@Albert: yeah, these were the definite tough times for the wall street.

Khai,
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You can indict people if the president keeps appointing them to positions…

One thing I have noticed about these politicians is they are never holding anybody or nothing accountable. It’s like the money is falling from out of the sky. Every cost nothing is free.

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The concept of capitalism is the best deal for the consumer at least according to Adam Smith, if my memory is still intact.  Several years back on a trip to Canada in Vancouver, I was impressed by the large number of small businesses, most seemed mom and pop size. 

As a small farmer, very small according to typical USa standards of a small farmer, I did fairly well as an organic farmer until the big boys came in and under cut my ability to make a profit.  Since I worked as an owner manager for myself and sold wholesale and retail we made money by years end.  This is no longer possible, because of the smallness of my operation.
So, trying to sell local farmers markets was the only way left, which was somewhat successful until several years ago.

Pressure and saturation of the organic market in my case by the big boys is what happens and in every other aspect of capitalism.  Farming always has been a cut throat operation but it seems to have forced people to hire employees and go volume instead of small. My other problem is becoming longer of tooth, and the never ending fight with mother nature! 

Wall Street may not evil be, but seems similar to farming, you make it or you don’t, sort of survival of the most blatant.

That is good thing.

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Yes they are giving obama a chance..

I hope Obama can bring us all safely.

*Fingers-crossed!*

Michelle
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The definitions of fraud and larceny are relevant in this whole hoax that is called a bailout.

Our prisons are full of criminals who defrauded others, including thieves who took money that was not their own.

Where are the prosecutions of the white-collar crooks in our banking institutions. In addition to the fraud they perpetrated, knowingly cheating others in passing off worthless debt instruments and then stealing taxpayer money for unearned bonuses.

The fraud is continuing with Geithner leading us to believe that accountability will be required.

I have had a gut full of this plutocratic bunch who use average Americans,
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this seems very tough to be accomplised in todays days.

The process has a disconnect somewhere - if the Persident and his secretary are not talking about the same things while talking on the same light, what is it that we are missing?

—Mark
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Geez, I really pray pres. obama brings the USA successfully through the present crises…all hands on desk…

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i don’t know.
But i want it is better.

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But i want it is better.

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I hope this issue about the treasury secretary will be resolved soon..You know talking about money..really gives me a headache..

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Do you really think the super wealthy and those in power really give a damn what our opinions are?Wealth and power consumes us all once you get a little taste of it you can never have enough.
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graphic design melbourne—thank you for pointing this out, but, please, dont just get used to it…we do not have to take this…

Well, the situation is terrible and like one of the previous comments mentioned this is brought about by greedy white collar criminals..it is us who have to pay for it- the poor people losing their jobs!
top bankers are ripping off poor people. money has no conscience so we should just get used to these things happening….

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Too bad for Wall Street, they are having a rough time nowadays in this tough economic time.

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The banks and other failing companies are responsible for their downturn fortunate. This is not a result of one day happening.

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Laura, then we will have to pass laws to stop their “ways around it”. Perhaps, a law saying that we expect the spirit of the law to be followed, as well as the letter of the law.

We have to do something, or, our income disparity wil make the US a Third World Country.

Folktruther:
‘They are giving Obama a Chance.’

It won’t hurt his chances any if someone reminds him that a lot of people who voted for him thought they were voting for a peace candidate.  In fact it might improve them a bit, although if he does anything in that direction he’d better watch his back.

They are giving Obama a Chance.

The progs seems completely quiescent, except for whining to one another.

Groups try to make demonstrations, Anaracissie, but Progressives are now split between pro and anti Dem, including Obama.  this decreases the size of turnouts.

In any case, I think that the demonstrations should not be against particular wars, but against the War on Terrorism that mandates them.  Against the historical strategy of generations of wars.  this will put one up against the Zionists who may be against a particular war, but are for the Zionist War on Terrorism, particularly as it affects Israel.

It is more useful to get a smaller demonstration against the War on Terrorism than larger deomonstrations against a particular war, because it buidls an historical ideological consensus.

I don’t care whether they voted for Obama; what I was curious about was whether anyone was going to try to put a sizeable demonstration in the streets to protest the ongoing war(s).  The answer seems to be no, even though the program does not seem much different from the Bush program.

“I have past friends, Anarcissie, who are leading elements of Socialist organizations.  They have ether capitulated to the right wing climate of opinion…

Answer’s group, I forget what it is called, was instrumental in the anti-war movment, but was swamped by the moderate peace group which was coopted and neutralized by the Dems. Their members have been DUPEd.”

It is true. The cp-usa (Communist Party USA), (which I stopped being a membver of recently) backed pres. Obama, sp-usa (Socialist), ran Brian Moore (who got like .1%—they dont campaign enough), and, an amazing number of friends and family members just lied down for Obama.

Many say that there is “simply no alternative”...

ANSWER has been co-opted by so many other groups, that their rallies mean almost nothing. (I went to one of their rallies—-I could not, for the life of me, figure out who all those groups were, speaking—they all had legitimate causes—they just didnt belong at an anti-war rally) When the MSM covers it (rarely) they just say “assorted liberal groups”. It carries no message! They claim that this is who/what theyve (we’ve) all been waiting for, and, we just have to give it time, and, PDA (I think I remember the author, but I cannot be sure, so..) even questioned whether “protest was valid” in the “age of Obama”.. I do not understand it. Anyone else?

I have past friends, Anarcissie, who are leading elements of Socialist organizations.  They have ether capitulated to the right wing climate of opinion, like the Socialist Workers Party, or are completely irrelevant, like the Sparticist League.

Answer’s group, I forget what it is called, was instrumental in the anti-war movment, but was swamped by the moderate peace group which was coopted and neutralized by the Dems. Their members have been DUPEd.

Anarcissie—good link. I think Pres. Obama would say that we must RUN the World Bank..in a democratic manner, of course.

