Saying that the economy wouldve “been worse” if we hadnt handed Wall St a huge, blank check, is the same as saying that Bush protected us from attacks for 7 yrs.

YOu just cant prove a negative. And, whats more, I dont fricking believe it.

There are bread lines all over where I live, but, then, there has been for years. They’re just getting longer.

On CNN today, the moderator (I dont know her name) was, like, “can you belive it???” Yes! Its been going on since Reagan! It just hadnt hit the middle classes until now.

When will USAns have had enough?

Testifying before the House committee, Helicopter Ben told the knuckleheads that the $350 billion given to the banks avoided an economic crash.
Why didn’t one of ask, “Can you ‘splain to us how giving bonuses to the CEOs, paying dividends to bank stockholders, buying smaller banks to keep the sinking junks afloat, and sending the top management to resorts saved the economy?”
Maybe that’s all it takes, keep those pigs plump and having a good time.  Why hell, why don’t we set those nine up as sort of gods.  Keep them fat and happy and forget about the rest of it.
But no one asked such a question; they just let it go.
Privatization is out, so says Helicopter Ben.  That means when the banks win, they win big.  When they lose, we lose big.
I think the answer is underground economies.  Peel off from those freeloaders.  Let them vote with their feet.  We can stay right here and do business amongst ourselves.

“People would be without electricity, potable water, sewage disposal and transportation in many parts of the country. This could lead to communicable deceases that would put an unimaginable strain on our health systems. Public schools would be closed along with the judicial system as we know it.”

Sounds like what we did to Iraq.  Now that would be karma.

I feel a little silly posting anything here, as I know didley squat about economics—but that may be a positive these daYS!

It seems very clear to me that , what we have in the uS, is the worst of both worlds! The “private” industry’s mistakes are publicly paid for by private citizens, and, if these private citizens fail, they are on their own.

It is not fair.

I am a Socialist (or maybe a Socialist Democrat). What we are doing now, is socialism for the rich and unregulated capitalism for the poor. It will collapse. I hope I live to see it…it may be sad for the citizenry (curretnly known only as “consumers”), but, I dont give a rat’s behind if Wall St explodes. I wish Richard Fuld would commit suicide.

To be honest, I hate the ideas of Graham and Rep Paul, also. (Grahamm is just a criminal) The so-=called “Austrian School” sure as hell doesnt exist in Austria, not anywhere else. But, if Dems are going to continue to behave like neo-liberals and keep up the corporaste welfare state, we might be better off with total privitization. It is already private—for the working classes.

I would prefer socialism, but, USANs may be too uncivilized for it.Or, as TAO would say, (and he is right on this) too “civilized”.

Armageddon

The whole banking system is controlled by a few conglomerates on a world wide basis. Like it or not this is the way it is.

The banks here in the USA are just too important to let fail. If the US government just backed out of any rescue plan and let nature take its course, the whole system would collapse.

Wall Street would be completely out of business and commerce as we know it would come to a halt. You would witness people jumping out of windows and committing suicide.

People would be without electricity, potable water, sewage disposal and transportation in many parts of the country. This could lead to communicable deceases that would put an unimaginable strain on our health systems. Public schools would be closed along with the judicial system as we know it.

Panic could sweep through the United States to the point one would need armed escorts to go shopping at the grocery store for the few items available at any price. 

The issue of bailing out the financial institutions and the corporations is just too dangerous to mishandle. These entities are TOO BIG to let fail! If we let even one system fail we run the risk of a financial cataclysmic domino effect and the chance of starvation, malnutrition and families sleeping on the streets.

Society will put up with any regime that brings some form of order that will enable the citizens the necessities of life even on a primitive basis.

Robert Scheer’s theories rebutted:

The principal alternative to the politicization of mortgage lending and bad monetary policy as causes of the [current] financial crisis is deregulation. How deregulation caused the crisis has never been specifically explained. Nevertheless, two laws are most often blamed: the Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB) Act of 1999 and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000.

GLB repealed part of the Great Depression era Glass-Steagall Act, and allowed banks, securities companies and insurance companies to affiliate under a Financial Services Holding Company. It seems clear that if GLB was the problem, the crisis would have been expected to have originated in Europe where they never had Glass-Steagall requirements to begin with. Also, the financial firms that failed in this crisis, like Lehman, were the least diversified and the ones that survived, like J.P. Morgan, were the most diversified.

Moreover, GLB didn’t deregulate anything. It established the Federal Reserve as a superregulator, overseeing all Financial Services Holding Companies. All activities of financial institutions continued to be regulated on a functional basis by the regulators that had regulated those activities prior to GLB.

When no evidence was ever presented to link GLB to the financial crisis—and when former President Bill Clinton gave a spirited defense of this law, which he signed—proponents of the deregulation thesis turned to the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA), and specifically to credit default swaps.
Yet it is amazing how well the market for credit default swaps has functioned during the financial crisis. That market has never lost liquidity and the default rate has been low, given the general state of the underlying assets. In any case, the CFMA did not deregulate credit default swaps. All swaps were given legal certainty by clarifying that swaps were not futures, but remained subject to regulation just as before based on who issued the swap and the nature of the underlying contracts.

In reality the financial “deregulation” of the last two decades has been greatly exaggerated. As the housing crisis mounted, financial regulators had more power, larger budgets and more personnel than ever. And yet, with the notable exception of Mr. Greenspan’s warning about the risk posed by the massive mortgage holdings of Fannie and Freddie, regulators seemed unalarmed as the crisis grew. There is absolutely no evidence that if financial regulators had had more resources or more authority that anything would have been different.
Since politicization of the mortgage market was a primary cause of this crisis, we should be especially careful to prevent the politicization of the banks that have been given taxpayer assistance. Did Citi really change its view on mortgage cram-downs or was it pressured? How much pressure was really applied to force Bank of America to go through with the Merrill acquisition?

Restrictions on executive compensation are good fun for politicians, but they are just one step removed from politicians telling banks who to lend to and for what. We have been down that road before, and we know where it leads.

Finally, it should give us pause in responding to the financial crisis of today to realize that this crisis itself was in part an unintended consequence of the monetary policy we employed to deal with the previous recession. Surely, unintended consequences are a real danger when the monetary base has been bloated by a doubling of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet, and the federal deficit seems destined to exceed $1.7 trillion.

Credit:  Sen. Phil Gramm, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123509667125829243.html)

After watching Frontline’s show on the Meltdown, the nature of this crisis is becoming more and more suspicious.  They covered as a series of events that took everyone by surprise and left the nine CEOs of the banks with fate of having to split $125 Billion amongst themselves.  Of course, the obligatory personality conflict was hinted at, as in Dick Fuld of Lehman Bros. and Henry Paulson, US Treasurer from Goldman Sachs.
They didn’t mention how Wall St. money shifted to support the Democrats after 2006.
Then I found this:

“OH Hillary..You’ve Got Some Splanin’ To Do”

http://www.chartingstocks.net/2009/02/oh-hillaryyouve-got-some-splanin-to-do/
It seems, Hillary Clinton’s financial disclosure for the year 2007 shows that the former first lady liquidated her entire equity portfolio, approximately $20 million, in may 2007. Her market timing was almost perfect as she sold all of her stocks only 500 points and 5 months before the market peak. Is Senator Clinton a star investor or did she know something?

A HISTORY OF RECESSION IN THE UNITED STATES 1950 TO 2008
Written by:  mike kohr 2/12/2008

There is a pattern here that is plain to all but the most partisan. Nine of the last ten recessions have occurred under the direction of Republican economic policy. And history does repeat itself.  Look at the three greatest slowdowns in US economic history, 1929*, 1982, 2008, all three were attributed to poor economic and tight credit policy, all three featured deregulation and lack of oversight of the financial markets, and all three were presided over by a Republican President.

Recession/Depression of 2008   George W. Bush(R) Greatest downturn since 1929,  blamed on lack of regulation of financial markets and collapse of credit markets

Recession of 2001   George W. Bush(R) Began in April of 2001, marked the beginning of greatest deficit spending in all of recorded human history

Recession of 1990-1991   George H.W. Bush(R) Deregulation of Savings and Loan industry led to a collapse and panic, which led to election of Bill Clinton, who produced the greatest increase in jobs and wealth in all of recorded human history

Recession of 1981-1982   Ronald Reagan(R) At the time, the most severe contraction of economy since the Great Depression, massive deficit spending/deregulation of markets, and tight fiscal policy in an effort to kill inflation were blamed for this downturn **

Recession of 1980 2nd & 3rd quarters   Jimmy Carter (D) Shortest and least severe slow down, generally attributed to Iranian Revolution and increase in oil prices, led to the election of Ronald Reagan

Recession of 1973-1975   Richard M Nixon(R) OPEC’s increase in oil prices and massive spending in the escalation of war in Vietnam led to stagflation, the second economic crash of Nixon’s administration

Recession of 1969-1970   Richard M. Nixon(R) Credited to Nixon’s escalation of and massive spending in Vietnam War and OPEC’s increase in price of oil

Recession of 1960 -1961   Dwight D. Eisenhower(R) Noted for high unemployment, low GDP, high inflation JFK ended the recession by stimulating the economy 10 days after taking office

Recession of 1957-1958   Dwight D. Eisenhower(R) Eisenhower achieved the dubious distinction of achieving a second economic downturn on his watch, a record later matched by Richard M. Nixon, and George W. Bush

