Penalize Bank Oligarchs to Help Cover the $3 Trillion or More Obama Will Be Spending On His EconWar
1) yes, I think we are at war. This is a war not unlike we've fought in Iraq, where the enemy is within our country. These agents of the enemy, many of them terrorists, have done massive damage to the US and the world economies. They may not be directly connected to Al Qaeda or Bin Laden, but there is no doubt that their self-interest-driven actions have aided and abetted the goals of Bin Laden. For years, the war was lower key, more of a class war. But it's gone out of control.
It is time to define who the enemies in this "war," who the agents of economic terrorism actually are.
2) It is highly likely Obama will spend at least and probably far more than $3 trillion to fight this war-- possibly $10 trillion. Some of it will be congressionally approved, some of it will come from other means. It will probably be necessary to extricate the US and the rest of the world from the World EconWar produced crisis we face.
3) As we fight this Econwar and identify the enemy-- the econterrorists and pirates-- we must retroactively punish them, starting with taking back the plunder they took from companies we are now rescuing.
Call me crazy, or some wild liberal, but I'm not satisfied, watching Henry Paulson enable the rogue corporations that have put our economy into a crisis. Call me crazy if I don't understand why these failed corporate heads are STILL getting tens of millions in pay. Call me crazy if I don't understand why aren't they all being fired and replaced? And call me crazy if I see our financial system as one that allowed the US to be looted-- yes-- when companies are so big they can't be allowed to fail, and when they demand hundreds of billions from we-the-people, then our nation is being looted-- by... what do you call them? Pirates? Financial terrorists who are destroying our economy? Maybe I am crazy. But going along, doing business as Henry Paulson has proposed, first this way, then another totally different way-- to me, THAT is crazy.
The men who ran the US economy into the ground, who failed miserably at responsibly running their companies, have pirated billions. They framed the theft as salary and bonuses. It doesn't matter if the contracts looked legal. It doesn't matter if these thugs didn't break any laws. These pirates declared war on the American people, on the USA's and world's economies. They have done MORE damage than any other terrorist or terrorist organization.
It is time for the congress to pass a law, or for Obama to sign an order that fines these pirates, thieves, hijackers, terrorist corporate leadership failures. The fine should be very big-- something like 90 or 95% of the amount, above, say two million dollars, of all they took in all forms, from the companies they brought down. If they have to sell their mansions and yachts, well, good! If jail terms are thrown in, even better.
Currently, these thugs are living high on the hog, enjoying the power and influence that great wealth brings. They are treated as successes and corporate heroes. They don't deserve it. Instead, they deserve to be identified, villified and brought down as parasites and crooks who not only brought their companies down, but also gutted them. Many of them also contibuted directly and even more, through lobbyists, to get the deregulation and the politicians who engaged in deregulation.
If these economic enemies of America don't go to jail, which seems just and fair to me, they should at least go broke. Let them live on social security or unemployment insurance. Or let them find jobs at new companies stupid enough to hire them. And absolutely forbid any company which hires them to receive bailout funds from the US government or the Federal Reserve. Or, put it this way. Make them pariahs, not allowed to be hired by any company receiving bailout or emergency government or federal reserve help.
And let's make that law which fines these pirates also regulate salaries, so it is no longer possible for ANY corporate executive to make 1000 or 5000 or even 500 times what the lowest paid worker earns. Let's set a limit. And let's make sure that these CEO, CFO, C-Pirate-O's don't get big bucks unless they deliver for the long term-- say seven years. Allow them to get big bonuses if the profits they bring in are still there seven years later, or ten years later. And even then, tax them at the levels President Eisenhower tolerated-- over 90%.
Every day, lately, we're seeing the mainstream media report on Obama's latest appointees-- of "generals" in the War on the financial/economic crisis. It's time they also start reporting on the enemy leaders-- the corporate pirate princes who put the US and the world in the disastrous situation we face-- one which we know will get far worse before it gets better.
I am not anti-business. I AM anti-rapacious, anti-human, anti-social, anti-irresponsible business led by pirates who make decisions that lead to economic conditions which cause the suffering of hundreds of millions. You know how AIG is throwing luxurious parties at exotic places? Fire the people who let them go on. That CITIGROUP sports arena for $400 million- fire the people demanding that be kept. And with all those trillions being spent to bail out banks-- spent a few billion on auditors who have full access to these banks records and plans-- so we can ferret out all the profligate pirates who don't get it that we are at war, that we are in an emergency and the old business of spending all you can get away with is over-- that now, doing that will get you fired, fined and maybe even prosecuted and jailed.