“WE the living, free people have the responsibility to act when required and these actions will not always be the accepted mantra of the progressive movement.” (Clash)

Amen!

As to the “organized Left”—I’m not sure that there has been one! The “Left” is too busy being co-opted by the Dumbass Dems, hating on Nader, and, pulling for a Stimulus that does nothing to stop us from getting into the same mess (or staying in this mess, with a much lowered standard of living for the working classes)in the future.

I am ‘for the Stimulus”, but, only because states are so broke that people are dying in the streets.

“This is a ‘spending’ bill”! Boner bellows…so?? Why isnt the response,” STF what?!” The GOP (with Dem complicity) spent and spent and spent and spend $10 billion a WEEK on the “iraq” “war”.

We need more tax cuts and “GOP and BLue Dog Ideas” like we need more psychopathic CEOS!

What is needed is to rein in the people that caused this, and, to stop blaming people who took out FM/FM loans to buy a simple house, often worth less than $100,000.

There area many ways to “regulate” them, but, the fastest way would be a guillotine…then, we have to indict Bush et al of war crimes, then, we need to rebuild citioes…we need to get off of oil, coal, etc. There is much to do. Everyone is waiting for the Dumbass Dems to “pull Left”, I guess. Aint gonna happen…with Geithner?? Summers? Pul—eeze!

Folktruther:
‘You mean,do you not Anarcissie, the Disorganized Left, all 38 of us. What has happened to us is quite simple. We have been gaslighted like the rest of the population. ...’

I meant like UFPJ and the others whose names I forget for the moment.  Those with Trotskyites and those without.  After looking around Google I don’t see anything but calls for “local actions”, in other words, Mr. O’s free pass hasn’t run out yet.

Speaking of Google and Gaslight, too, this should prove amusing:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/04/03/antiwar_slogan_coined_repurposed/

You mean,do you not Anarcissie, the Disorganized Left, all 38 of us. What has happened to us is quite simple. We have been gaslighted like the rest of the population.

The movie GASLIGHT is about a man who is manipulating reality to drive his wife mad.  Psychologists have taken over the term to describe what the US power system has done to the American people.  We have been manipulated into a false sense of reality.  And so have leftists, who are fighting the last war against capitalism which has now morphed into Kleptocapitalism. 

It is much more profitable, instead of making something to get money, to simply steal it.  But to do so in plain sight, it is necessary to prevent the people from understanding the simple reality-based truth.  Including leftists.  I, for example, was moaning about a few billions of dollars in hundred dollar bills that was sent on pallets with no records of any kind to Iraq.  More fool I. The number according the Patrick Cockburn piece today on Counterpunch is now set at 57 billion dollars.  And rising.

the rise of TV and advertising techniques make the manipulation of the population a systemtic process.  For example, a psychologist notes that the tobacco companies in a public interest announcement put on paid advertisements saying “Think, don’t smoke.”

What advertising professionals explained to him gleefully is that this cause people to smoke MORE.  When people thought, they thought of smoking, and therefore tended to light up after the ad, as a survey showed.

Leftists have to understand that they are dealing with a death culture, where the pruduction of cancer, illness and mental illness are profitable concerns.  Stealing money is the least of it; they are stealing our lives. 

And they are doing so not to just increase their wealth relative to us, but to increase their POWER reletive to us, wealth being only on aspect of this power.  So leftists are still in the process of transforming our ideological worldview from the traditional marxist, anarchist and liberal one, to a worldivew that emohasizss POWER, the ability to manipulate the population to identify with the interests of the powerful.

Speaking of democracy, I thought the facts that about 99% of the electorate was opposed to the first great bailout and seem to have written to their Congressperson accordingly and been duly ignored, was all sort of interesting, because many of the normally somnolent are aware that this happened.  The media has begun nattering about an upwelling of public rage, which has only been exacerbated by the further games perpetrated under the new administration, which are all too similar the old games.  Things could be getting interesting.

Where’s the Organized Left, by the way?  I haven’t heard much from them lately.

Whether it is numbness or the complete brainwash of the mass mind set, which has been finally completed history, will tell. WE are in agreement that at some point our Democracy like in many other countries will be granted from the barrel of a gun.
While most might cringe at the thought of meeting force with force, it becomes historically necessary when violent abusers continue in their path of abuse and destruction; this would include violence from family member’s right up to and including abusive civilizations.
Self defense is the right of all living things and actions to protect our living being should at least be considered on a case by case basis.
Those that proliferate genocide, poison the water we drink, the food we eat, the air we breathe along with degrading the land mass we derive or existence from are not our brothers. They have been inculcated to the spirit of death perpetrated by this civilization and live only in the illusion of life.
There are those that would argue that life is the illusion, let them drink, eat and breath the poison, suffer at the hands of the terrorists that run this existence.
WE the living, free people have the responsibility to act when required and these actions will not always be the accepted mantra of the progressive movement.

Clash, the Great Democratic Esperiment is failure because, at the end of the American power structure’s life cycle, everyone who looks can see that it isn’t democratic.  The increase in power inequality between the ruling class and the population is so stark and has reached such a pooint that the rich and powerful can ignore the interests of the popultion, except to manipulate us. 

What Bush has called Freedom and Democracy has murdered over a milliion Iraqis, made refugees of 5 million, and is an obvous fraud in the US.

And it is being continued by Obama, who continues to give wealth and power to the rich under the slogan of Hope n Change. And as Biden warned, there may well come a Terrorist incident that will require martial law in the US to maintain Security and Freedom. 

But don’t worry, I’m sure it will be a very Democractic military dictatorship, with a Democratic Commander in Chief.

