Inherit, Maybe you’re right—but groups you mentioned as displaying sociopathic behavior and/or purely evil are so large that they’re by way of taking over the country. I suppose there must be a category somewhere between sociopathic and evil for someone who (like Geithner)decides to print trillions of dollars and dump it, and wait for inflation to wash away what was left of the economy.

Isn’t all these bailout swindles, in addition to increasing economic inequality, going to enormously inflate the money?

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

When you are pouring water on a burning house do you worry about flooding the basement?

Deflation is far worse than inflation as it feeds on itself. 

Inflation can be shut off by raising interest rates and stopping printing money.

Inherit, Sepharad- We have to distinguish the personally evil from the politically evil.  Eichmann was a good family man.

Paracelsus raises a point that has bothered me too, as well as radical economists.  Isn’t all these bailout swindles, in addition to increasing economic inequality, going to enormously inflate the money? 

I’ve noticed in the grocerystores that food prices appear to be increasing enormously, and are not measured by the fabricated inflation index.  won’t this increase in the future, perhaps radically, as Paracelsus suggests?

By Inherit The Wind, March 27 at 7:30 am
“”“and Bush has a Harvard MBA!”“”

Didn’t poppi but that for him?

I disagree.  If Bush isn’t a full-blown sociopath then he certainly has tendencies that way.  This is a guy who manages by inventing nick-names.  They are usually insulting and if he changes it to a more insulting one you are on the outs.  “Turd Blossom” was a hell of a nick-name. Whatever you think of Karl Rove (and it’s hard to think of him outside a prison jumpsuit) it’s pretty damn demeaning to be called that by your boss in front of your peers. It’s simply bad management and that’s taught right from the most elementary mgt courses—and Bush has a Harvard MBA!

This is a guy who in his fraternity days had no problem branding pledges with a red-hot coat-hanger. He saw every pot of public money as a well to empty in favor of his friends.

Even his Texas Stadium deal that made him personally wealthy was fraudulent—land was seized by eminent domain to build the Stadium and most of it was used to build an office park—at least one suit went against him and his buds.

There are simply totally evil people.  I remember William Zantzinger, who after he killed a woman named Hattie Carroll (of the Dylan song) later was charging dirt poor people excessive rent for houses that had no electric or running water.  And it turned out he didn’t even OWN those houses.

Look at every eMail scam, credit card ID thieves and hackers. No perception or care of the people they hurt.

Look at Robert Mugabe or Bashir.

Paracelsus, There is a very good book that you could and should write based on your post. People are not all alike, but the part of what my grandmother believed that may have some truth to it in some cases anyhow is that there is something missing in them that other people in their lives might have provided and thereby changed history. Then there are people the shrinks define as sociopaths, who lack all sense of empathy except for their own feelings and desires. But I gather you are going beyond that category into the realm of truly evil. I’m not sure Bush himself was actually evil but easily persuaded by people who were—and he wasn’t easily stopped in his tracks, given by the people eight years to destroy large pieces of what this country used to stand for. Likewise, I’m not convinced Obama himself is a monster but he is proving to be easily led by people who apparently are. And whether it’s Obama or his people who are monstrous, they are indeed well-polished. Saw a photo of him in yesterday’s NYTimes in which he looked angry, re bonuses.

The nature of evil allows it to progress through either obvious vice or a facade of virtue, which makes it hard to recognize sometimes. Also, people sometimes ascribe evil to anyone who differs markedly with their opinion on a given subject, which further muddies the waters.

“Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.” Shakespeare had a remarkable ability to suggest large truths in specific yet lovely language. We could use more like him today, but his was a rare gift.

What I still do not understand is why anyone would deliberately cause grief to so many people for so little reason (and money and power must be much overrated because those who attain them only want more. What is so awful about peace and prosperity that we run throwing them away with both hands?

@Sepharad

“After weeping for years after WWII, she still maintained that there were not ANY truly evil people in the world—just people who made grievous errors and caused massive calamaties because someone at some crucial time did not love them enough to teach them trust and right from wrong. And she wasn’t a stupid woman.”

I don’t think she is stupid. I just know that I have lived a life where I had encountered people, some of them are even “family”, who are just evil. They have no consideration for even small children or little animals.
“Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.”—Shakespeare. I have known people who had defrauded a homeless woman of money she never knew about. Such monstrous evil is hard for a normal human to consider. Most people are egosyntonic. They have a theory of mind that people world over are just like them in compassion, and mercy. It cuts across Dem and Reps, because evil doing is highly ecumenical. Sadly enough the evildoers of this world do not so much practice their horrors through the vices of humanity but through their virtues. A key quality of an evil doer is projection. The reason Bush was so much easier to stop in his tracks than Obama will be is that Bush’s projection was so manifestly simple to see. The current wrecking crew is a more well polished monster.

