http://www.alternet.org/workplace/99876/
Could it be that it is far easier to abuse a nation of village idiots than well educated & informed citizens ?
Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits - a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage." ~ Hunter Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
“If you are afraid to speak out, you are not in America any more” - unknown
OH BY THE WAY...
Section 8 of the proposed legislation says it all:
"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."
"All Hail Caesar!" The days of the republic are over.
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- WhiteNoise
- added this
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I don’t know why we’re not considering criminal charges against these people. They have done more to hurt this nation than bin Laden could ever dream of.
ROBERT SCHEER: Oh, it’s absolutely outrageous, and we can’t let them get away with it. I mean, consider that Paulson was the head of Goldman Sachs, OK? He knew about credit swaps. He knew about hybrid instruments. He knew all of this stuff. And now he’s the guy that says Congress has to give him a blank check, it has to be a pure bill? Nonsense!
This is our money. Why isn’t this money used to help people who are going to lose their houses? You miss two, three payments, and they’re going to foreclose on you; then they say, “Well, we hope the banks will work out new agreements.” Nonsense! Do a freeze on foreclosures. Stop the bleeding. Have a year to let it settle, and force the banks to come to agreements.
You know, but, I mean, the idea that they didn’t know what was going on, well, this is a Ponzi scheme of their creation, and they thought they would bail before it hit the fan. That’s what they thought. They’d be gone, and someone else would be blamed. They’d have their golden parachutes. I don’t know why we’re not considering criminal charges against these people. They have done more to hurt this nation than bin Laden could ever dream of.
I think Senator Sanders made a very important point, that, you know, Barack Obama, back in March at Cooper Union—Robert Rubin, who is now unfortunately close to the campaign, in January of this year—he’s the guy who in the Clinton administration pushed through the Financial Services Modernization Act, allowing this madness—but in January, he said we don’t have a problem, this is just the normal fluctuation of the market. That was in a speech he gave at Cooper Union. However, in March, Barack Obama gave a very good speech on the economy. He said much of what we have been saying on this show so far. Unfortunately, he lost that voice temporarily, and these people like Summers and Rubin moved over to his campaign. So, I think if Barack Obama can recover his populist voice that got him where he—so far in the primaries, I think this should be a runaway. I mean, it’s unbelievable that the American people would want four more years of this madness.I would point out, you have asked the question about covering foreign banks. One of those foreign banks, UBS, Swiss bank, is where Phil Gramm works. He was rewarded after being head of the Banking Committee, pushing through this deregulation. His wife Wendy Gramm went to work for Enron, was on their audit committee. She runs a big institute for deregulation that the big corporations put a lot of money into. Phil Gramm went to work for UBS, a foreign-based banking conglomerate. And now they want to extend this coverage to those banks. These people have no shame.
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I think it’s time, as I said before, to really talk about criminal investigation. They have defrauded the American people, and they changed the laws. You know the old folk song, Woody Guthrie, I guess, you know, some will rob you with a gun, and others with a fountain pen. I mean, imagine, these people came in, rewrote federal regulation to exempt the kind of credit swaps—I notice people find this a bit confusing, but I’m saying they’ve got to read up on it. The hybrid instruments that they talk about, that’s what allowed all of this. That’s why AIG got in trouble. They’re supposed to be selling insurance; they’re not supposed to be backing security packages. And all of this stuff was hidden, it was murky. The bankers themselves admit they don’t know what was going on.
And all of that was made legal; it was illegal up until, you know, less than ten years ago. It was made legal by acts of Congress, led by the Republicans, and unfortunately a majority of Democrats backed it, and Bill Clinton signed off on that first major legislation. So we have to be very wary—
What you’ve got here is really the end of the Reagan Revolution. And I hate to bring up the bad “F” word, but, you know, there is a model for this, and Mussolini had it in Italy, and it’s called “fascism.” It’s where your big corporate interests throw in with government, destroy the freedom of the rest of the people, and preserve their power. Everybody forgets, private corporations and banks did quite well, made out quite well in Italy and Germany in those days, you know? And I am really worried about this assault on our democracy.The idea—we didn’t cover insurance, as Sanders pointed out, insurance for four million kids, because Bush vetoed it and said $7 billion was too much to spend to cover insurance, health insurance, for four million kids, but now they can throw $700 billion at these banks, and they say we can’t even have hearings about it. It is absolutely outrageous!