I am not (yet) a business or economy reporter or writer. But it is clear to me that the damage these filthy rich oligarch have done, including Hank Paulson and Larry Summers, with their deregulations that allowed the toxic financial elements, like credit share swaps, derivatives, etc., is huge. These corporate pirates deserve to at the least, have the money and wealth they pried from these failing companies taken back. They deserve to have all their bank accounts attached, their properties sold out from under them.
Let's get something straight. By the time Obama is done, we will not be talking about $500 or $700 billion more in bailout money that our president-elect will have spent. By the time he is done, I guarantee he will, including money spent under his command, through the Federal Reserve (indirectly, but under him, nonetheless) will exceed three trillion dollars and could reach as high as ten trillion. This may seem high. But Bush has lready spent seven trillion and we are still going down further, into a worse, more difficult situation. Weeks before the beginning of the Iraq War, I predicted, feeling brave and visionary, that the war would cost $900 billion. At the time, my estimate was vastly larger than anyone in the media or government was estimating. Of course, now we see nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimating three trillion dollars. So I estimate, today, that Obama will, in his war against the economic collapse, spend at least that amount, and I expect it could be at least triple that. Congress will not authorize all of it. His appointees will.
And while we're penalizing corporate execs who took advantage of the system, let's take a really close look at our military. Bush spent eight years promoting yes-men who would say what he wanted them to say. The congress, was full of elected officials, like Duke Cunningham and Tom Delay, who sold the American people a bill of goods-- one that has hundreds of US bases spread all over the nation. It's time we listen to Ron Paul and pull back. It's time we spend money within the US-- not within Japan or Germany or Korea or Iraq. My state, Pennsylvania, alone, has thousands of bridges that need to be repaired or replaced. Throughout the US there are hundreds of thousands of infrastructure projects that are desperately in need on initiation and completion.
AND... while we're at it, let's end the the right of corporate personhood. This abomination was corruptly appropriated by fraud over 120 years ago, by the big railroad corporations-- the megacorporations of the day. Removing these rights will go a long way towards enabling the real war against financial terrorism and terrorists to proceed.
Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor . He is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com and is a columnist with Northstarwriters.com. He is a frequent Speaker on Politics, Impeachment, The art, science and power of story, heroes and the hero's journey, Positive Psychology, Stress, Biofeedback and a wide range of subjects. He is a campaign consultant specializing in tapping the power of stories for issue positioning, stump speeches and debates. He recently retired as organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.
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A few declarations.
-While I'm registered as a Democrat, I consider myself to be a dynamic critic of the Democratic party, just as, well, not quite as much, but almost as much as I am a critic of republicans.
-My articles express my personal opinion, not the opinion of this website.
Have you thought of running for office? I think we need more unashamed liberals. I keep wondering why Obama is patterning himself on Lincoln- he should be patterning himself on Lyndon Johnson, he could even use Johnsons poor example of the Vietnam War and get out of the wars we have been embroiled in.
Anyway if you run I will organize in Phoenix
siriusss
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siriusss (6 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 103 comments)
on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 9:48:22 AM
Is that most of the high level economic appointments being made by Obama are connected to Bob Rubin who drove Citigroup into the toilet after doing things in the Clinton administration that set everything up for the economic meltdown we are now experiencing. If only establishment people will be running the Obama system, then why should we have any real hope that the guilty people will get punished - and not just fines, but indictment and imprisonment!!!!
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Joel S. Hirschhorn (135 articles, 37 quicklinks, 63 diaries, 539 comments)
on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 9:56:02 AM
One possible reason for the use of the Rubin gang is that Rubin is credited with the Chinese miracle. The problem with that is I dont think he had anything to do with it. I was in China at the time and had a company there. The Chinese did what was necessary to stem the emergency in Asia in the late 90s. Beijing told Rubin what they wanted he and the US to do if they wanted US business to stay in China. They had a lot of leaverage-they could dump US debt
Whatever was done was done by the Chinese not Rubin. Notice he never explains what he did? That is why! He has no what was done or why it worked.
siriusss
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siriusss (6 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 103 comments)
on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 10:32:17 AM
This is war alright; class war. The super-wealthy versus everyone else. The money power versus the people.
