a point were a large salary can be had. For some CEO to waltz in and do little or nothing and draw a multimillion dollar paycheck is absurd. When I think of the latter I think of applying a 99 percent income tax.

As far as going after the pirates of the finance world I say go after them with the IRS just like they used for the gangsters of the early 1900s.

by Gary Denson (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 283 comments) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 11:02:28 AM

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 - to the Ultimate Sting  http://www.rudemacedon.ca/sting.html

by siamdave (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 85 comments [3 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 11:12:39 AM

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Any student of US history knows that this sort of fiscal piracy has been practiced since the first stock market opened and possibly before.

In the USA there is theft and then there is fair and square theft. The truly successful thieves buy the legislation to be fair and square thieves. They get to keep all or most of what they have stolen and then to make up for it by leaving a pittance to charity. They become shining examples of America's hard working fiscal geniuses. They make it legal to scam the citizenry and then piously complain about how much tax they are paying on their ill gotten gains.   

by kalpal (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 6 comments [8 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 11:17:55 AM

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We have met the enemy, and he is the choice of a sappy electorate who no has no blithering idea where its best interests lie.

by Rafe Pilgrim (63 articles, 0 quicklinks, 19 diaries, 84 comments [12 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 11:30:49 AM

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for putting this focus directly onto the OpEdNews' table. 

I would be further interested on your take as to why Obama has made the choice for the Treasury that he has. 

If the truths you speak are to clear and obvious to us.... why are they not to Obama? 

by richard (0 articles, 5 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 1359 comments [400 recommended, 8 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 12:01:43 PM

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if you want someone who can work within the system as it operates. He knows all the ins and outs, understands the system, knows the people, was ahead of many in predicting the problems.

But Obama is unlikely to succeed at getting us out of this mess if he works within the box Now, if he uses Geither to advise him hot to shut it down, to end it, that might work. I wrote last week about Obama's Herculean task-- his need to "clean out the Augean stables" using a "river wash," ie., making a huge, quantum leap outside the box. If Geither helps him figure out what it takes to shut the system down and replace it with something simpler, more transparent, more economically just.

by Rob Kall (952 articles, 4177 quicklinks, 374 diaries, 2087 comments [45 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 3:02:07 PM

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Are you so pissed at Richard and others of us that think outside the box that even when we agree with you, you trip over your own words to put us down?

In one breath you say they're "pirates" and the next they're "brilliant". Which is it? You can't have it both ways.

Geither is captain of the biggest pirate ships in the fleet, it's not likely he's going to be helping Obama to start sinking pirate ships. Geither is "brilliant" only in if you were looking for someone that knows a lot about crime, you'd pick Al Capone.

I'm listening right now to this arrogant s.o.b. Larry Kudlow on C-SPAN praise all of Obama's economic picks, and how wonderful it is because they're all ardent "free-traders". You think these pirates that Obama is stuffing in his box is going to help him "get out of the box", when it's the "box" we need to destroy?

"We can't wait that long. The US must face the fact that we have the worst pirates in history right in our nation, filthy rich, hobnobbing with politicians, treated with honor, given power."

Your words. Which is it? You call them pirates and that we shouldn't be giving them power, and than when Obama gives them power and we point that out how brilliant it is.

Obama isn't going to be "use" Geither and Summers as much as the other way around, because you still think that any so-called president that comes out of either of these totally corrupt parties is in control. Obama doesn't even control what comes out of his mouth. He's a figurehead for one of the two criminal organizations we call either our Democratic or Republican parties.

"It seems Democrats AND Republicans are equally eager to help THESE pirates to come up with new ways to maintain their pirate ways, to keep the pirate "system" going."

Again, your words. So please explain you duplicity? Either they're corrupt and we can't trust them, or they're not, which is it?

Or maybe there's a third choice that is unique to those that can deal in "double-think", where you wish really, really hard that what you're saying somehow makes sense.  

by Mr M (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 66 diaries, 2845 comments [654 recommended, 27 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 8:23:04 AM

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Or, wishing really hard that the more confused and supportive of your readers will be wishing just as hard for both parts to be true, because in Democracy, you don't need to be right, you just need a majority to side with you, even if you're wrong.

The free market rewards quality.  Democracy rewards popularity.

Quality, or popularity.  What do YOU value?

BTW, good post, Mr. M.

by UncleSim (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 512 comments [74 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 1:50:15 PM

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...because he works WITHIN the box (and is therefore unlikely to, uh, change anything substantially)?

by Jill Herendeen (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 213 comments [13 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 1:22:24 PM

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Well Said Rob!

We can start by removing the ability to use the crooked investment vehicles such as derivatives, futures, etc.

They are gambling plain and simple and do not belong in the financial mix.

That does not mean we do not take risk, but the risk should be spelled out clearly.

The collapse of the mortgage securities is not unexpected. No one really understood them.

The Universities need to teach morality, integrity, regard for nature, the evironment, and care for society.

The bottom line is not everything is acceptable when it ignores the evils that are used to create the wealth.

We need a fundimental change.

by Rolland Miller (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 227 comments [78 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 12:28:33 PM

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Wo what's left for parents to teach their kids, if universities are going to teach morality, etc?

Q: What if the 'Pirates' take over the morality/ethics classes at the Universities?

by UncleSim (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 512 comments [74 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 1:53:24 PM

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I agree we need fundamental change. But It must be radical...that is totally fundamental. We need to reach back close to a hundred years and abolish the Federal Reserve.

We need to fundamentally change corporate law. Corporations, the immortal ficticious entity must be destroyed and never allowed to incubate again.

As Jefferson said, the greatest danger is "the Money Power and the corporations that spring up around them".

Jefferson's DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE is still ours, and if we replace the portion on slavery that was removed for "practical purposes, by the more  hypocritical of the day--we have a document as a map to where we once almost were, and may yet get to.

by William Whitten (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4880 comments [1686 recommended, 28 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 8:18:57 PM

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Business pirates supply money to influence the politicians we elect. Ultimately, our politicians will never provide a long-term solution to this problem—it is against their personal interests. The only permanent method to stop pirates is for the people to use their second power—nationwide initiatives. Without the right to use initiatives, the people are always at the pirate’s mercy.

Two proposals for a nationwide initiative process exist on the Internet. InitiativesAmendment.org uses article V's second method to amend the constitution and a citizens assembly to qualify initiatives for the ballot. NI4D.org relies on the people's vote to enact itself and signature petitions to qualify initiatives. If the people do not care enough to carry the ball, nothing will happen. Pogo had it right.

by Cuthbert (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 12:31:14 PM

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If you're serious about amending the Constitution, you should check out the proposals at www.downsizedc.org.

A few of their suggestions:

One Subject at a Time Act: No omnibus bills, which cover multiple subjects in order to secure support from more members of Congress.

Read the Bills Act: All bills must be read before a quorum of Congress, in their entirety, before being voted on.  Many congresspeople never read the bills they vote on.

Write the Laws Act: All laws must be written by Congress, not lobbyists or the President or any other unelected official.

And My Favorite -  This would prevent so much unconstitutional legislation, and do so much to keep the States and their citizens free from Federal tyranny...

Enumerated Powers Act: All new laws must cite explicit Constitutional authority.  No constitutional authority - no law.

by UncleSim (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 512 comments [74 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 2:10:48 PM

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"We need people who can tear it down and replace it with something that works for Americans."

If you want to know what that "something" is, I suggest you look at http:\\www.webofdebt.com.

by LarryO (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 10 comments) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 12:37:00 PM

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Take your money out of the system.