Recession of 1953   Dwight D. Eisenhower(R) Increased outlays to National defense and restrictive credit policies blamed for this downturn
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

*The Great Depression of 1929   Herbert Hoover(R) Lasted for 10 years, blamed on Hoover’s economic policy and lack of regulation of financial markets
** “The Reagan Recession” which ran from the 4th quarter of 1981 thru the 1st quarter of 1982 is often categorized as starting under Carter’s watch during the 2nd & 3rd quarters of 1980.  By the end of the 3rd quarter of 1980 that brief recession had rebounded. Starting in the 4th quarter of 1980, 3 of the next 4 quarters produced increased GDP.  Reagan’s tight fiscal policy and massive deficit spending contracted the economy again in late 1981, producing unemployment of 10.8% and prime interest rates that hovered between 15% and 20.5%

http://recession.org/history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/rec1980.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_the_United_States#Deregulation:_1974.E2.80.931992

This Youtube video shows the first half of how this nation got to where we are—the housing bubble.  It’s a house hearing on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and lasts about 8 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs&feature=related

Negative Population growth causes negative economic growth. Buhs, Cheney, Rumsfeld, wolfowitz, Karl Rove are responsible.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=military+commissions+act+2006&spell=1

Bush is to blame for the entire meltdown.  Bush declared martial law on Oct 17th 2006- the Military Commissions act of 2006. AT THAT point he orderd the US military, Blackwater, Inc. Wackenhut Inc to attack the american people with microwaves, chemtrail sprays.  Amy Goodwin wrote a book called “Static” that talks about the attack of 6 Blue states at the end of 2006

VIP- LAB Report #7

http://www.rense.com/morgphase/phase2_1.htm

We must become aware of the danger to society and make sure it is stopped for the future of children, adults, senior citizens, and life on earth. 

Ron Angell
International Liaison for Exoticwarfare
http://www.exoticwarfare.org

http://www.rense.com/morgphase/phase2_1.htm

http://www.myspace.com/wakemeupnowplease
http://www.myspace.com/criticalthoughtandreason
http://www.faithbase.com/rpangell/

http://www.rense.com/morgphase/phase2_1.htm

Myronh’s kind remarks below are much appreciated.  This old Indian is here in the firm understanding that even the most CONfused of our tame Sisters and Brothers remain, in their essential nature, free wild Human Beings.  So even a sip from the Springs of Ancient Wisdom has a chance of reawakening in domesticated “individuals” a sense of their true Humanity, and its given place in our Natural Living Arrangement here.

It’s likely it’ll take further collapse and disintegration of their present artificial half-life support-system to push most of ‘em to seriously seek sounder “ground,” but since that doom is inevitable in-any-case….WE can easily afford to wait a little longer.  If something this old Savage has offered here turns at-least some peoples’ precious attention back to the Song ‘n’ Dance of Life Herownself….well, that’ll sure be okay by us.

HokaHey!

The term Dharma is an Indian spiritual and religious term, that means one’s righteous duty, or any virtuous path in the common sense of the term Dharma is presented as a central concept that is used in order to explain the “higher truth” or ultimate reality of the universe.

The word dharma literally translates as that which upholds or supports, and is generally translated into English as law.

Why the bank bailouts are doomed.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/SuperModels/why-the-bank-bailouts-are-doomed.aspx

This time they really did it.

CharlyAndy asks a worthwhile question.  The answer is that all of the “instruments” s/he wonders about here are the functional equivalent of various gaudy wall-paper patterns, made-up out of nothing, and intended to hide for awhile longer the disintegrating “global financial system” that was being exposed suddenly by the unexpected “melt-down” of this “generation”-of-worthless-jobbed-stock’s predecessors’ equally empty and hollow “guarantees.”  It’s all part of the great big pyramid scam of which Bernie madoff’s penny-ante operation isn’t even the tip-of-the-tip-of-the-tip, of the “iceberg” of fraud and debt that has fatally holed the Titanic “global economy.”

To those paying their precious attention, Shift offers below a “prescription” for getting safely away from the foundering behemoth.  The Way out of infantile materialism is through achieving Spiritual maturity.  For Human Beings that means letting-go of their pitifully inadequate “individual self,” and taking-hold of the organic FORM of their kind within the Living Arrangement of our Mother Earth within the Song ‘n’ Dance of Life Herownself.  English-speakers might call that “community,” though the word has become so debased lately by its profligate application to so many merely random collections of ersatz “individuals.”  That’s why this old Indian use the Lakotah word Tiyoshpaye, which denotes that Human arrangement that is THE viable form of our Kind here….“individuals” neither occurring nor being survivable in Nature’s own scheme-of-things.

All this wasted CONcern over a CONtraption that is hell-bent (some still insist it’s “heaven-sent”) on killing our Mother Earth and all her native Children stikes us surviving Primitive Savages as even more proof of just how far short, of the exalted opinion they have of their selfs and their “creations,” our domesticated Sisters and Brothers fall.  It is not a pretty picture….this spectacle their ignorance is making of them.

You can, ALL together, do so much better, too.

HokaHey!

What’s going on now is the Democratic party is taking the money from Wall Street and saving the sorry asses of Bush Family.
When they sent Bush out in 2005 to sell privatization of Social Security, they sent a fool on fool’s errand.  Remember him in W. Virginia standing in front of an empty safe saying that this is where they keep the Social Security Treasury bonds.  His privatization was going to set up a personal account for every American with money provided by Wall St.  That means, each person was going to be immediately in debt with hopes that the miracle of the market would happen to them so they could pay back Wall Street and have a little left over for themselves.
When that ploy fell on its face (Bush was not the salesman they hoped for) the Wall Street sharks looked to the Democrats. They wanted Pension funds and 401k money.
Now that they essentially have it; they want to cover their tracks and avoid and repercussions on the Bushes and a few select others, the Haves and the Have-Mores.  Oh yes. they’ll be a lot of tough talk veering on threats (witness Sanders on C-SPAN and Obama on the Lehrer report) but nothing will come of it.  We are ostensiblly held to be the More-Please group, the Joe Palooka’s of modern day America.
The Republicans by presenting a unified front against the stimulus package are trying hopefully to create an image of a two party system with the old conservative mantra of cut spending and lower taxes.

William J Rigby, Joan m Rigby of 701 Burning tree lane naperville illinois had prior information of the attack on 9/11/2001.  They called me and actually were happy the twin towers were destroyed.  “Welcome to the new world- everything has changed” Joan Marie Rigby- Canadian born foreign national-traitor to Canada- Traitors to the USA.  Joan M Rigby and William Rigby maintain also a home on longboat key Florida- mistletoe lane in the longboat key club. 

http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/6/l_6ecdef9728534d428463334a7a0de32c.jpg
[url=http://www.ae911truth.org/]http://www.ae911truth.org/ [/url]

http://www.ae911truth.org/images/other/prez.jpg

Dear President Obama-

A group of about 200 psychologists and allies has created an Open Letter to President-Elect Obama expressing concerns regarding his rumored consideration of John Brennan to be Director of the CIA.
The letter:

http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/2008/11/24/open-letter-to-president-elect-obama-break-with-the-dark-side-do-not-nominate-john-brennan-as-cia-director/#more-2055

<h3>Open Letter to President-Obama: Break With the Dark Side. Do Not Nominate John Brennan as CIA Director </h3>

Asian Victims Association against Directed Energy Weapons.
</a>

[url=http://asianvictimsassociation.ning.com/profile/ron]http://asianvictimsassociation.ning.com/profile/ron [/url]
</a>

“Professor Edward Leamer of UCLA’a Anderson School of Management set out the theory that the U.S. economy was guided not by business cycle but by consumer cycle, particularly driven by housing.  ‘The historical record strongly suggests that in 2003 and 2004 we poured the foundation for a recession in 2007 and 2008 led by a collapse in housing we are currently experiencing.  Only twice have we had this kind of housing collapes without recession, in 1951 and on 1967, and both times the Department of Defense came to the rescue, because of the Korean War and the Vietnam War.  We don’t want that kind of rescue this time do we.’”
Source:  “Bad Money” by Kevin Phillips p113.

There are natural forces at work in our universe that trump the tunnel vision recipes for financial recovery.
The fragmented ideologies that led to this crisis are no match for the universal forces that will correct it. No one can be led to this understanding overnight.  Often it takes a lifetime.  That is where the problem lies for American’s.  American’s are unprepared and yet the time is upon us.  The technological path is past.  The path of Spirit is now.

