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July 14, 2008 at 16:14:10

Headlined on 7/14/08:
The "Ownership Society"

by Mike Malloy

www.opednews.com

 
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What are you thinking as you watch the destruction of what once was the greatest economic engine on earth? The Bush Crime Family's rapacious efficiency in devouring everything it touches has been truly amazing. The military; energy policy; the regulatory agencies necessary for consumer safety; our education system; the availability of decent health care. The examples of theft, fraud, lies and deceit are endless.

And now, in the final days of this completely corrupt Bush/Republican enterprise, one after another, financial institution after financial institution, all are collapsing, sucked dry, utterly hollowed out, every single asset stolen, and all of it engineered by the most outlaw organization in history.

Investors - not all of them greedy manipulators - watch as their financial stocks plunge 70 percent in less than a year. Chaos and panic are so close to enveloping the entire U.S. financial structure that one of the key bandits - Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson - was compelled this weekend to offer yet another "snatch and grab" taxpayer-funded handout to yet another pair of financial organizations by opening the doors to yet another corrupt cesspool of capitalist thieves, the Federal Reserve. The proposed "loan" would go to two more (now essentially) unregulated financial rip-off experts, the oh-so-cutely nick-named Fannie Mae (correctly: The Federal National Mortgage Association) and Freddie Mac (The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation) mortgage companies.

It's not going to work. All this shifting hither-and-yon-back-and-forth-over-here-over-there-now-you-see-it-now-you-don't-bullshit of the nation's remaining financial liquidity will ultimately do nothing to replace the trillions of dollars wasted, misappropriated, and stolen. Which was the Bush Crime Family's intent to begin with. Break everything. From the military to the banks. Smash it all. Fill it with corruption and watch it rot. Steal these dumb-ass taxpayers blind. Bankrupt them. Drive them into so much debt and poverty that eventually they'll accept any job at any wage they're offered. Rip them to pieces. Burn their dreams. They are nothing. Zero. Less than zero. The Crime Family members get the profits, we get the losses. They make hundreds of millions, we file for bankruptcy.

It has all been about privatized profits and "socialized" losses - as Paul Krugman points out in his column today. Krugman zeroes in on the latest scam, the "bag-holding" the tax-paying suckers once again will be forced to perform in order to rescue the nation's two largest mortgage holders.

"The case against Fannie and Freddie begins with their peculiar status: although they're private companies with stockholders and profits, they're 'government-sponsored enterprises' established by federal law, which means that they receive special privileges. The most important of these privileges is implicit: it's the belief of investors that if Fannie and Freddie are threatened with failure, the federal government will come to their rescue.

"This implicit guarantee means that profits are privatized but losses are socialized. If Fannie and Freddie do well, their stockholders reap the benefits, but if things go badly, Washington picks up the tab. Heads they win, tails we lose."

Heads they win; tails we lose. Again. Remember the S&L corruption of the 1980s? (John McCain would remember that clearly.) S&L owners (like Bush Crime Family brother Neil Bush) offered impossibly high interest rates to attract lots of federally insured deposits, then gambled with or simply stole the money. When many of the criminals' bets went bad, the public ended up covering the enormous "losses." The cleanup cost taxpayers more than $100 billion. Or was it 200 billion? 300? We - you and I - will never know the truth.

Remember a few years ago when Bush (or was it Cheney?) touted the term "ownership society"?  Uh-huh. Go buy a home. No money down. No money needed. Ever. Smoke and mirrors. Pretend it's all real. Pretend you have something. Watch how they snatch it away. Listen to the tearing sound. Smell the fear that is flooding the country.

So, here we are again. Ripped, raped, laughed at, bankrupted so the connected, the rich, can continue to play. And steal. And laugh at the unimaginable damage they leave in their polluted wake. Again, then, the questions: How much more of this will we continue to absorb? How much longer before we finally resist? When does the revolution begin? And, where?

