Like it or not folks, we have all been duped into forfeiting certain Constitutional Rights in favor of Corporate Privileges. As an example, look into your wallets, or purses, there you will find a Corporate Document verifying your 'Privilege' to drive over Corporate Property. We have all become members of the Corporation.

Peace, Best Wishes and Hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1vEuhBuEU

No, I defend them as negative rights, and the constitutional rights that align with these.

MtnGoat is right folks!

The Privileges offered by a Corporation, laid out in their Corporate By-Laws, trump Constitutional Rights. These are the results from what was enthroned in 1913, when the bulk of Corporate Laws were passed, along with the Federal Reserve Act, which took the power of money and centralized into fewer hands. Which is why Bush Inc. was so aptly able to shout a reporter down, telling him to - quit shoving the Constitution in my face, it's only a piece of paper. But, let me add that, Corporations are simple creatures of the state and have no Constitutional validity, and because of this, rest on very fragile ground. The title 'Federal Reserve' is a misnomer and has absolutely nothing to do with the Federal Government. It is a privately owned, for-profit Corporation, whose majority of directors are not necessarily all American citizens. The regional board of governors, from time to time, meets secretly to determine what the value of printed paper will be.

MtnGoat defends his Privileges under Corporate Law and not Constitutional Rights. The definition and intent for an Oligarchy is: to defend the opulence of the minority against the hopes of the majority, and a self glorifying Oligarchy at that.

Peace, Best Wishes and Hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1vEuhBuEU

I have zero problem doing away with fractional reserve banking, which is the root of many problems with economics created by State interference.

As for self glorifying...everyone uses the self as a reference. However, not everyone decides one's own ideas necessitate the imposition of our wills on others. I posit that figuring those danged other people are so wrong that replacing their wills with someone elses by law, is as self glorifying as it gets.

Usury and greed are sins. I'm no fundamentalist, I'm just a well-versed Episcopalian, but I read enough scripture to know that the Biblical prophets had more to say about usury, greed, and hypocrisy than they did about abortion and gay marriage.

One of them... oh, yeah, it was that Jesus fellow... also said something about the consequences of 'building a house on sand.' Right now, I see storm clouds brewing over China that will shake this debt-ridden house of cards we call America to the ground.

I have a fantasy that I wake up and the work that actually benefits nature and humanity or contributes to the survival of our species is the most highly-valued work. Doctors still make out well, but nurses do too. Teachers, cooks, and childcare workers are all sitting pretty. People are lined up to pick crops, build houses, make clothing, and collect the garbage. CEOs and jocks, meanwhile, are looking for a second job to make rent.

Just a dream. The greedy, usurious house of cards built on sand is, unfortunately, our American reality.

Ok folks...so is the idea to ban 'usury'?

then where will you get the money for values you wish to have now.... but would like to pay for over time?

Or is the idea, as always, to get money from someone else at no cost to you?

It always cracks me up how those who want are so eager to 'share' with someone else who has. A very selfless choice, I'm sure.

"zeitgeist, be fair. They aren't at the top of the food chain. They just like to roam on mountain tops and be above the fray. They're loners."

Be realistic, Kathy..not buying your formulation has nothing to do with being a loner. Rejecting your use of other people, in no way indicates a loner..unless your self centric worldview is such that rejection of your ideas indicates rejection of everone around. This is not the case.

Rejecting your use of others is simply rejection of the use of others. Society is still society even if each person refuses to force his/her fellows to serve their ideals.

"Only society as a whole can give people a boost onto the ladder. In his world, no boosts."

In my world, boosts are many. The only difference is that it is actually a moral choice..not the imposition of morality.

"And George Bush told us that the 415 U.S. billionaires who are getting trillions in tax breaks (over a few years) are using it to invest in job-creation industries.

Another bold lie by our infamous president. What next?"

Where do they invest it that it doesn't create jobs? Who is lying here?