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/542.html

I am listening to a rebroadcast of Rep. Paul Kanjorski on C-SPAN.  He’s a beaut.  He says, “It was all misunderstood.”  That’s the current defense. You don’t understand.  We didn’t understand.  We were lied to.  But they continue as if the lie, the misunderstanding is carved in stone like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The editor of Ms magazine on DemocracyNow! touted Ms’s cover with Obama in a Superman pose.  On Grit TV David Korten an agent for the Ford Foundation spouting his advice to let Wall Street fail.  Fortunately, Barber from Demos reminded him that Pension funds, IRAs, 401ks, Money Market funds are inextricably tied to those banks by means of credit swaps.
I smell the overarching socio-psychological beginnings of a gradual slide to fascism.
We waz robbed.  All this talk about letting Wall Street fail and taking over the bad debt in bad banks is the next step in letting these bastards go scot free.  There was more money in those types of accounts than there was in all of the banks. 
I say restore all those retirement accounts to what they were a year ago, take over the mortgages and renotiate the loans.  If the mortgagees are ninjas, give them jobs.
Finally, make a mass arrest of all those bastards and throw them in jail.  Convict them and sentence them to menial labor jobs for the rest of their lives, never making more that $10,000 a year

KDelphi,

I agree with everything you said.  I’ll use your neocon joke, though probably not on this site. 
Lately, the part about the Obama administration that’s bothering me is his efforts to continue with this bailout. In the beginning Paulson, Bush, and the Senate Democrats said, rush, rush, rush. It turns out they gave the money to themselves.  The first $350 bn, at least. Now, some say it worked and some are saying it didn’t.  If that’s all it took, then, in essence, what they are saying is that it was a stick up, “Give us $700 Bn or we’ll sic the media dogs on you and scare the shit out of everyone of you.” 
I think all they wanted all along was what they got up front—pension funds, 401ks, IRAs.  Now, as they say, they’re screwing with us.
What I question most about Obama is this sense of not really being sure who he is or what he represents and what he stands for.  I fear your observation of the hardening caste system might be very accurate.
There’s so much in Obama’s past that smells funny once you peel away the veneer.
He said the ERP bill will rebuild 10,000 schools.  Shoddy construction is in his past in Chicago politics: Goulianias and Rezgo.  Duncan provides the school business experience.
His connection to Ford foundation. 
His mother worked for it.  So did Bill Ayres, Ayres’s wife, and, none other than Ward Churchill.  They were all working undercover in counterinsurgency since the days of the Weathermen and SDS. Churchill was a trained bomb maker for the US Special Forces.  He taught those friends of Ayres’ in New York how to make a bomb.  They blew themselves up.
All these people, except for Churchill as far as I know, are connected directly to Obama.
He was a protege of Brzezinski at Columia, but no one could be found to attest to knowing him in New York. Obama said he spent two years in intensive study.  Yeah, right.  I love New York.

Bertil—good one! Reminds me of the old joke about the, say, neo-con who was up on a four engine plane, and, you know, one engine goes out, so the pilot says “we’ll be 15 min. late”....on and on..and the neo-con says, “if that 4th engine goes out we’ll be up here all night”. Well, not exaclty, But, cute, I thought. So, I’ll leave it on here..

Or, people that conclude “we havent been attacked since 9/11. bush has been pres. since then, therefore, he made sure we wernt attacked”.

Correlation does not= causation.

If we want “change”, as I have said, Dubya & Co must be indicted for , at least, ADMITTED war crimes. Otherwise, we’re full of crap. Well, we are.

I, bascially, heard Will call for feudalism—-the Wal-martinaztion, McDe’ization and Costco=isation of the middle class. The nouveau poor. Will we take it? Probably…

We could probably disagree as to President Obamas’ capabilities (or maybe just education?), but, I am more concerned with his willingness to utilize them to prevent furthering the caste system in the US.

Some very good ponts.

George Will said on this Sunday’s “This Week w/o David Brinkley” that McDonald’s growth in sales in this economy shows that the market does right itself.  In other words, the free market system works.
Reminds me of the biologist who discovered he could shout, “Jump!” and frogs in the lab would jump.  As an experiment, he took one and cut off its leg and yelled the command. The frog jumped half as far.  He cut off the other leg yelled, “Jump!” and frog didn’t jump.  He concluded that when you cut off the legs off a frog, the frog loses its hearing.
Will is the guy who all liberal intellectuals admit to disagreeing with everything he says but love the way he says them, sort of a twist on Thomas Paine’s quote.  But Will also said in 2004 that we should be afraid, very afraid.
What this recovery package seems to be boiling down to is the realization that this Congress thinks that the population of the U.S. is about 2 or 3 million, counting members of the congress, the administration, lobbyist and the upper echelons of management of those companies and banks.  The rest of us are simply numbers in government spun statistics and cannon fodder.
I noticed how the Bush administration, no matter how much they destroyed the Constitution, they held on to the part that defines the President as the Commander-in-Chief.  Now, the Obama administration wants to continue.  First to screw around with China and its access to African oil, hoping to force China into seeking energy sources in eastern Russia, hopefully by force.  The business of the economy is to produce a willing and able youth movement, to don the uniforms and take up the weapons of war.  I think the manipulation of facts presented via the news/entertainment media might take a few years.
Obama’s a fraud.  For all his education in Law at Harvard and foreign policy at Columbia, he might have been just as well off if he studied communication at some community college.

From “Bad Money”,
“Financing a new house or borrowing against the value of one already owned, became the decision into which Washington policymakers aimed to tempt John and Jane Doe, especially as the Federal Reserve dropped interest rates to 1 percent, a low inseen since the early sixties.  It was a strategy that, superficially at least, succeeded beyond all expections.”

In the previous paragraph, Phillips cites a quote by George H.W. Bush that was reported in “Marching in Place” by Michael Duffy and Dan Goodgame. ” ordinary Americans, who are not a creative force in the economy and who anyway have no choice but to work and scrimp.”
Parahrasing Phillips, they poured $11 trillion into the economy, $5 trillion into mortgage debt and $6 trillion into the financial sector.  The collateral abuses of the mortagage financing returned like a boomerang by 2007.
I suspect the outcome for the American debtors was overly determined—they never had a chance.  Cable tv programs like “Flip This House” and infomercials of get rich through real estate not to mention the chance to live in grand home with some bank-provided walking-around money locked in this country’s path to where we are today. 
I fear the derivatives will take this country the rest of the way to bankruptcy.  And behind that curtain, lies who knows what.  Let’s ask the policy makers.

There seems to be a sense among many of theamericanpeople, and others of the domesticated breeds around the world, that this could well be the last chance they have to “turn things around.”  The media-generated public perception seems to be that Barack Obama is the best possible “designated driver” to get a world drunk on consumption “home safe” somehow.

Most everyone has also been thrilled by the “miracle on the Hudson,” which may well prove to be the most apt metaphor for the best that the new U.S. president might actually be able to accomplish….that is, if a lot of very iffy things don’t fall on the “wrong” side of the scales.  The “engines” of the high-flying, high-on-the-hog, high-rollers high-jacked “global” econonomic system have in-fact flamed-out, having run-afowl (pardon the awful pun) of their complete incompatibility-with, disrespect-for, and ignorance-of the “fundamentals” of our Natural Living Arrangement.

Nothing in his remarks today gave any indication that Barack Obama is aware of the true state-of-affairs he will now have to “manage” from his position as “leader of the free world.”  That may only become evident to him and his administration as they see day-after-day the “ship-of-state” fail to respond as expected to “the controls” they’ve just taken-over.  He is correct that “....the ground has shifted,” but has apparently yet to discover for himself that the shift goes far beyond the ideological and institutional and technological superficialities he mentioned.  It goes to the very roots and core of our Human Nature.

Efforts to address “the situation” predicated on the same stale homo-centric CONceits that’ve dis-informed the domesticated peoples for over ten millennia now will not suffice to get them out of the mess they’ve made….will only make things worse, in fact.  Calls for “responsibility,” as appealing and timely as they are, will fall woefully short of the need unless it is a responsibility informed by an awakening to the organic function of Humanity within the Living Arrangement of our Mother Earth.  If the domesticated peoples continue trying only to please their look-alike “gods,” their own selfs, and their own kind, they will doom all of those to disappointment….and worse.

It’s not surprising that many ordinary people are way out ahead of their “leaders” in sensing the true shape and content of the condition their “CONdition” is in.  Many are already getting together where they live-and-breathe to respond to it in beneficially effective ways….not waiting for those “in-power” to catch-on and catch-up.  It is in these still-embryonic examples of what our Lakotah Cousins call the Tiyoshpaye Way that us surviving free wild Native Peoples see the best chances for our tame Sisters and Brothers to get out of the captivity they languish and perish in today.

HokaHey!

Jim Lehrer said last night that they were making last preparations for the inauguration.  That would be Preparation H, I presume.
Today, Obama is going to lecture us on a new era of responsibility.  Instead of looking forward, I think he wants lurch forward, fast forward, forget about the crimes of the past administration and place the blame of the U.S.‘s current predicament squarely at the feet and on the shoulders of the American people.  He says there’s a better way to solve the union vote bill without upsetting the Corporations and the Chamber of Commerce.
We are being played.  We’re being smothered in propaganda.  And from the looks of this crowd at the mall, it looks like we’re being played like a violin.
We need $1 trillion plus for infra-structure, Obama give $30 bn.
The media now features old movies about the cold war.  A lawyer and a journalist were assassinated in Russia.  I’ll bet it was done under the guidance of the CIA.  Putin realized how evil these people are when the CIA-backed terrorists killed 300 or so children in Beslan.
If we survive this adminstration, something has to be done about deinstitutionalizing the financial sector.  As Bill Clinton said to Rubin when Rubin informed him of what he had to do to get his program passed, “Do you mean to tell me that my program depends on a bunch of fucking bond traders.”
Now, along with the Preparation H, we’ll something to alleviate the pain from the kick in the groin we’re about to experience.
God bless America, we’ll need it.
Next president better be vetted.

