MarthA,

I take back whatever I said about you that was mean spirited.  I took offense to your remark that I was a Republican. The last Republican I was for was Eisenhower,and that, I feel, can be forgiven because I was in elementary school and I liked the slogan, “I Like Ike.”

At home:
The 14 CEOs in Massachusetts ran into trouble recently because they did not register as lobbyists.  They’re asking for a 165 B dollar tax cut for Corporations, and all the while they are scheming for the take over of prime real estate in some of the state’s most financially strapped communities, Fall River, New Bedford, Brockton, and so forth.  They want to use the state transportation system but they don’t want to pay for it.  We’ll pick up the tab.

They failed to register as lobbyist as the Boston herald reports it. the story soon gets lost in the legalistic weeds in about the second paragraph. 
The reporter, Jay Fitzgerald, is the son of the Herald’ Joe Fitzgerald who is also known for his writing of sop pieces about his friends in state government who died from alcoholism.

There are many problems here.  The first of which is the “The Jornalist as a Bull Shit Artist”, and the second is that these people don’t know the law, nor as it seems, do they care.

The point is:

Money doesn’t just open doors; it knocks down walls.

Remember, these bozos of a generation ago who wanted “Ronnie” Reagan and What’s-his-face (the other elderly, suited white American male) to serve as co-Presidents.  Where did they find that in the Constitution?

My question:

Where is it written in the Constitution that we could have co-Presidents. 

These fuckin’ morons don’t know what they are doing, and we are the fuckees.

Except in the United States, the populace gets to clean up the private capitalists mess.  It is time to change to socialized capitalism, so that capitalism will not continue to be a cyclical mess that has to be cleaned up by the populace.

Are you ready for Austerity?  The Greeks aren’t.  They hit the streets and said, “The bankers made this mess; why don’t they clean it up?

The EU has forced Angela Merkl to pay for Greece’s bondage.  This will be done through, guess what, Austerity for the German people.

Like the the sign in the coffee rooms in a lot of companies says,  “Your mother doesn’t work here.  Clean up your own mess.”

Socialism is the basis of community, community is the basis of cities, counties and states within the United States as a nation, and socialism in the United States has been very successful in the United States, successful enough to cyclically rescue Capitalism as a zombie every time Capitalism goes into a death spiral.

There were many death spirals of Capitalism where Capitalism has been reanimated as a zombie prior to 1929 and Capitalism has been reanimated since 1929 as a zombie prior to 2008, but the 2008 reanimation of Capitalism by socialism was the most socially costly reanimation of Capitalism in the history of the world.

However, socialism in the United States has never needed to be rescued.  Socialism in the United States has existed in the United States since the very origin of the United States as a nation, and socialism in the United States has always been healthy and vibrant.

Capitalism in the United States, on the other hand, goes into a cyclical death spiral every 40 to 50 years and requires socialism in the United States to reanimate it as a zombie and Zombie Capitalism reanimated and brought back to life then lives until Capitalism’s next death spiral as a dependant upon socialism to reanimate its privatized interests as Zombie Capitalism.

Privatized Capitalism is a “moral hazard” for socialism.  Capitalism serves privatized interests and interests of greater greed.

Socialism is accused, condemned, denounced and demonized by Zombie Capitalism and without socialism Zombie Capitalism could not and would not exist and have the opportunity to be cyclically reanimated as a zombie by socialism.

Socialism in the United States has existed prior to and since 1776 to the present and always has to resurrect Privatized Capitalism as an ungrateful zombie that without gratitude tries to kill the very thing that gives it life, and cyclically brings Capitalism back to life as a zombie.

It is time for socialized capitalism that serves the greater good as an economic system within a social system.  Socialized capitalism, that does not need to be cyclically reanimated as a zombie.

With socialized capitalism health care for the greater good of the populace will be significant to the economy and the populace will no longer be asked to give up benefit for the populace to rescue private capitalist bankers.

And the beat goes on. 
Jack Kemp’s idea of Economic Free Zones, where a company can do whatever the hell it wants within a certain geographical area, has been re-branded as “Growth Districts” and 14 CEOs in Massachusetts are bandying them about to the Boston Globe and to the solons on Beacon Hill.
The CEOS are: DesPrez of John Hancock, Fish of Suffolk Construction, Gifford of Bank of America, Gottleib of Partners Healthcare, Kelly of Liberty Mutual, Kraft of the Kraft Group (and owner of the NE Patriots footbal team), Logue of State Street Bank, May of NSTAR, Reynolds of Putnam Investments, Sargent of Staples, Laura Sen of BJ’s Wholesale Club, Swanson of Raytheon, and Tucci of EMC.
The Growth Districts, or Economic Free Zones are the Global Capitalists’ dream come true.  No taxes, no regulations, and the manager is the Czar.  And you know that he’ll do what’s best for workers, for the company and for the country because they all wear nice suits and they part their hair on the left, except for Laura Sen and May.  May has a four-inch part running over the top of his head.  Laura wears a Dorothy Hamil mop.
These economic pirates together with Obama’s highwaymen are not going solve this problem we are going through with the economy, they’re going to wear it down.
They’re stuffing everything back into the pot along with a few globaloney spices, and then they’ll put the lid back on and reapply the heat. 
In this instance it would’ve been better if Kemp had lived and his idea had died.

Welfare for the Wealthy, like the United States.  Welfare for widowed, divorced or unwed mothers can’t be allowed, but Welfare for the Wealthy, that’s different, they need bonuses;  to Hell with single mothers with children, surely the church somewhere will take care of them.  Oh!  Churches don’t do that?  Oh well, the Wealthy come first, ordained by God you know.

The UK BANKING SYSTEM WAS INDIPENDENT UNTILL THE MELTDOWN OF 2009. Now that has changed and Lloyds is 40% owned by the people of the UK. It has just posted huge losses for last year and huge bonuses for its workers.

Here is some information from 4 interviews with Professor Jeff Cohen that helps in assessing the causes of our economic situation and the stonewalling in Congress:

Progressives and the Democratic Party - Part 1:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4775

Progressives and the Democratic Party - Part 2:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4783

Progressives and the Democratic Party - Part 3:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4786

Progressives and the Democratic Party - Part 4:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4787

With all these congressmen and Senators retiring to spend more time with their families(ahem), and Tom Harkin pushing for the end of the filibuster rule, sumpin’s up.

Why don’t they just enforce the filibuster rule.  You want to stop a bill, get up off your ass and start talking.  See how long that lasts. 

That’s another indicator, sumpin’s up.

Douglas Wilder, ex-Democratic Gov of Virginia, was asked three questions on C-SPAN this morning.  The second question was why no Social Security COLA for two years?  For the first question, Wilder was almost laughing aloud when the woman suggested that the congress should take more public input, especially with the health bill where single payer was not even on the table. 

He skipped the question on Social Security but his demeanor changed abruptly from derision to a politicians’ serious look. As if to say to himself, “Oh, no.  Social Security is on their minds.  What to do? What to do?”

Right now, I bet the DemReps are meeting to work out a strategy for privatizing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

That’s where breaking the filibuster rule comes in.  Ryan the noodnik Republican Congressman from Wisconsin has already entered just such a bill.  The bill would privatize Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Now, they have to figure out a way politically to get it through. 
The Republican half of the cabal will most likely take the heat and force it through.  The Democrats can maintain their facade of working for the best of their constituents and bemoan the loss. 
Thom Hartmann gave a brief explanation of Social Security as it stands today with the Social Security Trust Fund in place to keep the program healthy till 2040 while the economy digests the swell of baby-boomers.
Social Security hasn’t missed a check since it began, but all the pols and pundits are yelling like Chicken Little.  “It’s going broke.  We’re going broke.  Turn it over to the guys on Wall Street who gave us the meltdown.”
If that goddamn Bush were half the salesman they trumped him up to be, the pols would not be in this conundrum.
Along comes, Mr. Obama.  They think he’ll catch everyone off guard.  After all, he’s smart, Harvard educated and all.  The loud-mouthed dummies who constitute the tea baggers will certainly fall for this one.  Why they were saying, “No government health care and don’t touch my Medicare.”
But the outlier is the 900 trillion in Credit Default Swaps that is still lurking out there.  Someone’s gotta pay it off and it ain’t gonna be the ones who made the bets in the first place. 
The present day children of the Ruling Class that hated FDR will finally get their payback.  And the millions who are left in utter poverty will have to do more to get by than use their tea bags twice.
All the retired pols will be Jamaica, Dominican Republic, or somewhere in South America and we’ll be left holding the bag.
It’s getting nasty in the street now.  Two classes of people: the young selfish narcissists and the older farts who lost most of their life’s savings after the fall of Baer Stearns and Lehmann Bros.
You won’t hear the truth about Social Security either from now until the deed is done.

Thomas Frank/Bill Moyers Interview:  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01152010/transcript1.html

(Page 1 of 2)

THOMAS FRANK: What conservatism in this country is about is government failure. Conservatives talk about government failure all the time, constantly. And conservatives, when they’re in power deliver government failure.

THOMAS FRANK: Once Bush was out, there was a study done of the SEC, as well. These people didn’t even have like their own functioning photocopiers, okay? So, we’re talking about the lawyers that are supposed to be protecting us from Wall Street. And they have to go stand in line at Kinko’s to do their own photocopying. And they’re going up against the best paid, you know, best educated lawyers on planet Earth, who represent the investment banks. And they’re supposed to be defending us.

BILL MOYERS: So what’s the consequence of this pay gap you described? Or, do we get inferior government because of it?

