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?

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.

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”?

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!

Thom Hartmann reported that the Fed has lent the banks trillions at no interest.  The banks turned around and, instead of lending it, have deposited it back into the Fed at five percent interest.  And that’s where it is staying.

Good work, Thank You!

Real wealth and real monetary value is created only when an individual or a family grew and harvested something from the earth, extracted something of commercial value from the earth, provided services (medical, dental, engineering, technology, etc.), and/or made (manufactured or constructed) something that is consumable (or useful), and then sells these items to parties outside of that family in return for a net transfer of gold or currency from other parties to that family. The members of that family reflect their real wealth with the accumulation of grain, gold, cattle, jewels, land, commodities and/or other marketable products for reserve use in times of emergency and/or also to raise the standard of living for the members of that family, A country and its citizens prosper or become debt ridden in accordance with their industrial behavior and actions.

The people in a country that grew and harvested something from the earth, that extracted something of commercial value from the earth, that provided services (medical, dental, engineering, technology, etc.), and/or that made (manufactured or constructed) something that is consumable (or useful) and was then was sold outside of that country in exchange for foreign grain, gold, cattle, jewels, land, commodities and/or other marketable products from other parties outside of that country created wealth for that country from the currency received from the sales of those services and products, and this increased the real wealth of that country that could be used in times of emergency and/or also to raise the standard of living for the members of that country.

The USA has almost entirely ceased to generate wealth for future US generations. Instead the USA has elected to sell or export title to US wealth including real estate, farms, agri-businesses, food supplies, dairies, forests, industries, breweries, hotels, factories, casinos, financial institutions, retail businesses, and most other assets located in the USA in order to pay people in foreign countries to manufacture the things that US citizens consume, and also to pay for US government expenses when the expenses exceed the taxes raised by the government. The USA government is selling our means of creating future wealth to pay for imported products that US citizens consume and US government expenses.

Thank you, haroldmh.

Joe,
According this website, the total is 2.6 trillion.

http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm

Joe,
According this website, the toal is 2.6 trillion.

http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm

Joe,

According to this website the total is 2.6 trillion.

http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm

It’s meaningless to talk about economic problems & or
solutions without acknowledgeing the political forces
that are at work. Specifically the FASCISTS & THE NEW
WORLD ORDER/ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT CABAL. A good starting
point would be the ROTHSCHILD’S BANKING DYNASTY,its
connection with the BANK OF ENGLAND,& then moving along
to the passage of THE INCOME TAX LAW & the FEDERAL RESERVE ACT ON DECEMBER 23,1913. By creating wars & 
financing both sides, massive amounts of debt have been
created & this debt gives control to the banks. What
might look like the FED GONE WILD during the first half of the year to some people is actually a very
carefully orchestrated plot to bankrupt AMERICA,
destroy its economy & convert what’s left into England’s biggest colony, just the way California was
destroyed. With millions of jobs gone forever,the
population in a debtor’s abyss,a FASCIST in the White
House, & nobody to represent Main Street, enslavement
is upon us.

If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.

—Herb Stein’s Law, first pronounced in the 1980s

Far be it for me to say what is what in this ongoing financial terrorist attack on america but even the msm such as msnbc will put stuff out for most to read or see or hear that bear consequences that are not good indicators of a healthy economy despite how much those ‘best and brightest’ profess to the ‘improvement’(gaged as how well the stock market is or is not doing) or soon to be ‘recoverying’ economy, and here I list some I found today:

This has to do with hotel occupancy rates being lower in hawaii and I am sure else where, people just can’t afford to be tourist:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31776541/ns/travel-news/

This one has to do with housing and moving:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31666870/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/

This one, well, speaks for itself:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/205522

As stated, these are some of the tidbits that show a dying or failing economy brought on by those we ‘know to blame’ for this financial terrorist attack on us taxpayers and it is all accummulative.

Angst and Mafia-like tactics are the terms.

But may I explain.