TAO,

Reading your Jan 15th post, I hear again your attempts to reach out and help another. I have learned over the years that many have a difficult time and even an impossible time accepting advice from others. Prejudices run many - be it race, physical appearance, level of education, gender, religious beliefs, age, rank, occupational seniority, experience etc…These prejudices cause enormous problems in our interactions with each other. These problems begin even at the level of simple conversation. Sometimes it seems that one must agree with another (to become one on the same level) before the another could accept “advice” from the one. In your case, TAO, you are an “outsider” with respect that your ideas cut against the grain. Your name and references to your personal beliefs and heritage is another huge “blocker” for many.

I hear you though. I run the risk of sounding above the pack but still I wanted to get my message back to you. Your story from eighty winters ago – where you and other members were caught up and broken down on the road, miles from your destination.  At that time…, it was the “here and now”. Times like that…,it is the “hear and now”. These are the things that are important and should be important to us. Over the many years, caught up in my trapped world, behind closed and miserable walls working for that paycheck, I would hear many moan and groan as they watched their “401” savings go up and down in the market. On the upswing, they bragged how they had moved it to better stocks and gloated in their superior knowledge over their unwilling audience. On the downswing, they blamed OTHERS in power for their downfall. Now, as it crashed and burns, many angrily blame others again while the rest simply remain silent in shame.

TOA, many will never understand your words, priorities, family experience and way of thinking. But at times, many will be in the moment. This moment usually involves death or near death experience and at this moment all seems clear. As a current and public example, we saw our peers go down in a plane in the Hudson River. Our peers then scrambled onto the wings. All of them were certainly thinking of what is truly important in their lives. All of them were certainly wrestling with instinctive emotions of survival. Hopefully and most likely, many of our peers in that plane that day will change their view on life. It will be those that will benefit and will live a much “richer” life.

Unfortunately, it takes something like a plane crash (most likely not a stock market crash) to realize the true path to happiness for many. For you, the “Tiyoshpaye Way” guides you like our morning sun.

We rise everyday and slowly creep to our final destination. The repetition of our sun’s path (where darkness follows) should prepare us for our own sunset.  I try to remember though that while the sun is “alive” (on this side of the earth and also on the other side of the earth), there is constant “light” for IT. However in OUR lives, we humans live much in the “darkness” when there ought to be “light”.

Mr. Joe Nocera in today’s NYT piece entitled, In Search of One Bold Stroke to Save the Banks says, “A quick reminder for readers who wonder why the banks shouldn’t be allowed to go bankrupt, like any other company that made the kinds of mistakes banks made. The answer is that the banking system is the engine of the economy; if banks stop functioning, economic activity will grind to a halt. Indeed, at least some of the pain we are going through now is the result of the banking system’s not functioning properly.”

Mr. Nocera offers a specious argument while his assumptions, premises and facts are suspect. The banking system is important but not the individual companies themselves. The US is over banked and needs to shrink this sector, recently approximately 40 percent of S&P 500 profits came from banking while the long term average is only seven percent. The financial ruling class, as represented by Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, wants to purchase all toxic bank assets to save all banks and their managements. Taxpayers have no interest in saving the managers of failed banks or their stockholders/bondholders. The banking system will operate much better without these bankrupt institutions, i.e., they are not too big to fail as long as the government nationalizes them. The Bernanke approach dooms the American economy to the Japanese disease of a lost decade of poor economic growth while the tried-and-true Swedish model allows the government to administer a controlled liquidation of bad bank assets, support the good banks and quickly return the US to strong economic growth.

re: By Harold Hellickson, January 16 at 9:17 am:

Harold thinks I forgot to blame the “speculators”. Harold, did speculators suddenly appear from nowhere in the summer of 2008, when the price of oil skyrocketed - having nothing to do with the fact that the US and Israel were suddenly saber-rattling against Iran again in a very ominous way? And then did the speculators disappear a few months later, plunging oil to a five-year low, with gasoline prices not seen since 2003 or 2004?

Did speculators suddenly appear in the fall of 2006 - when Israel happened to invade Lebanon, causing fear that the war would spread to include Iran (since Israel was falsely blaming its problems on Iran) and the Persian Gulf -  driving oil up to $75 a barrel? And then did the speculators happen to disappear after that, causing oil to plunge back down by about a third?

Look, the “speculators” were “speculating” - that is, predicting a catastrophic interruption in oil supply - in both cases, because ISREAL WAS THREATENING A CATASTROPHIC BLOW TO WORLD ENERGY SUPPLIES, BY THREATENING WAR AGINST IRAN, OR BETTER YET, GETTING BUSH TO DO IT FOR THE ISRAELIS.

Oil is a commodity. Prices of commodities are based not only on present supply but on anticipated supply. Israel was the cause of these price spikes and of the speculation spikes that inevitably and rationally accompanied them. If you trade in commodities, it is your right and your job to judge the price based on present and future supply. Israel is the problem - the speculators were just responding to the problem.

The speculators have no power to create a massive price increase all by themselves - or gas would still be $4 a gallon like it was last summer.

There must be some kind of cold “comfort” in the otherwise pointless exercises of number-crunching and sentence-parsing.  After all, virtually the entire cable “news” industry does almost nothing else.  An awful lot of it goes on here, too, among commenters and commentators alike, who are no-doubt sincerely (and more-and-more desperately?) trying to get some kind of “handle” on the deteriorating condition their “CONdition” is in.

Meantime, us surviving free wild Savages are here hoping to remind our tame Sisters and Brothers of something we realize is quite difficult for them to grasp.  The death-dealing CONtraption you call “civilization” CONsists of nothing, really, except abstractions and rhetoric.  While its “expression” in our actual Living Arrangement (as ideological and institutional and electro-mechanical CONstructs) is certainly having REAL effects on us all, including our Mother Earth, the “thing” itself exists only in the captured imaginations of domesticated Humans….just like one of its terminal-stage sub-systems, “america.”

Until people are able to recognize their “situation” for the captivity it is, and then to respond ALL TOGETHER from the “ground” of their Humanity and its natural organic function within our Living Arrangement, every attempt to ameliorate the increasingly intolerable depradations of “civilization” will be nothing but more exercises in FUtility.  People here and elswhere will continue to ramble endlessly-on about what’s “wrong” with the “horror movie” they’re cast-in, while doing nothing-at-all to free one another from the fatal delusion that the illusion is “real.”

The I Ching recommends that a Person keep their “thoughts” limited to their actual circumstances.  This old Indian will bet that if people here will do that they will begin to see the gross discrepancies between what they are constantly told about who and what and where and when the ARE, and the sensible impressions of all that they can get from simply paying their precious attention to their immediate here-and-now.

Try it, Friends.  Do you really believe you still have something to “lose” you won’t be way better-off without anyhow?

HokaHey!

Concerning our sudden economic meltdown, here’s the elephant in the room that nobody sees: Israel.

The acute event that drove our economy into a crisis of confidence was the sudden spike in oil prices — just this past summer, oil prices suddenly spiked to MORE THAN TRIPLE what they are now. And that was because there was a sudden, Israel-driven stepping up of threats of war against Iran. With Bush leaving office, the Israelis feared that the next president might not be insane enough to accommodate Israel’s desire to have the US destroy Iran for them.

Doesn’t anybody remember that when an Israeli official stated publicly that war with Iran was certain and imminent, he caused the SINGLE LARGEST ONE-DAY SURGE IN OIL PRICES EVER?

Suddenly, nobody could even think of buying an SUV, or a big house in the suburbs that would require a daily commute. People suddenly couldn’t make their house payments, because they couldn’t afford the gas to get to work. Housing values and auto sales nosedived.

And why are oil prices now so much lower? Don’t say it’s simply because of the recession - we know that the economy’s been in recession for a full year. The experts say the recession started in December 2007. Last summer’s highest-ever oil prices occurred SEVEN MONTHS into this recession.

The proximate, acute cause of the rapid economic meltdown was the skyrocketing of oil and gasoline prices back in the summer — and the biggest reason they are now drastically lower is that the Bush administration is ending. There is a general perception - right or wrong - that a war against Iran is not going to happen, because (a) the Obama people are relatively sane, and (b) the acutely worsening recession itself makes such a war economically and politically infeasible.

When Obama says, economy, he does not mean it in the sense that most Americans would take it to mean.  He’s talking about the continuation of the moribund capitalist system that feeds the US-UK financial interests.  The world has become tri-polar economically speaking, and the US-UK is losing its edge to EU and Asia.  Keep in mind that the goal is still world domination, ultimately by militarizing space, fomenting national strife, terrorism and keeping the other developing economies from developing.
When Obama says everyone will have skin in the game, what he’s really talking about is harsher austerity measures to further minimize the middle class.  I wonder if those Wall Street financiers who got such large bonuses from the first part of the TARP payout will suffer from the economic deterioration?  Probably not.

Eric—I assume that the post that is
“signed” just “Eric” is you also? I agree with almost all of what you say…

The “American dream” is an unachievable concept, which involves, never having enough “stuff”. It benefits multi-national corporations the most, and, both parties seesm determined to “get us back on course”.

Now that we have exported our horrible “dream” (nightmare), the “developing” countries (well, they are quickly “developing” past us!) are , temporarily ( I hope) convinced that this it the lifestyle that they want to achieve, also, even though, most Americans never achieved “it” in the first place!

That is how we “bring Democracy to the world”—-one KFC at a time…

I hope that that changes, but, we are in no position to tell them, in any case!

We are on an unsustainable course. Rather than steering into it, we need to STOP—-and go in another direction…

The spending of TARP funds under President-elect Obama will be no different than under President Bush. Obama’s economic team is Geithner/Summers/Bernanke, the spitting image of Bush’s team that bailed out the crooks on Wall Street. Just more of the same, the rich get richer on the taxpayer’s dime.