More and more the articles and commentary ignore the fact that the Great Democratic experiment has become quite the failure.
That communication by the people with the power structure while possible goes unheard and ignored.
That the power structure has its own agenda and nothing will get done outside of this agenda. Repairing what has been damaged is beyond the intellectual capabilities of our present governance, or again just not what their present goals are.
Civilization with all of its violent, abusive behavior will be continued as scripted to the benefit of the corpsetocracy’s and we the sheeple will just sit and suck it up and watch as the elite carry out there plan to readjust our world more to their liking.
The president is a puppet, his minions are of questionable background, the congress is bought and paid for what did anyone expect.
NEMESIS is at the door.

By bogi666, February 14 at 4:29 pm #
Hooray! bogi666

> Leefeller, February 14 at 6:00 am;

Basically yes; just hope they use a lubricant. LOL

to Robert Scheer: Thanks for your spectacular, if totally redundant and rehashed
article. You sure can write!
Tell me, o pundit of pundits—what’s your plan. Do you have an iota of a realistic
future plan of action, to remedy this nefarious state of affairs? In other words,
what are you going to DO about it, if you’re ever done with blowing smoke?

Both the Moyers and Goodman clips are so true. These financial terrorists would do what any terrorist would do and that is kill off that part of what made them from years past. I cannot help but think that these financial terrorists have well thought this current disaster out and all of it is contrived for their personal monetary gain which the people who will have to pay for it be damned. That being their attitude, I see no reason why the feds, be it the U.S. Marshals or FBI, don’t go in and seize this banks. I mean what besides the msm not reporting the truth to the vast public, does it take to understand that these people are the very terrorist threat to our country via the economic sector that will destroy us just for their benefit. I don’t see here any bigger declaration of war again the taxpayer anywhere. Instead nothing like this kind of rhetoric will ever reach the masses through the msm and they will wake up because of inaction when they find they don’t have anything.

S/Pam Thanks for the Moyers piece, always thought options were an added manipulation of some sort.

Vern, Comprehensible explained, very well done, now all we need do is bend over.

Uncharted waters?  Not so sure, opportunists lined up with their hands out, has always been, just now they get a direct connection to the piggy bank.

Nationalized medical care is called socialism, defined as giving ones hard earned cash to support a slacker. Now the bail out, sorry, Stimulation is not the same, for socialism must empower more than a few select elite. That is to say Stimulation is not really socialism. In a sense the twisting of words to change the tone.  Very much like not calling bonuses “bonuses”.

I’ve changed my mind, I think I’ll try a metaphor of my own.

While “Snowball” gets dismissed and chased of this “animal farm” which “Napoleon” and the “pigs” now assume control of, “Squealer” decries that the “barn is on fire” with rhetorical zeal. I remain a “Benjamin” as the “sheep” turn their attention the the “barn”, and look over my shoulder to watch as “Boxer” is sent to the “glue factory”...

once again.

“Muriel” tries to warn the “sheep” about “Squealer”, but they are too worried about the “barn”, afraid of the “puppies”, and entranced by “Mollie”. When it came to supporting “Mollie”, “Muriel” remembered a day where the “farm” would say: “four million good, 2 billion bad”. She now wonders how it came to be that the “farm” would now chant: “four hundred billion good, 2 trillion better”.

As creative as Verne’s piece was, I disagree. I think Geithner et al know all too well what they are doing, unfortunately. To think otherwise would assume that these crooks have some integrity.

Vern Arnold wrote:
“The Bailout…
...is the attempt by the incompetent, to explain the incomprehensible, to the incapable. The incapable then believe the incompetent comprehend the unfathomable. In fact, the whole world is being led by idiots whom traverse paths they’ve never traveled and are too scared and ignorant to include us in the glorious adventure that is once in a life time. “

Thanks Vern, great stuff to begin the Day !!!

Sorry for the triple post, but Bill Moyers had a great interview with Simon Johnson here:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02132009/watch.html

Quote:

“BILL MOYERS: Do you think that Obama understands how these guys play the game? Let me play you the recording of a conference call “Huffington Post” released this week. One of the top officials of Morgan Stanley is speaking to his colleagues. Here it is.

JAMES GORMAN: I’m going to turn to a topic that I suspect is near and dear to everybody’s hearts, which is retention. There will be a retention award. Please do not call it a bonus, it is not a bonus it is an award. The award will be based on ‘08 full year production. Clearly it would have been cheaper to do it off ‘09 but we think it’s the right thing to do and we’ve made that decision.

SIMON JOHNSON: What he’s basically saying is business as usual. Go about your daily lives. Get the bonuses. Re-brand them as awards. But it really shows you the arrogance, and I think these people think that they’ve won. They think it’s over. They think it’s won. They think that we’re going to pay out ten or 20 percent of GDP to basically make them whole. It’s astonishing.”

“SIMON JOHNSON: I have no problem with poachers turning gamekeeper, right? So if you know where the bodies are buried maybe you can help us sort out the problem. And I did think the first three or four minutes of what Mr. Geithner said were very good.

As a definition of a problem, and pointing the finger clearly at the bankers, and saying that the government had been slow to react, and, of course, that included himself. I liked that. And then he started to talk about the specifics. And he said, “The compensation caps we’ve put in place, for the executives of these banks, are strong.” And at that point I just fell out of my chair. That is not true. That is factually inaccurate, in my opinion.

BILL MOYERS: That?

SIMON JOHNSON: That this $500,000 limit, and deferred stock, is some kind of restriction on what they do? It’s deferred stock, Bill. It’s not restricted. You can get as much stock as you want, as soon as you pay back the government, you can cash out of that. That’s one.

Second, you can, sorry to get technical, but reset the strike price. This is something you and your and your viewers, you need to hear this one out. Just look for these words, okay, follow them through the press. When you get into trouble, when your company goes down, and you have massive amounts of stock options that aren’t worth much anymore, because the stock price has gone down, you say, “Oh, well, we’re going to reset our option prices.”

And, basically, it means that, at the end of the day, these people are going to walk away with tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars paid for by basically, insurance policy that you and I are providing.