This government has been taken over by the shemgolozine.  (A new vocabulary has to be introduced here.  The shemgolozine are a group of humanoids who still believe in the ideas of human nature and existence like that of Desctartes and his pronouncemet, “I think, therefore, I am”.  He never derived how anyone else existed.) 
These so-called “people”, these purveyors of superficial goals of high IQs, High SAT test scores, admittance to ivy league schools and so forth need to be curtailed.  Their wars need to be ended.
There are after all, the rest of us.
They have infiltrated the society.  Me and you and everyone like us.  Like a woodworm, they started in the intelligence community and branched out to the media. Now they have hamstraggled (nw) the nation as a whole. 
The corprate CEOs behaved as expected, Like the mafa, they think of the person only in terms
of whether or not he or she is a “good earner”.  Can this person fill a need and can he or she (or it, in their terms) bring in or save us money?
Now, they have taken over the whole schmeckis (again, a new vocabulary has to be introduced to hope to cover the macabre pathology of this group).\

Sarah Palin is prepping for a third psrty run. We should declare that we are not like that.  We should hold the results of the reliable polls to their faces and demand that we are citizens of the United States and we demand our Rigths.

Life , Liberty and the Purfiut of Happineff.

That’s All folks!

I hear you KDelphi.  All I can say about the NE is that the, “rains came.”
  I try to look at it as an extra growing season, maybe.

But reality, I could with no guilt shoot everyone of those bastards in the back of head three times and sleep well.

Sounds too familiar, garth…and that’s the problem…there are neither the well-paying jobs nor the time to make this stuff up.

If we want it back , we will have to take it. Obama is not going to “get it for us”.

But how?
If not, Banana Republic, which should be “fine” as, if that “climate change bill” is the best Congress can do (putting most of the expense on people instead of the polluters) I should be able to grow bananas here in Ohio really soon!

The state is already operated like a Third World country.

We let them give it all away..it was unsustainable, but, they’ll keep it just the same…

I talked with a retired woman last week who told me that she lost $300K in hers and her husband’s retirement account. Sounded like nearly all of it.  The manager of her acount was an agent of Merrill Lynch.  She said she’s going to take the advice given to her by experience and that she’s going try to just get back to even and then get out of the stack market and stay out.
I told her of an experience I had when I was working and contributing to a 401K.  The company switched the fund’s manager to Merrill Lynch and after a few short months of Merrill Lynch’s way of doing business, mainly sell, sell, sell and live off the droppings of Citi and Goldman Sachs, the company cancelled the contract and moved to another broker. Before the company could let everyone know what was being done, however, Merrill Lynch sent out notices to all the people in the fund telling them that their balances were zero, nada, zippo. 
Everyone panicked and called the fund manager, I think it was Met Life, to find out what the hell was going on.  The manager had to handle all the calls and allay everyone’s fears.  Needless to say, they were royally pissed at the boys at Merrill.
One positive note about this woman was that she cancelled her Capital One card.  It was one bad experience too many.  Apparently she was hooked by their goofball tv ads and reeled in by some flagrant sales pitch.
I hope she gets her money back, but I don’t think there’s enough time.
I heard that the Japanese do not get screwed like we did because they make no pretense that there is no insider trading and therefore, no laws against it.  In other words, they don’t try to sell the stock market as anything else than what it is.  If one invests, it’s caveat emptor.

samosamo

; )

By KDelphi, July 3 at 4:47 pm #

Why is Wall St necessary at all?
***************************************************

Simple, IT ISN’T!, except to pass the cash to those who don’t ‘produce’.

Why is Wall St necessary at all?

This is the result of the sum of several people and organizations mistakes. When you add up many errors it becomes a mess and a catastrophe as we have seen.

I hope everybody understands their mistakes. We need to make the right decisions to avoid that in the future.