Inherit, you’d think that people who have families and friends and communities even if they were cold-hearted bastards would be reluctant to create such a major catastrophe for the society that gives them freedom and shelter—just to zing a rival. Not saying I don’t believe it; sure you’re right. Just that “you’d think that people…” (Probably spent too much time in my grandmother’s company. After weeping for years after WWII, she still maintained that there were not ANY truly evil people in the world—just people who made grievous errors and caused massive calamaties because someone at some crucial time did not love them enough to teach them trust and right from wrong. And she wasn’t a stupid woman.) Sometimes I really hate the way the world works.

For those that are interested in understanding the economic situation please study Austrian economics.

The country has been hijacked by Keynesians. All the people you speak of are disciples of John Maynard Keynes and more recently Robert Rubin.

Here is Peter Schiff, an advocate of Austrian economics, explaining the current situation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AlD6U7O1pE

If you want to learn more go to http://www.mises.org

Videos that will help you understand the economic and banking system:

Money as Debt - 47 min
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279

Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve - 41 min
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-466210540567002553

FIAT EMPIRE - Why the Federal Reserve Violates the U.S. Constitution - 58 min
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5232639329002339531

America: Freedom to Fascism - Director’s Authorized Version - 1:51:16
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173

G Edward Griffin - Creature From Jekyll Island A Second Look at the Federal Reserve - 42:15
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6507136891691870450

Monopoly Men - 47:22
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7065177340464808778

The Money Masters - How International Bankers Gained Control of America - 3:35:19
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-515319560256183936

Books

Murray Rothbard’s, “The Case Against the Fed” (short book)
G Edward Griffin’s, “Creature From Jekyll Island” (long book)

Independently of Topolanek and his baggage, I would say that Obama’s economic policies will lead the United States into ruin. Obama is trying to clear 1,500 trillion of derivatives debt on top of tens of trillions in plain debt. He can do it of course with Fed Reserve cooperation. I remember coyly telling diehard, fanatic Obama supporters that he was going to make us all millionaires. I got so many puzzled looks! LOL But no one ever accused me of being racist or mean hearted. It looks like we are going to be all millionaires very soon. All you will need is a loaf of bread to qualify.

As to the aggressive missile defense in Europe, I would say that the shadow government of Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft have that well in hand. Please refer to the CFR web site with the latest pablum from James Jones.

No longer relevant water under-the-bridge question: do you think that had Lehman NOT been sunk by Paulsen anything would be significantly different now? At the time, at least according to what I read in the NyTimes business pages, rejecting Lehman’s ideas for saving them—which ideas Paulsen then approved in other cases—was the domino that started all the others down the row collapsing. Unpleasant to imagine that Paulsen or anyone in government would do anything that destructive just to clear the field for GoldmanSachs, but a lot has happened lately that I’ve found either hard to believe or deeply disillusioning, sometimes both.
*********************************************

Why should we expect him to be any less a liar than the other Bush operatives?  Sure he’d take the chance on disaster to get rid of a rival. That’s Paulsen’s trademark.  He got to the top at Goldman by engineering a coup against Jon Corzine, now the Democratic governor of NJ, who’s getting gutted daily, but seemed to realize this mess was coming and, I think, tried to prepare NJ for it.  Paulsen can and will go back to Goldman, Sachs as soon as the legal restrictions allow him.  Like Cheney will go back to Halliburton.

Inherit—Thanks for the opinion on Reich. Though an old timey Socialist, is there anything he COULD do if Obama tapped him?

Summers sidelining Volcker sounds counterproductive; maybe someone should suggest to him that at 81 Volcker isn’t a huge threat to Summers’ career.

No longer relevant water under-the-bridge question: do you think that had Lehman NOT been sunk by Paulsen anything would be significantly different now? At the time, at least according to what I read in the NyTimes business pages, rejecting Lehman’s ideas for saving them—which ideas Paulsen then approved in other cases—was the domino that started all the others down the row collapsing. Unpleasant to imagine that Paulsen or anyone in government would do anything that destructive just to clear the field for GoldmanSachs, but a lot has happened lately that I’ve found either hard to believe or deeply disillusioning, sometimes both.

Cyrena—I have only a mild grasp of economics and am going to use your links to bring me up to more complete understanding of the players. Thanks.

I like Robert Reich even though he’s a little too old time Socialist for me.  However, he’s a VERY open-minded guy, which means he sees reality over dogma—which is why I like him.  I think the assessment is right—we have a painful time ahead of us but it WILL get better—now that the adults are back in charge of the candy store.

While Summers is supposed to be a protege of Volcker, he’s been totally cutting Volcker out of the picture—which sounds suspiciously like a power and influence grab to me.