Think of it like this, our taxpayer money is ensuring their bonuses. We’re making sure that companies, that banks survive. And eventually, of course, the economy will turn around. Things will get better. The banks will be worth a lot of money. And they will cash out. And we will be paying higher taxes, we and our children, will be paying higher taxes so those people could have those bonuses. That’s not fair. It’s not acceptable. It’s not even good economics.”

Note: The second quote was actually from Michael Hudson who made some decent points, but I am more in agreement with Kuttner.

Instead of arguing over semantics or metaphors, I will point to this interview with Robert Kuttner who very clearly nails it (in my opinion) on Amy Goodman’s show.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/13/robert_kuttner_and_michael_hudson_on

Quote:

“The biggest problem of all is the Geithner plan to try and bring hedge funds and private equity companies with loans from the Federal Reserve as a way of propping up banks. It’s resuscitating the same system that got us into this mess. It’s totally wrongheaded. All of the economists who I respect, from Joe Stiglitz to Paul Krugman to Nouriel Roubini, all argue that, sooner or later, we’re going to have to nationalize the banks, clean out the bad assets, make the bad actors take a hit, replace corrupt management, and clean the slate so that we start out with new—with viable banks that can get the credit system operating again. And the longer we defer that with more pyramid schemes financed by the Fed or the Treasury or the taxpayers, the deeper the hole is.”

”  A president is able to use a bully pulpit. He had a lot of public—enormous public support. He could have gone to the people, like Roosevelt did, and said, “Here is my plan, and I’m going to protect the workers and American industry who are productive. I’m not going to support the extractive sector.” And instead, he talked as if he was supporting labor, he talked as if he was supporting industry, but all the money he’s been given—has been given to essentially Wall Street and, as Mr. Kuttner said, to Mr. Rubin’s protégés.

And if you want to see a kind of scenario where this is leading, you can look at what Mr. Rubin did in Russia and the Baltic countries and the post-Soviet economies. Right now, they’re all broke, and there’s no visible means of support. And in a way, you could say that countries like Latvia represent a foretaste of what we will be moving towards if the program isn’t drastically inverted to help the actual economy instead of the financial claims on the economy. Finance is extracting the income from the economy, not producing it, and they’re the people who are getting the benefit and getting the guarantees.”

“Well, they’re being coddled. I mean, if you look at Citigroup, the Treasury has put in $45 billion of direct equity capital into Citigroup. It’s guaranteed another $306 billion of toxic assets. You can buy all of Citigroup for about $25 billion. So the taxpayers effectively own it. What the government ought to do is exercise the rights of ownership, go in there, put a majority of public appointees on the board, get rid of existing management. I think in the case of Citigroup, the best thing you could do is break it up, because it is a zombie bank in the sense of it being insolvent. And most of the large banks are insolvent. Their debts exceed their capital. And what Geithner is doing, he’s trying to just disguise this by one more effort to double down using the same kind of financial razzle dazzle that got us into this trouble. So it would be much cleaner to put these banks into receivership.”

-Robert Kuttner

Your right, Anarcissie, the American people in particular have been taught from childhood to identify with their own oppression and the oppresion of other people.  We have been deluded and disoriented with a false sense of reality, especially political and social reality.  Nothing can be done until a rank and file leadership can agree on the nature of poliitcal and social reality and lead others to so agree.

This is not a matter of changing people’s minds so much as transforming our souls.  This must be done simultaneously with changing institutions.  It’s an historical project, changing people’s worldviews of reality.

This was done in the 16th and 17th century in the religious and scientific revolutions that rearranged the misconceptions that the Educated classes imposed on the population to legitimate their power. 

We are living at a time in hisotry when this kind of transformation of worldview is currently being undergone by the world’s people.  Such a worldview, whatever it turns out to be, can partially be legiitmated by conceptual innovations associated with 20th century American social science. 

This is not a utopian project, merely a lenthy one.

It would not be illegal to convene a constitutional convention.  What then, however?  My impression of the public is that most of them desire a even more warlike, imperialistic, repressive state.  Notice how much of the talk around the present set of crises is monarchical—will Obama do this or that, why doesn’t he exert a stronger hand, and so forth.  These are not people who are prepared to hold on to what freedom they have left.

Anyway, a very different sort of economy could be set up under the present Constitution.  But that would require people to know what it was they wanted, in which case we would have already seen movement in that direction, instead of a desire to rerun the New Deal (among the Democrats) or the Reagan years (among the Republicans).

Oh, yeah, I agree, Anarcissie, Gop strategy is very short range, it is not a viable long range solution which leads to a stable power system.  It’s ‘I’m getting mine’ until, as you say, they are forced to bailout.  but they hope to bailout with a bundle.  They don’t have a long range solution.

But neither do the Dems.  That is why the Roosevelt analogy for Obama is wrong.  The American power system is too old, obsolete and oppressive to go for progressive solutions that are effective.  The WORM-DUPE coalition will hold each other up until the colapse.

The long term solution is the third American revolution. Progressives, as Gore Vidal has suggested on public stages, including to the American press, need to convene a Constitutional Convention under article 5, and take back control of the American power system.

But, as Synonymous has stated, quite rightly, revolution is illegal in the US.  As is seditious talk about the American power system.  It always is, in every country, and that hasn’t stopped revolutions from occurring yet.  Indeed, the 20th century was a century of revolutions, and there is no indication that they will cease in the 21st.

Folktruther—I think the Republican policy is merely smash’n'grab.  I don’t think they have any rational, practical vision of a secure, sustainable state, even a very conservative, hierarchical, right-wing state.  My guess is that the more percipient of them have some kind of escape hatch in mind.

Anyone who thinks about the current situation knows that a fundamental revision of our economic arrangements is necessary.  But it is as yet politically impossible to say this.  Therefore, it will have to be acted out.

When someone self righteously claims to know the truth, I would refer to the bumper sticker, “question authority and the self righteous”. 