And I don’t want to lose that point I made earlier. The best way to deal with this crisis now is to put a freeze on foreclosures. That’s what the Democrats should be—it’s what Hillary mentioned during the primaries. I don’t know if she did it just as a one-liner. But the fact is, it’s a very reasonable thing to do, say American homeowners should not suffer now, you know, if people were given these mortgages. And, by the way, it’s not just the subprime mortgage holders that hurt; if the housing market collapses, as it has, it hurts everyone. Why not a freeze on foreclosures? And why are the Democrats not pushing that idea?
Let’s help out the people who are suffering, you know, and the working people, middle-class people, poor people, who have these home—it’s their whole asset—instead of worrying about saving Goldman Sachs and saving Citigroup. And it’s amazing to me that a guy like Paulson could have been head of Goldman Sachs—he knew this was all going on—Robert Rubin was head of Goldman Sachs; they go into the government, and now they’re going to bail out their former companies, and we have to pay for it? I mean, it’s outrageous! -
THE FINANCIAL MELTDOWN EXPLAINED !
http://current.com/items/89322147_the_financial_meltdown_explained"The history of mankind is a history of the subjugation and exploitation of a great majority of people by an elite few by what has been appropriately termed the 'ruling class'. The ruling class has many manifestations. It can take the form of a religious orthodoxy, a monarchy, a dictatorship of the proletariat, outright fascism, or, in the case of the United States, corporate statism. In each instance the ruling class relies on academics, scholars and 'experts' to legitimize and provide moral authority for its hegemony over the masses." : Ed Crane
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yet nobody cares......they got more important things to worry about....like who the next american idol will be....sometimes I want to throw in the towel and join them
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- dissimulator
- 1 year ago
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The day I join the mindless masses in thier media coma is the day I drill a hole in my brain. To be entertained and uninformed is the curse of the blissfully ignorant.
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good post whitenoise. Air America host and historian Thom Hartman said that this giant bank bailout is what they did before the last Great Republican Depression, and the banks failed anyway causing the depression. He said it was also tried in Japan in the late 90s and didn't work there either. He says if we have that money to spend, it should be used like FDR did and forget the fat cats. Build the infrastructure, save the mortgages for the people, protect schools and social security from privatization because that will be next, and rebuild the economy by putting people back to work. Raise the minimum wage to 14/hr so people can live on it too.
This is the biggest rip off in history.
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YEP
America is about to taste the medicine it’s institutions like the World Bank & International Money Fund has been administrating the world over.
Joseph Stilglitz should know; he was the World Bank's former Chief Economist and a Nobel prize winner in economics.
Here’s how it works…
Step One is Privatization - which Stiglitz said could more accurately be called, 'Briberization.' Rather than object to the sell-offs of state industries, he said national leaders - using the World Bank's demands to silence local critics - happily flogged their electricity and water companies. "You could see their eyes widen" at the prospect of 10% commissions paid to Swiss bank accounts for simply shaving a few billion off the sale price of national assets.
And the US government knew it, charges Stiglitz, at least in the case of the biggest 'briberization' of all, the 1995 Russian sell-off. "The US Treasury view was this was great as we wanted Yeltsin re-elected. We don't care if it's a corrupt election. We want the money to go to Yeltzin" via kick-backs for his campaign.
Stiglitz is no conspiracy nutter ranting about Black Helicopters. The man was inside the game, a member of Bill Clinton's cabinet as Chairman of the President's council of economic advisors.
Most ill-making for Stiglitz is that the US-backed oligarchs stripped Russia's industrial assets, with the effect that the corruption scheme cut national output nearly in half causing depression and starvation.
After briberization, Step Two of the IMF/World Bank one-size-fits-all rescue-your-economy plan is 'Capital Market Liberalization.' In theory, capital market deregulation allows investment capital to flow in and out. Unfortunately, as in Indonesia and Brazil, the money simply flowed out and out. Stiglitz calls this the "Hot Money" cycle. Cash comes in for speculation in real estate and currency, then flees at the first whiff of trouble. A nation's reserves can drain in days, hours. And when that happens, to seduce speculators into returning a nation's own capital funds, the IMF demands these nations raise interest rates to 30%, 50% and 80%.