Remember: Paulsen hesitated, then used the crisis as a means to destroy two rivals of HIS firm, Goldman-Sachs disregarding completely the effect on the nation.  Purely partisan, he jumped at the chance to sink both Lehman Bros, and Merrill.

Meanwhile he pumped over $350 million into rich banks with NO controls whatsoever, engineering Botch’s BIGGEST steal of public money in his career.  Bigger than Medicare, bigger than Iraq, bigger than the Tax cuts.  Only the Social Security grab, which failed, would have been bigger—and had it gone through how many seniors would be destitute now?

One of the reasons for Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek ‘no confidence’ vote and the collapse of his government was that he has been very strongly criticized for supporting the controversial anti-missile defence system that the United States considers building in the Czech Republic and Poland. I do wish that the US would stay at home and stop stirring up trouble in Europe and elsewhere.  Russia is part of Europe and a EC neighbour and we want to have good relations with them, without the US practising it’s usual divide and rule tactics.

Hi Inherit,
Thanks for your response. You’re the only other person on this forum besides Felicity, that actually had a suggestion/reccommendation rather than simply criticism. (That was some months back). And now, I can’t even remember if she suggested Volcker, or someone else. I remember that Warren Buffets name came up as well. 

Be that as it may, because I already KNOW that I’m totally out of my league in terms of any more than the basics of economics, (Econ 101 over 30 years ago, and a few courses more recently in global economics) it means that I had to find out why all of these guys are so hated by the posters here on TD. (figured they must know something about all of these guys that I didn’t know)
So, I started checking them out, and from what I’ve read, both Summers and Geitner have apparently both been protégé’s of Volcker at some point in time. (But now Volcker is pissed at Summers for what he believes is a delay in putting the economic recovery through). BUT, Volcker is still 1st chair on the same advisory board headed up by Summers.

Maybe more importantly, (at least from my schooling of myself on this) is that they are BOTH advisers, but Summers is the Head of the National Economic Council, (an entity created by Clinton in 1993) and Volcker is the 1st Chair on the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which was only just formed as part of the Obama Admin. (I know this sounds like minutia to many, but I figure I should know who exactly is supposed to do what, in order to have a half-way intelligent discussion on it.)

Anyway, now that I know what I need to know about all of them, I would have to agree with you that Volcker would probably be better, depending on how well he is at age 81. At the end of the day, it appears to me that they all have similar qualifications, and while other economists (Krugman and Steitzman)disagree, Volcker would at least appear to me, (the non-expert) to be a better choice. But then, who would lead the Recovery Advisory Board that he heads up?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/3501185/Timothy-Geitner-the-man-who-will-run-Obamas-ecomomic-team-is-a-basketball-playing-pressure-junkie.html

http://www.bloomberg.com
/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aaLzJZKNcc6Y

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Volcker

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Economic_Council

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President’s_Economic_Recovery_Advisory_Board

So, now I know who does what, and they ALL know a whole hell of a lot more than I do. (of course in terms of economics, pretty much everybody does.)

Now of course ‘the economy’ is NOT the same as the multi-trillion dollar FRAUD that has been perpetrated against us for the past several years, and I think lots of people don’t seem to ‘get’ that.

Still, the trillions have been disappeared, via multiple fraudulent practices. Even an economic light weight like me has to wonder if the crimes of Bernie Mad dog’s or fraudster Stephens of Texas, not to mention Halliburton et all, didn’t have an obvious effect on at least our own economy. The same can be ‘wondered’ about the money being held in off-shore numbered accounts, (primarily Swiss) doesn’t have quite a bit to do with our problems as well. If the richest 1% are all hiding their money to avoid paying taxes on it, common sense, (rather than a PhD in economics) tells me that’s enough to fuck things up big time.

In other words, if the ONLY people paying taxes are the middle class/working class, and most of us aren’t working or middle class anymore, that would pretty much make the collection plate a bit light.

Cyrena,

I still have hope in obama, he is the president, and it is things like this that keep the very very little faith I have in elected people, alive. This is what I expect and I want more of the same, if this is used carried into use against those crooks on wall st.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/

By cyrena, March 25 at 10:53 pm

That ‘lost the confidence vote’ makes his remark almost invalid. I still believe that there are too many things happening in the world that obama’s choices for economic recovery or whatever you or anyone wants to call it, is not encouraging to me and is very disconcerting to me when most if not all are coming from the places that put us where we are today including most recently, Gary Gensler to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. And as I said about his kowtowing to corporate america and izrael when he appeared to be the dem nominee, if obama had gone out to someone other that those KNOWN for their part in creating this crisis, I would think better of the choice but not with geithner. And NO obama is not his own man and neither has any other person that has been president of late if there ever was, well you know that even though it hard to grasp but w & dick were as close to their own persona as could be but for my money there are too criminally involve to be acknowledged as so, they have all been beholding to corporate agendas and izrael. I offer no apologies because what is happening with aig, the federal reserve and just plain ole wall street is so offensive and alarming to me because the number one hinderance here is congress and their kowtowing to corporate america and izrael.
For you I reiterate, I am very happy that obama was elected over mccain even though I did not vote for either one of them, I even still hope that obama comes up with a real workable plan that puts the country back on some kind of stable course and I realize it won’t happen in the 100 days as neither you or I or anyone else for that matter, could undo and fix what w & dick did. And for a different choice, well, that would take me knowing who would be willing to take this on, but kuttner, maybe donaldson, krugman.