 

http://www.mikemalloy.com/live/

Mike Malloy is a former writer and producer for CNN (1984-87) and CNN-International (2000). His professional experience includes newspaper columnist and editor, writer, rock concert producer and actor. He is the only radio talk show host in America to have received the A.I.R (Achievement in Radio) Award in both Chicago and New York City, the number three and number one radio markets in the country. His radio experience includes the 50,000 watt blow-torches in both the South and the Midwest, respectively WSB-AM in Atlanta and WLS-AM in Chicago, and as one of the original hosts on Air America - a two-year-long association that ended in a massive train wreck. Mike's nationally-syndicated program can now be heard weeknights on affiliates of the Nova M Network and on XM Satellite and Sirius Satellite Radio as well as on live Internet streaming. It is not difficult to pigeon-hole Malloy politically. Generally speaking, he is a traditional Liberal Democrat doing his part to return the Democratic Party to its Liberal roots.

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16 comments

Ed Encho is a free lance writer, activist and consultant who resides in West Central Florida.  
Ed EnchoEd Encho is a free lance writer, activist and consultant who resides in West Central Florida.  

They Own Our Ass

That's about all that you can say for this system of modern slavery where humans are reduced to chattel. What a disgusting and filthy looting spree that has taken place in this pathetic excuse for a country under Republican rule and DemocRAT enablement.

EE

by Ed Encho (6 articles, 12 quicklinks, 55 diaries, 385 comments) on Monday, July 14, 2008 at 5:04:27 PM
 


waldopaper is an insignificant teacher, informed reader and professional writer... living in dominionist crackerland... with two women, one young man, three cats and two dogs... alarmed at a failing state controlled by corporate psychopaths armed with nuclear weapons. There's a light on. Somebody's home.
waldopaperwaldopaper is an insignificant teacher, informed reader and professional writer... living in dominionist crackerland... with two women, one young man, three cats and two dogs... alarmed at a failing state controlled by corporate psychopaths armed with nuclear weapons. There's a light on. Somebody's home.

John Locke...

...had advanced ideas... 300 YEARS AGO... so "pursuit of happiness" made it past "property" by a narrow editorial squeak.  The underpinnings of the USA and "capitalism" is that happiness and property are one and the same. 

It has been almost 100 years in the USA since anyone has EVEN QUESTIONED this simplistic  ding-dang-doodle (in deference to the "senior" editors). 

 

by waldopaper (11 articles, 3 quicklinks, 22 diaries, 396 comments) on Monday, July 14, 2008 at 7:32:25 PM
 


Darren Wolfe is the former Eastern Vice Chair of the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania. He grew up in Puerto Rico and lived in Venezuela for seven years, including the first year of Chavez' rule. His articles have appeared on OpEdNews.com, the Libertarian Penn, and the Nolanchart.com.

*****************************

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of...

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Darren WolfeDarren Wolfe is the former Eastern Vice Chair of the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania. He grew up in Puerto Rico and lived in Venezuela for seven years, including the first year of Chavez' rule. His articles have appeared on OpEdNews.com, the Libertarian Penn, and the Nolanchart.com.

*****************************

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of...

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Capitalism?

Mike,

Bush wouldn't know what capitalism was if it came up & smacked him. You correctly point out that the Fed, Fannie, & Freddie are all government creations & the source of our problems. This is the failure of government intervention in the economy, which is socialism not capitalism:

Time for comrade Paulson to pull the plug on the Fannie and Freddie charade

by Darren Wolfe (4 articles, 125 quicklinks, 79 diaries, 598 comments) on Monday, July 14, 2008 at 7:42:36 PM
 


I am a self employed carpenter/farm owner living in the beautiful mountains of Arkansas. I'm married and have raised two great boys to become well behaved young men. I'm a patriot, and feel that the country has lost it's direction due to the choices we've made in our leadership.
Walter JohnsonI am a self employed carpenter/farm owner living in the beautiful mountains of Arkansas. I'm married and have raised two great boys to become well behaved young men. I'm a patriot, and feel that the country has lost it's direction due to the choices we've made in our leadership.

Probably never

"Again, then, the questions: How much more of this will we continue to absorb? How much longer before we finally resist? When does the revolution begin? And, where?"