The reason these idiots have so much money is because the public has been convinced that the only way to make money is to give it to the idiots. But true wealth, as the recent crash has shown, must be grown from the ground up, not gotten via get-rich-quick schemes that ultimately are nothing but predation.  Once you run out of places to rob, you run out of wealth- as we are seeing.

Wherever the pirates see wealth, there follows war, famine, injustice, and destruction. Look at the people of the Amazon rainforests, the people in Congo [which is sitting on some of the greatest mineral deposits left in the world] and those, of course, in Iraq. The reason these terrible things happen is because it profits them to steal. Why does it profit them? Because there are a million aphids in this country ready to be milked- for a Versace, or a Gucci, or an iPod- and those "commodities" that purportedly will deliver "happiness" require raw materials and slave labor- so that the slaves on this end of the pipeline can afford the goods produced by the slaves on the other end.

Since we no longer produce anything here- because all the manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas- and for the most part only work as paper-pushers, bean-counters, and coffee-bar gods [unless we're actual mechanics, plumbers, IT guys, or construction workers], the line between the iPod-havers and the iPod-haver-nots has grown wider with the crash.

I keep preaching it, and I am not called a dead horsebeater for nothing:  We must remove ourselves from the corporate systems. Not just because of the situation as it stands, but also because the pirates' ships must eventually sink, and the rest of us had better be swimming by then. 

by Jennifer Hathaway (16 articles, 16 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 760 comments [220 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 12:54:25 PM

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I'm sorry, but fractional reserve banking and fiat money are not only what we have, but what we need to have. That means the Fed, or something like it.

The alternative is to have an uncontrolled currency based on gold or something else external to it, but then the amount of money in the system is not under anyone's control, except for the discoverer of the next new source of gold, or whatever. Now, if we had gold as our currency backing, we'd be subject to the extraction policies made in Russia, South Africa and Brazil/Venezuela. Would that be better than a Federal Reserve system?

The advantage of a fiat currency is that you can inflate or deflate it as the economy requires: inflate now in a downturn by issuing more money; deflate in a boom, by selling bonds to banks, and so on.

I agree that the Fed could become more transparent, and more responsive to the political system, but frankly, I wouldn't want it to be under political control: that's how you have a disaster like Zimbabwe's runaway hyper-inflation.

And Tim Geithner is about as good a pick as you can expect: he's an economist not a banker, and not a Wall Streeter, and yet he's bright and knowledgeable and has been dealing with the bailout from the inside. 

by Douglas Smyth (27 articles, 5 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 90 comments [7 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 1:18:31 PM

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I think we should make something other than gold our monetary standard. Like, maybe, pinto beans. Or perhaps old-growth trees. A family living on forested land would be considered wealthy... they'd simultaneously be contributing to the environment.

I understand that the way things are appears to be the way things have always been, but that isn't true, and the appearance of necessity is one that has been invented.  A friend of mine who created "job security" for herself by filing everything in completely illogical fashion is a good metaphor for this- the system makes no sense, but the people who've perpetrated it upon us have us convinced it's the only way. It is not.

Ideals are only as good as their results in fact. We've seen the results of the "ideal" of those avowed Fascist bankers who created the Fed back in the thirties- it was yet another chance to pillage the work of the rest of the population.  I'm relatively certain its purpose was never different, despite what the gubmint would have us believe.

At this moment in history it is our response-ability to remove the nexus of piracy- the Fed, the investment banks, the corporate manipulators whose sole purpose is looting and pillaging the wealth of the world for a few selfish monsters whose inhumanity is equalled only by their greed. They are not necessary, and they never have been.

All of these tools of manipulation of the value of things are the equivalent of fiscal Japanese Beetle Traps- they're full of pirates, and attracting more all the time, and their sole purpose is to distort What Is in favor of paperwork- for the people doing the manipulation.

It's a rigged system, and like any crooked casino, it should be bulldozed.

by Jennifer Hathaway (16 articles, 16 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 760 comments [220 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 1:47:30 PM

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I think, honestly the much needed changes for our monetary system cannot and will not come from the very people who are screwing it up. The change has to come from the people. Eventually I think we will have no choice but to pull out of this system. If Obama's treasury keeps taking us down this course we presently on, we will have no choice but to take matters into our own hands.

by Sharon Roach (15 articles, 0 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 184 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 8:14:47 AM

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“The alternative is to have an uncontrolled currency based on gold or something else external to it, but then the amount of money in the system is not under anyone's control, except for the discoverer of the next new source of gold, or whatever. Now, if we had gold as our currency backing, we'd be subject to the extraction policies made in Russia, South Africa and Brazil/Venezuela. Would that be better than a Federal Reserve system?”

To imply we have a controlled currency now is false.  The world economy is now in the grip of a MONETARY crisis.  The Fed does not  have control of it and is madly trying to get control back while continuing to pursue a century long goal of financial and political consolidation of power at public expense.

To imply that the only alternative is a gold standard is another false assumption.  The U.S. used alternative monetary systems not based on the gold standard before the gold standard, and numerous credible alternatives to a gold standard have been proposed after the U.S. went off the gold standard, including mixed monetary systems.

“The advantage of a fiat currency is that you can inflate or deflate it as the economy requires: inflate now in a downturn by issuing more money; deflate in a boom, by selling bonds to banks, and so on.”

So, how has that been working out?  Economic crises have increased in severity and frequency, and the dollar has been debased by 95%.  Also, those options have been available since 1913 even when the U.S. was on a gold standard.  All a gold standard necessarily implies is that the money supply and the value of a dollar can be plainly measured against a yardstick that is not easy to shrink or stretch.

“I agree that the Fed could become more transparent, and more responsive to the political system, but frankly, I wouldn't want it to be under political control: that's how you have a disaster like Zimbabwe's runaway hyper-inflation.”

Being a private bank or a central bank does not guarranty its fiat currency will not fail.  Private and central banks and fiat currencies have failed repeatedly throughout history.

“And Tim Geithner is about as good a pick as you can expect: he's an economist not a banker, and not a Wall Streeter, and yet he's bright and knowledgeable and has been dealing with the bailout from the inside.”

Really?  Did Timothy Geithner predict the financial meltdown? A better pick would be someone who actually nailed the prediction and warned people ahead of time, someone who is on record as saying, “We do not have a subprime problem.  We have a subprime financial system.”  Someone like Nouriel Roubini.  Geithner could apply to be his assistant.

An even better choice would be to appoint someone advocating an altogether new monetary system.

by Paul Rye (7 articles, 2 quicklinks, 22 diaries, 500 comments [44 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 2:57:45 PM

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like Paul Krugman?  Oh, no, no no.  He's a fuzzy-headed Nobel Prize winner guy.

by GLloyd Rowsey (104 articles, 65 quicklinks, 60 diaries, 828 comments [4 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 6:20:02 PM

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I was going to reply to this one, until I read your excellent response.

Thank You!

by UncleSim (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 512 comments [74 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 2:15:32 PM

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You've studied Samuelson Economics?  Starts with international equalibriums and moves from thence to comparative advantage?  Pretty interesting starting point, if you're a Marxist for example, and think things begin with labor.

But I'm not crazy.

What do you think about Paul Krugman, our latest Nobel Economics Prize-winning American, for some post having SOME relation to international economics?

by GLloyd Rowsey (104 articles, 65 quicklinks, 60 diaries, 828 comments [4 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 6:31:49 PM

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Krugman is a well-paid fool.  His arguments leave gaping holes of logic that many idiots fail to recognize, just like Keynes.