"The result was predictable," said Stiglitz of the Hot Money tidal waves in Asia and Latin America. Higher interest rates demolished property values, savaged industrial production and drained national treasuries.
At this point, the IMF drags the gasping nation to Step Three: Market-Based Pricing, a fancy term for raising prices on food, water and cooking gas.This leads, predictably, to Step-Three-and-a-Half: what Stiglitz calls, "The IMF riot."
The IMF riot is painfully predictable. When a nation is, "down and out, [the IMF] takes advantage and squeezes the last pound of blood out of them. They turn up the heat until, finally, the whole cauldron blows up," as when the IMF eliminated food and fuel subsidies for the poor in Indonesia in 1998. Indonesia exploded into riots, but there are other examples - the Bolivian riots over water prices last year and this February, the riots in Ecuador over the rise in cooking gas prices imposed by the World Bank. You'd almost get the impression that the riot is written into the plan.
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- WhiteNoise
- 1 year ago
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And it is. What Stiglitz did not know is that, while in the States, BBC and The Observer obtained several documents from inside the World Bank, stamped over with those pesky warnings, "confidential," "restricted," "not to be disclosed." Let's get back to one: the "Interim Country Assistance Strategy" for Ecuador, in it the Bank several times states - with cold accuracy - that they expected their plans to spark, "social unrest," to use their bureaucratic term for a nation in flames.
That's not surprising. The secret report notes that the plan to make the US dollar Ecuador's currency has pushed 51% of the population below the poverty line. The World Bank "Assistance" plan simply calls for facing down civil strife and suffering with, "political resolve" - and still higher prices.
The IMF riots (and by riots I mean peaceful demonstrations dispersed by bullets, tanks and teargas) cause new panicked flights of capital and government bankruptcies. This economic arson has it's bright side - for foreign corporations, who can then pick off remaining assets, such as the odd mining concession or port, at fire sale prices.
Stiglitz notes that the IMF and World Bank are not heartless adherents to market economics. At the same time the IMF stopped Indonesia 'subsidizing' food purchases, "when the banks need a bail-out, intervention (in the market) is welcome." The IMF scrounged up tens of billions of dollars to save Indonesia's financiers and, by extension, the US and European banks from which they had borrowed.A pattern emerges. There are lots of losers in this system but one clear winner: the Western banks and US Treasury, making the big bucks off this crazy new international capital churn. Stiglitz told me about his unhappy meeting, early in his World Bank tenure, with Ethopia's new president in the nation's first democratic election. The World Bank and IMF had ordered Ethiopia to divert aid money to its reserve account at the US Treasury, which pays a pitiful 4% return, while the nation borrowed US dollars at 12% to feed its population. The new president begged Stiglitz to let him use the aid money to rebuild the nation. But no, the loot went straight off to the US Treasury's vault in Washington.
Now we arrive at Step Four of what the IMF and World Bank call their "poverty reduction strategy": Free Trade. This is free trade by the rules of the World Trade Organization and World Bank, Stiglitz the insider likens free trade WTO-style to the Opium Wars. "That too was about opening markets," he said. As in the 19th century, Europeans and Americans today are kicking down the barriers to sales in Asia, Latin American and Africa, while barricading our own markets against Third World agriculture.
Ultimately, what drove him to put his job on the line was the failure of the banks and US Treasury to change course when confronted with the crises - failures and suffering perpetrated by their four-step monetarist mambo. Every time their free market solutions failed, the IMF simply demanded more free market policies.
"It's a little like the Middle Ages," the insider told me, "When the patient died they would say, "well, he stopped the bloodletting too soon, he still had a little blood in him."
I took away from my talks with the professor that the solution to world poverty and crisis is simple: remove the bloodsuckers.
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George H W said it and Americans cheered it. I cringed and forecast falling wages, increased living costs...a diminshed American way of life.
The Persian Gulf War presented an opportunity for a "New World Order" to emerge.
Well, with George Jr in office for two terms, Jeb in Florida, Neil (Silverado S & L) and Marvin the streets are running red with hemmoraging debt instruments.