"thank you, zeitgeist. There's no use talking to MtnGoat because he really doesn't get it. I don't believe he's a predator, just an enabler due to having read Ayn Rand at an impressionable age. Fortunately for the rest of us, he's in a small minority group."

This is a pretty good example of where the problem actually lies. You think there is something to "get". Whereas logic and reason dictate that your beliefs, unless you admit they are subjective and therefore analogous to religion, should be consistent and explainable such that 'getting' them is merely a matter of showing them to be logically consistent.

Note that instead of answering my points...you just ignore them and claim there's no use talking to me. In reality, what we see is there is no use in talking to you, because apparently one either 'gets' your ideas or does not, meaning they are based not in explainable and consistent logic..but faith. Only faith requires a leap to 'getting' something it's no use talking about.

The fact remains that those you claim are thieves operate on the basis of open agreement, and your deception concerning your intent to take money by force clearly shows you to be willing to use methods they cannot use..it's you who support the thieving. You cannot even face the reality of what you support, while you attack others for doing what you intend to actually support... stealing.

explanations? nope. avoidance, yes. and it's I you can't talk to, when I'll talk about anything.... while you avoid questions?

As for the 'impressionable age'..that apparently reaches into ones thirties. I'd hope reality makes an impression on people at any age, personally. I too once was considered a liberal/progressive. But the conflict between what I supported the methods used to do so, and the reality that I was actually supporting the use of tools those I opposed hadn't used in the first place, finally became too much. The social compact is...do not steal. From anybody.

That's all that is necessary for the most basic respect of each person.

kathyodat April 11th, 2007 9:45 pm

"My own son who wanted to be a physicist, chose mechanical engineering only because it would pay off his student loans. You may say, so what. I say, the US is not getting the best use of his mind. Multiply that, and you have a country that gets weaker and weaker. India and China are surging, and believe me, they educate their young."

Yeah, but I'll bet they don't know who fathered Anna Nicole's baby!

"The total wealth of this global ruling class grew 35 per cent year to year topping $3.5 trillion, while income levels for the lower 55 per cent of the world's 6-billion-strong population declined or stagnated. Put another way, one hundred millionth of the world's population (1/100,000,000) owns more than over 3 billion people. Over half of the current billionaires (523) came from just 3 countries: the US (415), Germany (55) and Russia (53). (The 35 per cent increase in wealth mostly came from speculation on equity markets, real estate and commodity trading, rather than from technical innovations, investments in job-creating industries or social services)." -James Petras

And George Bush told us that the 415 U.S. billionaires who are getting trillions in tax breaks (over a few years) are using it to invest in job-creation industries.

Another bold lie by our infamous president. What next?

By the way, China now has 20 billionaires.

MtnGoat, the Greek root word for sarcasm is "tearing of flesh".

peachmcd, I like your fantasy, but I think we will have to make it happen. I think our present Congress is capable of making a lot of noise and kicking up a lot of dust, but very little serious reform will come out of it. At present, their main goal appears to be making life as miserable for the Repubs as possible while keeping the largesse flowing, but in their own direction. We're going to have to make our own reality. So let's get to work.

zeitgeist, be fair. They aren't at the top of the food chain. They just like to roam on mountain tops and be above the fray. They're loners. His sense of "society" is every man for himself and if he sees someone in need, and chooses to give a hand, that's his free choice. And for the ones he doesn't see, tough break for them. As he has said, he decides who deserves his charity. But it's just charity. Only society as a whole can give people a boost onto the ladder. In his world, no boosts.

kathyodat-

Mountain Goats are top feeders!

***It seems like most of the money in this country goes through the Dept of Defense (War)***

Yes...and it is very dark indeed!

Best Wishes and Hope

Thank you, zeitgeist. There's no use talking to MtnGoat because he really doesn't get it. I don't believe he's a predator, just an enabler due to having read Ayn Rand at an impressionable age. Fortunately for the rest of us, he's in a small minority group.