We've had the system they want for a hundred years, but they want to blame the lack of their system for the problems of their system.

Pure BS.

by UncleSim (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 512 comments [74 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 2:18:00 PM

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You say "The alternative (to fractional reserve banking and fiat currency)  is to have an uncontrolled currency based on gold or something else external to it, but then the amount of money in the system is not under anyone's control, except for the discoverer of the next new source of gold, or whatever."

There are  certain things that ought not be controlled. For example, what would you think if the government decided one day to regulate the standard weight with the goal of helping the economy to grow. That is not much different from having power to print as much money or destroy as much money as one wants, such as the power given the Federal Reserve. Under a gold or silver standard, the supply of money is triggered by market signals, not by fiat. The supply grows or contracts naturally as the need for money in the economy increases or declines.In fact, udner the gold or silver standard, the money supply can actually grow without destroying the value of the mionetary unit. You get a stable currency and one that expands with a growing economy. Fiat currency can never be a measure of the value of a good or service, because in contrast to the latter it has virtually no cost of production,and cannot be used as a basis of comparison (a measure) for those that do have a cost of production. Fiat money is a total creation of people who wanted to get over on other people. A return to a gold or silver standard would facilitate trade, and be a natural remedy to our current problems.

You said "The advantage of a fiat currency is that you can inflate or deflate it as the economy requires: inflate now in a downturn by issuing more money; deflate in a boom, by selling bonds to banks, and so on." That of course is a disadvantage, not an advantage, except, of course, to criminals who want to get over on everybody else.

You again said: "I agree that the Fed could become more transparent..." Fractional banking is inherently opaque, because one never really knows the ratio of reserves to outstanding loans on the books from day to day.

The world will quickly prosper under a gold or silver standard. The whole idea of the Fed and banks as now established is that you can't effectively take your money out of the bank. You can cash it in for, say, gold or silver, but you cannot transact business easily with these commodities. The government controls the value of your assets by making you have it in Federal Reserve Notes and controlling their value. What one wants is, not control, but a natural response to market forces, which is what gold or silver as money would provide.

by Peter Duveen (13 articles, 0 quicklinks, 15 diaries, 197 comments [30 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 7:55:28 PM

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for a very up front, excellent editorial. I recently read on Lynne Stewart's web site www.lynnestewart.org that she attended a meeting or convention where a new declaration of independence was crafted.

by Peter Duveen (13 articles, 0 quicklinks, 15 diaries, 197 comments [30 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 1:22:03 PM

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Without passing judgment overall on Milton Friedman’s theories about money and “capitalism”, he wrote something in “Capitalism and Freedom” I’ll never forget.  A people cannot have economic freedom without political freedom and cannot have political freedom without economic freedom.

Which leads me to my favorite quote in your article, Rob:

“… And destruction of their tools of destruction-- and that, my friends, includes the Federal Reserve Banks, the WTO and most of the other current globalism tools that have been used to lay waste to democratically established democracies.”

You are right on the money, there (pardon the pun).  The people wishing to effect such changes, being outmanned and outgunned so to speak at this time, must choose their battles carefully, keeping the number of targets to a bare minimum, while at the same time continuing to spread the word and gather support.

My choice would be to go after the money system as it is the means by which the pirates gain, maintain, and wield their power and control.  Also, it is the area where the pirates’ depradations and motivations are clearly illustrated for all to see at this time.  In the immortal words of Clint Eastwood, “When I see a naked man chasing a woman down an alley with a butcher knife and a hard-on, I don’t need to ask if he is collecting for the Red Cross.”  Paulson, Bernanke, JPMorganChase, Citibank, B of A, Goldman Sacks, et al, have their pants down at this time and are in the act of raping the public via the Federal Treasury.  The fox is in the henhouse, and we don’t need to ask if he is engaged in a charitable act. 

Public outrage over the bailouts may already be having some effect on the crime in progress.  Paulson suggested that he might not be able to do anything useful with as much as half of the bailout money.  On the other hand, the Fed has gifted or lent as much as $2 trillion to financial insiders in opaque transactions, and maybe they just don’t need the ongoing public and Congressional scrutiny of what they are doing with the Congressional bailout money.

Overall, I’m very encouraged by the direction this thread is going.  Short of a Second American Revolution, going after the pocketbook of elite using the Constitutional authority of Congress to “coin money and regulate its value” would seem to be the best plan.  The modern day equivalent of the Barbary pirates home bases are the Fed and the IMF.  Let’s build a political armada to take them out, but at the same time, educate and plan for an equitable monetary system to replace them, not a centrally planned economy, but a monetary system that includes political as well as economic freedom among its goals and objectives.

In my opinion, a truly rich nation would be the result, and no one would then complain about the expense of helping the less fortunate or elderly in society, whether it be by national social programs or other means.

by Paul Rye (7 articles, 2 quicklinks, 22 diaries, 500 comments [44 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 1:50:21 PM

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In your last paragraph, are you voicing support for 'national social' programs?  Or just trying to lead the National Socialists who do support such programs to the free-market solutions to their problems?

-----

If you're a socialist in America, then maybe you work in insurance or the stock market.  Insurance socializes the costs of emergencies.  The stock market provides the masses with ownership of the means of production.

Recently, the taxpayer has been called on to bailout the stock market, and the world's biggest insurance company.   Would a socialist please explain why their institutions need bailing out at the expense of the laboring citizens they pretend to be helping, despite the central planning that we were assured was going to save us from such failures?

by UncleSim (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 512 comments [74 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 2:41:58 PM

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The pirates have installed yet another incarnation of "THE BEST GOVERNMENT MONEY CAN BUY"

We have seen this with the praise and defense of the executives for Fannie Mae, and we will continue to see legislation that will be protecting the pirates and corporate entities who benefit from the corrupt nature of the US Government.

Congrats, because this IS what we get when we elect "the lesser of two evils."

Ciao, CZ

by steve scheetz (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 829 comments [52 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 3:01:01 PM

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There is NO solution that will be available for at least 2 years, we will be stuck with whatever our corrupt government decides is best for itself...  Which may include legislation limiting OUR power to vote in actual change, as in NOT JUST A PRETTY SOUNDBITE...

Ciao, CZ

by steve scheetz (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 829 comments [52 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 3:04:00 PM

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Do you get to vote more than every two years?  Has your vote, historically, made a difference?

I'd say our power is already severly limited.

by UncleSim (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 512 comments [74 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 2:46:50 PM

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Many will reject the history and evidence of the social engineering tool, the Hegelian Dialectic, as it is perceived as shattering of their personal identity. The concept that their agenda or thesis is a tool in the hands of others is ego deflating. They also reject out of hand that they are unaware of anything that actually exists, that if it were true they would have seen it on their own long ago. It is taken as insult to admit naivety as a mature adult. It is an emotional trigger, a barrier to rational discourse.

But naivety is simply a form of ignorance—it is not stupidity. It is hardly an insult to attempt to provide information that would fill a deficit in someones learning, to try to pass on that which in this instance vital knowledge.

Simply put, that vital knowledge is this; The Power Elite despise your freedom, in their eyes you are supposed to obey, and ask no questions. To question their authority is a supreme insult, and such audacity must be done away with.

by William Whitten (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4880 comments [1686 recommended, 28 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 7:59:35 PM

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As usual, you've hit the nail on the head, Rob.  There's little difference between Repubs and Dems.  They are all members of a huge criminal enterprise hell bent on robbing poor working stiffs so they may live the high life.  Our only card left to play is to withhold our taxes.  