I still say we ought to send Bush off in an appropriate manner - with a national strike. Bring the economy to a dead stop, since it's not working for us anyway. There are so so many ways we could put the money they're looting from the treasury to good use. Will we stop them by reading the news of their latest scam every week? Will we stop them by going to work and funneling more tax dollars into their greedy hands? Will we stop them by complaining to legislators? NOT!
And you know what? Their reckless uninhibited greed is going to crash the economy anyway! I say we do it first, with purpose.
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Jim Eldon (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 184 comments)
on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 10:03:57 AM
We have seen how dirty and low down these oligarchs can be. They marginalized Ron Paul, they marginalized Ross Perot 16 years ago, and they have reduced Ralph Nader to irrelevance. These people play dirty and use the national news media as their propaganda arm. So my point is that when you have seen how low down they are as Republican Party operatives, what makes all of us who correctly call for massive house cleaning...what makes us think they will go without a fight or that there is a large enough percentage of the American public that would back such things as we call for if the oligarchy started pulling out their propanda campaign ('bad for business' and 'patriot baiting') against Obama or anyone who tried making any REAL changes? I fear there would be a bullet for Obama and Operation Garden Plot would swing into action (concentration camps that have been built already in the event of "massive civil unrest"). These oligarchs plan to play hardball if they are ever REALLY threatened. Perhaps I'm defeatist and don't mean it to be that way, but I am realistic and dont think the reasonable among us have enough critical mass to pull of a massive reform of the nature Mr. Kall is calling for (and his call falls upon attentive and consenting ears with me)....but I fear that the oligarchy will not go down without a massive fight and there being a lot of people hurt, a la Robert Mugabe or Augusto Pinchet. These beistards will have to be taken down by a massive coordinated public outcry. Perhaps the economic distress will get so bad that conditions will be ripe for that kind of outcry. That will be about the only thing that can force the American public into the critical mass necessary for such house cleaning. Otherwise, you'll have the same old divide and conquer strategy used by the Republicans successfully for years to ram through their skullduggery. And there's a big enough percentile of our public that are stupid enough to side with the status quo. So I'm just pointing all this out by way of a possible monkey wrench into the machinery of reform, if it ever comes about. And so far I am only seeing from Obama a Clintonesque status quo.
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JOHN LORENZ (17 articles, 91 quicklinks, 73 diaries, 230 comments)
on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 3:35:34 PM
Your Right they won't go down without a fight......
But there is a way, just ask the Viet Namese and the Iraqi's..... They are beating the highest tech and the best trained military, by using leaderless resistance.
Guerrilla warfare if you will. Be "all knowing" (where do they live, where do they shop, how do they get to work, etc) and "unknown", keep a low profile, never tell anyone, only work with those you know very well.... and be "target specific and one at a time. That will do it. Never use a cell phone.
If we don't do that, then wave goodbye as they haul you away in those train cattle cars to the camps... you have nothing to lose and everything to gain... thats how I see it.
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pepper (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 19 comments)
on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 5:55:02 PM
Look at the Headlines about the Thai People Just Today!
The Thai people, the Icelanders, it's going around the world! It is not just the pitifully put-upon American populace. Strength in Numbers, Guerrilla style stands the test to come.
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boomerang (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 352 comments)
on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 9:09:34 PM
When bush stole office the US debt was $5 trillion.
As of September 1st that debt was $9 trillion.
Since September 1st we are borrowing at a rate of $9 trillion PER YEAR just beyond any ability to begin to pay down.
Yesterday you and I and every American guaranteed to back up CITI to the tune of $25,000.00 each. Do you think for that much of our money we'll be invited to their holiday party?
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tjb (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 242 comments)
on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 10:06:25 AM
The whole point of all this crazy debt is to crash the .....
..... the currency. Once they build it up with the new FDIC guaranteed insurance on borrowing and repayment, they will push this debt, along with all the wars coming, including Pakistan and Russia, into a situation where we will have to declare "Forced Mejeure"...... default on our debt, that will make the currency virtually worthless and then we will demonetize the dollar, which means everything you own in dollars will be worthless, except for the banks of course because they got bailed out and part of that was to purchase the new currency at current currency rates.... Notice the value of our currency went up recently for no sane reason whatsoever????