The people have become to used to living the high lifestyle not to absorb this blow and continue to absorb others that will surely come as well. In my opinion we are actually institutionalized, like criminals become when incarcerated for long periods of time. We're unwilling to give up any portion of our lifestyle as a sacrifice which would almost certainly be the case if a revolution were to occur. Even if only for a short time. A revolution of the scale of the founding fathers is most probably never going to occur do to the fact that we as a population are not of the same caliber as the founding fathers. If it did, it would most likely happen after we've given up all of our liberties and are limited to pitchforks and sticks for weapons. There is little doubt that something must be done, but what? Any attempt to draw like minded people together generally results in squabbles over differing opinions. We are a nation of anti-partisans, unable to put differences aside long enough to accomplish a single mission. Lacking leadership we abandon the fight, and retreat to our keyboards to spread the truth and hope someone will step up and lead us to rally.

by Walter Johnson (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 16 comments) on Monday, July 14, 2008 at 7:58:11 PM
 


Undergraduate degree in political science and philosophy: summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa; with postgraduate work in political economics. Postgraduate degree is a juris doctorate. I am a voracious reader and, although I make no claim to expertise, have self studied in logic, linguistics, theology, theoretical physics, macroeconomics, technical and fundamental market analysis, world history, and many other subjects, which I believed at the time helped explain the world around me.

...

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W.M.L.Undergraduate degree in political science and philosophy: summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa; with postgraduate work in political economics. Postgraduate degree is a juris doctorate. I am a voracious reader and, although I make no claim to expertise, have self studied in logic, linguistics, theology, theoretical physics, macroeconomics, technical and fundamental market analysis, world history, and many other subjects, which I believed at the time helped explain the world around me.

...

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WHAT DO YOU EXPECT...

from a people that has been taught that every opinion is as right as every other opinion, that every culture is equal to every other culture, that every political theory is as correct as every other political theory. We cannot openly discuss politics for fear that we may say something politically incorrect, and then be subjected to group ridicule and derision.

Notwithstanding the great tolerance movement, just as 2+2=4, there are worldviews that more accurately reflect reality than other worldviews. And there is one worldview that is absolutely correct at this time. Our job is not to honor everyone's view, but to argue and distill our views down to that one truthful worldview that allows us to regain control of our own country. To do this, we must throw off the yoke of tolerance with which we were indoctrinated in the public schools and be willing to confront ideological error. This does not mean that we harm those who are in error, unless they are intent on harming us, but that once we have established their error we move on and no longer tolerate that error in our own thinking.

by W.M.L. (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 283 comments) on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 4:17:11 PM
 


Above all, be it a question of politics or social existence, Jersawitz is not an agnostic insofar as he belives that all things are knowable, even if remaining unknown at one or another time and place. Hence in regard to any question he demands evidence, data, not the mumbo jumbo of sophistry.
jack jersawitzAbove all, be it a question of politics or social existence, Jersawitz is not an agnostic insofar as he belives that all things are knowable, even if remaining unknown at one or another time and place. Hence in regard to any question he demands evidence, data, not the mumbo jumbo of sophistry.

Capitalism or common ownership

Mike,

Many years ago I participated in one or two of your shows. I remember your fear at the possibility that you might be identified with my then, as now, socialist position.

Nothing seems to have changed. You criticise the animals running this U.S. government but offer no alternatives.

Has it not yet gotten through to you that it is impossible to have an economy based on the notion of constant expansion and development without ultimately it giving rise to the monstrous, hideous, activities of U.S. imperialism based on just such an impossible notion.

Jack Jersawitz

404-892-1238

bigjackjj@yahoo.com

by jack jersawitz (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments) on Monday, July 14, 2008 at 7:59:56 PM
 


August Adams is a CPA and holds a Masters Degree in Psychology. He is an activist striving to create a fair and just world for all.
August AdamsAugust Adams is a CPA and holds a Masters Degree in Psychology. He is an activist striving to create a fair and just world for all.

It's Disgusting - The Ownership Class Must END

I hope there is a Revolution, we need it.

"If the people knew what we had done, they would chase us down the street and lynch us." George H.W. Bush 

It's about time we find out exactly what they have done.  We know only the surface.  This country has consolidated wealth in the hands of the few.  (Wealth by the way is the collective effort of everyone, so why do allow a small percentage of the people to "own" our wealth.  Our collective effort.  It's modern day slavery and should be abolished.