Here's calling for a massive tax strike in 09!  It's the only way we'll get these corrupt politicians to serve the peoples' interests.

by dglow (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 7 comments) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 3:28:05 PM

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Yeah to Tax Revolt!  That's one (1) remedy.  What's our Military good for, if not protecting American's Interests?  Are they just going to sit on the sidelines, and wait for so called "citizen representatives" to tell them how it's going to be?  They've all got families feeling the pinch and the probe.

by boomerang (0 articles, 7 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 556 comments [215 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 7:48:17 AM

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Stock market uber alles has gotten us to this point, partially, along with the migration of some of our industries to other countries. 'Service sector' just doesn't get it done, and it's been reinforced with faux concern for 'the environment'. So, you've got industrialists making a mint off their dollar-a-day foreign labor, reinforced by the ostensibly do-gooder liberal enviro-freaks, and foreign day-traders and interest-collectors siphoning off their take, and The Government(that's you, by the way, Mr. 1/300 millionth) left with no alternative but to print, print, print the night away to cover all bets. Our chief exports these days seem to be machine guns, and truckloads(hard drives?) of currency. It's an ugly mess, don't know if it's quite a 'close the borders for a year until we get this straightened out' type of mess, but it's a mess. I 'vote' to chop federal spending by 40%, and bring the military home.

'Globalization' is a euphemism for 'take the money and run', and people have run to tax havens, which are going to have to get turned out and investigated, and likely people are going to have to be arrested, including some government employees, like the Harriette Walters gang(included at least one IRS employee, there, tens of millions was the total take).

Another factor here is that we live in 'ethically challenged' times. The GOP took leave of their principles and went for the Big Payday in Iraf. To some degree, they and their hangers-on succeeded. But, if the regulators fail with the market thing, it'll end up having been a phyrric victory, win the battle, lose the war kind of sittyation, there. At which point, we'll all be sleeping on heater grates, at least temporarily.

I think, left to our own devices, we Murkens can restructure our national financial system, clean out a lot of the 'bugs', and it'll mean regulation and restriction and protections and other things that the Bushies would not approve of, but, seeing as how he almost got impeached, with Speaker Pelosi and others saving his bacon, there, well, the People have spoken on some of this, and it'd behoove Congress to start considering who all gets to 'play the market' in areas like housing in the future. Bush also deciderered to let Mexico essentially move in, and he and his cabinet did some other things that I really didn't approve of, but they're all out the door come January, and not soon enough by a lot of people's estimationers, mine included. That having been said, Bush may be an idiot, but he's our idiot, and his success/failure depends/depended as much on his 'calls' as it did the people who were trying to bend things in their favor, which drops the ball back in corporate Murkuh's court, and their business strategies and tactics.

10 trillion isn't going to pay itself off, and the government needs to come up with a plan to start retiring these T-bills. They could declare them null, and void, they could pay them off at 50 cents on the dollar, they could do a lot of things, and only time will tell what they finally decide to do, but at the personal level, we can do things like just divesting out of the stock market, win, lose, or draw. If it's a crooked game, then you can't win, so don't play. Let that DOW drop to four. Then, people will forget that there is one, and they'll get back to work. Bring Levi's and Wrangler and so forth back to the United States. Let's make US products for sale in the USA. And for export. Better low wages for something resembling honest work than fortunes gleaned from mortgage-backed ill-gotten gains, there.

by truthtruffle (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 111 comments) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 3:49:43 PM

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...What truthtruffle said, particularly the last sentence.

by Jennifer Hathaway (16 articles, 16 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 760 comments [220 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 4:11:53 PM

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to all contributing, even D. Smyth who not exactly courteously set up a counterpoint.

This is an Issue that must be pushed... thoughtfully fleshed out and spread as much as possible with meaningful and positive change enacted, if we are to save ourselves and our children. 

by richard (0 articles, 5 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 1359 comments [400 recommended, 8 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 5:11:02 PM

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In the recent article I posted entitled "Bailing Out the Bailout," I suggested that the new prosecutors which will hopefully be replacing the hacks in the current Justice Department should be encouraged to use the RICO conspiracy laws that were developed to fight the mafia and the nasty Patriot Act developed for combatting terrorists.  Both sets of laws seem applicable to what conspirators in many financial institutions have been doing to get us in this mess while lining their pockets.  Seek jail and confiscation of personal as well as company assets for the conspirators involved.  And, seek disbarment for their attorneys who assisted them in committing fraud.

by Lawless One (28 articles, 2 quicklinks, 18 diaries, 5 comments) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 7:43:00 PM

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To shut you all up once and for all.

You will not be taking any of their property if they can get just one nuclear missile to explode on Russia or any other nuclear state.

You are all toast already, or should we say, were supposed to be toast long ago.

 They sure are not excited at the prospect of facing off with the "Living Dead."

 After repeated attempts to exterminate the human race with nuclear weapons, they are now approaching their moment of truth.

 Our nuclear war fighting elite are going to continue to eat off of the public welfare, though it is likely that they will be doing so in a somewhat more structured environment, and instead of sit down meals, it may be self service with a tray for each one of them.

That is of course when you figure out that they have pulled the nuclear trigger on us; several times over the decades. We are "The Living Dead." 

by Patrick (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 519 comments [22 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 9:43:53 PM

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Yes, Rob, the private equity pirates, the hedge fund whores, and the ISBs (investment scam banks) are at the heart of our problem.

The entire cause of this elite created crisis is inspired and driven by the bizarro business model of divorced, detached, ethereal, anti-patriotic, and destructive 'extreme finance capitalism' which knowingly 'games' the well known 'market failure' of 'negative externality cost displacement' to generate private and highly concentrated 'faux profits' for a miniscule hierarchical pyramid of schemers and speculators (inaccurately called investors) at massive costs to our 'working class' majority, our public sphere, our government, our health, our commonwealth, and our global environment --- and they use the threat of financial pressure and personal banishment from their ruling-elite sphere to force all other potentially productive businesses and managers to follow their destructive, private-profit-at-any-cost model to carry out their bidding through the economy.

As Jerry White accurately notes of this entire financial and economic crisis, and particularly the auto crisis:

"The American ruling elite is exploiting the economic crisis to impoverish the working class and return it to conditions of unbridled exploitation not seen since 1930s. In this, it has the full collaboration of (auto corporation’s management) the UAW and the rest of the official unions."

Can anyone imagine the 'social democracies' of Japan and Europe allowing the keystone of their 'working-class' / middle-class, stable political economic societies:  their advanced, industrial, manufacturing, high-wage, auto industries, being allowed to fail?

Certainly, their top execs. might start driving C-class, instead of S-class Mercedes, but Japan and Europe would never let the heart and soul of their cohesive and relatively egalitarian 'social democracy economic model' push their low GINI indexes of income inequality (0.23 to 0.32) up into the danger zone of the US's socially unstable 0.48 --- well above the level at which our own CIA warns of systemic "civil unrest", and approaching the 0.53 level of Zimbabwe.

All other normal, modern and advanced social democracies, like Germany and Japan, will resist the American model ruling-elite corporate financial empire's demand to pauperize their working-class, assert imperialist control over all assets and productive labor value, and expunge democratic self-government ---- except the US itself, which will turn against and beggar its own people as it has with its abnormally high GINI index of income and wealth inequality, unequaled in any democracy, and matching only banana republics, military dictatorships and royal family oil monarchies.

Ignoring and breaking laws and regulations on the global oceans is called piracy.

Ignoring and breaking laws and regulations in global finance is simply called 'American-style capitalism', aka hedge fund banditry, and private equity piracy.