That is called market manipulation. The new currency has already been shipped to overseas banks like China's development bank to replace the dollar when it crashes and they sent it at the current currency values.
So bankers will be fine, its us that will be screwed..... so the key is to get as much gold and silver as you can even in the black market which is where the trading is now going on.
Then you can buy it later at the higher valued precious metals value which will climb with the decrease or death of our currency. I am sure what is going to happen, just not sure when it will all come down.
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pepper (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 19 comments)
on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 6:05:14 PM
Rob suggested voiding the personhood that corporations covertly arrogated to themselves, and which was predicated on an introductory comment in a supreme court case about railroads in the 19th century. There's another way to fix their wagons, though, and that is to grab the handle, and push it too far in the direction they wanted it to go: give corporations COMPLETE personhood, including the risk of incarceration or execution for crimes they commit.
I explored that scenario in a series of short stories on my blog. In these stories, the Freemont-Wayfarer Corporation is found guilty by the court and sentenced to a three-year incarceration. During this period, the court assigns a kind of parole officer to take over the company's board of directors. She unionizes the company's employees and gives the union a seat on the board. Executive level people are locked into their jobs for the three years, and severe restrictions are placed on what the company is permitted to do.
Spend some time exploring how that might go down, and keep the discussion about how to deal with corporate power going. Fremont-Wayfarer's saga starts here:
I don't know if you, Rob, or many OEN readers remember
the 1970's and the Left's period of thinking the American public was primed and ready for all it's analyses of what was wrong with, and required to fix, non-socialist America. Now, when I read complicated, many-faceted, wordy, and/or simply utopian analyses of what's wrong with America in November of 2008, and how it can be fixed, I start shaking in my memory-boots.
We really shouldn't forget that Bushco made a conscious decision to keep hands off the internet and take credit for allowing "Free Speech", while busting street-protesters all over the country, openly while being ignored by the media. And it really remains to be seen how much the public is "ready" for such arcane, but catchy to the complicated wordsmiths among us, remedies as making corporations "full" persons.
This is not to criticize writings about anything on the internet. In fact, I was very surprised to see numerous words that I thought Lenny Bruce and George Carlin died assuring would not be banned on the air, banned here at OEN. But I am criticizing thinking that complicated and multi-faceted writing is preferable to leaner and meaner prose; which prose is in fact much more appropriate to these times.
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GLloyd Rowsey (71 articles, 18 quicklinks, 44 diaries, 563 comments)
on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 2:56:54 PM
There's no other word that means the same thing. I want to see it eliminated. Corporations should be given the same rights as or treated the same as humans.
Regarding words-- there are no bans here, but people better have a pretty good reason to us the N or C words that hurt people.
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Rob Kall (891 articles, 4057 quicklinks, 350 diaries, 1925 comments)
on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 5:06:33 PM
to organize work in an advanced industrial society, I would agree that making corporations equivalent to persons was desireable - whether pursuing that goal under the present circumstances in America makes the slightest sense is another question.
And regarding words which OEN does and does not permit, I had in mind the F*** and the S*** words, primarily. But I don't think anyone to the left of Hitler -- much less Lenny Bruce or George Carlin -- has ever proposed the N***** word be used freely.
On the other hand, why the heck does OEN ban use of the (Hitler-related) N*** word?
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GLloyd Rowsey (71 articles, 18 quicklinks, 44 diaries, 563 comments)
on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 11:48:03 PM
Do you think all of this economic crisis could have mastered by say the rich elite powerful in order to bring the U.S. down giving reasons for eventual whole hearted support for a North American Union. I would like to hear peoples opinion on this? As Rob calls them, are these "Pirates" organized by even bigger "Pirate organizations".
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Sharon Roach (13 articles, 0 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 169 comments)
on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 11:27:46 AM
But I don't have a clear idea of what a North American Union would look like. Also, it took Europe over forty years to really get the EU going, although they had many spoken languages among prospective member nations while the U.S. has, what, English and Spanish? Also, if your include Mexico, presumably all the central American countries would be included as well. And is the Great Drug War approach to relating to our southern Spanish-speaking neighbors rele
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