$350 billion dollars in TARP money and the Federal Reserve spending approximately $3 trillion dollars bailing out the plutocracy isn’t doing anything to help the average citizen nor is it pulling the economy out of this severe recession, trickle down doesn’t work. Spending another $350 billion TARP dollars on the financial ruling class may make the Republican neocons happy, but is shear insanity.

People think taht Obama’s tax cuts and “stimulus” pkg look “not so big”, because, we “get used to it”. The rich count on it.

This country is on a totally unsustainable path, and, tax cuts are NOT going to get us out of it. Conservative of both parties sold this country down the old river a long time ago.

Polls (actual ones) show that the majority of people are NOT “for” this crap. But, they put up with it—they think that they have to, and, every four years, you have people telling them the same crap—the disaster that will befall us, and , be all their fault, IF they do not vote Democratic.

The American economy is like going downhill on a bad road at ever increasing speeds with passengers being thrown out along the way.  The Obama plan is to defy the laws of gravity by deploying an undersized parachute made in China.

70% of the people opposed the $700 bn bailout to buy toxic debt despite the urgings of the President, the Treasury, and the Senate Democrats that it was needed to avoid an economic catastrophe.  It had to pass and pass soon.
They’ve given away $350 bn and half of that went to dividends and bonuses.  The rest went to buying other banks and to their rainy day fund, they’re sitting on it.
This government doesn’t respond to the people.  They are lawless, maybe since as far back as 1980.  They are treating the American people like children.  The Preamble to the Constitution begins, “We the people….”.  Not, “My children….”
I could see that bailout coming in 2005 when Bush couldn’t get the privatization of Social Security through, so Wall St. started backing Democrats like Rangel of New York.  Make no mistake about it.  They want it all and they’re hell bent on getting it,  on their terms.

Obama standing in line with Bush I and II, Carter and Clinton in today’s photo op seemed to symbolize the unbroken string of pretenders to the throne.  Obama is going to pick up where Bush II left off just as Clinton did with Bush I with respect to Nafta and the continuation of the sanctions on Iraq. 
We were all fooled. George II did a great job for the US-UK power brokers.  He actually left Obama with a lot to work with.  Obama can blame the economy for new deep austerity measures which are sure to come. The only difference will be the new direction of foreign policy.  They’re going after Russia, now through China and by means India versus Pakistan. 
Blair as DNI will redirect the covert war to the Russians and Chinese and Panetta will rid the CIA of all the left-over spooks loyal to the Bushes and the neocons.
Israeli will be sidelined, maybe that’s is why they’re making this run at Genocide.

Wouldn’t it be a sign of intelligence if people began to at least consider the implications of the possibility (however remote most still believe it to be)that every attempt to “revive” the collapsing U.S. and “global” economies is going to fail….miserably?  That these are in-fact FALSE economies is only a part of their joint terminal weakness.

Among other fatal flaws is their rotten “foundations” upon supposedly innate selfishness.  Since Human “individuals” are theirselfs mere half-baked artifacts of an “alien” civilization, any system built on (and OF) them will necessarily embody all of their inherent inadequacies….a crippling blindness to everything but their own private narrow and shallow (and illusory) “self-interest” not least among these.

What also spells doom for this ill-conceived enterprise is its essentially adversarial and exploitative stance toward all the rest of our Mother Earth’s Living Arrangement.  Expecting anything good from such a foolhardy “ethic” is only more evidence of the rampant insanity suffered by domesticated peoples nearing THE END of their ten-thousand-year-long captivity.

Finally, though, the “global economy” is going-away because it is driven by urges and appetites that are fundamentally infantile, in a Living World who must have a MATURE HUMAN RESPONSE to Her life-threatening condition, if She is to recover Her native wholeness and health.  This “CONsumer culture” is at-best kidstuff.  It’s nearly never been anywhere near its “best,”....and even that not for many, many generations.

Domesticated peoples are in this mess because of their artificially arrested development, as Human Beings.  Every “problem” they face here in these latter days is a direct (and inevitable) CONsequence of their CONtrived and carefully cultivated immaturity.

Like reckless adolescents drunk on ignorance, racing egotistically stupified from one cheap-thrill to the next, the civilized peoples are headed for disaster.  It’s shape and content are even now visible everywhere in their virtual world-o’-hurt….war, disease, famine, habitat degradation, etc., etc.

The “sub-species” homo domesticus must either grow-up or self-destruct.  Theirs is a purely BIOLOGICAL challenge….one in which ideological and institutional and electro-mechanical contraptions are much more likely to be terminal liabilities than life-saving assets.

The popular optimistic view is that since Humans rarely change their ways except under the duress of some great crisis, this Mother-fucker-of-all-crises now overwhelming the “civilized” world will turn-out to be “just-what-the-doctor-ordered.”  Maybe it will.

Certainly any of us still around to tell the tale to our GreatGrandchildren will’ve made the necessary “transformation.”  Does anybody here truly believe that CHANGE will amount to nothing but ramping-up the same old money-grubbing machinery that ushered people into this “actual emergency”?  Would it be at all intelligent to look for anything but a “bums-rush” out of here, if that’s the best Human Beings can do?

HokaHey!

I fail to see how business tax cuts, and, not reversing the Bush tax cuts, is the “road to recovery”.

How much did that “middle class
” tax cut ($200,000?? That’s the upper 98th Quintile!)help last time?

Do you really need $500 more than you need univeresal health care, or rapid speed transit? I dont think the Dems need to give the GOP anything—they will fight everything they try to do no matter what.

As Krugman says, “Being a progressive calls for partisanship—at least for now”.

getting the American Vehicle back on the road Mr. Obama. George and Dick are about to hand you the keys to a stolen car that has been beet to death, run out of gas, crashed on every corner and stripped of it’s tires, wheels and everything else of any value. It’s probably also booby trapped and if it doesn’t blow up on you immediately the repo man wants what’s left for scrap.

“The past eight years of imperial overstretch, hubris and domestic and international abuse of power on the part of the Bush administration has left the US materially weakened financially, economically, politically and morally,” he said. “Even the most hard-nosed, Guantanamo Bay-indifferent potential foreign investor in the US must recognise that its financial system has collapsed.”

http://tinyurl.com/8o9bbh

With minor diffrecnese aside—havent we “been there , done that” with “tax cuts”?

What a massive disappointment Obama has been!! I know…I know…give the guy a chance after all he he has yet to be sworn in!! My apologies, but I just can’t do that. From his capitulation on FISA, immunity for the telecoms, support for the Bush/Paulson Banking Bailout…etc!! This guy is Republican through and through…right down to his so called stimulus packages AKA “trickle down Regeanomics!” Remember that? This guy is basically a lying, FRAUD whom I unfortunately supported wholeheartedly! Never again will I support this pathetic Democratic Party!! NEVER!

Good thing TD is keeping this thread open.

Looks like we will need to be on this same thread for the next 15 or so years, if we are lucky.

The news media continues to talk about U.S auto bailout.  Same media strangely silent on $10 billion/month going to Iraq, $30 billion going to Citicorp (Citicorp needed the money because their offshore deposits are not covered by the FDIC).  How stinking decent.

Usury laws state explicity that exorbinant rates have to be paid back 5 times the amount the person was charged, & this includes the have to pay interest & exorbinant bank fees as well; they have been set in place prior to the constitution itself; ALL members of Congress were well aware of this; they had full knowledge & consent of exactly what was transpiring & going on. The “personal responsiblity” they are trying to put onto the people goes DIRECTLY to them; THEY are the ROOT CAUSE of the problem. Being the “lawless” lawmakers, with their “courts” and “judges” who confer with them as to what the “verdict” will be; some for, some against: as Bush was not happy with the Supreme courts ruling; is ALL a CHARADE: or “theatricals” as one lady stated it. BOOKS have been written re what went on on Wall ST; & simply adding a nephews name perhaps to a Corps payroll with a 6 figure yearly income or more: without them ever having to show up; doesn’t show up as a “bribe” & things like Chicago’s mayor extortion of a childrens’ hospital etc do not make the “news” which is all false reports, filtered items & changed to make it seem what is not. The collapse of the dollar is for the getting up of the Amero; sad to say, the bald eagles etc are going to be destroyed as this nation’s “change” agenda is to clear cut all; destroy as much fresh water as it can from city, to county, to state: each & everyone; & completely commercialize everything; 6 homes on a 2 home lot; etc; environmental laws have not been followed for years; they are just on the books for looks; & no one will do anything cuz the “lawmakers” Congress are indeed behind it all.

There’s a scene in the remake of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” echoing what Shift describes so well here.  Suddenly all the electro-machanically-generated static stops, and the voice of Nature is audible to the domesticated Peoples again.  In fact, the “theme” of the movie was saving what remains of the Natural Order from further destruction by the habitual usages of “civilization.”  That this required the elimination of the “hardware” with which tame Humans wreak their havoc (along with most of the Humans who wreak it) was, of course, the “hook” for getting the “real-life” counterparts of those same “individuals” into the theaters. 

In the movie the “alien” agent of “....a group of civilizations” was persuaded to relent somewhat, possibly giving the domesticated peoples a chance to clean-up their own act.  It seems to this old Native rather telling that the idea of some “superior civilization” showing-up here to put a stop to the planetary depradations inflicted by this “local” one is evidently more-or-less acceptable to “modern” people.  That there is already present and accounted-for, within the Living Arrangement of our Mother Earth, a remnant of free wild natural Human Beings who are among the agents of essentially similar changes, on the other hand, is generally greeted here with, at best, considerable skepticism.