Trading software

everybodynobody—Yes, I guess I should stop “waiting”..sigh..if it gets worse (as it looks to, with neo-liberal policies like the faux cedit card bill and “health care reform” written by the insurance industry), maybe I’ll have a go at it myself and take someone from Wall St with me…they’re taking down people around here everyday…the faux “regulation” is a joke, too.

Geithner regulating Summers…now that will work!

I think it’s time we started measuring the rope.

Well, from what I know,. Bernancke told Kaptur today, that the Fed had “possiblly” signed some agreements with BlackRock which is giving kickbacks to Larry Summers.

He also said that he sould NOT go along with measures to make the Fed more democratic…..

garth and hawkeye—thanks for support…the lack of single payer is the main reason I am afraid to return to work…it is NOT “saving” anyone “money” and it is running my life instead of me!

Hawkeye—see, that is the prob, though, no offense intended—-you didnt care , until it effected you—-we have to get past that. NOw I had a heads-up from working with clients (or trying to…). When it happened to me, I KNEW I was gonna be screwed! I clung to my COBRA as long as I could, paying up to 180% of my unemployment (had to borrow), until they just dumped me…then, it took 3 yrs to get on Medicaid, and, when I did, the attorney took all my back payments..I cannot describe to anyone how horrible this has been…but, I saw many go through it before me with fewer family and resources than I had…many just died.

It is MUCH worse than the accident itself!! MANY could be back to work if not terrified that they will have another medical problem, so they are terrified to try to do anything!

No, it doesnt quite feel like rape, it feels more like being asked to pay for the rape kit exam afterwards and having to put it on you MasterCard…..

Here is the Mass. Plan:
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/february/massachusetts_plan_.php

Why it is not the answer: “By mandating that uninsured residents purchase private health insurance, the law reinforced the economic and political power of health insurance firms. Thus, the reform augments the already high administrative costs of health care. Moreover, the agency that administers the new law (the “Connector”) adds an extra 4 to 5 percentage points to the already high overhead of private health insurance policies”

“...It will be a plan built on our uniquely American, dysfunctional, fragmented system of financing health care. But it won’t be like the Massachusetts plan that was developed in a wealthy state with greater health care resources, and with fewer financing problems than the rest of the nation. No, it won’t be like Massachusetts. It will be much worse… much, much worse”

Further, 64% of USAns support a single payer plan now.

So what can be the problem? Well, they call it Capitalism…as long as the majority , in both parties, care more about money than they do the ‘Merkin people, this is the garbage that we will get.

If we get this crappy reform, in 2010—throw the buns out , and, demand an opposition party..we could start manning the barricades now….?

KDelphi,

Your post reminded me of someone I knew in high school who went into business for herself and bought her own insurance.  When the Mass insurance plan was put in place, she opted for a plan not quite as expensive as the one she had had.  It was less expensive, but not that much, about $100 a month difference.
Then, one day she was running to her car from her store to get something that had forgotten and she trip.  She tore a ligament in her ankle and couldn’t walk.  She went to the hospital and saw a doctor only to find out later that her new insurance, the Mass alternative she bought, didn’t cover that sort of injury.
She is now facing mounting medical bills and stands to lose her business.
I think that this new plan that the Democrats are peddling will turn out be like a GM warranty, 36,000 miles for the drive train and the one the auto insurance offer with huge decuctibles or a hefty premium. 
We’ll be covered for injuries to the left pinky finger (not including band aids and aspirin) with a $50 copay.
Obama’s message hope was incomplete.  What he said but was, “Hope and Pray.”

Hawkeye and KDelphi,

Great posts.  Thanks for the perspectives and the links.

I heard something on DemocracyNow this morning that mplied that the single payer backers are, at least, being listened to.

This alternative to single payer can’t pass.  I think it would lock us into a one way trip to more of the same, in spades.

garth and hawkeye—this is one former social worker who is very glad to see so many supporting single payer…the “public option” is a farce. BaucASS is a crook, making $500,000, this year alone, from the insurance industry…

Support HR 676 for EVERYONE!!! Thanks..

