December 7th, bitchez. That’s the planned bank run in Europe. Mark your calenders. I guess the Guardian didn’t have the balls to publish it.

GregDiablo,

Zerohedge, much

RENT-SEEKING MARKETS

gerard: According to Jim Hightower’s “Lowdown” )November 2010) ... advocates “Move Your Money” into credit unions, community banks, and socially responsible credit card and investment firms.”

Not bad advice.

Concurrent with the demise of the Glass-Steagall Act 5that separated Investment from Commercial Banking° was a predetermined and, I suggest, well-planned strategy to consolidate the banking sector at the top by means of mergers and acquisitions. As the idiot-saying goes, “Bigger is better”.

Right, if you are looking to create rent-seeking markets where the Suppliers are few and the Demand for services is very large (read, world-wide investors). This aggregation/consolidation leads to price-fixing and a very, very rich profit stream.

The same stratagem could be seen in much of American Industry that was chasing its tail down the marginal-cost curve. (Meaning this: higher business volumes from consolidation, leading to lower marginal production costs, leading to higher market share, leading to price-fixing, which makes it a rent-seeking market where the market-landlord sets the price not the consumer by means of competition.)

The Attorney General has the right and obligation to survey markets for competitiveness. But successive administrations (both Dem and Rep) have neutered this activity.

To the point that, Microsoft, which has a “natural market monopoly” in Operating Systems, was found guilty by a Federal judge of “abuse of a monopolistic market dominance” in the 1990s. The judge ruled that company should be split apart.

Lo and behold, a federal Appeals Court decided that the company should remain integrated and its top management, Gates and Balmer, were let off with a slap on the wrist. One of three judges was given the responsibility to “oversee” the company’s marketing practices. Yeah, right ...

It took the European Market Regulators to finally bring Microsoft before a European court that found them guilty of “abuse of market dominance” and, finally, Microsoft was obliged to pay half a billion dollars. Which was chicken-feed given that its net profit was $6.7B last year (about 7.5%).

Goodness, gracious—what ever did the European judges see that the American judges did not? The way MS markets Windows is identical in both America and Europe.

POST SCRIPTUM:

American market regulators are pusillanimous, and our courts too biased towards business (unless you smoke ten packs a day and get cancer) having been neutered by successive administrations. Which is why all the laws on earth cannot stop BigBusiness if it is in connivance with the elected authorities.

The ONLY WAY to change things is by the ballot box. We stop electing people who are the paid henchmen of BigBusiness by means of the lobbyists in Washington.

We’ve tried several times to do this, the last one led by the “maverick” John McCain—but each time there’s a loop-hole that industry drives the money train right through. This last time with the overt connivance of the Roberts Supremes.

Let’s get it right and bring democracy back into the hands of American people. Then, let’s pray that we know how to use our new-found power.

Before that happens, however, Americans have to wake up to the causes of Uncle Sam’s inner rot. They are still day-dreaming.

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

Such a wonderful plan and it has already been
expounded, but the real key here is to get all
americans involved; unfortunately that would
have to include the mainstream media and they’ll
be damned before that kind of idea ever is
allowed to be sent to their well cultivated
dumbstream garden.

Moving your money is only half of the equation.  You have to hold the hedge
fund hyenas responsible for their gambling against America in the quest of
avarice by using their greed against them.  How?  Buy silver and crash JP Morgan
Chase, which has shorted silver and sold much more silver paper than they
actually have.  If each American bought an ounce of silver (presently
undervalued at around $30), we diminish the available supply to the onerous JP
Morgan and reduce their stock value to zero when they can’t cover their shorts. 
Once we take down a major player in our debt slavery to the Fed, our
congresscritters will stop the constant fellating of Wall Street and start to listen
to we the people, just as they are doing on the TSA porno scanner/grope-down
issue.

Wall Street must fear us, or we will never hold them accountable.  Our combined
purchasing power, and a little strategy, is all we need to blow up the JP Morgan
Death Star of Debt.

According to Jim Hightower’s “Lowdown” )November 2010) ;Page 3 advocates “Move Your Money” into credit unions, community banks, and socially responsible credit card and investment firms.”  It is a spreading movement, the editors say. Look into shifting both personal and organizational accounts (church, co-op, neighborhood association etc) to above institutions which are “closer to home.“Talk about it with friends and family, write letters to the editor, send emails,, post blogs and find other ways to expand the movement.” 

You don’t have to be a famous European soccer player!