Monopolies, Oligopolies, the end of anti-trust and competition.  "Free Markets" being handed to corporate insiders that bribe and buy our politicians.  

"Exploiting" natural resources.  "Exploiting" people.  Externalizing costs (a fancy way to say that the taxpayers pay for the most expensive components of the corporations operating costs and in the case of the collapsing financial institutions absorb the riskiest debt).  While internalizing the profits.  That is not a free market system.  They are crimes and our Congress People and Senators are in on it.  There ought to be a lot of people tried for treason for the things they have done to the people in this former democracy.

Media Consolidation that parrots bullshit instead of telling us whose pockets have been lined.  Who the winners and the losers are and exactly what this Trillion dollar financial crisis is going to cost each and every one of our children.

No limit to the GREED.  No limit to the misery and poverty.  No limit to the eroding of the working class from the bottom up.

Military Industrial Complex (break the military, rake in the cash in private contractors outnumbering our military personnel - just throw it on the National credit card).  Let's create a perpetual war and call it "terror" and we'll drain every future dollar for generations.  Then we'll move our head quarters out of the country.

Medical Industrial Complex (Cherry pick the healthy.  Shoot holes in coverage by raising deductibles, co-pays and co-insurance.  Lower limits of coverage, increase HSA which are savings accounts for corporations and future bankruptcy accounts for Americans).  Nice system.  No care - at the highest cost in the world.  Really sick?  Sorry, we'll have to take your house and your retirement before we can treat you.

Big Pharma (research paid by the tax payers, profits raked in by the Pharma owners).  It ought to be a crime, patents developed off tax payer funded research should remain in the public domain and the profits should be regulated.

Social Security - sorry we've given it to the corporate raiders.  There's nothing for those of you that have worked your entire lives hoping there might be a crumb left for you.  And the criminals are trying to break it so they can privatize this too.  

The banking system is the worst.  The Fed did nothing in the run up to the financial crisis.  Greenspan should be tried for domestic crimes against humanity and "chased down the street and lynched" in the words of George HW Bush.

And Big OIL - RECORD profits. No limits - all privatized.  Need a new refinery?  That will cost the taxpayers.  Nice system. 

In fact, we better find out exactly what the rest of these SOB's in Congress have done.  What else has been sold out.  We know our jobs and our childrens futures have been sold out and continue to erode from the bottom up.

It's not just call center jobs anymore.  It's design jobs, and engineering jobs, accounting jobs and the second tier jobs.  And in America the jobs that are left are "service" jobs - waiters, waitresses, fast food, and ...

We have been had.  And it is about time we all start getting a lot angrier about it.  WAKE SLEEPING GIANT.

But I guess we still need a whole lot more personal pain before anyone will do anything except stay tranquilized in front of the mind numbing blue tube....  or run around being a soccer or T-ball parent...   

 

by August Adams (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 430 comments) on Monday, July 14, 2008 at 8:09:44 PM
 



Wolfie

BE AWARE THAT ALL SUFFER WHEN ONE ACTS WRONGFULLY

The realizations of the masses is to awake to see that the greedy egoists

are causing a great suffering. When the masses become enlightened they

will seek the end of their oppression. They will use their positive energies to

right the wrongs we are experiencing. We need to be in the Prescence and

not act divisively nor self immolating.

We must get away from the Mitote within our minds and be still in order

to accomplish our relearning to accept all of us as divine beings.

by Wolfie (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 18 diaries, 1076 comments) on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 3:01:27 AM
 



Wolfie

Do not take that bullshit written above as gospel

I was drugged and then tied down while this man in a tzitzin began

blogging under my name. I repeat that we must not accept such drivel to be

consistent with the real aim of our purposes. Let the rivers of blood flow.

We'll show them Neocon creeps who knows how to fight a war.

Peace is war! Stop thinking like a Tibetan monk who will get their collective

shaved heads crushed. Fight fire with fire. Damn the collateral damage that

will surely come. Bring it on! So? Yeah, Cheney.

Take them dead or alive, preferably dead cause our prisons are

overcrowded.

Whomever that crazy critter was, we know how to deal with them.