BTW—my little sis has had breast cancer and they just raised her premiums , today, to almost $18,000 a year, and they wouldnt cover her chemo. My family is almost in bankruptcy paying for it. Is this any way to treat fellow citizens?

They are barbarians..no, wait, barbarians had more compassion…the “barbarians” in Denmark have single payer…I have been treated under it—it works. Very well, in fact. And, it works in Germany, Japan, France, UK, Canada…

More on the “public plan” scam:

http://www.pnhp.org/blog/page/13/

http://www.pnhp.org/blog/

“...So according to Sen. Baucus, a key to reform is “everyone having health insurance.” By that he means that everyone will have health insurance - except the 12 to 18 million who won’t. That’s “pretty good,” he says….

Under single payer, instead of assigning an insurance product to each individual, everyone is automatically provided the health care that they need. They provide only their identification when they access care. Those individuals that you “can’t find” in advance will still receive care when they show up with medical needs. In a single payer system, everyone means everyone - no exceptions.”

WHY do they think GM is bankrupt??!! 35% of the cost of every car is retiree health insurance…well, not anymore, thanks to Mr. Union Man President…

Hooray, Hawkeye!
I am in 100% agreement.
I heard that they, Baucus, et al, are about to pass a health insurance bill.  It does not have a single-payer option, but they included some government sposnsored option.
This option might be a clear case of good being the enemy of the best.  Drs.  Himmelstein and Wolf on the Bill Moyers show explained how single payer is the best of all the options out there.
Now, I also agree that this Government option, if enacted, is going to break the bank.

The Massachusetts plan is doing just that.  Ive talked to homeless people here and they are paying $40 a month for heath insurance.  Can you imagine a situation where you could declare that everyone in your state, employed or unemployed, rich or poor, homeless or to manor born, had to pay you a fee or pay a fine?
Now, that is legislation.  And it is going to complete the shipwreck.

Thanks to Hawkeye’s comment and a rereading of my post, I must correct the last statement.  I meant ‘poke’ not polk. 
But I can’t let this chance to jab at the Obama administration go by.  The last sentence refers to the election of George W. Obama, “Let’s face it, we did not elect a Leader, we bought a pig in a ‘poke’”.
I guess, in a sense, with George, we knew what we were getting.

Thank you Hawkeye.

Thank you, Hawkeye.  I’ve enjoyed your posts, too.  It was the last one that spurred me on to enter this rant.

Thanks again.

The real problem with this economic recovery plan, or any national economic recovery plan for that matter, is the lack of leadership. (Remember Ford’s WIN buttons, Whip Inflation Now?).  In this particular incidence, we have Obama, hailed as the first black President of the U.S. with the concommitant expectations that that brings, but in reality, we have a skinny kid who is full of himself in a suit too big for him to fill.  The whole issue to reiterate is one of leadership.
For the most important issue of the day, the economy, Obama passed the baton to Geithner and Summers, two students of the Rubin-Greenspan mold who want to continue to try to save a moribund economic enclave of the rich, powerful and, heretofore, unknown.  Whatever they said was good enough for him.
And more recently, he is allowing the Cyber Czar (the U.S.military) to determine the parameters of U.S. security and the Internet.  He avers that he is for Net neutratlity,  But can that can be considered anything more than what the likes of Ted Stevens said on the Senate floor (He’s the aquitted criminal and ex-Senator from the Alaska.) namely, that the Internet was a bunch of pipes?
I’m afraid, the good voters of the U.S. have elected another cheerleader.
True Leadership (caps intended), however, comes from knowledge from first hand experience of living the issues and deciding which side of the issue you agree with, not from posing for cameras from the Harvard Review, not from listening to advisers to whom you have acquiesced. 
Let’s face it, we did not elect a Leader, we bought a pig in a polk.

samosamo—I would agree completely.

That is why it is NOT “amazing that an Af Am is president”..anyone can be, if they just cower to the bottom line…