People dead-set on their own destruction will not be “saved” from theirownselfs.  Neither will they get to take the rest of us with them.  If some domesticated Humans want to be freed from their captivity they will themselves have to take the painful and extremely difficult steps to get there.  Us surviving Savages are ready and able to serve as Native Guides, but we cannot do “the heavy lifting” for you.

One way or another, of course, this death-dealing contraption is coming to its pre-programmed conclusion.  The voices of all our Relations will no longer be drowned-out by the deafening din of machinery and electro-mechanically-amplified ideological and institutional propaganda.  “Cheap thrills” none of us could ever afford will no longer be on-offer to distract people from the requirements of fulfilling their organic function here.  The plain fact that Humans ARE NOT “the brains” of this outfit will once again be plain for all to see.

The protagonist in the movie warned people that even if the nanobot “swarm” could be arrested, there was no way the levels of “comfort” and “convenience” people’d been taking-for-granted would ever again be available to them.  That is a guaranteed outcome here in our Living World as well. 

Better get used to the idea, Sisters and Brothers.

HokaHey!

Yesterday I was walking the river bluffs.  A Bald Eagle flew just below us and cheered our spirits.  Soon a Bobcat ran by us on the other side about ten yards away.  The place we walked was wild and natural mostly untouched by man.  When I stopped and just existed in this natural environment, standing quietly and just listening the beauty of the place slowly saturated me as a sense of calm enfolded me.  In this state of calm I was untouched by wars, the economy, and politics.  No such thoughts entered my mind.  Time had no meaning here.  Just living in the moment with no particular purpose enhances the heart and cleanses the spirit.  Mother Earth changes us in good ways.  She accepts our burdens and breathes good life energies into us so that we can carry them and share them with our brothers and sisters.

I remember back when I was in grade school, it was a big deal that the Federal Reserve was NOT a government agency.  You don’t hear that sort of thing anymore, which is odd.

WATCH THIS!

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/512.html

No wonder Barney Frank, as he admitted on 60 Minutes, has his money in Municipal bonds.

Double accounting.  There hiding the wealth.  As far as the U.S. Government goes, we’ve been screwed, blewed and tattooed.

As for the Fed, has anyone ever tallied the amount of money paid to the Federal Reserve in interest payments since its inception.

She THEN went on to cleverly “distract” folks which is a tactic used a LOT by this trickery Gov: to state: LOOK at all the Gov Regulations you have! Why, everything you EAT, from an apple to a candy bar is ALL for your “protection”: BONG! Salt is CHEMICALLY TREATED to cause high blood pressure, & is used so excessively in processed foods (those Criminals in Congress & those Corps working together again!) it causes kidney stones in both adults & children causing excruciating pain & agony for children; must be that Don Rumsfeld mentality of brutality & cruelty again! with everyone going right along with him; cuz then they get so much $ for the pharmas! SAME with Sugar (refined they call it: CHEMICAL) same with FLOUR; same with food additives added including FORMALDEHYDE. THIS is HOW the GOV of the USA works! Of course, getting a goodly portion of every Corp they need no $ at all; just tax the people because they are abusive; & joy in cruelty & delight in torture.

Watching Elizabeth Warren on the “new Congress” board of economics along with others most educating; one day she cleverly states that usury laws went away in the 70’s which was a blantant lie; the next day or so again being broadcast she states that usury laws predated the Constitution; she THEN states :amazingly that the US Supreme Court had “made an interpretation” on them; then goes on to state that some folks had decided that they could make a whole lot more $ interest wise by RAISING the rates on homes; ARMS???; then stated that Congress had WITH NO IMPUT passed something re housing; (NOTHING is done without BRIBERY folks! it’s the MOST CORRUPT Gov on the PLANET! she spoke of prepayment statements added; & folks would have to pay to refinance; then added all these hidden tricks & traps re credit cards; & how they would go to a state like S Dakota & BRIBE THEM to do business there;or SAY they were doing business there; ****I had heard that there was a “clause” that IF you prepaid off your home you would STILL have to pay all the interest. NOW: the Pres of Responsibility of loan lenders: ALL these folks QUALIFIED for BETTER LOANS: & someone was BRIBED to STEER them to THESE {riskier loan with far more interest & a bunch of bogus fees: WHICH how could HE NOT HAVE KNOWN WHAT WAS GOING ON?????????? RICO laws state that all funds homes cars etc used in CRIMES are consicatable; looks to me like the PEOPLE of the USA just got a WHOLE LOT OF $ COMING TO THEM!

Bush/Paulson/Bernanke’s bailout of failed insurers/banks is anti-capitalism. Bernanke/Summers/Geithner are condemning the US to a terrible economic future, claiming to save the financial system; but, in reality only saving their crony friends, the failed Wall Street owners/creditors/managers/banks. America’s future is too important to be left to bureaucrats beholden to the industries they regulate and to politicians, i.e., Schumer/Dodd/Frank, being directed by the large campaign contributions from the industries they oversee. Fascism/corporatism in America will increase, unless the people act.

The real value of the Federal Reserve is reflected in their current lending rate -  0%.  Can you imagine that? From a high of 22% under Paul Volcker, the Fed chief under Jimmy (Jeeemie) Carter, which started the destruction of the American middle class.  No one could afford to borrow money so manufacturing moved overseas.
We are about to enter the a serious period, either save the financiers from themselves or save what’s left of the American democracy.  Under Barack Obama, the marionette for the Rockefeller clan and guided by Zbigniew Brzezinski, we might be being led down the primrose path to Fascism and War with Russia.

All this crapola about Transformation and change and hope is just the camel’s nose under the tent.  All these Rousseau-like ideas about the nature and natural man is shill talk. 

We should hold our elected representatives’ feet to the fire and make sure they do not privatize social security or anything else.  They ignored the people in the $700 bn bailout, but they can’t be allowed to do any more harm.
They are the last barricade to these ravenous wolves.  We have to make sure they do their job - the people’s work.

While it can be said that Greenspan and Burnanke have contributed to our present dilemma the quoted statement of the man responsible for the federal reserve:

“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world - no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”
—President Woodrow Wilson (The president whose administration passed the Federal Reserve Act)

By bilejones, December 24 at 2:33 pm #

The core cause of the meltdown is the Federal Reserve’s vast expansion of the money supply under the sanctimonious idiot Greenspan and the moron Bernanke. This caused the stock market bubble, the housing bubble and the latest and greatest: the Treasury bubble. In the last couple of decades trillions of dollars has been carefully shepherded into the hands of a few thousand banksters. They, in their turn reward the perpetrators with millions in “speaking fees”.

————————————————
The only thing I would add is that this end is the mathematical certitude of the formation of the Federal Reserve.  It was formed to keep the Power Elite of Wall Street above the fray while working Americans fight and die and work and pay like slaves to ensure that they have theirs.

The core cause of the meltdown is the Federal Reserve’s vast expansion of the money supply under the sanctimonious idiot Greenspan and the moron Bernanke. This caused the stock market bubble, the housing bubble and the latest and greatest: the Treasury bubble. In the last couple of decades trillions of dollars has been carefully shepherded into the hands of a few thousand banksters. They, in their turn reward the perpetrators with millions in “speaking fees”.

Yellowbird2525 consistently calls our attention to specific areas in which our tormentor’ two-legged agents are actively continuing their rape and pillage and murder.  Calling for the War Drums in-response is seemingly sensible enough, but doesn’t maybe allow for the fact the actual battleground IS the domesticated peoples themselves….our own blood kin.

The perpetrators do all the dirty-work Yellowbird2525 describes here almost entirely by proxy, using their Human subject/citizens as throw-away implements largely ignorant of their exploitation and the utter ruthlessness with which it is carried-out.  That is exactly the fatal flaw in the infernal scheme.

Even as abused and confused as the tame peoples are, they remain Children of our Mother Earth….our own Sisters and Brothers.  Their abusers and confusers are fooling-around with dynamite here, and it’s about to blow their damned operation all to hell. 

It’s taken some time, and cost us heavily in our own flesh and blood, but we finally have the self-absorbed fools who came here looking for a free lunch ( that’d've been us) right where we need them.  Already we’re getting some to take the Medicine (yep, US again) that will cure what ails ‘em.

Cut-off now from their sponsor/owners’ direction, co-opted half-human overseers can only continue stupidly running amok as they try vainly to prop-up the pyramid scam they mistakenly believe theirownselfs near the top-of.  It should be pretty plain now how woefully incapable they are of “succeeding” at that….as they scramble frantically to pump hot-air into the cheap imitation plastic “castle” they tried to pass-off as an “improvement” on the Natural Living Arrangement of our Mother Earth.     

Meantime, those actual Humans who’re caught in the collapsing contraption called “civilization” are already, some of ‘em at-least, looking for the EXIT.  This old Man is here in-effect holding-up a sign saying “THIS WAY OUT!”  That being what our Lakotah Cousin call the Tiyoshpaye Way.

HokaHey!

