By Ham-Archy, December 7 at 5:20 pm #

RE: The struggle. Here is a light in the vast darkness. DON’T believe that justice is beyond reach.

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Thanks.  I saved the link.

RE: The struggle. Here is a light in the vast darkness. DON’T believe that justice is beyond reach.
http://www.fairfinancewatch.org/campaign.html

purplewolf: Well that might make sense to those taxpayers that have credit problems, but probably not to those who have managed their finances wisely.
That gives it SOME sense in the eyes of taxpayers at least. However this in no way makes sense to financiers who are looking at complex SIV’s that are loosing value precipitously. The FED is concerned with the viability of the financial institutions in which the elite have to retain their wealth.
Moreover the powerbase of corporate Imperialism is being erroded by the loss of many ‘Third World’ interests as many rising nations, particularly in South America have broken free of economic domination. So now it is crucial for this struggling Imperial power to turn their efforts of oppression on those over who it still has control. Those citizens in a nation where it has political control. That would be the very people who you are suggesting be freed from their chains of fiscal slavery. This is a very unrealist expectation on your part. Hopefully you and the hundreds of thousands of people who have been victimized by this scam will realize that you are going to have to join forces to rise up and fight your oppressor. To be more realistic you should prepare yourself for a bitter struggle.

cameljay and Ham-Archy: I have stated the idea of giving the money to those who have these debts to banks for some time, as well as some others here in TD. But it makes to much sense, as the gov. could issue this money in vouchers to be paid for mortgage/credit card balance only, then these banks who own the debt would be paid off and the taxpayers who will be stuck with this bill would have their debts canceled.

cameljay: Probably NOT! That’s pretty original thinking.

HAS ANYBODY THOUGHT OF GIVING THIS BAILOUT MONEY BACK TO THE TAXPAYERS AND LET THE MONEY trickle BACK UP TO THOSE WHO HAVE SQUANDERED THE MONEY THEY HAVE BEEN GIVEN ALL THESE YEARS!!!!!! I WOULD PAY OFF MY HOME AND BUY A CAR, THEN INVEST THE REST TO HELP MYSELF!!!! THIS CRISIS COULD BE EVADED IF THE MONEY WASNT GIVEN TO COMPANIES W/ SPECIAL INTERESTS AND GREEDY EXECUTIVES!!!!!!!

hippy pam: Well, you weren’t a MINOR as far as age goes. Actually, that is a code word, and if flint michigan is a code word then it seems as though hippy pam is not. But thank you for the reply.
Just to be as redundant as possible I will say, the threat to survival is Fiscal Warfare. The weapon against the people is CREDIT. It is the land mine, the car bomb, the micro organism, the toxic chemical. It is death. REACH FOR LIFE, STOP USING CREDIT!!

Re:Ham-Archy…...fresh milk and chocolate?coulda been the 60s?????I was 20 in 1967…..Flint,Michigan?And I agree….WE NEED TO STOP USING CREDIT CARDS and any FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS we DO NOT ABSOLUTLEY HAVE TO USE…More of them NEED to go BELLY UP!!!!!

I’m actually less concerned about Citi’s purchasing of the naming rights (or even where that money came from, given their economic position right now) than I am about our billionaire mayor allegedly using NYC taxpayer’s money to secure a luxury box at the new Yankee Stadium for himself and his billionaire cronies.  He could easily have paid for such a box himself, yet he apparently used taxpayer money (in the form of “give-backs”) during his “lobbying” efforts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/nyregion/30stadiu m.html?sq=yankee&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=print< /a>

What Powers That Be(for lack of a more precise description) are doing to everyone in the world is tantamount to the type of punch that Kitschko threw at Holyfield in the Heavyweight Title Fight, the “Ball ‘n All” punch.
It ends the fight, but in this case, there seems to be no referees.

I think the ones behind this mortgage-securities-drevatives fiasco are starting to run for cover from a criminal fraud investigation.
On C-SPAN, yesterday, Paul Willen of the Boston Office of the Fed gave a presentation of how no one knew that this was coming. And how the ones who bought the bad paper had just as much information as anyone else. He was sailing along when this demur Indian fellow stood up and explained that if you looked at the level of families in financial stress, you could tell very easily that a high percentage of these mortgages were going to go into default.  At first, Willen simply disagreed, then started making faces like an ape preening for a camera.  The friggin’ Indian just kept going.  As soon as he was finished, the would-be emcee, a professor of economics from Johns Hopkins, grabbed the mic, stood up and went to the front to do a little semi cave-in all the while smiling with a shit-eating grin.  He then called a 10 minute break for donuts.
All these people are UN-FUCKIN-BELIEVABLE!