My son is aware of the noose of usury, but considering the alternative, stuck his head in it. Since he graduated, his professors have offered irresistable financial incentives to continue on in graduate school and he accepted their offer. He still has to borrow some money because unknown to the professors, the school recently doubled it's graduate school fees (aside from tuition) to $1000/term. This is a state university, but public institutions are no longer public. Sadly, in Mechanical Engineering, the tuition reimbursement and research assistant programs are mainly funded by - you guessed it - grants from the Department of Defense. It seems like most of the money in this country goes through the Dept of Defense (War).

MtnGoat-

It's the predatory tactics used to entice the mouse into the noose of usury that is in question here. Not only credit cards, but the entire empire of lending institutions, avail themselves to this bag of tricks. Once in the trap, your dead meat.

Not everyone is as weary, as some, and not everyone has the capacity to reject, what is only a temporary finger in the dike, of an already insurmountable burden.

Best Wishes

why should someone accept a loss because you wish to use their money? Not one lender forces me to take out a loan. I decide i'd rather have what I value sooner than later, and that having it sooner is worth paying a rate i agree to.

Anyone at all can decide that the impact of the loan process costs more to them than the impact of not getting what they want. I control what I spend on things, because I decide how much they are worth to me.

kathyodat-

You can not argue with those on the receiving end of Usury! As one economist stated, "If you've got the meter running on the American people, you've got the best game in town."

Best Wishes

Kathyodat, where did you find universal principle which declares one must be able to live simply by working all day? Does this mean if I work all day making art out of straw, I am entitled to a living even when no one wants them? Simply working is not enough. Someone else must want your work, and to the degree they want it enough to pay you enough for what you want.

No corporation 'steals' my worth. Show me where one of them takes my worth via the use of threats which violate my rights. None of them have the power to make me buy their products if I don't want to. Yes, you want to do something about it...by imposing your will on them in a manner they do not do to you.

Your 'doing something' does not involve *you* making the choices to change your own actions to achieve your ends...it simply involves you imposing your will on others. This is neither ethical nor moral, but an evasion of both of these things in the pursuit of what you want for your own reasons.

You've already admitted elsewhere you fully intend to take my money..and in a manner corporations are not permitted to use outside the system you prefer the use of...the use of force of law. You intend to take my money the way you claim they take it from me, but they don't...and you want to.

They ask me if I want their products, yet can't do anything if I choose not to buy them. You support *telling* we must have what you want us to have, and back threatening us and punishing us if we don't act in the ways you want..including payment for what you want us to pay for. They are not the thief..it is you. You're the one wanting others to do what you want, and are willing to do 'whatever it takes' to get others to do so..including the threat of jail. It's so interesting to see you claiming open trade is thievery...and the use of physical threats against people, is not.

Your assertion I do not believe in a social compact is completely false...I merely do not agree with the format you prefer. The compact is this: do not steal from anyone. This means do not take from people against their will, and do not threaten to initiate violence against them to do so.

If schools are turning away qualified applicants because there are not enough seats, this is prima facie evidence that there is some interference with the education market somewhere in the chain. Otherwise, the demand for seats would innately result in the creation of more availability. If this is not occurring, it is proof there is some disincentive to do so being imposed by rules somewhere in the system of regulation concerning them.

By financial gap, I mean the claim your son chose not to go into physics because his education would cost so much he couldn't repay the costs on a physicist's salary.

You argue he should not need to be concerned about this, and that the cost should be covered so he can receive an education that in the end, will not even yield enough creation of surplus to pay for itself.

This means that the value benefit to society is a net loss for this job...but this will not change just because someone else labors to fill the gap for him.

MtnGoat-

You have missed the point completely and seem to have become stuck into a self glorifying, self referential loop of some sort.

I was speaking of the Predation of Usury. The intent of the Lender is to drive the User into default because that's when it really starts raining penny's from heaven for them. This position was clearly driven home in a PBS broadcast regarding the history of cards and the sinister manner in which they are used. These same tactics have spilled over into the other lending institutions. In plane language, this is thievery by slight of hand. There is no defense for anyone wishing to defend this trickery.