Public funds are being used to finance business activities that should have been financed from profits during the "boom period" instead of being paid out to management.
Jobs are being exported, America is being foreclosed by foreign interests.
New World Order? It's here.
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- dlmontgomery
- 1 year ago
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Everybody should read this article. You need to know what is being done to you without your knowledge or consent. Please take a serious look at the facts.
Whitenoise as always you are well prepared with the ammunition of facts. Thank you for your unwavering focus on protecting our liberties and bringing attention to the utter corruption of both political parties that have WE THE PEOPLE in a perpetual stalemate.
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Hmmm yes, and the US is in debt to China... would they bail the US out? Or just agree to take California and a few other states as payment? It sickens my stomach to see how much in debt we are to China, and how much we the American people have been sold out by our own government to the bankers. It is criminal.The Founding Fathers are rolling in their graves. But remember, Dancing With The Stars is on tonight!
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- JanforGore
- 29 days ago
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Well if you guys are all outraged by the amount of money George W. bush spent, you must be completely livid and just boiling mad about how much money President Obama and the the Pelosi/Reed Congress are spending. Right? I mean here you all are going apeSH*&^% over the amount of money President George W. Bush gave to the Banks, so please do tell me, how completely OUTRAGED are you all now over the amount of our money Obama is giving away. OUR MONEY!!! Please do not remain silent.
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You seem to still be under the horrible illusion & grandiose delusion that 90 % of politicians are actually working for the benefit of the electorate,,, may I suggest you watch these two offerings...
HIGHEST BIDDER
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmhL8bjL9vc&feature=channelMr BURNS vs OBAMA : TOTAL RECESS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_6yLOwvDr0"How to get people to vote against their interests and to really think against their interests is very clever. It's the cleverest ruling class that I have ever come across in history. It's been 200 years at it. It's superb." - Gore Vidal
A little brush with US history could also alleviate your metaphysical anxiety ;)
MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR HYPOCRISY
http://www.mtwsfh.blogspot.com/Good luck bro ;)
"Our only political party has two right wings, one called Republican, the other Democratic. But Henry Adams figured all that out back in the 1890s. 'We have a single system,' he wrote, and 'in that system the only question is the price at which the proletariat is to be bought and sold, the bread and circuses.'" : Gore Vidal - The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
PS : And yes I think Bush was worst than Obama & repugs than dems ;)
On a scale of 1 to 10...how much damage has the previous executive branch has bestowed on america compared to Obama ?
The GOP stole 2 elections… the first by perverting the supreme court…nothing happened…Then 9-11 and a war based on a 1000 lies + the treacherous hoisting of a CIA agent… nothing happened… ENRON....zzzzzz....they proceeded to shred the constitution, kidnapped imprisoned & tortured the world over…nothing…spied on one & all, fired top US attorneys, destroyed evidence… nada… conducted Katrina’s thinly veiled ethic cleansing …zilch…then they took us to the cleaners…
Robert Kennedy Jr. nailed it when he said that during a Repug administration Big Media goes AWOL but comes back with a vengeance as soon as Dems get to power...
Some education & a sense of history is needed to get a little perspective & relative assessment of guilt for the situation we are in but that is waaay to much to ask for the obscurantist crowd so proud of what they ignore ;)
“Even a banana Republican would be distressed to discover how much of our nation’s treasury has been siphoned off by our vice president in the interest of his Cosa Nostra company, Halliburton, the lawless gang of mercenaries set loose by his administration in the Middle East. I have known for a long time that the media of the U.S. and too many of its elected officials give not a flying fuck for the welfare of this republic. “ – Gore Vidal
HALLIBURTON / KBR STEALING US BLIND !
http://current.com/items/89801957_halliburton-kbr-stealing-us-blind.htmThe Fifty Top U.S. War Criminals Who Need To Be Prosecuted
http://current.com/items/90734516_the-fifty-top-u-s-war-criminals-who-need-to-be...A few other blind spots one might want to shed some light on ?
Top 25 Censored Stories for 2010
http://current.com/items/91167719_top-25-censored-stories-for-2010.htm"People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster." - James Baldwin