Purple Girl: No conspiracy needed. It’s all just everyday ‘Fiscal Warfare’. You should realize that you have to fight back. One place to start; look at the original contract that you signed for the cards that have changed their terms. They must state the conditions under which they can change the terms, such as late payment, prime rate, and the specifics of such changes. Many of them pull this crap you are talking about. If it is not what you agreed to, they just voided your agreement. That puts you with no contract, as well as the issue of consideration. If you don’t have much equity in your house no-one is going to want it.
!!!!BLOW OFF THE CARDS!!!!
And stop using credit for everything. HOLY SHIT! 29% interest? You have to draw the line. INTEREST is what they live on and what kills you.
========== FISCAL WARFARE ==============
The battle is on, it’s real. You don’t need guns, or politicians, or demonstrations.
!!!!YOU NEED TO STOP USING CREDIT!!!!
It’s not up to someone else, it’s all up to you.
Do you know how to use EXEL? Can you build a spreadsheet so you can project where you will be in 1 year, or 2? 3? If you don’t LEARN! That is what you call budgeting. KNOW what YOU can do and no one else can do it to you. When you KNOW where you are headed you will not hesitate to take the action you need to survive.
============= FISCAL WARFARE =============
or starve to death!

In the last month I have had 3 of my credit card Change my conditions even though I have been a customer in good Standing. Citibank just increased their ONE missed payment Default rate from 21.99% to 29.99%.Another Doubled my min payment, and another increased my interest rate from 9.99% to 11.99% Plus moved it from a Fixed Rate to an adjustable.
All This following their 700+Billion Lottery Win.
These ‘minor’ Changes may not amount to much to these corps, But it does to those of US who don’t trade in Billions or Trillions on a daily basis. Literally these changes have placed further strain on our finances to the point we now must decide if we pay the Cards or the Mortgage. Seems mortgages are at least getting some attention, so why not jump on that ban wagon and start the ‘foreclosure’ process Rolling.At least we could get a better rate on it then the EXTORTIVE payment due to the Credit Card side of their industry. Actually Spite is a motivating factor so defaulting on the cards is really forefront in our minds.
What is most infuriating is the fact that those who have kept up with their obligations are getting shafted and thus causing a needless domino effect.
I say this in all earnest, Why are we not prosecuting these Loan Sharks under RICO laws…Embezzlement (since I have no doubt our Annuity & Pension are non existent except on paper, and a BS Promise), Extortion (Pay up or you’ll never be able to borrow again) and Racketeering…THREE Cards have come back to the Public Well to squeeze the last life blood out of customers/taxpayers (One in the Same!)
What’s the difference between having your knee broken causing you financial hardship and Corp Blackmail which does the Same? At least I know in a month or two my knee would Heal!
What proves this is an organized Crime Syndicate, reaching the highest levels in Gov’t is the fact they have Not address the Real Problem….Consumers/Taxpayers/Citizens are so far in Debt due to the disparity between income & cost of Living (thus requiring Credit card use)That they are not Buying, nor SEEKING MORE CREDIT!
What should have been done immediately is another Stimulus check program…Give US back some of the money they have swindled so we can pay our mortgages, or loans or credit cards and then the Banks would not have a ‘Liquidity’ problem due to Defaults. Next Limit the amount of Interest that can be charged on any Credit line. The Banks Borrow Trillions at less that 2%, divide that up into smaller loans and charge anywhere from 5-25 %. their making a killing (same system Drug deealers use to make a profit).Then Banks offer Consolidating loans at no more than say 4% interest so that we can all finally pay these Criminals off and have a manageable debt and payment schedule (shit make them 15, 20,25 yr loans if need be)
If you could consolidate your credit card loans to the point of paying 1/2 of what you pay to these individual cards…Who wouldn’t spend a little more on the Holidays than you would Now?Thus helping stimulate the economy and Save Some Jobs!
Add to that this INQUISTION regarding a LOAN to the Big 3 (to Working Americans) and the evidence of a Conspiracy to undermine and Rob the Citizens becomes Undeniable. These Loan sharks Should be legally FORCED to lend this money to the Big 3 (Workers) at the same interest rate the Feds granted Them the Loan….300 Billion and Citigroup can’t cough Up 34 billion???Bullshit!

CitiBank could afford to put their name on the stadium because they doubled everyone of their customers’ interest rates. They get a government bailout with our tax money and then they have the nerve to increase everyone’s rates. The only losers in this financial meltdown is us - the middleclass taxpayer.

Fenwick!

Clinton signed a bill from a REPUBLICAN Congress.

Don’t just blame Clinton.

ALL of the Politicians are in bed with the Corporations and Banks and whoever else buys them.

Hey FENWICK, may I have a drink of your Koolaid? You think the Clinton Administration created this mess? ROFLMAO!