Ban Usury? Sure, let's do away with fractional reserve banking for one thing, the fulcrum for Usury, or at least fix it. Let's examine the Federal Reserve Act for what it really is, and all of the Corporate Laws that were passed along with it in 1913, that took the place of Democracy. Talk about insider trading…what a joke!

Such selflessness cracks me up also.

Best Wishes

"THE UNDERGROUND HISTORY OF AMERICAN EDUCATION" by JOHN GATTO ( who TWICE won teacher of the year award in new york ) should be REQUIRED READING by all high school freshman so that they fully understand the intended brainwashing they are about to receive and its intended purpose --- and thus be armed to educate themselves " in spite of the system " and yes --- the banksters will enslave you the rest of your life if you foolishly desire the same toys and tract homes your neighbors do ---- learn to think
OUTSIDE THE BOX AS YOUNG AS POSSIBLE and to find YOUR TRUE SPIRITUAL SELF --- THE REAL YOU --- BEFORE THE WORID STEALS IT peace truthseeker 73

MtnGoat, this system has shifted so far away from an equitable distribution of wealth that when someone puts in a full day's labor which won't even provide basic survival needs something needs to be done about it. You are welcome to go on gritting your teeth and talking about self reliance while the corporations steal your worth but the rest of us in this forum want to do something about it. I don't want to take your money, I want the corporations to stop stealing mine. Labor creates all wealth, and unlike you, most of us believe in social compacts, wanting to work and contribute to a common pool to provide for a strong healthy society. Individual "charity" sounds good to people like Ronald Reagan, but does not contribute to a healthy well educated population.

Re my son's decision: we have a nursing shortage in this country because we refuse to spend the money to expand nursing programs in colleges. The schools turn away four qualified applicants for every one they accept for lack of nursing seats. And we make up for it by allowing impoverished third world countries to spend their limited health care money to educate their nurses and then lure themn to this country to work Obscene. The only way anyone can get an education in this country is to spend a ridiculous fortune to do it and the cost of doing it has skyrocketed in the last ten years. My son got caught in a system that is self destructing.

You might explain what you mean by "financial gaps" since he's paying back the borrowed money from the loan sharking banks. Or is that your complaint? By borrowing, he's a contributor to their feeding frenzy?

For those of us old enough to remember the time when parents could actually AFFORD to pay the college fees for their children, this is a devastating time.

And, those of us who managed to put a little aside during the 80's and 90's, were punished when it came to filling in the evil FAFSA forms that all colleges now use and extract every bit of financial information on both the student and family.

I think this current saddling students with crushing debt is meant to funnel them directly into an increasingly serf-like economic system. It certainly gives them NO TIME to devote to Peace Corps type of activities, or to activism to change the system. And there is little hope of any savings that can be put toward a home of their own.

Yes, banks as the middleman, must be taken out of this equation. But, where is the political will power from our bought-out politicians who depend on corporate handouts to stay in power? And why is no one except Edwards taking on this issue in the presidential campaigns? Let's put it front and center for the rest of them, so everyone can see in advance which are corporate shills!!

I wrote Al Lord a letter. I told him that Sallie Mae must be in cohoots with the bank where I took my loans out. The bank sets a person up by selling your loans to several others. These places then each require a minimum payment when added together, in my case, was very expensive, not to mention the paper work. Sallie Mae contacted me, as I didn't go looking for them. The deal they offer is to take your several loans and combine them at 1 % higher interest, while you can select a payment plan. Al Lord never did write me back. Some other employee responded. It sure was an effort getting his name to begin with and address. I talked to Sallie Mae, their workers are in India, many of them hard to understand.
Fuck the bank and Miss Sallie too.

Ted Rall,

Great article.

The solution is to get out of Iraq. How true.

Imagine how much better off we'd be as a country if instead Bush put all of the Iraq spending into Education and Health Care?