Proclaiming to know all, is like the wishing Eight Ball. 

Another bumper sticker comes to mind, “I will apathetically listen to your self righteous platitudes,  if you will kiss my ass”  Very hard to read while driving.

Anarcissie, how can you say that the Gops have no idea what to do.  They are completely united in a solution to all of America’s problems: cut taxes for the ruling class.  It is true that this is not an economic solution to the problem, but it is an excellent political solution.  As things get worse, they can then run next time on the inablity of the Dems to cure the problem, which they have helped to ensure.

And enough Americans will vote for them, when the Gop mass media proves that their Dem opponents are unpatriotic, immoral, gutless and Elitist incompetents.  As they really are, by and large, pretending to serve the interests of the beaten population tht BeerDoctor so eloquently discribed.

It is true that the Louise and the other Democrats Under Presidential Enchantment (DUPEs) will always vote for the Dems no matter what their policies are, but since the truth organs are Conservative, and people are indoctrinated from childhood to identify with their own oppression, enough Gops will survive to continue to enforce class inequality, war, and the death culture.

The Gops know precisely what they are doing, and are united to fight for it effectively.  Now if you said that the Dems didn’t know, there I would agree with you.  The function of the Dem leaders and truthers is to confuse the populuation enough to support the conservative policies demanded by the ruling class thaqt finances and medias them.  But you cannot systematical obfuscate the public discourse and still think straight ideologically.  They all think like pale copies of Shenonymous or Ihnerit, appealing to that rationality that they subvert in their own thinking.

It is the Dems that are confused, not the Gops.

As Michael Hudson was describing the bailout today on DemocracyNow, I realized that we’ve become the galley slaves in ship headed for the edge, bankrupcy.  The Haves are bickering on deck about the Stimulus Plan while the Have-Morres, the bankers, all salesman, are holding us hostage by threatening to bring the economy to ruin if they do not get their price in the multi-trillion dollar bailout. 
Allan Sloane, economics editor for Fortune magazine, said on C-SPAN today that a tax cut would do nothing for businesses who are losing money.  In short, there is no business to be had.  At a rate of fifteen per-cent, the capital gains tax is at its lowest in history, yet no one is making money.  However, in deference to the magazine owners, he also seemed to support the bailout.
(Right now, Republicans are clamoring about reading the whole bill.  I agree, but where were these people when the Patriot Act and the payoff to PHRMA in the Medicare Drug Plan were rammed through congress.)

Litter Lady, is just part of the picture, I suspect her presence is political in nature. I posted on the “Eight is Enough” article several other reasons then just changing focus.

Moron Mass Media, uses simple Simon says, making nonsense profound,  just for the ignorant. This constant saturation of nonsense used as manipulation of reality or truth, it even hides the raping of ourselves, under a guise of stimulation?  “Ask yourself punk, does it feel good”? (sic)

If you have read the redneck insights of Joe Bageant, it becomes obvious that all this left-right squabble about the stimulus package (what one CSPAN moderator referred to as the “stimulation package”) means nothing to the great unwashed majority of American citizens spoken of euphemistically as “the permanent underclass” or “working poor” or as our beloved Republicans would say “those who demand entitlements”. Education, or the lack thereof, has become the ultimate weapon to deny. For those who take the trouble, you can find all kinds of information about why people like Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers are miserable examples of public officials. But that would involve initiative and time that so many of our fellow citizens do not have. Between attempting to play the role of consumer and paying the bills that requirement demands, there is little left to stop and consider why the GOP was so determined to stop any money in the stimulus package from going to the construction of new schools.
The alternative, or progressive media continues to equivocate about President Obama’s economic plans, trying to find something worthwhile in all that rescue of the banker/ownership class. Meanwhile, the American sans-culotte are told to concern themselves with the carnival show of the “woman on the dole, with the 8 birthing heads!”

I say let the banks live by the rules of the capitalist system they hold so dear. The CEOs should be in the soup lines. Broke. This bail out package should go towards local governments and services for the people who actually paid taxes for it. Refinaced regulated new banks. Who needs the scum!

************************************
By P. T., February 11 at 8:29 pm #

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Afghanistan will destroy Barack Obama’s presidency if he is not careful.
************************************

I believe this. I could not believe that obama even chose geithner for the treasury department. It just shows me for what ever reason that obama is not making good decisions and those decisions will hurt what is left of the middle class if not out and out kill of them.
Government, economics, corporate systems all have become so infested and infected with the criminal mind that unless the people start revolting we will encourage them to totally wipe out the whole class which makes me think the is what these heads of the financial houses want, depopulation.

tao…nah, that ain’t his grand strategy.  my only hope for the guy is that he looks at his 2 young daughters and says to himself, “i’ve got to make this earth a liveable place for them.”

Robert Scheer’s perhaps off-hand “....carrying water….” indictment at the end of this piece might be a whole lot more on-point than he realizes.  Cash, as everybody knows (because we’re reminded everyday), is not only the most LIQUID of “assets,” it is also, in its “credit” disguise (favored by loan-sharks in all times and places), believed by the papered professional experts to be “the lifeblood of the economy.”

So maybe the bailouts are all taking place under the rules of western “water law.”  One of which is that once you allow someone to tap-into a water source and come to rely on it for this “vital substance,” you are not allowed to either shut it off or charge them “unreasonably” to continue their use of it.

The big brand new pipeline from Treasury and Fed directly to the “financialsector” is not just laid and flowing amply, those poor bastards will dry-up-and-blow-away if they can’t keep sucking-up “the taxpayers’ money.”  What’s more, since their first giant infusion was virtually free, there’s probably going to be no way ever to get them to pay even “fair market” (talk about your oxy-morons) rates for however much more of it they want.  This’ll go-on ‘til “The Well” (Hexagram #48, Ching) fails….with “dire” consequences us surviving free wild Indians will have to make a special effort even to notice.