THOMAS FRANK: Absolutely. It keeps the best and the brightest out of government service, unless you’re really dedicated to a cause.

But let me go one step further with this, Bill. When I say this is done by design, I’m not exaggerating. And this is one of the more surprising things that I found when I was doing the research for “The Wrecking Crew,” is that there’s a whole conservative literature on why you want second-rate people in government, or third-rate.

I found an interview with the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from 1928, where he said—this quote, it’s mind-boggling to me. But he really said this. “The best public servant is the worst one.” Okay? You want bad people in government. You want to deliberately staff government with second-rate people. Because if you have good people in government, government will work. And then the public will learn to trust government. And then they’ll hand over more power to it.

And you don’t want that, of course. Your Chamber of Commerce. And I thought, when I first read this, “That’s a crazy idea. I can’t believe that sentiment.” And then I found it repeated again and again and again. Throughout the long history of the conservative movement. This is something they believe very deeply.

THOMAS FRANK: That the market is the, you know, is the universal principle of human civilization. And that government is a kind of interloper, if not a, you know, criminal gang. And getting in the way.

BILL MOYERS: And yet there’s no sense of contrition. What’s amazing to me, and you wrote this, that the very people who brought us this decade of conservative failures, the party of Palin, Beck, Hannity, Abramoff, Rove, DeLay, Kristol, O’Reilly, just might stage a comeback.

BILL MOYERS: Do you really think they believe that unfettered capitalism, unregulated markets, will deliver an ideal democracy and prosperity for everybody?

THOMAS FRANK: No, I don’t. I think that they believe that, and to some degree, they’re sincere in that belief. But the conservative movement in Washington, I’m not talking about grassroots voters in Kansas here. I’m talking about the conservative movement in Washington. And the whole constellation of think tanks and lobby shops and not-for-profits. And, you know, newspapers and fundraisers and all of this stuff.

They believe this is an industry, okay? And one of the things that, I mean, it’s

Thomas Frank/Bill Moyers Interview

(Page 2 if 2)

one of the things that they’re doing now is they excommunicate George W. Bush, deeply unpopular, so therefore, not a true conservative,right? So, that way they get to start over fresh. The problem with George W. Bush, the reason we’re in such a deep hole is that we never went far enough.

As Tom DeLay has said, in his newspaper column, and I’m paraphrasing here. The problem with conservatism isn’t that it was tried and failed. It’s that it never really got—we never really tried it in the first place. So, what we have to do—and I’ve heard, conservatives have said this. “What we have to do is go back and deregulate all the way. We have to, you know, slash government. We have to tear that thing down. That’s what it’s all about.”

And the amazing thing about this. This allows them to represent themselves as dissidents against the sort of established order in Washington. Even though they ran the established order for years and years and years and years.

BILL MOYERS: Here’s something else that’s bizarre to me. And I wonder what you think about it, as a historian. I mean, right after the failed terrorist threat of Christmas, Obama’s critics went to work scrubbing what happened when the Bush White House was out to lunch in the weeks and days leading up to 9/11.

I mean, you know, there were terrorists sneaking into the country. There were warnings from the intelligence community about something—an attack on an American city coming. And that’s all been flushed down the memory hole. Giuliani goes on the air and says, “We didn’t have any terrorist attacks when Bush was President.”

THOMAS FRANK: Yeah, and that’s another—we also forget the anthrax episode which happened right after 9/11. Look, this is not an argument that I have made. That other people have—that all of these things need to be added to the list of government failures. And if you want to talk why does government fail? You know, there’s two answers out there.

One is the conservative answer. Government fails because that’s the nature of government to fail. And if you want to look a little bit deeper, you know, why does government fail? Because government has been systematically destroyed. When we, whether you’re talking about the, you know, the pay gap and making—deliberately making government an unattractive career option. Or you’re talking about outsourcing.

This is another conservative strategy for dealing with the state. If you hate and despise government employees. And you understand them as, you know, unbelievable human wickedness, right? What do you do about them? Well, the answer’s obvious. And at the same time, you believe in the market. You believe that private industry does everything better. You outsource the Federal workforce.

THOMAS FRANK:  And the conservative movement tends to be deeply, deeply, deeply cynical about government. Now, it’s also, I mean, deeply idealistic about the market. I mean, the market can do no wrong, almost by definition. But government they regard as a criminal gang. I mean, many, many conservatives have compared—oh, they always do, compare government to criminals. All the time.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01152010/profile.html

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

We, the American Populace/Back Street America, must remember that our economic situation was originated through leadership of Right-Wing Conservative Republican EXTREMISTS.  Along with those who are retiring, the Primaries will clean a bunch of the Republicans-Lite out of the Democratic Party and move our country closer to Political Balance.  Any Right-Wing Republican right now would be disastrous for the American Populace/Back Street America.  We, the American Populace/Back Street America must somehow keep the Democratic Party in control until we can get the Democratic Party totally cleaned up of the corporate toady infestation.

Krugman asks: “Do the bankers really not understand what happened, or are
they just talking their self-interest”—as if were an open question.  That he
doesn’t seem to know himself, or avoids saying so, is part of the problem.
Mainstream commentators like Krugman have provided a paucity of accurate
reportage or analysis of where we are, how we got there, and where we are
headed. They mostly hide behind “who knew” and “who knows,” just like the
bankers who, bottom line, own the debt of their media outlets.

The fact is, our government’s long toleration of ongoing fraud at the very core
of the system enabled Wall Street banks, broker-dealers and hedge funds
running all kinds of hot, dirty and foreign money along with their own, to reap
huge, often tax free profits, by selling and never delivering unlimited quantities
of phantom stock, options, bonds, and even US Treasuries, with total impunity. 
Over the years, the practice has destroyed countless companies and crushed
the hopes and dreams of millions of investors worldwide.  Yet the SEC, self-
proclaimed as “the investors first line of defense against securities fraud” and
“the pre-eminent gold standard of enforcement of securities laws,” has not
brought a single enforcement action to stop it or punish the perpetrators.  Is it
any wonder the bad guys have come to feel invulnerable?

Why were all the safeguards so intentionally set in place in 1933 and 1934
abandoned? Because those empowered to make and enforce our laws— sworn
to be good stewards of the public interest— allowed themselves to be seduced
and inducted to serve private interests, not the least of which their own,
courtesy of campaign contributions, lobbyist largess, lucrative job prospects,
and other co-optive emoluments known anywhere else in the world as bribes.
When will we learn that it’s not about politics, ideology or principle?  It’s about
the money!  But drop me a line the next time you hear any corporate or
mainstream media pro daring to talk or write about it in those terms. 
Somehow, as obvious and pernicious a role as it plays in our political process,
discussing venal motive is off limits, part of the pretense that our elected
officials actually represent the best interests of the people who voted for them
(as distinguished from those who bankroll them).

full comment at:http://calltoaccount.wordpress.com/army-of-avarice-plunders-america-into-calamity-that-did-not-have-to-happen/

Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission

(Page 1 of 2)

Bankers Without a Clue
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: January 14, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/opinion/15krugman.html

The official Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission — the group that aims to hold a modern version of the Pecora hearings of the 1930s, whose investigations set the stage for New Deal bank regulation — began taking testimony on Wednesday. In its first panel, the commission grilled four major financial-industry honchos. What did we learn?

Well, if you were hoping for a Perry Mason moment — a scene in which the witness blurts out: “Yes! I admit it! I did it! And I’m glad!” — the hearing was disappointing. What you got, instead, was witnesses blurting out: “Yes! I admit it! I’m clueless!”

O.K., not in so many words. But the bankers’ testimony showed a stunning failure, even now, to grasp the nature and extent of the current crisis. And that’s important: It tells us that as Congress and the administration try to reform the financial system, they should ignore advice coming from the supposed wise men of Wall Street, who have no wisdom to offer.

Consider what has happened so far: The U.S. economy is still grappling with the consequences of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression; trillions of dollars of potential income have been lost; the lives of millions have been damaged, in some cases irreparably, by mass unemployment; millions more have seen their savings wiped out; hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, will lose essential health care because of the combination of job losses and draconian cutbacks by cash-strapped state governments.

And this disaster was entirely self-inflicted. This isn’t like the stagflation of the 1970s, which had a lot to do with soaring oil prices, which were, in turn, the result of political instability in the Middle East. This time we’re in trouble entirely thanks to the dysfunctional nature of our own financial system. Everyone understands this — everyone, it seems, except the financiers themselves.

There were two moments in Wednesday’s hearing that stood out. One was when Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase declared that a financial crisis is something that “happens every five to seven years. We shouldn’t be surprised.” In short, stuff happens, and that’s just part of life.

Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission

(Page 2 of 2)

Bankers Without a Clue
By PAUL KRUGMAN (cont.)

But the truth is that the United States managed to avoid major financial crises for half a century after the Pecora hearings were held and Congress enacted major banking reforms. It was only after we forgot those lessons, and dismantled effective regulation, that our financial system went back to being dangerously unstable.

As an aside, it was also startling to hear Mr. Dimon admit that his bank never even considered the possibility of a large decline in home prices, despite widespread warnings that we were in the midst of a monstrous housing bubble.

Still, Mr. Dimon’s cluelessness paled beside that of Goldman Sachs’s Lloyd Blankfein, who compared the financial crisis to a hurricane nobody could have predicted. Phil Angelides, the commission’s chairman, was not amused: The financial crisis, he declared, wasn’t an act of God; it resulted from “acts of men and women.”