By FENWICK, December 4 at 11:38 am #

“Thankfully Obama has brought back the entire Clinton team that engineered this fiasco. Now, THAT IS CHANGE WE CAN BELEIVE IN! LMAO.

Do you know what someone who is both stupid and a jerk is called?  An ignoranus.

We can tell that the little guy is not worth anything when the Car Makers have to tell Congress that they will save money by laying off 12,000 workers.  That may save the companies but sure not Main Street.

Why don’t they just hand all this money over to the little guy, everyone of us regardless of present income and in an equal amounts and let the money trickle UP to the stupid ones who ran the Banks into the ground?

purplewolf: The collateral issue is the Achilles’ heel for the credit card companies. Actually, if you default on your card debt they have no recourse because of this. It is an issue of ‘consideration’. That is they cannot legally assume debt for you (which is what is actually going on when you use your card for a purchase) without consideration. That is actually having something to back up the promise to pay. You make a promise to pay the credit card, they make a promise to pay the retailer. But if they take you to court, the buck stops right there for exactly the point you made. THEY DON’T HAVE COLLATERAL. It’s all a game with numbers. So they did not act in good faith and they loose their case, so long as you have a lawyer will handle it right. I’ve been through this. I went to a lawyer when my card debt went ballistic, to find out about filing for bankruptcy. I had no other debt. He said, don’t file for bankruptcy, you will loose everthing. Just call their bluff, and that is what we did and they ate $60,000.

prole: the GM-UAW bailout you are speaking of is a loan and as far as I have heard the banks are getting this as a gift and not a loan to be paid back.

Fenwick: It’s time to take the pigs to the slaughter house for processing.

If the banks can waste this “gift” on such non-necessities like sports, perhaps everyone should default on their charge cards. After all, with this free money from us little guys they still are double dipping when we make our payments. When the banks received this free money, all credit card holders with a balance on their accounts should have been erased to zero, since, after all, we are bailing them out to begin with, they should be grateful and should have done this as a good faith gesture in the first place in order to receive this money. And BTW, what kind of collateral did they put up for this money? Anything, and what type of sacrifices did they have except for those of us stuck paying for this twice?

It is indeed, “staggering when one thinks of what Paulson and the administration have delivered to the financial community in the past few weeks”… with the indispensable help of their bipartisan accomplices and partners in imperial crime, those lovely Democrats. “The 2008 bank bailout tab so far is more than $4.6 trillion, which is more than the total expenditures (inflation adjusted) for the Marshall Plan, the Louisiana Purchase, the S&L;failures of the 1980s, the New Deal, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Iraq war, the moon landing, and all NASA budgets combined.” And keeping with the lesser-of-two-evils theme that is so central to America’s bogus two-party system, it may actually have been money better spent. Not that it’s a good idea for Paulson and Pelosi to be throwing tax dollars at venal corporations like Citigroup or venal unions like the UAW , but really now, “the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Iraq war, the moon landing, and all NASA budgets combined.”…is that anyone’s, - other than a Republican or Democrat - idea of money well spent? Citigroup and the UAW and other corporate welfare bums (they’re not all in Brooklyn) are bad enough but are they really worse than Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Armstrong, Aldrich and Collins?  “There you have it:” Republican and Democratic collusion in corporate imperialism, from Korea to Chrysler. “Why can’t our vaunted ‘free’ media state the fundamental truth? Our so-called economic crisis isn’t a freak event, but the result of the excesses of the”…the bankrupt two-party system. That’s why “the government [doesn’t] fault Citigroup and similarly situated fellow bankers for their total irresponsibility in accumulating their bad debts”.” That’s the kind of “ bipartisanship ” the business community loves.” Which is why they reward the two business parties by kicking back some of the largesse in the form of copious campaign contributions. And why corporate Uncle Tom, Obama refused public funding – enabling him to give more of it to his corporate masters. “Why doesn’t Henry Paulson offer a plan to prevent such malpractice again? He might start by recommending restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act, repealed in 1999 with the sage sponsorship of Phil Gramm”…and Robert Rubin and Bill Clinton.  And while he’s at it, he might just as well recommend   restoration of full Sherman anti-trust regulations to MLB and the Amazin’ Mets, Inc.

“Thankfully Obama has brought back the entire Clinton team that engineered this fiasco. Now, THAT IS CHANGE WE CAN BELEIVE IN! LMAO.

If Rubin, Prince, Raines, Dodd, Rangel etc etc. were Italians the press and government would be hollering “mafia took over the financial world.”

But since they are ALL Harvard boyz, well it is a disaster no one could see coming. HAHAHA - I’m an idiot and I could see it coming years ago.”