If, as some of his fans suggest, Barack Obama had this clown car full of feckless fools forced upon him by the plutoligarchy, is his “grand strategy” now to go ahead and let them finish the destruction almost completed under “the previous administration,” hold them up to the “huddled masses” to be ridiculed and villified for the utter failures they’ll’ve finally been proved to be, then get earnestly down to re-ORGAN-izing whoever’s left of the domesticated people here on Turtle Island into the Living Communities our Lakotah Cousins call Tiyoshpayes?  It just might work.

HokaHey!

Judd Gregg withdraws as nominee to the Secretary of Commerce saying that he disagrees with the Stimulus Plan but backs Geithner’s plan.  He was a little fuzzy about any specifics, saying that he didn’t think it through.
He wanted assurances that his replacement would not run in 2010.  Now, he says he’s not running. 
Is he going to play a big role in killing or watering down the stimulus bill while aiding and abetting the administration in their fraudulent bailout of the Wall Street criminals? 
Maybe he has some kind of tax problem himself.  After winning all that dough in the NH Lottery a few years ago he might have forgotten to pay his taxes on his winnings. David Cay Johnston suggested on Democracy Now that probably P of the congress haa some sort of tax problem.

Folktruther,

So you admit you are a DUPE. I guess in a way that’s a good thing even though you haven’t got a clue who’s duping you.

Oh well.

Your “sceptism” is not the least bit difficult for me, but may harm you mightily. Are you counting on it to catch you when your floor drops out from beneath you!

scepticism: from the Greek: Skeptikoi (sounds like some kinda bug, huh)
the method of suspended judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism that is characteristic of skeptics (Merriam–Webster).

Skeptikoi:
a school of philosophers of whom it was said that they “asserted nothing but only opined.”

OK, that sounds about right.

In philosophy, skepticism refers more specifically to any one of several propositions. These include propositions about:

a method of obtaining knowledge through systematic doubt and continual testing,
the limitations of knowledge,
a method of suspended judgment.

Right again!

Nincompoop:
deficient in judgment and good sense (Merriam–Webster).

Hmmm ... maybe one needs to be a nincompoop to totally embrace scepticism as a clear path to knowledge. 

Good luck!

The definitions of fraud and larceny are relevant in this whole hoax that is called a bailout.

Our prisons are full of criminals who defrauded others, including thieves who took money that was not their own.

Where are the prosecutions of the white-collar crooks in our banking institutions. In addition to the fraud they perpetrated, knowingly cheating others in passing off worthless debt instruments and then stealing taxpayer money for unearned bonuses.

The fraud is continuing with Geithner leading us to believe that accountability will be required.

I have had a gut full of this plutocratic bunch who use average Americans,.

anar…lighten up..just having some fun

______
my computer skills are prmitive.  i don’t know how to provide links.  if u google “obama on nationalization” at the financial site calculated risk, you’ll find a decent piece on the subject of this thread.  also, krugman’s short blogspot of yesterday under the same heading is to the point.

If only I had known, I could have supplied many more!  Some are so easily pleased….

HEY!!...it’s good to see TD’s resident intellectual, anarcissie, is capable of a typo

thebeerdoctor—My impression of the present Republican position, it we can call it that, is that they have no idea what to do.  As some have noted, if nothing is done and things get worse it will improve their prospects in 2010 and 2012, so they may be somewhat less that motivated to come up with or contribute to solutions.

P.T.—Quite right, but it will require more anger among the folk before anything like that takes place.  I think that’s coming.

Paul Krugman and Kenneth Rogoff appearing on tv the night before last speculated that at least two of these large banks are already insolvent and that an audit will eventually prove this.  Well, if these banks are too big to fail, and at least two are already insolvent, doesn’t that mean that they have failed?
What Maximus Von Geithner will probably suggest is a large influx of cash to save these banks, kicking the can down the road so that we’ll find out later that these banks have failed.

it looks like barackstar’s best and brightest apointees—geithner/summers on the economy and holbrooke on afghanistan—-may lead him to failure.  a chicago tribune reporter said that after barackstar’s 2004 speech at the democratic convention, he was seen later leaping in the air and exclaiming, “i’m a player!”  hey, fella, desperate times don’t need a player, they need a game changer.
______
if u can make it past the 1rst 3 paragraphs of anarcissie’s link, it really is a strong analysis of our world-wide economic situation and its possibilities.

_______
folktruther…as always, thx for the much needed humor…u is one boy who ain’t gonna develop an ulcer

No one wants to hear it. It just can’t be that bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSTt3wEDSbU

So keep reading TD’s pussy foot drivel and keep watching corporate funded PBS but do not watch or listen to anything by guys like Max Kieser because they are all evil doers.

What the Obama administration is trying to do is save Wall Street’s biggest bankers’ jobs and the banks’ owners.  If the administration did the obvious thing—what was done in the savings and loan crisis—and went through the banks’ books, wrote down the bad loans, declared the banks insolvent, and took them over, then the rich and powerful bankers and campaign contributors would be out of their jobs and out a lot of money.  They would be replaced by new management, the books straightened out, and the banks then sold off.

That must not happen, so we pour more money down a rat hole.

re: Anarcissie

David Harvey’s assertion about FDR getting cold feet as it were, towards expanded deficit spending, after the 1936 election, and returning to a balanced budget approach, which only sent the country back into depression; this idea is completely ignored by present day Republican reactionaries, who now quote Henry Morgenthau Jr., to support the idea that “new deal spending does not work”. This is being repeated on a daily basis, to justify their ideological sloth. It is also cynically ironic that they quote Secretary Morgenthau, who was one of the chief architects of the post-WWII international economic system, that the GOP has complained about (until very recently) so vociferously, for so many years.