Was Mr. Blankfein just inarticulate? No. He used the same metaphor in his prepared testimony in which he urged Congress not to push too hard for financial reform: “We should resist a response ... that is solely designed around protecting us from the 100-year storm.” So this giant financial crisis was just a rare accident, a freak of nature, and we shouldn’t overreact.

But there was nothing accidental about the crisis. From the late 1970s on, the American financial system, freed by deregulation and a political climate in which greed was presumed to be good, spun ever further out of control. There were ever-greater rewards — bonuses beyond the dreams of avarice — for bankers who could generate big short-term profits. And the way to raise those profits was to pile up ever more debt, both by pushing loans on the public and by taking on ever-higher leverage within the financial industry.

Sooner or later, this runaway system was bound to crash. And if we don’t make fundamental changes, it will happen all over again.

Do the bankers really not understand what happened, or are they just talking their self-interest? No matter. As I said, the important thing looking forward is to stop listening to financiers about financial reform.

Wall Street executives will tell you that the financial-reform bill the House passed last month would cripple the economy with overregulation (it’s actually quite mild). They’ll insist that the tax on bank debt just proposed by the Obama administration is a crude concession to foolish populism. They’ll warn that action to tax or otherwise rein in financial-industry compensation is destructive and unjustified.

But what do they know? The answer, as far as I can tell, is: not much.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/opinion/15krugman.html
(End of Paul Krugman’s Commentary)

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

Things will change when Back Street America/the American Populace that pay with their communal resources to clean up the messes that Wall Street, the American Aristocracy, and Main Street, the Professional Middle Class, made in pursuit of Short-Term Profit by way of Financialization that they knew from the very beginning was a “moral hazard” that the American Populace/Back Street America would have to clean up when the Financial Bubble broke.

To say that Wall Street and Main Street did not know the results of Financialization is to deny the history of 14th Century Spain, and after Spain, Holland, and Britain, and that all of these countries economies were destroyed by Financialization; Wall Street and Main Street Bankers are educated people and know the cause and effect of Financialization of the U.S. Economy, and financialized the U.S. Economy as part of a scheme to acquire Short-Term Profit at the expense of the U.S. Economy and the American Populace/Back Street America.

Alan, January 15 at 3:03 am,

Hope would be better served that would allow the American Populace/Back Street America, to understand the Pyramid Scheme that is a Capitalist Economy, and how financializing a Capitalist Economy undermines the “real economy” for financial benefit for those at the Top of the Pyramid.

Here are a few threads from other sites that update this thread:

Second Wave of Mortgage Defaults:
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/705.html

Wall Street’s Plot to Wreck America Must Be Revealed - This week’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission hearings must shed light on what happened in the meltdown:
http://www.alternet.org/story/145055/wall_street’s_plot_to_wreck_america_must_be_revealed?page=entire

IMF Economist Says 2nd Economic Collapse 2/3:
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/761.html

Night-Gaunt,

Thanks for the Greider reference.  I want to read that and the articles in Mother Jones this month.

Bill Moyers did a show last night on it.

From what David Corn said, it seems that no one knows exactly what to do, or what will happen, but I have an ominous sense that whatever happens it won’t be good.

Moyers mentioned a few websites that have been created to try to gather some momentum.  I didn’t take them down, though.

If the Supreme Court strikes down the McCain Feingold campaign law, the corporations’ll get free rein, and as William Black said, “It’ll be Katie bar the door.”
It strikes me as a little ironic that the justices who rail about strict constructionism and that the Constitution meant only what it explicity said, that it was in fact, not a “living document” can turn around and use it to “breathe” life into an inanimate entity, a Corporation.
 
We should call that a reenactment of the second chapter of Genesis.

You are correct Garth and now what can be done? Can we out bid them to wrest control from them? So few in the gov’t who are not corrupted and corruptible.

I remember the argument that the Republican Party made about year ago that if the Government bailed out the banks and took them over then it would be another step down the path to communism.
As it has turned out, the banks took over the Government lock, stock and barrel.  We, our elected officials, are now owned and controlled by the Wall Street, the insurance companies, the drug companies, etc.

Next will come Agri-business and Water companies like Nestles.

We’ll be left with control over parking tickets and traffic violations.

American Populace/Back Street America:

Pyramid Schemes in America

Why is it that those who engage in commerce, Republican Right-Wing Conservative EXTREMISTS, understand that multiplying sales and purchases without multiplying things is a good thing as the basis of the Pyramid Scheme of Privatized Capitalism? ——— but, understand that multiplying repetition of definition, knowledge, concept, meaning, and understanding without multiplying things is a bad thing; the former supports and enriches the wealth of those at the Top of the Economic Pyramid, and the latter supports and enriches the knowledge and understanding of those that are the Base of the Pyramid below those at the Top of the Pyramid Scheme of Privatized Capitalism—— could this be the reason why that multiplying sales and purchases without multiplying things, commerce, increases wealth at the Top of the Pyramid, but that commerce applied to definition, concept, meaning, knowledge, and understanding would dilute wealth at the Top of the Economic Pyramid and lead to a more homogenous distribution of wealth throughout the entire Pyramid.

If commerce in commodities is a good thing, commerce in knowledge and understanding is also a good thing; the only difference is that the former is good for the few, those at the Top of the Pyramid of Privatized Capitalism, and the latter is good for the many, those beneath the Top of the Pyramid of Privatized Capitalism —— both are an application of a Pyramid Scheme; and if commerce is good for Capitalism, commerce is also good for multiplying and spreading understanding throughout the Populace of a Societal and Economic Pyramid.

William Grieder covers the possibles in “The Nation” have a look at what he says on this.

And couple that with a system that allows them to take incredible risk but foist the losses on us but reap the rewards too must end.

Riots and insurrections are predictable, ala the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution, when the people find their situations economically hopeless. Mass unemployment will foster mass civil unrest, crime, anger, riots, revolution, starvation, etc. Future federal nationalization (stealing) of foreign owned US property and other foreign owned US business assets, ala Mexico, Venezuela, etc., is another topic for discussion on another day.

If any future US revolution to overthrow the US government is successful and occurs for some valid reason (maybe to protest the economic situation), where will all of the food, fuel, water, sanitation, medicine, and other necessities to support the population come from after the revolution? After a revolution will US citizens all starve if we are in a city? The US population cannot live off of the land anymore. Will the US citizen city dwellers foray into the country, kill the farmers, and steal the farmer’s food to feed the city dweller’s family? Will foreigners hire the unemployed US military (and maybe various city policemen) to keep the US population under control, or to regain control, and/or to re-establish law & order after an economic collapse and resultant civil unrest?

Chaos and total lawlessness will prevail during and long after any US revolution. Only the very meanest and the most evil will survive in this climate. We will have then totally destroyed our civilization. We will live like people in Africa, and we will be made to comply with the will of any and every armed person that we meet. Will all of the city residents starve after a revolution? Most of the US urban population is not intelligent enough to live off of the land anymore. The city dwellers might foray into the country, kill the farmers, and steal the farmer’s food to feed their own families? Food might become more valuable than paper money.

We are approaching that point of no return, which I will define as the point where we have sold all of our privately owned assets to foreign owners to pay for our imported products that we consumed and our silly government expenses. After foreigners own all of our wealth and US locates assets, we will no longer have any economic or intellectual resources available for re-industrialization.

US citizens no longer believe that we are our brother’s keeper. We have become a mobile society that has no permanent neighborhood roots or sense of community relation to one another.

After the US economy is totally and completely destroyed and when the vast majority are unemployed with no prospects for future employment, and when the citizens have no confidence in the government, the US citizens might listen to a charismatic politician who will promise the nation into a new government that will correct all of the real and imagined injustices that are hurting the citizens in return for absolute political power and suspension of the US Constitution.

I believe that Martin Luther King stated something to the effect that “Everything that Adolph Hitler did was legal.”

Fixing the economy RIGHT NOW might prevent a future second American Revolution.

I think Jargle has it right.  It is only beginning.  ThomasG tries to expalin the news by repeating the news.  We know all that.  What is going on now is a fight at the the top.  Investigations into Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs say one thing:  Some of the big investors got burned and they want their money back.  Those behind the investigations have influence over part of the Justice Department and the banks have influence over the WH and Congress.
Who is going to win?
But besides the mechanics of the deal being explained and explained, as Truedigger3 points out, the cause can be revealed simply by a little thought.  Ask, Who wins and who loses?
BTW:  Jamie Dimond of Chase Morgan loves Geithner.  Geithner paid 4 billion dollars, full value, on a rip-off orchestrated by Dimond.  What’s not to like about this man-child, Geithner.
Don’t settle for explanations. At some point, some head gotta roll.
Or are we like the infant in a stroller:  Like stealing candy from a baby.

Happy Nuevo Ano!

He is so effective they keep him on the air even thought he lost over 60 sponsors an is paid millions of dollars—-why? Because he is getting his (and his backers) points across and they believe it! A lousy state of affairs when the people who are really giving news and analysis i.e. Schultz, Olberman, Ratiger & Maddow aren’t drawing in nearly the same amount or more. Why is that? The stupidity and credulity of the general American viewing public I would say. A bad time as the Republic crumbles. Jefferson and many others warned against this.

Maria Sanchez, December 26 at 7:04 pm,

Glenn Beck is a demagogic, fulminating and equivocating Hitleresque sophist propagandist, an expedient opportunist working as a PAID toiler for the Republican Right-Wing Conservative EXTREMIST Movement as a minion.

Glenn Beck is lower than slime on scum, and has only one redeeming quality, and that is as a bad example to be avoided, rather than emulated.