Tzitzins are no defence for brass knuckles. Use your flag pins to gouge their

myopic eyes out with.

With peace,

Wolfie the patient, wise leader of the battling uniters of America.

 

 

by Wolfie (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 18 diaries, 1076 comments) on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 3:11:47 AM
 


Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor . He is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.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 o...

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Rob KallRob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor . He is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.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 o...

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There's a solution

End the laws imprisioning no-victim criminals-- drug users-- and put all the crooks, fraudsters and liars in Bushworld under lock and key. We'd probably have to expand the prisons, but it would pay for itself. All the crooked corporate criminals would lose their cars and homes gotten through fraud and criminal endeavors.

by Rob Kall (761 articles, 3850 quicklinks, 320 diaries, 1642 comments) on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 8:02:36 AM
 


August Adams is a CPA and holds a Masters Degree in Psychology. He is an activist striving to create a fair and just world for all.
August AdamsAugust Adams is a CPA and holds a Masters Degree in Psychology. He is an activist striving to create a fair and just world for all.

I agree

How do you make that happen.  And, quite frankly the problem seems broader than just "Bush World" unless you're including the Democrats as part of "Bush World".  It's the whole one party "corporate" aka "Money" party that's at the roots of the systemic problems.  

How does a corporate owned government change when those elected won't serve the people but serve the owners instead?

I am for change - "Peaceful" or otherwise.  

Unfortunately, the peaceful processes seem to be getting us no where. 

I like the idea of freeing the victimless criminals and imprisoning the traitors of the People.  But the litmus test for the traitors needs to be something other than party affiliation.   

Let me know when we the Revolution starts. 

by August Adams (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 430 comments) on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 1:12:04 PM
 


The creator of the progressive site, BeggarsCanBeChoosers.com, Marc McDonald is an award-winning journalist who worked for 15 years for several Texas newspapers, including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, before he quit his day job and set up shop in cyberspace in 1995. McDonald's articles have appeared in a number of popular progressive Web sites, including OpEdNews.com, BuzzFlash.com, Crooks and Liars, Salon.com, Progressive Daily Beacon, The Neil Rogers Show and The Raw Story. McDonald's Web art...

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Marc McDonaldThe creator of the progressive site, BeggarsCanBeChoosers.com, Marc McDonald is an award-winning journalist who worked for 15 years for several Texas newspapers, including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, before he quit his day job and set up shop in cyberspace in 1995. McDonald's articles have appeared in a number of popular progressive Web sites, including OpEdNews.com, BuzzFlash.com, Crooks and Liars, Salon.com, Progressive Daily Beacon, The Neil Rogers Show and The Raw Story. McDonald's Web art...

to see more of bio, click on member name

How America is worse off today than during Great Depression

Writer Jim Kunstler has noted that, in many ways, the U.S. is WORSE off today than it was during the 1930s Great Depression.

He writes:

"We're a very different country than we were in 1932. In that earlier crisis of capital, few people had any money but our society still possessed fantastic resources. We had plenty of everything that our land could provide: a treasure trove of mineral ores and the equipment to refine it all, a wealth of oil and gas still in the ground, and all the rigs needed to get at it, manpower galore (and of a highly disciplined, regimented kind), with fine-tuned factories waiting for orders. We had a railroad system that was the envy of the world and millions of family farms (even despite the dust bowl) owned by people who retained age-old skills not yet degraded by agribusiness. We had fully-functional cities with operating waterfronts and ten thousand small towns with local economies, local newspapers, and local culture."

Mike: welcome back from your vacation!

by Marc McDonald (48 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 10 comments) on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 1:54:37 PM
 


Hater of Nazis above all. Hobbies include activism, military model building, military history, exciting and vital conversation with retired crooks. Retired
John HanksHater of Nazis above all. Hobbies include activism, military model building, military history, exciting and vital conversation with retired crooks. Retired

All though and action depends upon hatred.

If you worry too much about your own virtue, your attention is divided and weak.  Only a habitual black hatred can keep us going long enough to get rid of these crooks.  We  have to stop being suckers and lazy cowards.

by John Hanks (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1094 comments) on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 7:43:46 PM
 

 

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