Well, the Somali pirates may still be doing well with their lawless high-seas looting of everything from fishing boats to super-tankers, but it looks like the global private equity pirates may have more trouble looting China than their own 'home turf' in the US.

During the spreading global financial crisis it has been widely reported, in the business press, that China is carefully considering the differing business models of Japan and the European 'social democracies', compared to the rougher, wild-western 'American model' of anything-goes-financial-capitalism.

One wonders if a minor legal skirmish between the American based private equity and hedge fund outfit, TPG, vs. China is just an isolated case, or a foreshadowing of a bigger battle between the laws and acceptable practices of sovereign countries and the more 'flexible' needs of private equity pirates and hedge funds to govern/pillage what they view as 'their own global sphere'.

Will China decide that the laws their own country defines will protect their citizens and their country (a somewhat antiquated model outside a few dozen advanced 'social democracies' in Japan and Europe), or will China follow the 'American model'.

Even Francis Fukuyama is probably watching to see how this series develops on the new; '(End of) History Channel'.

This is the reality of these modern financial pirates, Rob.

As far as a modern USS Constitution (old 'ironsides') to blast a broadside and solve the problem of these pirates, please reread my March 25, 2007 OEN article, "With their own Rope"

by Alan MacDonald (11 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 131 comments [43 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 10:01:03 PM

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But there is simply nothing in this article I disagree with.

Citi Group announces 52,000 layoffs: The silence on how to assist the folks being letting go is deafening from D.C.

But then, the stock price falls preciptiously, (impacting executive compensation through "stock options" boneses and threatening their obscene,exorbinent pay levels), and the D.C. machine kicks into action to "rescue" Citibank.

G.M. comes with hand out for $12 billion of tax payer guaranteed credit (let's stop calling it "our money, it is not,  there IS NO MONEY: it is OUR DEBT through CREDIT they want) because they are "bleeding cash", but are going to use $1 billion of it to invest in modernizing a factory in Brazil.

So, of course, D.C. is now pretending (with full propaganda support of their corporate msm allies) that they are going to make G.M. accountable if they give them a rescue loan, but WILL shovel them our Credit/Debt. Count on it. Probably next week, if not this week.

Could there be a better illustration that our "Representatives" don't give a damn about ANYTHING except serving the criminal class that keeps THEM in power?

Suggestions on how WE stop this, please.

It is criminal, it needs to stop yesterday.

by David Hastings (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 116 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 10:14:06 PM

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I'm rubbing my eye's and reading this twice.

Way to go Rob!!!

Okay, what do we do?

I went to the New Orleans END the FED rally, yesterday, it was a good start, everyone I meet was very knowledgeable, but street demo's aren't enough, we passed out maybe a 1,000+ pamphlets informing people of the FED and BS bailout.

You got a plan to put pressure to get rid of the FED and arrest these pirates? 

Sign me up!  

by Mr M (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 66 diaries, 2845 comments [654 recommended, 27 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 23, 2008 at 10:30:45 PM

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If Obama seriously tries to change the system (( agree with Rob that it needs to be done)...but if he really were to shake things up and put in radical changes...do you think he might end up suffering the same fate as Martin Luther King  (who proposed serious changes in the racial equation of the time) or JFK (who was planning to go after the mob's influence on government)...Do you think that some 'convenient' lapse in security would put a stop to Obama's efforts? After all, there are roughly 30 + percent of the public (right wingers) who will spend full time finding ways to pull Obama down, no matter what he does. Do you suppose one of their number just might be persuaded by the pirate elite that Rob rightly talks about..might be persuaded to realize their anti-Obama fantasies?

 I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a wet blanket on a good idea, and I'm not gainsaying what was said in this article one iota, but I do fear that this elite of which he speaks can and would arrange a convenient incident to remove any threatened changes to their hegemony. I would not put it past them.

If Obama could be persuaded to implement some huge changes, what do you think the odds would become of him not finishing his term? These pirates will not go without a fight. And I am saying all this by way of warning about how low down this power elite both has been and will be again whenever they feel the need to 'hold on' to what they've stolen.

by JOHN LORENZ (23 articles, 118 quicklinks, 118 diaries, 313 comments [25 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 1:53:50 AM

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I was just wondering what the effects and public opinion would be if it happened to president, not as he was entering office, but as he was leaving office, after 8 years of very dirty work.

Would anyone care?

by UncleSim (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 512 comments [74 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 2:53:51 PM

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If Obama seriously tries to change the system (( agree with Rob that it needs to be done)...but if he really were to shake things up and put in radical changes...do you think he might end up suffering the same fate as Martin Luther King  (who proposed serious changes in the racial equation of the time) or JFK (who was planning to go after the mob's influence on government)...Do you think that some 'convenient' lapse in security would put a stop to Obama's efforts? After all, there are roughly 30 + percent of the public (right wingers) who will spend full time finding ways to pull Obama down, no matter what he does. Do you suppose one of their number just might be persuaded by the pirate elite that Rob rightly talks about..might be persuaded to realize their anti-Obama fantasies?

 I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a wet blanket on a good idea, and I'm not gainsaying what was said in this article one iota, but I do fear that this elite of which he speaks can and would arrange a convenient incident to remove any threatened changes to their hegemony. I would not put it past them.

If Obama could be persuaded to implement some huge changes, what do you think the odds would become of him not finishing his term? These pirates will not go without a fight. And I am saying all this by way of warning about how low down this power elite both has been and will be again whenever they feel the need to 'hold on' to what they've stolen.

by JOHN LORENZ (23 articles, 118 quicklinks, 118 diaries, 313 comments [25 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 1:54:09 AM

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He has to play the game and do what they say or else. What gets me is that he knows this going into it. He knows he can affect real change for the nation and put his life in jeapordy or he can go along with the program and keep his life. Is it real change or just the position and title? The way he is lining up his cabinet seems to me he is listening to the puppet masters and playing the game.

by Sharon Roach (15 articles, 0 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 184 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 8:36:09 AM

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Rob, here you were touting before the election, and even afterward about what a sane selection Obama was over McCain. And at the same time putting the damper on the realists who may have voted their conscience with Nader. Now you're scratching your head at Obama's selection of insiders for his leadership team. You get what you pay (or vote) for. The pretentious two party system is absolutely corrupt. I voted my conscience, and I'm proud of it. All the rest of you "progressives" only weasled out in my book. I guess you couldn't see the rock coming at you until it hit you square in the face. What we're going to get in the next four years is Bush Light. How could you possibly have high expectactions over low life, hollywood polished politicians? I'm hoping Jesse Ventura runs in 2012. We need a revolution, and we need it now. Otherwise we are more than doomed. All this hope for substantive change from Obama was media hog wash. And btw, has anyone ever seen a hogwash trough? It's an automatic system to flush the pigshit out of the pigpens. Just like msm. For those of us who predicted this outcome before the election, we only faced ridicule. But now the joke is played out on all of us. Obama's as shallow as a desert mirage. For me, I'm losing interest in politics and focusing on survival instead. It's back to basics folks. Our entire economic system is devoid of integrity. Get ready for barter and trade, and have something worthwhile for your bidding.

by Cinderfella (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 248 comments [95 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 2:48:24 AM

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It seems Rob and others are waking up very slowly...  like the frog simmering in the nice warm water until it's turned up to boil.

What?   You guys didn't realize it was Biden's bankruptcy bill that caused our credit card interest rates to go through the roof even if we've never so much as missed a payment or gone over our limit?  All the breaks now go to the big banks and none to we the people. Now he's your vice president (and unfortunately mine as well)

Now, we not only have  Mr Credit Card in power but Geithner, Summers & Rubin.. all of them CROOKS!   and the list goes on and on ad nauseum...