Back Street is All the Streets OFF Main Street Where the Populace Live

When politicians and the Media talk about the “American People”, they need to talk about what part of the American people they are speaking for by putting words in their mouths—the American Aristocracy, the Professional Middle Class or Back Street America, that is all streets off Main Street —— the American Populace, the Masses of the American Population, the 70% MAJORITY Common Population of the United States——that are the working population of citizens of the United States that are the consumers that provide the communal resources that enable the U.S. Economy—Wall Street and Main Street— and cyclically rescue the U.S. Economy—Wall Street and Main Street—from its “greed is good” behavior when the American Aristocracy and Professional Middle Class make a mess of the U.S. Economy and out of greedy self interest destroy the U.S. Economy for short term benefit, and then rely on Back Street America to clean up the mess.

The Majority Population of the United States is NOT Main Street

(Page 1 of 2)

Back Street is the MAJORITY Population of the United States; NOT Wall Street or Main Street and Back Street is left out of dialogue and consideration.  Main Street is represented by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Wall Street is represented by both Houses of the Congress and the Government of the United States.  Back Street is completely left out of dialogue and consideration and is not represented by the Chamber of Commerce, the Congress of the United States and the Government of the United States.

Why is it that everyone in government and the media are always harping on a propagandistic dichotomy that is inclusive of Wall Street and Main Street and, without exception, always leave out Back Street?

The Populace of the United States, the 70% Majority Common Population of the United States as a class and culture of workers and consumers that constitute the majority of the citizens of the United States, are always left out of political dialogue and consideration by both the Government of the United States and the Media. Wall Street is a minority population, Main Street is a minority population and Back Street is a MAJORITY population.
Democracy does not flow from Wall Street and Main Street.  Democracy flows from Back Street, and Back Street demands to be included in dialogue, consideration and equitable solutions along with Wall Street and Main Street, and so far the Obama Administration, Obama’s Government and the government of the U.S. are not including Back Street in their consideration and equitable solutions in dealing with the effects of the economic collapse of the U.S. Economy caused by Wall Street and the complicit cooperation of Main Street.

The Majority Population of the United States is NOT Main Street

(Page 2 of 2)

The organized protest movements and demonstrations have started and will grow until Back Street becomes a part of the dialogue and the government of the United States and the Congress; and the Media makes Back Street an equitable part of the solution to the economic collapse of the U.S. Economy that was inflicted upon Back Street by Wall Street and Main Street.

There is more to the U.S. Economy than farmers, manufacturers, and bankers, these people constitute Wall Street and Main Street, and exclude Back Street. Back Street is the long suffering citizens of the U.S. that are the workers and consumers from the bottom of the top of the Pyramid of the U.S. Economy to the base of the Pyramid of the U.S. Economy that make the U.S. Economy function and furnish the communal resources to save the U.S. Economy on a cyclical basis when Wall Street and Main Street get greedy, create a financial bubble, collapse that same bubble, and destroy the U.S. Economy.

Back Street is being left out, and is always left out, of consideration and equitable benefit from solutions while being forced by law to provide the money to save the U.S. Economy that excludes Back Street from equity relative to Wall Street and Main Street; this must change.

Back Street is now aware that Back Street is not a part of an equitable solution by the Government of the United States and the U.S. Congress. Agitation and demonstrations have already started with mass demonstrations on the streets. Demonstrations and agitation will increase because Back Street does not have any faith in the government and Congress to do anything other than force them to furnish their communal resources in service to the U.S. Economy that provides benefit only to Wall Street and Main Street and excludes Back Street from benefit from the U.S. Economy;——This must change if revolution against economic oppression and tyranny in the United States is going to be avoided by the government, Congress, and interests of business and industry that receive exclusive benefit from the U.S. Economy at the expense of Back Street, who receive NOTHING,  except the bill to clean up Wall Street and Main Street’s mess. 

Wall Street and Main Street are two singular streets that serve the top of the pyramid that is the U.S. Economy. Back Street is all of those other streets where the American populace of the United States live and are suffering from the self serving greed of Wall Street and Main Street. Wall Street got bailed out with the resources of Back Street for the benefit of Wall Street and Main Street, but Back Street has received no benefit from the bailout, only the bill that they and ten generations of their progeny will have to pay for, so that Wall Street and Main Street can continue to live like Louis XVI, secure in the attitude that if Back Street does not have bread, “Let them eat cake”.  This attitude did not go over well with the Back Street Populace of France and this attitude is not going over well with the Populace of the United States.

If America’s Bastille of Wall Street and Main Street is not to be stormed as occurred in France; Back Street must get equitable benefit from the Pyramid of the U.S. Economy, rather than just the bill and the arrogant attitude that if the American Populace are homeless, hungry, and don’t have bread, “Let them eat cake”.

A Dig compiled by the editors of Truthdig says:

“Getting a grip on the economic catastrophe that rocked the country during the fall of 2008 is no easy feat, what with so many players, back-room deals, bills, upswings and meltdowns to consider.”

ThomasG’s answer:

Privatized Capitalism is a Ponzi Pyramid Scheme

(Page 1 of 2)

Why is Privatized Capitalism a Ponzi Pyramid Scheme?

Privatized Capitalism is a “Ponzi Pyramid Scheme” because those at the TOP of the pyramid get exclusive private benefit, the Revenue Stream of Capital, generated by production and distribution of commodities at the top of the pyramid through the use of labor and consumption of those at the BOTTOM of the pyramid that generate that same capital.

SUPPLY flows from the top of the pyramid, down.

DEMAND flows from the bottom of the pyramid, up.

Supply from the top of the pyramid is limited in number of commodities with regard to demand in number of population from the bottom of the pyramid.

WEALTH is generated for those at the top of the pyramid by means of commerce, supply and demand, which multiplies sales and purchases, WITHOUT multiplying things from the top of the pyramid down to the base of the pyramid; this is called CIRCULATION.

The allocation of Capital and Capital Assets for production and distribution of commodities and expanding demand for those commodities by a downward trajectory of circulation from the top of the pyramid to the bottom of the pyramid diminishes the supply and increases the price of the remaining commodities as the number of individual transactions increase on a downward trajectory from the top to the bottom of the pyramid.

From the top of the pyramid downward, Capital and Capital Assets, the class and cultural means of production and distribution, are class and culturally socialized into private ownership by those at the TOP of the pyramid and used to produce a limited supply of commodities for distribution to the many between the top and the base of the pyramid; as the commodities produced and distributed by those at the top of the pyramid are distributed downward from the top of the pyramid to the base of the pyramid, the supply decreases and the demand increases, as the expanding competition to purchase a limited supply of resources increases on a downward trajectory to the base of the pyramid.

A Dig compiled by the editors of Truthdig says:

“Getting a grip on the economic catastrophe that rocked the country during the fall of 2008 is no easy feat, what with so many players, back-room deals, bills, upswings and meltdowns to consider.”

ThomasG’s answer:

Privatized Capitalism is a Ponzi Pyramid Scheme

(Page 2 of 2)

Circulation of a limited supply of commodities to an expanding base of demand at the base of the pyramid increases both transactions and cost for the limited supply of commodities in a downward trajectory from the top of the pyramid to the base of the pyramid; this increasing circulation of progressively diminishing commodities at increasing prices as demand becomes greater and greater on a downward trajectory to the base of the pyramid creates relative wealth at the top of the pyramid from production and distribution at the top of the pyramid and increasing demand for consumption from the top of the pyramid downward to the base of the pyramid.

The Scheme of Privatized Capitalism is dependent upon socialized class and cultural ownership of the means of production and distribution, Capital and Capital Assets, by those at the top of the pyramid and those beneath the top of the pyramid to the base of pyramid providing cheap labor and markets for consumption of what is produced at the top of the pyramid from wages as laborers.

Distribution, consumption and labor for production comes from those beneath the bottom of the top and the base of the pyramid; and is individualized so that an individualized workforce provides both labor and consumption that creates capital, capital flows upward from the base to the top of the pyramid and those beneath the bottom of the top and the base of the pyramid do not receive capital equity.

Why is it that the Ponzi Pyramid Scheme of Privatized Capitalism is not a crime when it is used in a Capitalist Economy, but the SAME PROCESS is a crime when it is used for private gain by people like Charles Ponzi and Bernie Madoff?

If the Ponzi Scheme of Capitalism is good legal business practice by good businessmen and industrialists in the best country in the world, the USA, why is it that Ponzi and Madoff are criminalized for the SAME behavior?

Those at the top of the pyramid get the exclusive benefit of a Revenue Stream of Capital generated from the top of the pyramid, and those beneath the bottom of the top of the pyramid and the base of the pyramid do not get the benefit of the Revenue Stream that is capital; capital is generated from the bottom of the pyramid upward, as a function of demand and consumption for a limited supply of goods that flows downward from the top of the pyramid.

For Capitalism not to be an obscene Ponzi Pyramid Scheme, those at the bottom, top and all points in between the bottom and the top of the pyramid must share in the benefit of the Revenue Stream that is Capital.

Capitalism where all of the people in the pyramid of the economy share in the Revenue Stream that is Capital is what I call “Socialized Capitalism”.

“Socialized Capitalism” where all who are a part of the pyramid of production, distribution and consumption share in the Revenue Stream that is Capital generated by the circulation of supply to the demand for that supply, within the pyramid, would still be a Pyramid Scheme, but it would be a Pyramid Scheme for the greater good of all who are a part of the pyramid, rather than the greater greed for the benefit of the few at the top of the pyramid, like Ponzi, Madoff and Privatized Capitalism.