Inherit, what’s your opinion of Robert Reich (now teaching at UC-Berkeley)? The last time I heard him speak (broadcast coverage of his Commonwealth Club appearance) he sounded supremely confident that things were going to get worse before they got better, but they would get better. The very faint applause he got indicated that the mix of fat cats and uninformed regulars listening didn’t buy it.

I hate to sound snobbish, but I’m not convinced that anyone in the former Soviet Bloc qualifies as an expert on the economics of Capitalism.

I’m actually with you on this, cyrena, but I CAN suggest at least one better choice: Sack Summers and replace him with the man he’s marginalized out of Summers’ pure jealousy, the ONE man with experience I still trust: Paul Volcker.

By samosamo, March 25 at 8:24 pm #

It is too bad this guy lost a ‘no confidence’ vote because I believe him to be correct in at least the economy on a road to hell. And obama’s selections for handling the economic disaster are far more frightening showing that at the least, obama is NOT his own man.

~*~

I think you’re wrong here samaosamo, and Diamond pretty much explains why…

“As for the road to hell, where has this bozo been? He’s like a kid who keeps on saying ‘Are we there yet?’ long after the car has stopped moving. The economy is already in hell and will stay there and descend to another lower level of hell without Obama and his team’s policies. Anyone who has ever bothered to read a history book knows this.”

A history book really would be helpful, and while we’re at it, to suggest that Obama is NOT his own man is an oxymoron. He selected who he selected for a reason, even if you don’t know what that is. If Obama were not his own man, he would have already caved to the criticism.

Meantime, before someone else comments again, (including the editor here…Robert Scheer) on the choices President Obama has made for his economic recovery team, I expect them to come up with something better, even if it’s just a suggestion that may or may not be acted upon. In other words, most of us just don’t have time to listen to the whining after the fact, (the economy has been fucked up for years samosamo) unless somebody has a better suggestion. So far, none of you do, and neither do I.

But,if you can think of somebody to replace the team that Obama has selected, I’d be interested in hearing about it. Otherwise, it seems to make sense to simply STFU!!!

Obama already told you guys several weeks ago, and I paraphrase…

“We’ve ALREADY TRIED it their way, and it obviously DIDN’T WORK”!  Hello out there, does anybody ‘get that’? Now again, if YOU (or anyone really) has some BETTER IDEAS, let’s hear them!!!

Meantime, it’s curious that you would suggest that it’s ‘too bad’ that he lost the no-confidence vote if you don’t even understand why he lost it. Are you familiar with Czech politics and the structure of their government, or do you just base your opinion on the fact that you agree with anybody, (no matter where in the world they are) who already knows that the global economy has been in the toilet for years since the US government was sabotaged in the coup of 2000, and we’re only just now restoring our own government after 8 long years of the rogue regime.
Oh yeah, for those of you who don’t know why the guy was ousted, (Sepharad claims interest) here’s the jist of it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7962177.stm

In short, the center-right portion of the government that Topolanek represents was ousted by the democratic/leftish opposition.

My brother lived in the Czech Republic for two years. After listening to his hilarious stories it seems to me that this man would know all about hell because he lives there. As for the road to hell, where has this bozo been? He’s like a kid who keeps on saying ‘Are we there yet?’ long after the car has stopped moving. The economy is already in hell and will stay there and descend to another lower level of hell without Obama and his team’s policies. Anyone who has ever bothered to read a history book knows this.

At the very end of the article, one of Topolanek’s aides said he listened to the speech in Czech and the word “hell” was never used. It would be nice if we could get decent translations before passing judgment, though based on some of the Euro comments they think their stimulus programs are already adequate. And China has actually set up a second reserve, dollars not welcome. In this country there are plenty of people not happy about any part of our stimulus plan so why should anyone be upset about more criticism? Am wondering exactly why Totolanek lost a ‘no confidence’ vote. Maybe he just can’t help saying what he believes to be true,

It is too bad this guy lost a ‘no confidence’ vote because I believe him to be correct in at least the economy on a road to hell. And obama’s selections for handling the economic disaster are far more frightening showing that at the least, obama is NOT his own man.