Tao Walker: my fathers ancestors were here to meet my mothers on the Mayflower: since this corrupt Gov with 2 faces & lying tongue has NEVER kept one single promise to any American Indian tribe; they do not have any authority over the land at all; HERE is what they are busy & up to while playing out this charade & theatricals in front of the unsuspecting public: they are going after to destroy as much fresh water supply in this nation as they can; from city, (ours extending ski lodge over watershed); to NY going to mine watershed; Coal Mountain blow the top destroying all kinds of fresh water, streams, etc; they claim humans have a NEED for water but not a RIGHT to it; & you cannot even drink out of your own well water; they will not allow you to grow any vegetables at all; nor even have any chickens, beef, etc; they are going to destroy all the trees, all the forests, & build condos; google FEMA trailers & Haliburton concentration camps & you can see where the citizens will end up after being given fed Id #s; let the drums of war begin to speak through out the tribes; perhaps THESE folks dull of mind & thinking they are “free” when they are oppressed & abused: perhaps they will begin to hear & let the scales fall off their eyes & ears; they claim they are a nation of law but they make up laws as they go along.

The up-side of people owning-up to their fair share of complicity in this mess, as Mike W does here, is getting to a place where some sort of mutual beneficially effective response becomes available.  The “victim mentality” is ALWAYS a lot more advantageous to the perpetrator, anyhow.

So at what point does it stop making any sense at all palavering about ways to keep this Titanic “global economy” (and the “civilization” of which it is merely the super-structure) afloat….or arguing over who’s most to-blame for its in-progress sinking?  When does turning to one another, where we are right now floundering, for whatever might still exist in the way of common ground, get recognized as the ONLY viable option left here for Human Beings?

One time a bunch of us Indians piled into an old car to go to a Ceremony the other side of the Rez.  This was maybe seventy-five Winters ago, about this time of year, and there was a big storm coming.  The jalopy broke-down maybe twenty-five miles from where we were headed.  Of course the contraption’s “owner” wanted to try and get it going, and we all pitched-in on that.  After awhile it was obvious that tin-god Lizzie was a goner, though.

The storm was nearly on us by then, and there was some quick debate about whether to stay with the car or make a try on-foot for some better shelter.  The one who held “title” couldn’t bring himself to abandon his prized “property,” and two others decided to stay with him.  Four of us started walking.  We all got overtaken by the blizzard, but only us Walkers got through it alive….thanks mainly to the old couple whose place we were going to for the Ceremony, who’d anticipated our difficulty and come part-way to meet and guide us to the safety of their home.

Their own tin gods have miserably failed the domesticated peoples, even as a perfect storm of ideological and institutional and technological break-down roars into their virtual world.  Many, maybe even most, will be unable to walk away from their worthless “investments.”  Those who can will be met on the road by some of us surviving free wild Natives who will help them back to Life.

You have this old Indian’s word on that.

HokaHey!

Larry;

You are correct in your observation that Jefferson while expounding his political view’s,  decided that rule by the illuminated elite would be the path he would follow, not unlike politicians of the present.

The founding fathers seem to have been in the same situation as we find politicians today subverted by the bankers who control the world.

This is not just a melt down but a further attempt at relieving this country and it’s citizenry of their sovereign rights a plan whose seeds were insidiously planted at its birth.

The argument is not that banks are good or evil, the argument is who should control who. At this point while it appears that we have nationalized the banking system, I rather fear it is the banking system that has privatized the government.

All this said it makes Jefferson’s word’s no less true.

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and the corporations which grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
—Thomas Jefferson

Concerning our sudden economic meltdown, here’s the elephant in the room that nobody sees: Israel.

The acute event that drove our economy into a crisis of confidence was the sudden spike in oil prices — just this past summer, oil prices suddenly spiked to MORE THAN TRIPLE what they are now. And that was because there was a sudden, Israel-driven stepping up of threats of war against Iran. With Bush leaving office, the Israelis feared that the next president might not be insane enough to accommodate Israel’s desire to have the US destroy Iran for them.

Doesn’t anybody remember that when an Israeli official stated publicly that war with Iran was certain and imminent, he caused the SINGLE LARGEST ONE-DAY SURGE IN OIL PRICES EVER?

Suddenly, nobody could even think of buying an SUV, or a big house in the suburbs that would require a daily commute. People suddenly couldn’t make their house payments, because they couldn’t afford the gas to get to work. Housing values and auto sales nosedived.

And why are oil prices now so much lower? Don’t say it’s simply because of the recession - we know that the economy’s been in recession for a full year. The experts say the recession started in December 2007. Last summer’s highest-ever oil prices occurred SEVEN MONTHS into this recession.

The proximate, acute cause of the rapid economic meltdown was the skyrocketing of oil and gasoline prices back in the summer — and the biggest reason they are now drastically lower is that the Bush administration is ending. There is a general perception - right or wrong - that a war against Iran is not going to happen, because (a) the Obama people are relatively sane, and (b) the acutely worsening recession itself makes such a war economically and politically infeasible.

Lee A; don’t know where you have been living not to be aware of this: http://www.naturalnews.com; http://www.hsi.com (healthscienceinstitute); books by the reams have been written if you do know how to read; b&n;check out pharmacuticals; might also want to check out genetically modified seeds which are made by makers of Agent Orange Monsanto who is being given water rights to USA (oh unhappy day) & agressive plans to destroy & damage fresh water supply all over the USA from city, to county, to state, to Federal parks & lands; Coal mountain is scheduled to blow it’s top destroying many clean water streams & creeks. It gets better: NO ONE will be allowed to eat ANY thing that is NOT made by genetic modified seed; & they have cloned MEAT that you are probably eating & cloned MILK that you are probably drinking all complete with pesticides etc to harm YOU to the max. And in this “nation of “force of good”********which was fabricated on lies by Rumsfeld Kissinger & others; check out power of nightmares on youtube.com; might also check out Fema trailers, concentration camps, & where Obama gave his speech in Germany: correlates with HITLER: whom OUR nation brought over top Nazi’s & sat up handsomely to learn EVERYTHING that they did & HOW they did it. WHAT “good” nation or a nation that does “good” would do THIS? Oh, that’s right: just saw a huge panel of folks claiming how “good” floride was; that was what Hitler put into the water supply; google it if they haven’t removed it to find out why other nations have banned it long ago cuz of the problems; think the toothpaste containing contaminents was REALLY from China? better find out while you can!

This financial meltdown has been going on since Regan was president.  This nasty mix of punishing right wing politics with economics was bound to lead to what we have now.  Consider it would have taken no effort at all to leave the regulations in place and not have to fix the mess we have now.

Let us not forget that George Bush signed the North American Union agreement in 2005, relieving us of our sovereignty. Crisis economic or violence is the shock needed for those in power to finally push this through as the country is economically readjusted, while we are struggling to survive.

In a recent interview Kissinger was quoted as saying that the recent crises have enhanced the movement towards toward a new global order.

We are closer I think to this than many people would like to admit, the shock of crisis after crisis is wearing down the average person, they will give up anything for what appears to be stability.

Look at our elected officials they belong to organizations that promote this new order.

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/cfr-members.htm

during the Bush years. Follow the money, means of production (especially refineries), raw materials, commodities and military weapons. Compare the solid “southern-identity” against the chaotic multi-culturalism elsewhere. Who has a tighter, more cohesive cultural identity that can be manipulated/exploited?  Military bases in the North/West Coast have been gutted. Look at massive shift of weapons/infrastructure at Ft Hood, Ft Benning, FT Polk, Ft Bragg…then go do your comparisons. People in the know, as far as military bases, have seen this huge wealth/military transfer to the south. The whole thing is getting clearer by the minute. The collapse of our financial system has been engineered on purpose and its going to come quick. They’ll take control of those numbers on the NYSE and make it appear there’s still value in the market, but that won’t fool anybody outside the US and lies won’t put food on the table. People aren’t going to suffer a 200 calorie/day mac-n-cheese diet, even if some of the UN trucks escape the hijackings and can manage an orderly distribution. It’s been southerners that have allowed the cities to be over-run with uneducated latin americans, who have been brought here to displace poor blacks in the inner cities (Remember, these immigrants buy weapons/ammo, while poor blacks felons remain unarmed).  This tension will explode after the collapse. African immigrants verses blacks verses Mexican nationals verses Americanized Hispanics verses crips/bloods/neo-nazis, etc…I’m sure you get the picture. The resulting chaos will give the ruling class the excuse to invoke martial law (they’ll use Obama to do it, which is why they brought this guy out of NOWHERE and put him in office), but it wont hold because military rank and file are polarized by identity politics too (thanx to israeli theorists who’ve long pushed this polarizing “white privilege” garbage). Weapons/ammo/explosives are going to disappear from armory’s everywhere. Who’s going to walk away from their families to protect nuclear silo’s, maximum security prisons, water treatment plants, power plants, etc?
Listen closely to Bush/Cheney the next few weeks. We already heard Bush say recently (w/ Israeli/CNN reporter Candy Crowley) that a president that politizes the military will “have trouble with the military”...This frame suggests that OUR military is independent of our political process, which raises the specter of a southern military coup here in the US. They will continue this line of talk over the next month or so, to acclimate the public to military rule…To duck the national debt/garbage derivatives/foreign contracts and obligations, the south will secede, create its own currency, and enter pacts with all the right-wing puppet governments they’ve empowered in latin america, israel, etc… The south is going to rise again and the rest of you are on your own. The Bush/Cheney era is just getting started…Welcome back General Robert E Lee….