By “government spending” you are undoubtedly referring to Social Security and Medicare, and not the 1 trillion plus per year that is thrown down the rathole on so called defense spending.
We contribute into Social Security and Medicare.  We get something back.  For the defense, they steal the money out of the budget for all sorts of military schemes and weapons and we get nothing.

I am proposing a new plan. Whereas the average American lives to 78.1 years, which places us 26th in the list of the 30 industrial nations.  However, it still means from 8 to 16 years of Social Security eligibility. That’s quite a bit of cash.  Money that could be well spent dropping a bomb somewhere.
In short, we need the money. 
So I propose we initiate a “Cash For Croakers.”  If you croak before you start stealing from your children and living off the fat of the land, you can leave your loved ones up to 25 thousand.
I’ll bet the ones who crowed about the fictitious Death Panels would be cheering for “Cash For Croakers.”

The NY Times, the Gray Lady, has joined the fray.  (Can you tell me how to get from the NY Times Building to Wall Street?  Or should I just go fuck myself.)
It’s all good.  Deficits, schmeficits.  They were expected to be as high as 1.5 trillion.  The NYT reports today that they are as low as 1.3 trillion. 
The bailouts worked.
Now, I am not a deficits kinda guy, but what they said about the bailouts irked me.  We wuz robbed.  Plain and simple.  To the tune of 750 billion dollars.  Does anyone here remember the reports of the threats on Congressmen if they didn’t vote for the robbery?
I think I should go into a bank and say, “Stick ‘em up!  Give me 750 billion.  Now, let’s have a show of hands…... “

That is what happened.  Now they are saying it saved us from the abyss.

Well I want to get another glimpse of that abyss, before I believe these people again.

I suggest that you not believe anything from these people until “Law ‘n Order” is restored.

That means .....

It is the other outcome of “Its a Wonderful Life” where George is dead and gaudy capitalism is alive, well and flourishing. Do you want to live there? Too late.

Greed is ultimately psychopathic.  Greed crashed capitalism.  Psychopathic denial purports that capitalism is alive.  Reality rains down upon the workers as jobs, homes, and health insurance disappear.  The crush of hardship spreads it’s wings leaving families increasingly in despair. Children go hungry in nightmarish numbers shattering the hearts and souls of parents.  Tiny Tim is dead.  Merry Christmas 2009.

The not so subtle coverup of what they actually did to crash the economy is starting to echo throughout the media.  First, their key was to stop the interbank lending, which is a common practice.  Banks borrow money overnight and then pay it back on the next business day.  This is the oil that greases the cogs.  However, if the borrowing bank goes bankrupt before the lending bank opens on the next day, then the lending bank loses that money.  No good!
The Wall Streeteers led by Henry “the Hammer” Paulsen drove Lehmann Bros over the cliff, thereby, stopping interbank lending for a few months.  Everything stopped.
Now the Thieves Without Masks could write a note to the teller demanding, say, 700 no make that 750 billion.
Well, some jamoke appeared on C-SPAN on Friday morning Dec. 5th whose name was something like Dunkell and who claimed to be a chief economist said that he “never heard of interbank lending.”
Now, there’s good example Mickey the Dunce.

With regard to the 2008-2009 Financial Meltdown, I suggested to President Barack Obama that bailout money be used to establish financially solid banks that were independent of toxic capital, and that markets be established for toxic capital that could benefit homeowners and consumers by providing cheap affordable housing to the American Populace.

This could have been done by allowing toxic capital assets to go bankrupt and by a network of sound and financially solid banks supported by bailout resources providing credit to purchase and market toxic assets at ten to fifteen cents on the dollar to provide cheap housing and low payments to the American Populace.  The enormity of the losses to investors of their toxic capital would have generated massive deflation, the bailout money used to capitalize banks FREE of toxic capital would have created massive inflation and the markets enabled by credit from banks without toxic capital would have jump started the economy at the expense of the owners of the toxic capital that created the problem.

Instead of exercising this type of a plan, the bailout money was used to uphold the value of toxic capital and force those who bought toxic capital assets to continue to pay a revenue stream for overvalued capital assets without any expectation of relief, and was of no benefit at all with regard to reinitializing the U.S. Economy.

In order to avoid continuing “moral hazard” by privatized Capitalism, it was necessary for private Capitalists to lose their capital assets and their revenue stream and for others who were not a part of the scam to benefit from their misfortune that they brought down upon themselves;this was NOT done; this should have been done, and the question that looms higher than all others is, why was this not done?

At the expense of the toxic capitalists, the United States could have had a housing boom that would have benefited the masses of the American People and fueled an economic boom in the economy that would have in turn fueled manufacturing, export and the domestic economy; why was all of this given up to recapitalize toxic capital and rescue the revenue stream of a few private toxic capitalists???????

This cycle of socialized communal resources being used to recapitalize toxic capital without benefit to the masses of the American Populace that provide the bailout money has been going on since the advent of privatized capitalism, and it is time for the cycle to stop——it is time for socialized capitalism to replace privatized capitalism.

Very true ThomasG with the ultimate outcome of destroying the Republic and soiling its name. From the ruins they will build a new shiny empire and protect us from “The Road” less traveled. Fiendish in its planning I must say. But only those callous to human suffering would pull such a thing off and we are in the noose even if the majority of us had nothing to do with it. Such as with the poor will pay for the excesses of the richer countries concerning GHG’s and their effects upon our ecosphere. The poor and weak always pay for the strong and wealthy.

garth, November 25 at 3:14 pm,

They, interests of privatized capital, can help themselves, and they have helped themselves to TENS of TRILLIONS of DOLLARS of COMMUNAL RESOURCES taken from the pockets of the masses of the American people, that will diminish the quality of the American peoples lives and the lives of TEN GENERATIONS of their progeny; this is socialized responsibility for privatized capitalist benefit; they have helped themselves, they have gotten away with it, doing so created a “moral hazard” that they will take advantage of and the whole dumb show will start all over again to the tune of “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles” that the masses of the American people have to pay for when greed and self-interest inflates the bubble past what the consumers have the ability to pay, to maintain “Ponzi Scheme” expansion of the bubble.

Don’t buy the Build America Bond (BAB).  It is what the name implies, babble.
It’s the way Timothy Geithner wants to show his mettle to his Wall Street mentors by luring the public into investing in the properties and therefore, the securities that were arranged to defraud millions of Prime rate home buyers.
These people: the government, Wall Street and the US Military show a distinct behavior pattern, or pathology of the disease diagnosis of alcoholism, namely physical, mental and spiriual.

Physical: the Military assaults an unspecting foe

Mental:  Those who attacked are left in a life-death quandary with drone attacks from the air above and surprise mine explosions from the ground below

Spiritual:  the values of the attackers devolve to approximately where we are now, where we give up all that we lived and worked for and we let those with the microphone decide who is next and how much we should surrender.
But don’t be fooled.  Stay out of the stock market.  Let them figure it out. 
They cannot control the big crash that is coming.  It is part of their nature.  They can’t help themselves.

By Chicago banks I meant the Chicagoi Mercantile Exchange (CME).
This is not a recovery.  In physics this might be referred to as plasma state. We are in between things. The fed leads the way and , never has so much money been poured into such a useless rathole.

They used to say about scalping that the recovery was worse than dying.  Maybe there is something correlative in the last economical period of stocks and bonds and mutual funds, 401 k and hedge funds.

I am dying to find out who killed Kennedy and who caused 9/11, but more so, I want to see the bastards who caused this calamity brought to some kind of justice, be it government sponsored or some ad hoc kind. Chicago banks
I am all for the guillotine or street hangings.
 
These bastards do not even know you exist, in the slightest.

National guilt and shame after returning to the neighborhood does not really cut it anymore.

A close look at the current level of the NYSE reveals that it is probably a “drugged” market, artificially propped up with Fed cash.  The Fed has probably poured trillions into the Chicago banks where the investments have a multiplier effect on the New York Stock Market.  The money men, or their stooge investors there, are sprinkling the infield.  You can witness this by the marginal gains by some the Dow Jones blue chip companies, e.g. IBM up 0.25 cents, etc.
All this leads me to believe that they are delaying the inevitable disaster, the collapse.  There is no green economy, new energy sources, new market and new credit card regulations, hell we’ve hardly got a new president.
I think they are pumping up for a conflict with China, a new austerity as described by the Democratic Commission of Kent Conrad, Mark Warner and Evan Bayh.
As the mafia used to say, “Beware of your friends.  They’re the ones who’ll stab you in the back.  You know what to expect from you enemies.”
Right now, the US public has no party representing it in the Congress.  It’s all markets, emerging markets, free markets, world markets. For all those who have died in wars, it was never anything else.

One of the ‘good aspects’ of auterity is that all those items the Conservatives want eleminated would be for ‘financial’ reasons. Like Social Security and anything else that smacks of “socialism” that helps us while the trillions are spent on wars of convenience and prosperity that they wage with their cohorts in business.

Item: 57% of military in Afghanistan are “contractors.”

Item: 48% of military in occupied Iraq. Those aren’t good numbers for us.

What next? The completion of the financial shock doctrine meltdown here then laissez faire will be fully instituted by the victors over us.

Austerity is the next step after the completion of the Financial Meltdown.