Thanks Fenwick, looks like Kirby McInerny are some busy boys these days. Similar cases against E-trade and American Home Mortgage.
What ever happened to the beer franchises? People get too smart to pay $5 a beer so now they sneek it out of your interest payment? The way to get at these financiers is to STOP USING CREDIT. Oh you can’t do much about your mortgage unless you want to go through some nasty changes, but credit cards. Just max ‘em out and blow ‘em off.
We need to do this en-mass. Might be hard to organize but the thing is it’s all about credit. That’s what people need to learn.
hippy pam: Hey do I know you from somewhere? Do you remember freshmilk and the chocolate mess by any chance? If I had met you it was way back when you were a minor.
Now come on you guys, stop making fun of pigs OK?

That’s why the super rich only talk about money amongst themselves.  The bourgeoisie gets so distasteful when the issue of finance arises.
Henceforth, there will be flat tax.  The riff raff working class shall pay the same as the middle and upper middle while the ones at the top will pay no tax.
It’ll be like a long, long career at a job you can barely stand.  Something like paying off the S & L only on a grander scale. 
Might as well forget about Universal Health Care.  They were only kidding anyway.  They didn’t really mean it.
Education?  Fuggetaboutit.  Unless, of course you want to enlist in the military and take the risk of getting your ass shot off.  But then again, they’ll drape a flag around it and with new music and videos, we’ll never miss you.  The baby makers and children lovers ‘ll just keep cranking out more.
Retirement?  Why, hell’s bells,  didn’t you hear George W. on ABC tell Charlie Gibson he might do charity work with malaria victims, or something like that.  I started laughing and didn’t hear the whole spiel.
In the Preamble to the Constitution, it says something about the “General Welfare”.  D’ya think George was right?  The Constitution is just a “goddamn piece of paper”.

Openly mocking and disrespecting the people is a rich mans sport.  It’s our job to put the fear back into messing with the people.  I suggest beginning with a 30% wealth tax, and while their laughing at that, stop consumption to the greatest of your ability, long term, until those smiles are changed to tears.

A spa weekend here-a vacation there-a ballpark over there-Isn’t there ANY ONE to STAND UP FOR WE-THE PEOPLE-BLEEDING CASH SO THESE FOOLS CAN LIVE LIKE KINGS????

“But unlike pigs, this breed will never stop.”
________________________________________

And unlike pigs, these rank bags of skin aren’t tasty in the least.

First, its was Baer Stearns.  Then, it was AIG. Now, it’s Citi.  Like pigs at a trough.  But unlike pigs, this breed will never stop.

The continued funding of CitiField with taxpayer money should be the last straw. The Federal Reserve under Bernanke and Treasury under Paulson are doing the biding of Wall Street bankers who conducted criminal activity but now demand taxpayer money to stay alive and are currently doing absolutely nothing to help the US get out of this severe recession. The only fair way to handle this crisis is to nationalize the bankrupt banks and then sell them back to shareholders once the real economy recovers.

In the ole ballyard now the prank is not a knuckle sandwich.  It’s a Rubin sandwich.  They don’t touch you; they just take all your money, so you can watch the game in peace.

“A new Citigroup scandal is engulfing Robert Rubin and his former disciple Chuck Prince for their roles in an alleged Ponzi-style scheme that’s now choking world banking.

Director Rubin and ousted CEO Prince - and their lieutenants over the past five years - are named in a federal lawsuit for an alleged complex cover-up of toxic securities that spread across the globe, wiping out trillions of dollars in their destructive paths.”

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12042008/business/ponzi_sc heme_at_citi_142511.htm

Check out Jim Bouton’s “Foul Ball” [ http://www.jimbouton.com/foulball.html ] for a microcosmic view of the corrupt and malignant conspiracies surrounding the modern-day racket of building new, improved sports stadiums to enrich political and corporate fat-cats at the expense of the taxpayer.

Bread and circuses.  The plutocrats get the bread, the plebeians sweep up behind the circuses.

As a long-time Mets fan since I was a little kid and they were the Lovable Losers, I am disgusted that so much of our taxpayer money is STILL going for the stadium logo.  Is the Stadium owned by New York City?  Will the money therefore go BACK to NYC? Or into the coffers of the NY Mets, one of the very richest teams in baseball?  If it’s going to the team, Paulsen should cut the bailout to Citi.  It’s that kind of irresponsible spending, like 8 figure salaries to execs that infuriates taxpayers.  $400 million means EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN has just donated $1.25 to the New York Mets, again, one of the richest teams in the country.

I’ve dropped allegiance to teams over less.  When the Knicks got the criminal Latrelle Sprewell, I swore I’d never root for the Knicks again, and I never have (Isaiah Thomas just made it easier to root against them). The replaced a knight like Patrick Ewing with a knave like Sprewell.  They didn’t need me….

If the Mets are the beneficiaries, I hope there will be a movement to boycott the NY Mets, by their own fans.  This is simple outrageous.