Here is a better link to the story I linked to:
http://davidharvey.org/2009/02/why-the-us-stimulus-package-is-bound-to-fail/#more-201

The way to go is out there.  Krugman, a Nobel Economist has been laying out what needs to be done for close to 18 months.  He correctly predicted what would happen and has been sounding the alarm for almost 3 years.  He stands with a vast number of renowned economists, not idealogues all of whom have demanded that we temporarily nationalize the banks, deal directly with the mortgage crises, like FDR and pump billions upon billions to infrastructure, education, energy efficiency etc.  The plans are all out there and make sence.  President Obama’s Mr. G doesn’t like the word nationalize and wants to keep the system like it is even though it is terribly broken AND take massive amounts of money from the taxpayers to buy bad debt and shore up banks run by the people who created this problem!  Can’t you see that that doesn’t make sence!?  It is our job and duty to stand up and say NOOOOOOOOOOO!  Our President is a smart man.  I voted and campaigned for him.  It is my job as a citizen of this nation to fight for what I beleive is right.  That is what Democracy is all about.  If our President wants another term he must listen to the people who put him in office.  Instead he is listening to Mr. G, who is part of the problem and giveing deference to Republicans who want to make him fail.  When he allowed Holden to fight the court on hearing the rendation cases, I was crushed.  How could he do that? How could he maintain Bush’s horrific anti-democratic and anti-American policy! President Obama has a huge MANDATE!!!  He can call an emergency press conference and speak to the people directly and tell us how important it is to nationalze, reorganize and invest in our great nation.  Everyone would listen and act.  Instead he is giving mr. G all the power to protect his homies!!  Wake-up and call your congressional people.  I’m willing to march to show my support for our newly elected President and tell him what I think should happen.  Are you ready to march, communicate and at least try to bring your hopes and dreams to our President,or are you simply going to try to shut up those around you who disaggree with your opinions?

Louise, as a charter member of the Democrats Under Presidential Enchantment Society (DUPES) the sceptism that you encounter from nincompoops like ourselves must be diffiult for you.  We simply don’t uderstand the obvious Facts of the situation: OUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE, WE MUST GIVE MORE MONEY TO THE RICH TO PUT IT OUT.  The obvious solution of Geither, Summers and Obama, as it was of Bush.

Other altrenatives, such as giving money to people losing their houses, are not a solution at all to the DUPES. After all, how much money do they contribute to their leaders campaigns?  So it is obious, at least to the DUPES, that we have to give more money to the rich.

And truthdiggers just don’t understand that, do they Louise. But never fear.  There are still many more DUPES than there are irresponsible cynics who look askance at the bankers looting the public treasury in broad daylight.  So you still have an audience for those who do not yet realize that Obama is continuing the polices of the Bushites.

Smakings of socialism, me thinks. How about three strikes and then they are out?

Saving the banking system doesn’t require saving the
corrupt and outright thieves who caused this disasater.
Tha failed banks should be nationalized and put under
new management. The privately owned federal reserve bank should also be nationalized and the issuing of the country money should be in the hands of the governmnet.

There is an interesting view of this subject here: http://www.marxmail.org/msg57224.html
(“David Harvey: why the stimulus package is bound to fail”).

This is a long article in the best high-density Marxist style, but I think its gist is clear: If we have the important structural problems that everyone seems to think we do, then the kind of small-time New New Deal flogging Obama and his Clintonoid retreads are trying to work just isn’t going to do the trick.  In fact, it well may be that the trick is not doable.

Louise,

Another point of view.  If the fire was caused by an alleged experts in fire prevention, I would be castrating them instead of rewarding them. 

Incompetence, greed, the selfish aloof attitudes of the who perpetuated this failure, should be dealt with as most of us would be. Follow the money trail. 

White collier crime has always been glossed over, look at the record. We may just be throwing money into the fire.

screamingpalm,

“Salvation or not it’s the plan we’re stuck with. I understand it’s a broad outline, but it’s the strategy that I disagree with.”

~~~

OK, what is it you don’t understand, that there is no plan, or that a broad outline is not a strategy?

Let me ask you a question.

If your house caught fire, which would you do first, try to put out the fire, or ignore the fire and try to figure out why it started?

I would try to put out the fire first, then [assuming I still had a house] find out the cause, correct it, remove it and pay attention so it doesn’t happen again.

Most folks don’t realize how close we came to a complete collapse of our financial system last year! Like the raging fire, it had to be addressed immediately. We threw money at the banks and slowed the fire. But there are still hot spots threatening to erupt into a massive fire once again. What Geithner did was identify the hot spots. He did not give us a plan for rebuilding the economy beyond mentioning the fire needs more water! Only when the fire is out once and for all, can we go in and correct and remove the cause of the fire!

Most people don’t realize if our financial system collapses, the entire banking system around the world will collapse! That cant be good, and that’s not something we want to happen. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want the whole world coming after us, looking for revenge! Especially if our entire society has collapsed, leaving us defenseless. So we need to put out the fire. Hopefully it isn’t to late and we can actually do that, but it does mean we have to poor more money on the banks. Once the banks are relatively stable we can go in and clean up the mess the greedy bastards have made. And don’t you think for one minute they don’t know who they are, what they have done and that they will be held accountable!

I know people are angry, and they have every right to be. But if we’re going to fix anything, the first thing we need to do is understand we cant until we put out the fire! Angry words wont do it. Ignoring the hot spots wont do it. Even a plan for correcting whatever led to the fire wont do it! Not until the fire is at the very least, under control!

Meanwhile all the Obama bashing in the world only serves to delay controlling the fire! Duh - why cant you people understand that? Maybe you don’t want to put out the fire! I don’t understand that either. But I do understand what other economists are saying, including some you have mentioned. We need MORE money pumped into the system, not less!