Kent Conrad held hearings to form a COMMISSION, a COMMISSION mind you, with the support of Judd Gregg, the lottery thief from NH, Mark Warner, the shyster from Va and Harvard Law, David Walker of the Peter Peterson Foundation, a long hater of Social Security, Cooper, the bleu dog, no, just a dog from Tennessee, and a few others.
This commision will have non-members of the Congress to provide political cover.  Those were the words of David Walker.  He went aspreading the propaganda using the media and the old, “the American People,” want this or want that when in reality it’s what the Ruling Elite want for their financial security.
The Commission will come up with a plan to destroy Medicare and Social Security and offer it to Congress for an up or down vote.  It will then be signed into law by Obama.  Was that the change?  I think it was since blowhard Bush couldn’t get the jobe done with privatization.
They are making the most of this derivatives debacle.  They will turn this country into a banana republic, the Unites States of Banana, or simply Bananaland.
Hardships, austerity from the recession, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Garth a Russian by by the name of Dmitry Orlov has mapped out a step by step collapse of any civilization. He noticed that in Russia there were certain elements of that society that kept it from reaching the last two steps. He also observed that there are no such protective elements in our own society. See what he says at http://www.cluborlov.com and tell us what you think.

From my own analysis if the cabal of the ultra rich militarists and theocrats want us to collapse to stage #3 then they will swoop in to “save” us from the total dissolution of the USA remaking it into a gross caricature of what we know. It will become a true American Empire. It is a dangerous game because if they fail to fill the vacuum after they have succeeded in showing the flaws of a “democracy” (which they sabotaged) we will be on “The Road” instead of “The Handmaid’s Tale” as our future. The “Long Emergency” will be acute and probably unstoppable by then.

gerald4,

Unfortunately, we do borrow money, lots of it.  The interest payment might be more than we can make.  The problem with that outlook, since the Chinese are not part of the cabal as yet, is that China might become a sizable market unto itself, and it won’t need the US as a market of last resort.  As the new Statue of Liberty Procalims, “Give us your shit and poisons…”
W.G. Tarpley points out in “Surviviving the Cataclysm” that the path is: recession, depression, collapse and finally disintegration.  We might, and I underline “might” be teetering on recession-depresssion.
As the rest of world has realized that these jobs, per se, are gone.  Point of fact, there are no more jobs.  If you were a lathe operator, a production assistant, your job does not exist anymore.  “Do you want fries?”
When China has built its self contained market to a level where it can sustain itself do you really think that they care what happens here,
The Global Capialists that have taken over the global economy (Globaloney in Tarpley’s term) do not seem to have any of this in their crystal ball.  Except of course the US military.

KDelphi,

I have heard a lot of horror stories.  The story of your sister’s situation leaves me numb.  I am afraid and I am angry.  “There but for fortune”, does not ameliorate the feeling. I am damned angry.  A lot of right-wing radio noise talk show hosts talk of compassion overload when they had none to begin with.
Maybe in the future, when the unification of the bottom 3.5 billion who oppose the top one-half million, we will meet.  Let these people end.

But Garth, we can just borrow more dollars from China and the other industrial nations to pay for this Health Care in addition to our US government expenses and/or our imported consumer products.

The US government does not really borrow money, we just sell freshly printed US T-Bills, Bonds, or other Securities to the foreign manufacturers in return for the US dollars they earned by making consumer goods for US citizens.

As long as foreigners are able to redeem their US T-Bills, Bonds, or other Securities for title to privately owned land, hotels, casinos and other assets created by previous US generations instead of Gold, the foreigners in industrial countries will continue to buy our freshly printed US T-Bills, Bonds, or other Securities.

When those foreigners have title to everything in the USA, the US government will no longer be able to raise US dollars from these foreign manufacturers to pay for our US government expenses and/or our imported consumer products.

garth—I heard “startling news” on c-span that , Goldman Sachs had been found to be “intentionally bidding against itself with credit default swaps and committing fraud”!!!!!!!!!!!

Duh…It was one of Obama’s “economics” people (not Geithner or Summers—I always remembers their whorish faces). I thought, Yeah. We know. Now what are you (and Rep Frank, who is passing a watered down bill!) going to DO abou t it! Bush lied about Iraq. Duh. The “insurance reform bill” is an insurance industry bailout as sure as the Wall St bailout was a financial “firms” bailout—-everyone getting laid off and losing health coverage….AHIP must have been afraid they were pricing everyone out of the mkt(my sister who has had breast cancer is up to $30,000 a yr with an $8000 deductible—she has been negative income on her taxes for 5 yrs, despite workgin 48 students a week)—the solution—make everyone buy it and then, make the gov t (funded by, who?) pay for it AGAIN! Brilliant!
Gee thanks Nancy and Harry!

March in the streets! Sell me crappy insurance! Sell me crappy insurance! I demand it! Let me buy a useless product!@

We won! Wha….?

I think the events and policies of the past 40 years or so have turned on its head JFK’s inaugural demand to, “Ask not what your country can do for. Ask what you can do for country.” 
George W. told us to go shopping and donate our children to war.  Now the Obama administration is asking us to support the health insurance boys along with the Wall Street bankers. 
Dennis Kucinich said on Democracy Now that this health insurance bill is just a continuation of the movement of money from the lower and middle classes to the rich.
Reminds me of the old department stores where you paid the cashier and he or she put it in a cannister and put the cannister in a pneumatic tube.  You could watch the can being sucked through the tube to an open manager’s office which overlooked the store.  There, the book keeper took the cash and returned a bill marked, PAID.  The only difference is that with the oncoming austerity and financial blood letting we’ll never pay off the debts accrued by the banks and now us for the MBSs, credit default swaps and other deriviatives.  We are slipping into a very dark period of hardship marked by extremes that are hard to imagine.  I have to ask, Why?  Why do a mere 500,000 people in this world need to have all the money.  Is power, slavery, luxury that meaningful to them?
Read, “Surviving the Cataclysm” by Webster G. Tarpley.  He was prescient, and it’s worse than I thought.

The tunes match the mood even in the robust economy of Saskatchewan.

Here is some verse for the time.

Yeah though I walk in the valley of the ballyhooed,
bloated in liquidity,
I wait for the watershed moment,
to fear stability for the future markets of frenzy.
The discomfort of staff less reason,
to overcome the golden mean of
moderation beyond belief…
Ah sweet relief…sweet relief, sweet relief.

Garth,

Garth said:  ” Or will we fall into Fascism, as the likes of the Bushes, the Wall Street money men, and the rest of those so called “persons” have hoped with the advice of their socio-economic planners.”

MarthaA said:  The only way we as a country will fall into fascism is if we, as a country, follow the lead of the Republican Party’s Tea Baggers, who are the scapegoats for the Republican Party Conservative EXTREMISTS to lead the country into full blown fascism, should the country be foolish enough to follow the Republican Conservative EXTREME again.

The Republican Party Tea Baggers are tooted and presented as competetion for the Republican Party EXTREMISTS, but it is only a ruse.  There is no way the proletariat of the common population will ever really lead the Republican Party EXTREMISTS.  WE THE PEOPLE of the greater MAJORITY Common Population must be wise enough not to follow the Republican Party’s EXTREMIST tea party scapegoats now with Sarah Palin along with Dick Armey, as if they are not EXTREMISTS——they are EXTREMISTS acting as liberals—trying to get back into power to finish the country off.

At this point of truthdigging, I can come up with two aspects of the Financial Meltdown:  the Madoff Scheme and the Madfor Scheme.  We’ve already heard about Bernie and his played shenanigans, but what I think is the underlying thrust of all this news is the reluctance to unmask the real scandal. 
The Madfor scandal was made for the wealthy elite and their military-news media, and to come, their local government initiatives. 
It seems obvious to me, and it should to any cognizant human being that we, the citizens of the world, have been screwed, blewed, and tattooed, and our government, so to speak, has been part and parcel of the whole scheme.
Trace the whole newsy presentation of this fiasco from Frontline to nightly news to C-SPAN to currently released literature and there is a thread of evidence that they try to avoid, but they can’t help but reveal in the telling of the story.  The point is that this was all done by design.  The sub-prime real estate sales, the securitization, the low Fed rate, the banks and the personalities that were in the middle of this scam and the relenting howl that these people were just incompetent, greedy, and dispassionate.
Like the era before WWII, we are at a time when the pancake is about to be flipped.  Is the under side done?. Or will the populace cling to Democrtacy and go for the response that it did with FDR and the progreessive persons leading the way?  Or will we fall into Fascism, as the likes of the Bushes, the Wall Street money men, and the rest of those so called “persons” have hoped with the advice of their socio-economic planners. 
They are licking their chops because they foresee that it will be entirely by democratic vote, and there is nothing these inter-married morons enjoy more than to think that they are smart and everyone else is stupid.
Read Webster Tarpley’s, “Surviving the Cataclysm”, I have it and I am about to.  I must say that I am afraid I might have already missed the boat.

God bless!

Why is it that the American Aristocracy and the American Professional Middle Class bind together in their walled and gated communes and bind together into Corporate Communes for communal benefit, and then lash out from the comfort of their walled and gated communes against the 70% MAJORITY Common Population of the United States demanding that the 70% MAJORITY Common Population of the United States be isolated as individuals that must have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness with the freedom and justice of isolated individuals without the benefit of their own communal resources?? ——Why is Communism for the few, the American Aristocracy and the American Professional Middle Class, good Communism??——and Communism for the many bad Communism??

What is the difference between good Communism and bad Communism?  All of my life, and I am 64 years old, Communism for the many has been villified and vehemently denied to the masses of the American people and at the same time Communism has been used by the few, the American Aristocracy and the American Professional Middle Class to expropriate the Communal resources of America’s 70% MAJORITY Common Population for the benefit and use of the American Aristocracy and America’s Professional Middle Class without benefit to America’s 70% MAJORITY Common Population.