Signs of imminent collapse you can see:
1-The israeli’s you live near and work with will disappear. They engineered this thing and they’ll be the first to know…”Never again”, remember. Find out who they are and keep an eye on them.
2-The four biggest sellers right now are pasta, beans, peanut butter and firearms. Watch for price increases as supplies dwindle.
3-Movement of goods will come to a crawl, which means less tractor trailers on your highway.

More suggestions???

I like the way that the Federal Reserve’s role is largely ignored in all of this. They were given about 20 billion or so in “bailout” money. I find this strange as we already owe them everything in the first place. The Reserve is treated as a part of our government, when it is actually a privately owned institution. They are the ones who send us our Treasury Secretary. Why have a National Cabinet post for a member of a privately owned bank? They sell us our own money. When they get caught stealing from each other/themselves, we the people are FORCED to pay for it. Does anyone really believe Madoff made off with 50 Billion dollars by himself? The government is bribing us with our own money. This is EXACTLY what Jackson warned us about. Central control of banks is control of the money. Period. Our politicians can ALL be bought. What will it take to finally break the American People? The financial practices of our government have effectively failed. To even begin to start fixing this mess we need REAL money again. Backed by a REAL standard. We have made of this a credit nation. Credit is a scam, and most fell for it. The Great Depression was a warm-up for what we are about to see. Capitalism is great, until it starts getting into government. Remember the Robber Barons? Decentralize the banking system. Term limits for EVERY politician from city council on up. Lastly, we need to stick together as a people. It really is the rich against the poor, and the ranks of the poor are growing daily. Do none of you not recognize this scene? History is full of examples of what we are seeing. The worst case scenario would be Germany in the mid to late 1930s.

Arne Duncan is a coach and jock.  Our nations’s high schools have been very successful in producing the best baseball, football, and basketball players.  They have been so successful because Principals and Assistant Principals are almost exclusively coaches, not academics.  Their focus is discipline and sports.

We shout for reform.  The main reform needed in Public Schools is the replacement of Coach/Principals with Academic Principals.  Only then will academics be elevated to a level of importance.  Only then will we see academic improvement.

Obama calls for change but again appoints someone to head the Department of Education who is a Coach/Jock, not an academic.  Change?  I don’t think so!

“...delusional belief that the “value” of a house exists almost exclusively in its “price,” rather than in the common-sensical acknowledgement of the SHELTER it provides…of a million or more houses standing empty while at least hundreds of thousands of families are effectively “homeless.” ..‘TAO’ who probably has a lot more genuine concern for the welfare of our domesticated Sisters and Brothers than any of their chosen “leaders” ever will have, is some…You may help one another through even-more-trying days ahead.  It’s ALL up to you.” (TAO Walker)

Thanks TAO. These are nice words of yours and I believe words that hold much value. Many do get caught up in it all and when “it all” goes to hell, they still sometimes do not understand the game.
Bought a house, invested in improvements, sold for a profit, purchased a bigger and nicer house with the profit…then crash. Stuck with bigger mortgage, higher taxes and too big of a house needed anyway. Their sold house,with the new owners, which doubled in value…crashed too. Too bad for that 1st time buyer family when the economy slowed, lost their job and can not afford their overpriced home….
(just one story of the millions going on out there)

Blame the government and bankers and all others? No, TAO. I blame myself and ourselves. It must be a tricky balance that path that you follow. Many had a clear path to rid that 30 year fixed way of domesticated lifestyle of ours. But the big farmer had other plans for us instead. He simply was just fattening us up in order to get a better price at the market. Good for “him”. Seriously, good for him.
We should not have kept eating that “feed” and simply stopped when we were full.

Take care.

With Obama’s nomination of Arne Duncan to the Secretary of Education, he tipped his hand as to how he’s going to continue the Meltdown, locally.  In effect, he’s going to bring home the process of rebuilding Iraq.  He and another basketball friend in Chicago pick up games, a son of a bank owner named Giannoulias, are going to start pushing through legislation to build schools.
Now, every new school that I’ve heard about in the last 35 or so years has been close to a complete disaster and needed extensive repair work.  And that is Obama’s and Giannoulias’s specialty—getting the funding for the construction of faulty housing in Chicago.  (One apartment building actually fell down when it was hit by an SUV.)  They’re going bring their scam nation wide.  And this will be only part of the grand scheme.  They’ll use the resistance to this scheme, which there most certainly will be,  to pit the younger age cohort against the boomers. 
All this under the Brzezinski umbrella slogan, “Dignity”.
——————————————————————-
By yellowbird2525, December 17 at 10:36 am #

Love your posts.  It’s not this party or that party, anymore.  It’s a complete collapse of the U.S. government.

Interestingly enough: our “country” is unique in that IT is the only one who amongst it many other sins, has huge drawn out mortgage (meaning death pledge) “loans” that pay huge interest: I bought a home 28 years ago for $28,000; & will have paid out $100,000 by next year on 30 year loan; RIGHT THEN: folks were being put into “loans” with Gov full knowledge & consent that forced the PEOPLE to pay off INTEREST FIRST before a CENT ever put to equity. Our Gov sits down & plans long term goals: & they PRICE everything; even allowing food to ROT in fields so that the PRICE on the market is THIS; they have INFLATED the cost of homes PURPOSELY & this is also seen in CRIMINAL INTEREST & FRAUD BOGUS FEES & CHARGES in Credit cards for years; & now it is seen has been done in HOUSING: yep, all coming out now, in bankruptcys add kinds of bogus fees & charges by banks, etc, are being seen & the PEOPLE QUALIFIED for far better loans, etc: not JUST the “poor” as they try & claim & say IT IS THE PEOPLES FAULT! NO IT IS NOT ! It is the LAWLESS LEADERS sitting DOWN to “create” THIS TYPE OF BOGUS DEBT! CUZ it is ALL CRIMINAL, & BOGUS: so the QUESTION IS: WHY? WHY did they create all this “bogus” debt? Cuz if you CUT THRU the “criminal interest & bogus fees” & cut to the CHASE: I am not a bookkeeper nor an accountant; WHY are they PAYING “moderators” or whatever to STOP BANKRUPTCYS from going thru because THIS IS WHERE IT IS ALL SHOWING UP at; & WHY are our “Congressfolks” supposed lawmakers who are in reality: are you ready for this one folks: they “write” their own laws PRIOR TO any election: they “amend” laws, BACK DATE laws as when they went into place; & delete old laws; & per Judge Sonia Sotomayor in US court of appeals appearing via satelite in Arar vs Ashcroft: they even give their “interpretations” of such. Isn’t THAT sweet! Too too neat! In this “nation of law” THIS is how it WORKS!

Pundits, politicians, pitchmen, and papered professional experts of all stripes are hard-at-it these days trying mightily to persuade theamericanpeople to spend money they don’t have on industrial-wasteproducts they don’t need.  It’ll be interesting to see how the domesticated peoples respond to the largely self-inflicted pickle they’re all in here.

Emblematic of the entire fiasco is peoples’ general acceptance of the delusional belief that the “value” of a house exists almost exclusively in its “price,” rather than in the common-sensical acknowledgement of the SHELTER it provides.  So you now have the truly insane “coincidence” of a million or more houses standing empty while at least hundreds of thousands of families are effectively “homeless.”

It is of course nothing new in america that “property” takes precedence over Persons, both in “law” and in-practice.  That such a completely fucked-up set of priorities is a primary factor in creating the already-bad-and-bound-to-get-much-worse MESS theamericanpeople are in these days doesn’t seem to’ve dawned-on most of ‘em yet.  It will, though….a rude awakening of mind-blowing magnitude, f’r sure.

So far the frantic “focus” of officialdom appears to be on a sure-to-prove-futile effort to re-inflate the collapsing “housing bubble”....not to mention all the other consumptuous make-believe “wealth” it was the model and main driving-force behind.  It may be significant that virtually none of those privileged few claiming the authority to address the thing are themselves much at-risk to suffer any of the supposed-to-be “worst” consequences.  That may help explain the urgency with which they’ve acted to prop-up their own fatuous life-styles, and also account for their evident lack of same when it comes to “bailing-out” the hapless masses who will continue to bear the brunt of (and pay the freight-for) all the institutionalized criminal idiocy perpetrated by their self-proclaimed “betters.”

This is no-doubt part of the “disaster” for which the coupling of grandiose ambitions and meager abilities is always a sure-fire prescription….as the Ancients well knew.  Yet the shuck goes on, with lots of the high-and-mighty talking tons about “straight talk,” but none of ‘em actually doing any of it.

So here, for a change, from an old Savage who probably has a lot more genuine concern for the welfare of our domesticated Sisters and Brothers than any of their chosen “leaders” ever will have, is some.  Those “leaders,” no matter how well-intentioned, cannot save you.  You cannot, contrary to “popular opinion” as dis-informed by all the propaganda of “individual”-ism, save (or even help) yourownselfs.

You might, by getting together where you actually live and breathe, help one another through even-more-trying days ahead.  It’s ALL up to you.

HokaHey!

Wonder how long it will take for people we are in the same boat.  Amazing how we can spent $10 billion a month in Iraq but can not bail out the auto companies.  Some feel putting 3 million out of a job in this economy will not effect them.  Good luck on that one.  Now that the news paper people find their pensions in deep jeopardy you have to wonder why they did not have much to say when others were loosing theirs.  Oh yeah political philosophy needs to take precedence over good economic sense.  How much longer are we going to beat ourselves up with that pile of crap?