"But I want my war!", Bush would say.

And, of course, they passed new bankruptcy laws so that there is less likelihood of anyone ever getting out from under the crushing student loan debt. DISGUSTING

kathyodat, why don't you recognize the only person qualified to judge between all the competing values and options faced by anyone who has ever lived....is the person themselves?

it's not 'twisting your words' to look at their content from a differnt angle. I am not confined to repetition of your words in order to critique them..it's perfectly legitimate to examine the meaning and look at what they also must indicate given their content. there are so many people who refuse to accept what they state innately implies other facts about the statements they make.

your son chose a lucrative profession so he could actually pay back the costs he would incur. what you are pushing for would have him choosing what he wants to do..at the cost of someone else working to make up the difference for him.

this indicates the surplus he doesn't create because of his chosen field must be replaced and created by someone else...so your son can do what he wants while someone else labors to fill in the financial gaps caused by your son's decision.

Vince, thanks for mentioning the incredible return on investment yielded by the GI bill. I heard it from Howard Zinn (who managed to escape poverty through it) and in more detail from Chuck Collins of United for a Fair Economy. Let's work to elect politicians who understand how to invest our national treasure (or what's left of it) in such a way. An example other than education is the fact that a revamping of the energy production could produce a healthy and fairly evenly spread boom across the country. But such large scale change does not come out of nowhere, it needs to be kickstarted by a large rededication of moneys by government. A "thousand points of light" won't do.

People shouldn't have to pay to learn a trade, skill, or discipline of any sort in this country. We can afford to send our young people to kill and be killed, but we can't afford to teach them to be educators, doctors, electricians, or thinkers. The United States needs to start investing in her own people.

Mtn Goat, either you don't get it or you twist words for your own ends. My son has other financial responsibilities to deal with besides the student loans. Why don't you stop looking at the world through such a narrow prism?

It has become increasing popular to fleece people who take out loans. When is it ever legal for someone to change a contract in the middle of it? I thought a contract had to benefit both parties or it was null and void?
The credit of today can charge you any interest they choose with other hidden charges. Their disclosure is terms can change without notice. Payment should also have the same choice to stop without notice.
The greedy will cut their own throat eventually. No one will sign for their loan shark loans and no one will be able to afford the 3rd World goods being massed produced. Corporations will shake their heads and wonder where the next bonus will come for their bloated CEOs. I guess they will have to come up with money the old fashioned way. Earn it! Even vultures have to work for the dead meat they pick apart to eat.

Everyplace you look you see a culture imploding... destroying itself. Business today is conducted more and more the way we see government being run: not in the sunlight, but in the deep shade; in secrecy and without personal responsibility. We need a new paradigm.

http://www.gpln.com/onwork.htm
http://www.gpln.com/howiseeit.htm

Ted Rall missed the boat when he said the poor are subsidised with grants. Grants have shrunk dismally in recent times (Bush times) and must be supplemented heavily with loans.

Although there are those whose "philosophy" advocates fiscal policy that promotes a small wealthy class and a large working poor class, it's true that if the US wants to be competetive globally, we need a well educated and healthy working class. We won't have one with our unaffordable education and healthcare systems in place. These both need to be publicly supported institutions. In every country where they are, the populace is healthier and more educated. Our current policies are heading us toward third world status.

My own son who wanted to be a physicist, chose mechanical engineering only because it would pay off his student loans. You may say, so what. I say, the US is not getting the best use of his mind. Multiply that, and you have a country that gets weaker and weaker. India and China are surging, and believe me, they educate their young.

there is little doubt that cooperation is a feature of an advanced life system. the problem is that many are not actually interested in true cooperation. they want shortcuts they call cooperation, but which do not actually meet the standard.