Is the American Dream and its doctrine of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness with freedom and justice for all no more than a “pyramid scheme” by the American Aristocracy and American Professional Middle Class to benefit from the Communal resources of the Common Population by demonizing Communism for the many as bad, while benefiting from Communism for the few?

The TENS of TRILLIONS of DOLLARS of Communal resources of the masses of America’s population spent as “price support” to maintain the value of PRIVATE Capital owned by the few at the expense of the many SCREAMS to the masses of America’s population that the American Dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness with freedom and justice for all is nothing more than a “pyramid scheme”, and that if Charles Ponzi and Bernie Madoff were part of America’s political leadership they would have been patriots, rather than criminals; apparently their crimes were that their “pyramid schemes” took resources from the American Aristocracy and America’s Professional Middle Class, rather than America’s 70% MAJORITY Common Population, because TENS of TRILLIONS of DOLLARS taken by the American Aristocracy and America’s Professional Middle Class has not resulted in criminal prosecution.

Wow, KDelphi!  Thanks for that great post.  It’s your kind of on-the-ground, line-sight-sight reporting that makes this site worth coming back to. 
Coincidence, maybe, but I had the same kind of reaction to Uwe Reinhardt on C-SPAN when he extolled the virtues of our great drug company inventions, the kind of drugs that take longer in a commercial to disclaim how it will harm you than it takes to say what it do for you, or the useless kind that cures lazy leg or dizzy bum syndrome.
I really appreciate your entries.
Thanks

garth—i agree with what you say, but I tried to contact Stan Brock—a friend of mine wanted to send in a video crew for his setup in Wise Co Va., when Obama was going to Camp David for the weekend—I thought Obama might like to “stop by”!

I had intimated that I thought that health care was a human right, and got a very strongly worded rebuttal fropm his staff,that he felt that it is NOT a right, and that he wouldnt treat anyone who didnt greet him with smiles and great gratitude. I asked how he would solve the problem of so many uninsured and dying, and he said that charities like his could do it and the rest could “work for it”.

I found him to be a very “surprising” man….to say the least. I mean, I dont know how you can see this crap day in and out in the uS and think that the solution is charity—needless to say, they didnt want us to film. I had thought maybe I could get him some publicity and obama to show up. He doesnt want it. That seems to be sacrificing lives for some unnamed “principle” to me, but…who knows

The reason they wont let them cross state lines to practice is that many drs who have had licenses revoked, suspended or have been sued, repeatedly, wil cross state lines to set up practice again. It may not really apply here, but, thats the reasoning. I had a dr screw up surgery really bad once, and I couldnt even get his license revoked—a slap on the wrist. My attorney told me that 80% of lawsuits never see a courtroom. And I had a top surgeon from Cleveland Clinic Found to testify against him—he called it “not suitable for veterinary care”, but,  the guy is still practicing. His name is Dr. Slingluff and the last I saw him, he practiced out of Canton, Ohio—-warning to all. All that I can do is warn others—he still advertises for patients in the Cleveland newspapers!

Stan Brock of the Remote Area Medical (RAM) said that the greatest impediment to his cause is the unwillingness of states besides Tennessee to allow doctors to cross state lines and use their medical training.
Health insurance companies cannot be sued for for their practice of price fixing.  Dr Woolhandler of Harvard said they are selling a defective product.  Hear! Hear!
We, the U.S. etectorate, have been cornered.  And like a rat, the only reaction to a no win situation is to attack, straight on with fangs.
Try voting!  Who’d you vote for?  Guess again.

Was the Financial Bailout Just a Slick, Friendly Takeover of the Federal Government?

By Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers Journal. Posted October 12, 2009.

Moyers interviews Marcy Kaptur, a hero of Michael Moore’s latest documentary and former IMF head Simon Johnson on Wall Street’s purchase of our democracy.

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/143209/bill_moyers:
_was_the_financial_bailout_just_a_slick,_friendly_
takeover_of_the_federal_government/Baselinescenario.com?page=entire

doublestandards/glasshouses—good video! although I have to redownload it to watch the end of it. (slow, old pc)

Everyone should watch it.

As long as they can get away with it it is bad. But not fully fascism yet. But it is coming closer every day. That is the problem.

Good luck John Crandell the system has been so perverted and closed off both inside and out to keep that from happening. If it can be done we might yet have a chance to stop this express train to the hell of a fascist state yet. But I am not holding my breath. All the parties need to get together and field their own mixed candidates backed by big money or they won’t have a chance.

They must find the common denominators between them or else. Fractionalism is promoted and supported by those who wish to leave us to their version of Heaven on Earth. It will be hell to us.

The hell with Obama/Biden. Lets elect Al Gore and Michael Moore in 2012. GORE AND MOORE: the Repugs will love that, then hate it. I can’t wait to see the movie.

Capitalism feeds upon Socialism in a “Tantalus Cycle” that both originated and maintains Capitalism; a “Tantalus Act” originated the “Tantalus Cycle of Capitalism” by way of the “enclosure movement” and a “Tantalus Cycle” maintains Capitalism by way of periodic corrections of “socialized responsibility for privatized benefit”; the efforts, property, and possessions of the 70% MAJORITY Common Population were expropriated by government from the 70% MAJORITY Common Population of Great Britain to start the Capitalist “Tantalus Cycle” and were fed back to the 70% MAJORITY Common Population as wages as a means of obtaining the necessities of life in exchange for labor, and the Capitalist System is maintained to this day by periodic corrections where the efforts, property and possessions of the 70% MAJORITY Common Population of the United States are expropriated by government from the 70% MAJORITY Common Population of the United States and fed back to the 70% MAJORITY Common Population of the United States as wages as a means of obtaining the necessities of life in exchange for labor.

This “Tantalus Cycle” provides obscene benefit to those who control the “Tantalus Cycle” and provides only the meager means of marginal existence to those who are subject  to the “Tantalus Cycle”.

It is time for a change.  It is time for an end to Capitalism being maintained by a “Tantalus Cycle”.  “Capitalism lives upon SOCIALISM”, like “mistletoe on a tree” and it is time for the tree of the 70% MAJORITY Common Population as a Class and Culture of the United States to share in the benefit of Capitalism; rather than to be fed upon by the “mistletoe of Capitalism” without benefit from the parasitic infestation, and be locked into a perpetual “Tantalus Cycle” in support of obscene benefit for the Capitalists who control the “Tantalus Cycle” and “wage slavery” for those of the 70% MAJORITY Common Population who are by legislated law and order made subject to the “Tantalus Cycle”.

The “bailout” was a huge swindle by Capitalist Opportunists who knew that Bush Jr was a asshole who had f*cked “neo-con” Capitalism for a long time, so they wanted to make sure that they got their last dig of work-free money.

Little did they know that the need not have worried about Obama and the Dems , who are only to happy to give Wall St, the military industrial complex, the medical industrial complex and the Banksters mafia all the free Capital that they want, as long as there is quid pro quo.

We are in a Great Depression, not unlike the one that started with the Credit Crisis in 1873, and it could be very bad considering all the violence and martial law that was declared. (It lasted till 1892.) We don’t need to follow that rout.

We need people like William Black to be leading the way to understanding then cleaning up this mess before our way of gov’t falls. That would be a terrible thing for all of us.

We are in a very dangerous position. One I believe was done on purpose for the very reason of removing our Republic in order to set up their own theocracy right here. We need to stop their plan of economic destruction before it is too late. It is in our hands for only a little more time.

A NEW MODEL For “FREE Enterprise Capitalism”

Are Capitalists necessary to a “Free Enterprise Economy”?——Or, is access to capital the only requirement of a “Free Enterprise Economy”?  Could capital be rented, leased, or mortgaged to entrepreneurs in a socialist economy?  “Socialized responsibility for privatized benefit” guarantees and supports “private capital” to prevent periodic and cyclical FAILURE of capital; capital in a “Free Enterprise Economy” is provided and maintained by “socialized responsibility” and could be better maintained by “social institutions” than by “private ownership” that has demonstrated a cyclical inability to maintain capital in the absence of “socialized responsibility”.

It is a demonstrated fact by the repetitive cyclical failure of capital, as a result of repetitive cyclical collapse of the business cycle, in a “Free Enterprise Economy” that the “Free Enterprise Economy” is dependent upon repetitive and cyclical socialized rescue and that a “Free Enterprise Economy” would be more stable, if the capital required to fuel the economy was maintained by a socially owned and operated central banking structure, and capital was rented, leased, or mortgaged to entrepreneurs subject to a lien against their assets.  In this way those who use capital for privatized benefit would lose their assets if they made irresponsible bets in business and industry and would not require “socialized responsibility” to subsidize “privatized benefit”.

A NEW MODEL For “FREE Enterprise Capitalism”

Are Capitalist necessary to a “Free Enterprise Economy”?——Or, is access to capital the only requirement of a “Free Enterprise Economy”?  Could capital be rented, leased, or mortgaged to entrepreneurs in a socialist economy?  “Socialized responsibility for privatized benefit” guarantees and supports “private capital” to prevent periodic and cyclical FAILURE of capital; capital in a “Free Enterprise Economy” is provided and maintained by “socialized responsibility” and could be better maintained by “social institutions” than by “private ownership” that has demonstrated a cyclical inability to maintain capital in the absence of “socialized responsibility”.