Writing to Obama is not gonna change any of this.  He works for the banksters not us.

Wake up Wake up Wake up

by jersey girl (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1201 comments [734 recommended, 12 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 5:57:24 AM

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You and I think down the same lines. I find most people live in some dream world of altered reality where their hopes, beliefs, and wishes supercede any semblance of recognizing or understanding the true power structure controlling both parties. You don't get to be at the top by being an iconoclast. You gotta be a team player for corporatacrazy. End of story. If we really wanted to improve things, it would have been Paul, Kucinich, Nader, or McKinney, etc. to run the helm of a ship now run amuck. We need a strong third party, and now. I'm rooting for Jesse Ventura. But, ho hum. I'm preaching to the choir, while the congregation is already out to lunch.

by Cinderfella (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 248 comments [95 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Nov 25, 2008 at 1:06:22 AM

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By Cart Dumonde,

Part One

It is the return of the Clinton administration minus Bill and Hillary –AIPAC’s golden boy Rahm Emanuel and the same folks that passed NAFTA and CAFTA – that fought to weaken labor unions, attacked welfare mothers, and set up a swift and expedient export of Capital, industry and jobs-- and turned health care and medical hospitalization over to the private insurance companies and to the mercenary HMO’s. Change –phooey!

ABE’S DILEMMA

Abe Lincoln was faced with a multitude of local currencies –including metals- and to a vast mountain of federal debt caused by military borrowing for execution of the Civil War.

Lincoln realized that bonds and dollars are, in one sense, the same; both are ultimately a variant form of currency based on a conventional recognition and on acceptance of notes and/or dollars used for the exchange and for the expansion of wealth and arrangements that underlie the economic and credit system. For Abe, the question became: Who creates and controls this expansion of wealth?  Who produces money, debt and currency expansion by means of credit? Why should a government produce bonds and promissory notes rather than producing dollar currency needed to cover their obligation?  Isn’t wealth and credit itself a natural economic result of the application of the energy, organization, ingenuity, and powers of labor and skill –a result of economic activity? Abe realized that Bonds simply bring debt and future indebtedness to the American people, while the production and circulation of dollars, specifically, as a people’s currency, can circulate and expand wealth directly and will naturally produce credit and growth required for trade and exchange within the people’s real (rather than bookkeeper’s) economy. Produce dollars directly rather than remain a slave to bond holders(or to the federal Reserve of our day). Otherwise the future of America will remain perpetually impoverished due to indebtedness that is repeatedly generated by war and banking policy –war and debt which is identical to banker’s drive for profit. And he concluded that currency in the form of dollars must act either on behalf of private monopolist or for the American people themselves. So his question was about who ultimately controls the economic destiny of “our” American economy.

By Cart Dumonde,

PART ONE CONTINUED

Elegant Solution: render the control of the money supply, money production, and its’ “mystical, expansionary powers” directly into the hands of the American people, and use this power to wipe-out government debt while covering the expense of re-occurring government deficits (that are incurred through the actual requirements of a multitude of needs for service(s) by the American people). Produce “Greenbacks,” a multi-functional currency directly, and expand credit and have it owned directly by the American people.

Abe Lincoln did this to pay off the debt incurred by both the Union and the Confederacy at the end of the Civil War. In all wars the banks insured that victors are required to cover the liabilities of the vanquished and that these terms are included in the peace settlements at the end of wars, only because they have previously extended credits to both sides of the conflict and to all armies of hostilities nations. They help purchase weapons for all sides in every conflict. The banks made loans to the North and the South in Lincoln’s day, and in the last century, to both the Axis and Allies nations for their military mobilization. They do this through loans and special credits during periods of both in war and peace and they are sure to help dictate the peace settlements. [For example, after WWII the terms generating the Marshall Plan --European Recovery Program, ERP ) [Note-3]

Besides this, the Greenbacks were so elegant that it took the plundering thieves and banksters another 57 years to undermine those “Lincoln dollars” that he said were backed only by “the good will of the American people.” [Note-2] With Greenbacks, all debt could be covered; government debt paid off, credit placed under public ownership, via universal public-currency along with a generation of public economic wealth created by the American people themselves, and, specifically, by the power of American labor without a mystical monopoly of Moneyed Private Interests. He used Greenbacks as generators for expanding credit.

This was Honest Abe’s genius idea.  And it is currently my fanciful solution.

Lincoln told the plundering European and American banksters to either accept these newly printed Greenbacks or they would get nothing in return for their self-fulfilling illusions and their supposed claims on future American wealth or for the interests paid them out of tax revenue as payments on their privately owned bonds (with the underwriting of these loans and private notes derived from increased government taxation) that was brought into being by the desperation and waste of fratricidal war.

By Cart Dumonde

PART TWO

THE FEDERAL RESERVE AND THE EXISTING DILEMMA

Among other conditions and concerns, All economic crises and booms, and every Empire war, is driven by banking policy. Bankers have never seen a war they didn’t like: Wars are good lending opportunities. Right now, the Federal Reserves (which is a private corporation supposedly a “quasi public” system is formally, structurally and organizationally a private concern, in reality, the Federal Reserve functions as a organizational extension of the investment houses and major banks. The Federal Reserve Bank controls the issuances of US currency (money supply), the interests’ rates, credit among banks and the payments made; and, indirectly, the life styles of the investor strata, and corporate stock- holders, and the plunder-ring Elite; It shapes the economy through credit and determines the degree of monopolization of wealth, and uses loans to dictate which markets are developed: It subordinates history and creativity to ideology: and by the use these powerful mechanisms with Congressional subservience the American people’s economic well-being is placed at the mercy and service of the Plunder Elite by this private Federal Reserve, along with the private Banks and bansters as sidekicks: these banks thus manipulate the general state of the economy. These banksters in the Feds serve as generators of credit “out of thin air”- they are in constant pursuit of their economic self-interests, and their self-serving tinkering within the economy is aimed at those ends: the Feds advance economic policies that serve their own exclusive political ends: the Feds intentionally generate swings of “boom and bust” within the economy and Stock Market Gambling Houses: and the Feds serves the bansters, basically, their ever pressing need to create a growing demand for lending, to facilitate their intensification in the monopoly of wealth; and also for exclusive sociological and political ends that aim to benefit the wealthy-elite and to insure the economic and political domination of finance capitalism’s ideology of privatization in politics while they impose conditions that divide the masses into contending ideologies and conflicting “life styles” --into contending stratas – of the rich, the poor, and the confused. --Stratas of Race, Religion, Region, Age groups and social roles.

By Cart Dumonde

PART TWO CONTINUED

The Federal Reserve basically operates on behalf of their constituents of private investors, on behalf of the finance houses, and always for the banks . . .Wars, and frequent economic crisis expand their lending powers. “Hard times” and the swing into “good times” are both their opportunities for the banks to prosper. The US Treasury is their printing house. The private Banks also own, via legal claims on past settlements, all the gold in Fort Knox and all the silver and diamond reserves warehoused by the Federal Government. (Not that long ago, these accumulated holdings were the property of the American people.) The American people have been systematically stripped of their community wealth through debt.