If you were setting up a society, would you organize it so that everyone was given the tools to reach his/her full potential as a human being, or would you make it more like a lottery or with a caste system so that some - probably many - were kept down, less than fully human, for the supposed benefit of those who were better supported? And, by the way, how about health? Would you build some mechanism into your society that selected some individuals to receive the best health care possible while others were left to sicken and be less than their best, whether as parents, producers, neighbors, or what have you? I highly recommend the writing of Elisabet Sahtouris, who finds that cooperation is an advanced stage of evolution of all life systems. The "I've got mine, Jack" mentality is juvenile and does not serve well the purposes of life. Thank you, Ted Rall!

chico, apparently your reading skills are not as polished as you feel they are, since nowhere in my comment did I allude to supporting tax money being spent as it is today.

If you are so eager to call out ignorance and ill intent, doesn't this indicate you should attend to your own, first?

so your son should receive an education that costs more than he will produce after receiving it? How is that supposed to work?

If Mr.Lord got $225 million, you can bet a group of the heirachy below him were also paid a motza.Obscene amounts paid to the top can only happen with the acquiesence of obscenely paid underlings, which comes to an abrupt halt at the real worker level.This is the level at which those who paid thru the nose for their education are paying back for that same education, which at this rate is going to take a big chunk of their working life, assuming they get a job in the discipline they studied in.

The overall theme of this psychotic administration has really become abject, blatant, unrestrained greed, simply for the sake of greed. How else can one explain salaries so obscene it would take 10 lifetimes to spend, or the cheering of record corporate profits every quarter, etc etc - all at the expense of "fellow Americans."

Memo to Merck, Pfizer, et al: save America - devote all resources to an anti-greed pill! Because we clearly have no intention of saving ourselves.

chico: your point concerning the non-standardized readiness to learn and the regimented system we have now is something I'd been thinking for some time. I suspect this system has done as much harm as it has done good, and mandatory primary and secondary education has done much good. By the time many realize the utility of education and their ability to assimilate it the opportunity has passed them by or they are too tied down just trying to stay afloat.

"The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes". - Abraham Lincoln

Ted Rall is right - BAN THE BANKS.

" Mtn Goat ": I DID pay for my saga. That was my point. ( I do take pity on your poor reading skills ) Go bully somebody who doesn't speak from experience. Those of us who do speak from experience will call your ignorant, ill intentioned ass out on it. If you prefer tax money to be spent as is is today, why are you not in Iraq, helping with boy bush's genocide ?

"Sallie Mae CEO Al Lord, who retired in 2004, paid himself a personal salary of $225 million over five years."

Al Lord would probably say, "the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away".

Imagine, this guy made $45 Million Dollars a year to screw students who wanted to go to college. What an outgrage!

Pay for your own personal saga. The rest of us are not here to work to provide you with the means to live out your own personal saga.

Ted's right again. Education, like health care, must be free and unconditional.
After playing music in back alleys for 20 years ( loving every minute of it ), I retooled for the long haul by going to college. Lo and behold, after two years my "Pell Grants " became " Stafford Loans, " and the mob had a piece of me from 1996 till 2006. A big piece.
And funny, the musicians who succeeded along side me in the clubs were usually those noble savages who learned their craft by loving it ( often to an early grave ), whereas those force fed by the university often couldn't hang. Not that the college learning is faulty-it's just that people do not learn on a 6 year, 6 year, 4 year template- you learn what you crave to, and what you need to AS YOU GO-that is your personal saga.
There should be no price tag or static value to learning.

MR. Rall, What exactly did Mr. Lord do to earn that 225 million? Thats a lot of money for a guy who was basically a pencil/pusher.
Do you suppose that Mr. Lord would mind helping a few kids pay off their loans?

It just goes on and on and on... Thanks Ted. Read recently that for every dollar spent by Uncle Sam on the original GI Bill towards college education returned at least seven dollars to the U.S. economy.

Don't know why but while reading this was reminded of a Fronline piece some years ago on pornography that when U.S. automakers were really starting to bleed red ink GM invested heavily in the pornography distribution industry. Doesn't matter what it does, as long as it makes money.