~~~

“I wonder if you have read or listened to alternative views to Geithner’s or just dismissing them outright.”

~~~

That observation clearly defines the disconnect so apparent here. You assume other views are alternate. When in fact views expressed by Geithner reflect an understanding of where we are and what we need to do first. There are many economists out there willing and able to identify cause and effect, and that is exactly what Geithner did! I think most economists agree - preventing a complete collapse of our financial institutions has to be first and foremost!

Louise wrote:

“I could say something like, closed minds are hard to open”
___________________________________________________

Louise,

Definitely you are talking about your mind which
is based on a thoroughly washed brain.
You are insisting on seeing what you are hoping for and not what is actually out there. So, keep
dreaming and fantasizing but hold the sarcasm because
you will make people laugh. That is laught at YOU.

Dole is a word used for it’s negativity, except when referring to pineapples.

Accountability has never been and may never be coming from government officials, for requirements of integrity would be more demanding of capabilities to their preferences.  They cannot help themselves, for as the illusionists they only deal in smoke and mirrors.

If anyone understands what they are doing, it is the persons pulling the strings, and will it not include greed?

The bankers club remains firmly in place. The most that will become of this will be the highly publicized hearings in which elected officials are shocked (absolutely shocked!) that high stakes gambling was taking place. The Treasury Secretary’s job is to prevent anyone from the realization that these “too big to fail” banking institutions are holding assets that are worthless. $trillions will be printed up to deny this fact.

Louise,

Salvation or not it’s the plan we’re stuck with. I understand it’s a broad outline, but it’s the strategy that I disagree with. While it’s nice to hear about oversight and accountability, I’d rather it be done behind closed doors and avoid throwing the entire burden on taxpayers.  Not only that, Geithner wants to delay the inevitable dealing with these toxic assets and insolvent institutions, which is going to cost taxpayers even more in the long run while rich investors, irresponsible hedge fund managers, et al attempt to recoup some of their losses. The price of transparency appears to be the continued socialism for Wall Street and capitalism for the rest.

I wonder if you have read or listened to alternative views to Geithner’s or just dismissing them outright.

The Bailout…
...is the attempt by the incompetent, to explain the incomprehensible, to the incapable. The incapable then believe the incompetent comprehend the unfathomable. In fact, the whole world is being led by idiots whom traverse paths they’ve never traveled and are too scared and ignorant to include us in the glorious adventure that is once in a life time.

http://whatintheworld-icarus.blogspot.com/

screamingpalm,

Then obviously you had decided pre-speech Geithner was going to deliver the plan for our salvation. You missed it, because that was not the purpose of his speech or testimony.

I could say something like, closed minds are hard to open, but in this case it feels more like a closed room full of brain farts!

Phewwy!

Someone open the window ... I’m outa here!

Re: Louise, February 11 at 4:27 pm #

I’m curious, did any of you folks actually watch/listen to Geithner’s speech at the Treasury Department [beginning to end] yesterday? Did any of you actually watch/listen to Geithner testify before the Senate Banking Committee [beginning to end] yesterday?

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

I did, watched the whole excruciating thing on C-span. I also listened to brilliant economists such as Paul Krugman, James Galbraith and David Korten who I agree with much more than Geithner. Geithner sounded like he was paying lip-service to some of the outrage and criticism, while other parts of his language was frightening! Unless I misunderstood, it sounded like he was asking for a lifeline to the treasury. Hook an I.V. up from the Treasury to these Wall Street institutions.

oregoncharles: great post! I voted Nader, but I like McKinney and think she may be one of the ones to “carry the torch”. Nader will probably be to old to run again, so I think we missed our chance there.

“This is part of understanding the current Wall Street system, which is built around an illusion, the illusion that money is wealth, which then translates into the idea that people who are creating—or who are making money are in fact creating wealth. And what Wall Street has become extremely expert at is creating money out of nothing through financial bubbles, through pyramiding lending to create fictitious assets that become collateral for more bank lending, and then combining that with the predatory aspects of usurious lending and deceptive lending and the use of credit cards as a substitute for a living wage—all the games that Wall Street is playing. And it’s actually based on a philosophy that says we don’t need to produce anything as a country, if we can—you know, if we can do all this financial innovation that allows us to create financial assets without producing anything of real value.”
-David Korten

“...But so long as you’re dealing with the old management and so long as you’re dealing with the old practices and so long as you don’t have a clean audit of the books, the chances are that the bank is going to behave in ways which are not constructive, which do not contribute to the growth of the economy, and which leave all kinds of suspicions present in the system about the integrity of the institution and of the regulatory process. And that’s the problem the Treasury Department seems to be determined not to face.

And so long as it doesn’t face it, we’re not going to get out of this, and the Treasury Department is not contributing constructively to the success of the recovery plan, which the Congress is about to enact. And that will mean that the recovery plan itself will be, sort of after the fact, too small to deal the problem of unemployment, which is just growing at the rate of a half a million jobs a month.”
-James Galbraith

“we voted for the caring community organizer from the streets of Chicago and not some hack carrying water for the predators of Wall Street.”

Maybe I shouldn’t start with that quote; it leaves me a little speechless.

Could Scheer really be that naive?  Does he really think they’re different people?  Could I really be calling Robert Scheer naive?

Let me make one thing perfectly clear:  YOU may have voted for those two people, but I didn’t.  I voted for just one, Cynthia McKinney.  Just one person: that’s called “integrity.”

And I was told I “didn’t understand the real world”.  I was “hopelessly idealistic”, “living in an illusion.”  Now the shoe is on the other foot.

But I can’t be too smug, because I live here, like the rest of you.  so I was hoping it would turn out OK.

Now I’m hoping we have two years, and can deal with this at an election, because more and more people aren’t willing to wait that long.

Practically speechless.

“Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Afghanistan will destroy Barack Obama’s presidency if he is not careful.”

If Obama has any brains and integrity, he’ll can Geithner and bring in someone who isn’t tainted by what’s been happening, someone, preferably an outsider with some fresh ideas.

We definitely don’t need somone like Sarah Palin or Jeb Bush in the White House in 2012.