For every dollars worth of bonds purchased by the Federal Reserve, the banksters are able to create ten dollars of credit-money out of thin air: this production of wealth in the form of credit is called “Fractional banking.” It permits finance capital to extend loans and credit for such things as home mortgages, for industry and business, and, especially, for the military-industrial complex, as well as bringing into being that portion of artificial wealth used to sustain the pleasures and luxuries of the elite within America’s wealthiest strata. In return, for this exclusionary right to “create” “wealth” “out of thin air,” the governments of the United States (meaning local, state, and the Federal governments) issues “bonds” that are purchased or transferred to private investors and mostly owned by domestic and foreign banks (yes, by both domestic and foreign capitalist) and are paid for with monies supplied by “our” federal government through licensing and sale of bond, notes and creation of bank monopolies themselves. The re-use of these bonds for loans and creation of credit, and the peddling off of “Treasury notes,” on the issuance of dollars, that accompanies this process serve to indebt the seller. It is not like selling your used car tires. These bonds and banks themselves are purchased on margin by the use of government contracts and by exploitation of public wealth for private ends. Government issuance of bonds assumes an absolute fiduciary obligation by the same public to pay all interest and fees accrued. The trustees and benefactors are without conflict over their gain,without fiduciary obligation to nation, or borrower, or individual borrower, or to the American people while the payments on interest, along with the original public capital that was advanced for the “creation of credit out of thin air” --goes straight to the private monopolist of finance capital: there is ten dollars gained as credit for every dollar coughed up by the American public in the form of “debt” with its’ unending generation of liabilities transferred to the taxpayer via taxation liabilities imposed upon the American people by their corporately controlled government on behalf of these private banks: the banksters are assisted in this drive for monopolized wealth with lobbiest that acts like organizational overseers of Congress, and also by some of the elected crooks that work night and day for the expansion of private finance capitalism:  by political representatives that are often themselves “investment” capitalist (meaning helpers in the “legal” divestment the American people of our wealth, energy, dreams and labor). The lending institution at the Federal Reserve hold no fiduciary commitment to the American people or to this nation.

By Cart Dumonde

PART THREE

HOW WILL OBAMA RESPOND?

Yesterday, - 11/7/08- in his first economic press conference –about with the economic crisis and the future plans of his administration, the President Elect Barrack Obama mentioned that he has been studying the Lincoln administration. The American people need a solution to the expanding economic crisis. They need to wipe out all current and future debt.  So, it is either new draconian measures of regulation or outright cancellation; or, should there be no restructuring of the finance system, it will certainly end in the Economic collapse of the World’s Finance System (in a CRISIS generated by the old -time reactionary myth and anti-topian ideology of “Trickle Down,” and “unbridled Free Market”-eerism as practiced by the Bush Gang (and by a failure to built into the Federal Reserve and Treasury system of money and finance --a logical means to distribute wealth on the one side of their ledger-- and the policy of monopolization and theft of wealth on the other side; leaving both the money (bookkeeper’s) economy and REAL ECONOMY subject to theft and waste through credit and bailouts vis the creation of loans under the control of banking pirates with their their “derivatives” “credit and liability and debt swaps,” etc; by a system based on finance capitalist ideology, on political domination, on an unworkable economic model accompanied by outright corporate control of government that perpetually services the exclusive interests of finance capital and by generating the supplies for the pig pen in which he “rich” wallow; by governance limited in its mission by a horde of lobbyist that control Congressional representation and own many of the politicians outright that the American people elect.  And by a system that, “altogether”, are “all for one” and that offers the American people nothing in return but trouble, economic and political crisis periodically, war and deprivation regularly; and social and economic debt for all time to come.

The real economy -–the economy that the American people live in-- demands, first of all, a democratic DOLLAR, an honest public government and a new financial system, the American people need an immediate solution to the coming Great Depression before this hits us all at full force.

By Cart Dumonde

PART FOUR

PROPOSAL

Bring Back Greenbacks, produce American dollars greater than the accumulated face value of all bonds and pay off all government and mortgage debt, underwrite all existing personal and credit liabilities, and all credit payments made to the thieving monopolist, credit swappers, by the derivative bundle-ers, and take away the private banks and private Federal Reserve corporations’s ability to “create wealth out of thin air.” Put all of this in a locked-down Public Trust Fund (much the same as the original mission of Social Security was supposed to be) and replace this with Greenbacks as a long term (say 1000 year liability) with small annual payments. And give all these powers and abilities to extend and create credit --in the form of New Greenback Dollars-- as a gift to the American people and back into a US Treasury headed by publically elected managers. [Note-1] Put government --acting via Greenbacks-- in the business of expansion of credit and wealth “out of thick air of productive work and jobs” by placing our currency under a system public ownership system on behalf of the American people --with the placement of a New Dollar via new laws, and solution to pressures caused by the pressing need for restructuring the existing sham bookkeeper’s economy- and by destroying thisartificial “gamblers economy of the “finance capitalism system ” while replacing it with a public currency system of creation and expansion of wealth with a real economy, with wealth emerging from the Economic Activity of the American people and an economy that is base on industry, production, with a diversified technological economy .

Don’t cancel the national debt. Pay it off with Greenbacks. Nationalize the Treasury and Federal Reserve.

By Cart Dumonde

PART FIVE

ABOUT THE LETTER BELOW

Barrack Obama might be forced by the current mounting economic crisis and by unprecedented circumstance - by the distorting realities underlying this economy-- to either discover, ( or to ignore at his own political peril,) the economic proposals made explicit by John Aylesbury (his letter below) and thus the new President will hopefully discover on his own, that this is the easiest method to avoid the certainty of a coming Great Depression.

So, allow me call attention to Aylesbury’s specific (and sound) economic proposal:

“The solution is not outright socialism. The solution lies in obliteration of the power of Wall Street, the futures markets in Chicago, and the City of London, with the aim of restoring the credit function of the economy of providing financing for real economic activity. In other words a full frontal assault on finance capitalism and the forcing of Wall Street and other Stock Markets to accept a return to industrial capitalism.” . . .

“We need the termination of mergers and acquisitions, the end of financial derivatives and fancy incomprehensible instruments, the end of junk bond buyouts and corporate raiders. In other words the end of gaming with the people’s money.”

~Dumonde

Note 1.

Greenback may refer to:
· A term used for the United States dollar.
· A modern (since 1914) United States Federal Reserve Note. Important distinction.
· A United States Note, (U.S. Note) among the first national United States currencies, authorized by the Legal Tender Act of 1862, and issued for more than a century, until 1971. This was the first greenback and was government-issued currency, different from the central-bank paper currency (Federal Reserve Note) that the United States began to use in 1914, and exclusively now uses. The two types of notes had similar green-inked backs, but the later Federal Reserve note was distinguised from the older U.S. Note by an green rather than red treasury seal on the obverse side of the note.
· United States Greenback Party, an American political party that was active between 1874 and 1884 which advocated government-issued currency. More. . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenback

Note 2.
The Federal Reserve System (also the Federal Reserve; informally The Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. Created in 1913 by the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, it is a quasi-public (government entity with private components) banking system[1] composed of (1) the presidentially appointed Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C.; (2) the Federal Open Market Committee; (3) twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks located in major cities throughout the nation acting as fiscal agents for the U.S. Treasury, each with its own nine-member board of directors; (4) numerous private U.S. member banks, which subscribe to required amounts of non-transferable stock in their regional Federal Reserve Banks; and (5) various advisory councils. As of February 1, 2006, Ben Bernanke serves as the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.  More. . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_reserve

Note 3
Marshall Plan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshal_plan

by Carte Dumonde (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 22 comments [17 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 11:58:07 AM

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but what do I know? Yeah, I took all those college courses on econ. But it appears that if the people have money, everything's fine. If money is concentrated at the top things go haywire. Simple.

so Lincoln and Jefferson and all the smartest ex-presidents like Jackson were right on. Nationalize the Fed. We can't just throw up our hands and say we, the people, can't handle our own banking for our own benefit. The wealth of Europe has dominated the US long enough. All you authentic cowboy lovers should know most ranches were owned by Eurotrash, the scions of barons, dukes, and lords of all kinds. The Fed is a sucker's game of three-card monte.

by martinweiss (41 articles, 6 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 503 comments [3 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Nov 25, 2008 at 12:17:36 AM

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The  system knows  nothing  but  money.  It  is  like  blood.  Mammon, Jesus called it.  Odd that the  Church  wants Mammon and  Jesus  wanted  Spirit.  I  took  my  very  modest 401K from the  hands  of  the  investment  people after  losing $2k in  one  night.  I  will  retire   in  January.    I  couldn't stand the thought of seeing it  going to  people who  did  not  work  the 44 years  I  have worked to earn it.