It is a demonstrated fact by the repetitive cyclical failure of capital, as a result of repetitive cyclical collapse of the business cycle, in a “Free Enterprise Economy” that the “Free Enterprise Economy” is dependent upon repetitive and cyclical socialized rescue and that a “Free Enterprise Economy” would be more stable, if the capital required to fuel the economy was maintained by a socially owned and operated central banking structure, and capital was rented, leased, or mortgaged to entrepreneurs subject to a lien against their assets.  In this way those who use capital for privatized benefit would lose their assets if they made irresponsible bets in business and industry and would not require “socialized responsibility” to subsidize “privatized benefit”.

Capitalism, like Tantalus http://www.in2greece.com/english/historymyth/mythology/names/tantalus.htm, kills the 70% Majority Common Population with “Wage Slavery”; serves the 70% Majority Common Population back to itself as food, and testifies with sociopathic capitalist sincerity, sophism and legions of Capitalism’s ‘strawmen’, that what Capitalism serves to the 70% Majority Common Population is otherwise.

By “socialized responsibility for privatized benefit” Capitalism kills and serves the 70% Majority Common Population back to itself; the proof of this is the so called “business cycle” that is dependent upon “socialized responsibility for privatized benefit” that has been a part of Capitalism, since the origin of Capitalism, and the most egregious proof is the bailout of the banksters and the insuransters in 2008 and 2009 by Comrade Bush with the selective use of Corporate Communism.

The color taken by the Republican Party is “Red” and the color taken by the Old Soviet Union as a self-identified Communist nation is “Red”; the Republican Party used to say that it was better to be “Dead” than “Red”——now the Republican Party identifies themselves as “Red”.

The Republican Party is a commune of “Corporate Communists” that have taken on the colors of the Communist Party “Red” as Corporate Communists; this will be denied with “indignant sophist outrage” in the Right-Wing “reflexive media echo-chamber” by “reflexive sophist analysis “ that is all sound and fury signifying NOTHING other than sophism spewed by Capitalism’s sociopathic “strawmen” justifying “socialized responsibility for privatized benefit”.

The United States is ruled by Corporate Communists; Communism for the few, “Corporate Communists”, at the expense of the many, the 70% Majority Common Population of the United States is not acceptable.  Communism is the “standard” being used by Capitalism and the United States is a self-proclaimed Capitalist Nation.  The United States as a Nation that employs Corporate Capitalist Communism for the few, must expand the base of Corporate Communism from Communism for the few, “Corporate Communism”, to Communism for the many, that is inclusive of the 70% Majority Common Population of the United States, rather than to continue to be exclusive Communism for Corporations.

Has the Fed been abolishded yet? How about an audit? 290 co-sponsors on HR 1207.

Totally agreed about the bailouts, Fenwick.  Just imagine if all those banks who held funny mortgages had been allowed to fail.  The company who holds my mortgage couldn’t pay THEIR debts, so the government did with our money and handed the assets like my mortgage over to another bank (who also took a bunch of money from the bailouts.)  Guess what happens if I stopped paying my debt?  The bank would get the house and the sheriff would get to kick me out on to the street.

There’s such a huge double standard developing when it comes to responsibility for debt.  I think China is even figuring this out, and it could influence whether or not they make the decision to drop out of their derivative contract “responsibilities.” 

They say all of this was supposed to restore confidence and return us to economic growth.  Who out there feels more confident and wealthier than they did this time last year?

The bailout was a hoax, a robbery.  See Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! today (9/10) and her coverage of the article in Vanity Fair by Barlett and Steele. 
How long can middle level Capitalists carry on this facade with little questions of minutiae of the market place?

Face the facts you disembodied clods!

There are a lot of action in the stock market and I would really like to read one of your posts about it. Also, I would like to read your insights about the latest market trends and what companies are doing well in the market. Some updates in the credit and debt issue is also nice.

There are a lot of action happening in the stock market today and I would like to read on of your post about it. Also it would be nice to read your insights on the latest market trends and which companies are performing well.

It irritates me when someone refers to Banking, Stock Trading, Insurance and other financial businesses as “industries”, since they do not create anything, except worthless toxic asset financial paper “products”. The Wall Street Stock Exchanges and Banks are essentially corrupt and should be allowed to close in Bankruptcy. Wall street is too corrupt and inept to be salvaged. Stocks should be delivered to the registered owners.

US Corporations should abandon Wall Street, buy and sell their company stocks themselves, and then allow new stock brokerage firms to slowly be created and evolve with tighter regulation and more penalties to prevent future Wall Street type criminal atmosphere of entitlement.

The various public traded corporations could buy, sell and/or trade their own stocks until new trading exchanges slowly evolve, preferably in cities other than New York City with less of the prevalent criminal culture of Wall Street.

Houston, Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago, or some other different location might be a better location for a clean new start. New stock trading exchanges could evolve with new and different rules and regulations that would prohibit the criminal excesses of the Wall Street Master Criminals.

Recently created financial products such as CDOs, SIVs, ABSs, SPVs, VIEs, CPDOs, SiVs, derivatives, and other similar new “toxic asset products” created by wall street master financial criminal geniuses that create junk bond type paper securities out of the thin air should require separate application and license by the SEC for the existence of each new product, and the SEC should grant license only to any of them that have intrinsic collateral value, are easily understood, transparent, forthright, and not deceptive in their sworn financial statements. Most of the recent financial innovations are similar to cancer, because they grow, multiply and then destroy the economic foundations of the economy. The SEC should also require a study to justify the need and safety of any new derivative type instrument created, similar to an Environmental Impact Statement.

When the investment risks are several generations or several layers removed from the instrument that has the actual collateral value (like a mortgage), and this instrument is insured from most of the investment risk, how much due diligence will an investor perform before he will commit to purchase, as compared to the investing into a primary mortgage or similar instrument that is collateralized for the event of failure?

If I were driving a car without insurance, I would probably drive more carefully than if I had insurance since my exposure for loss is lessened with insurance.

Thom Hartmann reported that the three largest industies in the US are as follows: military armaments, insurance and fiancial.  Kevin Phillips noted in his book, “Bad Money” that financials passed manufacturing in the last 20 years.

Economically, military spending is inflationary.  It leads to no furtherance in production except the blowing up of itself.

In light of the string on reports on what Wall St. is doing with their new found largesse, all one can ask is what they’ll do next is, “What’s the worst they can do?” and take my word, they’ll out do it and surpass it.

There’s an old Greek saying, “If you work for someone, you’ve got one ball.  If you work for someone who works for someone, you’ve got no balls.”
These people do NO work and idle by for a myriad of ideologies and a mistaken belief that wealth makes might right.  They suck and they drain.  Their predatory.

What happened to, “Elections have consequences.”?  Follow the votes.  Who votes for a compromise and who doesn’t.  This travesty in the drive to reach a compromise for health insurance can only end in a debacle.

Fuck ‘em! Survive.

Shirley—as garth says, we need an overthrow of the govt.

there is no “one” to save us. We have to save ourselves.

We dont need to necessarily “follow” anyone else’s form of govt, although the Socialist Democracies seem to provide the best standard of living for their people. It may not be sustainable , on a planetary level.

What happened to the ole “merkins exceptionalism”?

Last night (Friday, Aug 21) on PBS News Hour, the economuic reporter, Paul Solman, said that the Fed had loaned money to the banks at almost zero percent interest and that the banks were depositing the money bank into the Fed at a “fraction of a percent interest.” 
Paul Solman lied.  The Fed is paying about five (5) percent interest.

This news has been out there for quite some time.  Thom Hartmann reported the correct interest rates about a month ago.  I’ve talked to people at job fairs and they know the story and the correct numbers.  So I have to ask myself, why did Paul Solman lie?  Doesn’t he care about his reputation?  Isn’t accuracy one of the tenets of reporting?  Maybe PBS has their own guidelines.  Maybe we’re all going to hell in a handbasket.

Thanks, Paul.  You asshole.

turbamagna, I agree with you 100 percent.

I fear that the problem, as it now stands, is that we have a completely fascist government.

We are not going to get single payer, or even a worthwhie public option. Obama just gave in to Tauzin and the drug cartel.  We’ll be paying through the nose for years.
We can vote and get involved, but that change might take years.

We need an overthrow of the government as the Constitution says.

I say for those of us who are older than sixty to strap on a bomb and, like Churchill said, take a few of them with you.

Any argument that universal healthcare cannot be implemented in an intelligent and viable manner for all Americans is completely mendacious, disingenuous and indicative of a corrupt and diseased agenda.

As an example, look at the system that Taiwan established some ten years ago;

http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/22/3/77

Taiwan is not alone. Australia has Medicare; its Federal Government is currently examining the viability of implementing dental care as an adjunct to its current universal healthcare structure (supplemented with optional private healthcare insurance).

New Zealand and many European countries also have adopted universal healthcare, financed by moderate taxation, again often augmented with options provided by healthcare insurers.

It is astonishing that a county as wealthy as America appears so unwilling to instigate similar reform. However, it appears that certain vested interests stymie attempts at reform.

Completely devoid of any humanity, it would appear that these devious, parasitic, corrupt and vile interest groups masquerade as human beings only by virtue of base physical appearance.

It is obvious that they belong to another species – personified by inhumanity, rabid self obsession, callous indifference and other sociopathic tendencies (ditto their unholy brethren – the Bankers).

These cunning ones, these dwellers lurking in the shadows of humanity, cursed by their very nature and marked by their diabolical reptilian cunning, feed vampire like upon an unsuspecting and perhaps deliberately uneducated populace.

The second part of Thom Hartmann’s report was equally amazing.  Elizabeth Warren reports that the banks bought back the warrants from the Treasury for sixty (60) cents on the dollar. 
Geithner is quite an investment wizard.  He took the taxpayer’s dollar and turned it into 60 cents in just few months.  What a guy!