 The  only  thing  of value  is  the  earth.  If  you  can own some  of that you are  well  off.

by DR (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 10 comments) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 1:05:33 PM

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Particularly if you can grow enough food on it to stay alive.  (Hopefully you have some curtains left to make clothing out of.)

by Jill Herendeen (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 213 comments [13 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 1:29:08 PM

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Acromegalic Economics And Bursting Balloons by William Whitten: the sh*t has hit the fan, finis.

The 'Corporation” is a technique, a socio-economic and political tool to create a demigod, an immortal fictitious entity. The Devil Inc. The modern corporation was achieve through judicial coup, when a clerk for the Supreme Court deconstructed the verdict on the case of:

Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 U.S. 394 ( 1886)

which proffered human and civil rights to the fictitious entity. The moral of the story is of course that; Demigods create their own rights, compound privilege, and stand above the laws. One needn't break laws if one has the power to change them.

Zeus is alive and well and advising the President. He never did like that cocky human Prometheus.

“Pan, and the lost boys, they are terrorists.” Zeus pleads to the captain in the Red Coat, who nods in agreement, and the President understands the task at hand—to melt the wings of freedom.

by William Whitten (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4880 comments [1686 recommended, 28 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 7:51:51 PM

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Corporate personhood needs to be able to eliminate waste. If it can't pee, it ain't a person.

by martinweiss (41 articles, 6 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 503 comments [3 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Nov 25, 2008 at 12:21:23 AM

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Need I remind everyone that Krugman won a Nobel Prize makes him just as cool as Henry kissinger who won the Nobel Prize for Peace.

The Prize is as political as anything else in this crooked world system.

by William Whitten (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4880 comments [1686 recommended, 28 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 8:32:33 PM

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A $700 billion bailout stimulus package for "immediate recovery" is what I just read today. Wow, does Paulson get to be in charge of that too? What a joke. Paulson has ripped America off and every one of our leaders just look on with awe.

This economical crisis was all planned IMO. It's the way they can convert us into a Money'less system. Just wait, we will all be using plastic cards soon. No cash, no coins, just a debit card that holds all of our earnings, social security payments, etc. That way these thieves can manipulate the big computer beast to do and record what they "want".

We are on the brink of the "New American Centrist" ideation come true (PNAC). The window of time is narrowing for us to take the pirates down. The narcissist bunch of Einsteins in Washington DC are really just a bunch of conniving FRAUDS.

Create jobs = create revenue. One doesn't have to understand E=MC2 to know that revenue pays the bills. High pay creates higher revenue. Corporate control of Insurance only costs the insuree MORE. When Repubs are in control, local taxes go up and Fed goes down. When Dems are in control, Fed taxes go up and local taxes go down. It's all a wash unless people have GOOD PAYING JOBS and it takes a Union behind you to organize for GOOD pay as a worker, unless you actually have a fair non- greedy boss. Wages have gone up 1% in 30 yrs I read. Balanced against inflation is how they did the figuring. Heck, bread has gone from 39cents a loaf to $3.50 a loaf in 30 yrs. Gosh, name something that has gone up just one percent in 30 yrs? Anything?

by shirley reese (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 592 comments [98 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Monday, Nov 24, 2008 at 9:23:44 PM

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...the word "kleptocracy".

It was used frequently to describe Noriega's government back before Reagan invaded.  Time to resurrect the word...

by Plenum (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 24 comments [6 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Nov 25, 2008 at 1:07:57 AM

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Someone out there correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't capitalism by definition "trickle up". If I'm correct in this it begs the question; "why wasn't the bailout money given or loaned to the people to PAY the morgage holders instead of given to Wall Street?" I would honestly like someone to answer this for me. Is this just more proof of the fact that we have a fascist form of goverment(corporate controled). Someone please this question for me.

by Don Mullican (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 27 comments) on Wednesday, Nov 26, 2008 at 3:06:45 PM

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Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production.  The workers produce the wealth and the capitalist sells it and gives some back to the workers in the form of wages, pays the other costs of production, invests some in maintenance, and keeps the rest as profit.

That's the theory, anyway.  It can never really work because the capitalist has to sell more than the workers are paid, so they need to export and such.

That's why credit is popular.  The workers can buy back more than they are paid, thus keeping the factories open and the economy functioning.

The last 30 years were an advancement of capitalism.  The capitalists moved their means of production to countries with cheaper labor, and so their profits were higher.  Americans made less money, but the goods were cheaper, so they adapted in other ways. American workers worked longer hours, women started selling their labor, and credit was given freely.  Also, over 2 million Americans were put into prisons.

The capitalists had more money than they could spend, so they started gambling with it on Wall Street.  

In the 80s, vulture capitalists took over corporations and instead of operating them for production, stripped them of their assets for quick money.  The assets included pension funds.

So the American worker was told that his or her retirement was now an individual problem, not a corporate problem.  This did two things.  It relieved corporations of the burden of providing pensions for their retired workers, and it put American workers into the stock market, in the form of 401Ks, which we are told will provide for us through the magic of the market.  You know, the market which is a gambling device for money which was taken from the workers.

Now we are supposedly invested in it.  And we are supposed to cheer when it rises, and provide tax credit when he falls.

That's capitalism.  It didn't work with the gold standard, it didn't work with the Federal Reserve and it won't work with further regulation.

We need to ditch it, and provide for all of society without some few siphoning off riches for themselves.  

by wagelaborer (6 articles, 1 quicklinks, 9 diaries, 307 comments [34 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Nov 26, 2008 at 7:35:15 PM

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I forgot this part.  Stocks or shares in a company is when you invest in a corporation and get part of the profits.

You used to hear about how someone "got in on the ground floor" by investing in a corporation when it started and then the company did well and had a lot of profit to share (dividends).

The stock market was supposed to be a way where you could buy or sell stocks of companies that you wanted to invest in (or divest of). You didn't have to go out and find someone who owned those stocks or wanted the stocks that you owned.  

What we are seeing now is divorced from the original idea. (Obviously).  The buying and selling of stocks is a form of wealth production of its own, caused by the selling of stocks at higher and higher prices, until there is no relation between the price of the stock and the dividends it can produce. The bubble.

It's a Ponzi scheme. As long as you can find a sucker to buy at a higher price, you come out ahead.  And the entire financial class of the world cooperated in pretending that there was real value to be had.

Until you have bets totalling 10 times the entire GDP of the world. Now you have financial people unwilling to buy the stocks.  

So the US elite has promised taxpayers money to get one last buyer into the Ponzi scheme.  That would be us. 

by wagelaborer (6 articles, 1 quicklinks, 9 diaries, 307 comments [34 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Nov 26, 2008 at 8:00:48 PM

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