As long as practicing greedy capitalists control the media, you'll have to look very hard to find the facts.

This is the best government ever owned by greedy corporations. The rights of investors and the public and workers have gradually eroded over the last 30-40 years as more and more politicians (both DEM & GOP)became subservient to their corporate masters and passed legislation in their favor against the public interest.

It will not change until people decide that it is better to fund health, education, and other social services than to fund a military-industrial complex(WAR) that benefits only the rich.

adam smith, the patron saint of free-market capitalism, was more insightful than some of his latter-day high priests would have us believe. he pointed out that markets are only efficient and rational if everybody involved in a deal has access to the same accurate and complete information.

under corporate capitalism, as we're seeing now, information is hardly ever acccurate or complete, and rarely shared with the public at large (insider trading is only prosecuted when it rises to a level which "shocks the conscience of the court", and we've got some pretty shock-proof guys in black robes these days).

hazmat,

I love how cons like to call leftists naive when cons promote selfishness and then expect the actors in the market to selflessly share information and do everything necessary to preserve the integrity of the market. Of course those are only the simpleminded cons as the sophisticated ones know it is a rigged game and do all they can to rig it.

There isn't any mystery about what has happened. It actually started with Clinton and the Dem passed Nafta agreement followed by many others such as the Carribean Basin initiative, the African economic opportunity act, China's entry in to the WTO, ad nauseum. The many flawed trade agreements started it and then the Dot com and housing bubbles are finishing what was started over a decade ago.

How were the trade agreements flawed? Let's say that you own a business and you trade with five other companies. Each year you sell each of them $1000 worth of goods but at the same time you buy $2000 worth from each one of them. You know that can't go on forever because you're losing money and you can't successfully raise prices so you decide you need more trading partners. You initiate agreements with ten new partners. Same thing, you sell each of them $1000 each but you have to buy $2000 worth of their goods to do so. Now on the surface things look good. You have tripled your income and had to build a couple of new factories and hire a bunch of new people, but you have also tripled your outgo and are losing money faster than ever.

That is what happened during the decade of the nineties.

Enter the Dot com boom. That was where people thought they were going to ship 50lb sacks of dog food across the country to your door, sell it for less than the local store and make a profit on it. Investors fell for it and predictably it fell down and went boom.

Enter the housing boom where money was lent to people who were not good credit risks at high fixed rates or low teaser variables. Now those people can't afford their mortgages and are walking away. Throw in Refi's where people extracted the equity from their homes because of the low rates and because they could. Spending that money on new cars etc. Add in a dose of outsourcing, and insourcing through H1B's, illegal immigration etc. and you have the perfect recipe for the meltdown that is starting to happen.

Even if it gets temporarily stabilized with more smoke and mirrors pretty soon now we all fall down go boom.

Lobo Gris

Lobo Gris:
for me it goes back to the early 80's..
the house of cards has been on edge,
but never seems to fall..

i don't know--seems something comes along
to blow the house back upright..

what do we have left???
energy
religion
the next great chain letter (late 70's L.A.)
ken

Blaming greed, corporations, and capitalism for this current market drop does not address the root cause of these repeating cycles of boom and bust. The left/right, libs/cons, dems/repubs merely point fingers and call each other names, obfuscating the issues without addressing any root cause. But the one economic mantra that is agreed upon by all is that the economy must grow. Grow, grow, grow. Why is that?

The quantification of debt wrongfully applies the algebraic concept of exponential growth - compounding interest - upon money. The distinction between usury and interest is an arbitrary legal determination with no basis in mathematics. Nothing can grow forever at an ever-increasing rate. As time moves on, the emphasis of ever-increasing growth becomes omnipresent, is quantified and institutionalized in the societal structure, encouraging over consumption, over development, and excessive expectations, pushing economic stress to its upper limit of expansion, eventually inciting conflict and spawning War to insure growth.

Economic systems of capitalism, communism, socialism, imperialism, colonialism, totalitarianism, fascism, nazism, monarchism, corporatism, and all other centralist monetary-isms maintain the monopolized control of money, and hence the control of society itself. Not one of these systems represents a free market.

Money is not the root of all evil; however, flawed money is the root of significant evil.

http://theformofmoney.blogharbor.com

Less than 1% of the money spent in the U.S. is spent on goods and services. Over 99% is spent on financial transactions. It's a ficticious vapor-ware economy. The U.S. is so deeply in debt that the rest of the world is rightly beginning to doubt that we can pay our way in the world.

The inflation statistics reported in the MSM are misleading. They omit the spiraling cost of food and fuel which are the core for ordinary people. The Fed no longer publishes M3 (total money supply) and the dollar has fallen 40% against the Euro in the last couple of years. Even if the Dow continues to rise, the gains will be more than offset by the erosion in the purchasing power of the dollar.

@hazmat

Yes Adam Smith has been taken as the Patron Saint of something he would have been totally opposed to, namely global corporate capitalism. My favourite quote of his, noticeable by it's absence on the Adam Smith Institute website reads:

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."

To see what's in store for America you should read "IRON HEEL" by Jack London. More than a hundred years ago he could see inherent evils of capitalism and the effects on political and social institutions. Get out the brown shirts, they are going to be popular again.
Hoa binh

When a person or corporation is so greedy that he is beholden only to his own needs, then society needs a hammer to make him aware of others who happen to be living in the same society. Reagan took the hammer away through deregulation and capitalism worship, and now you have mindless billionaires who want more, more, more. They pay 34 cents to have a Chinese worker make a shirt and sell it for $19 over here. They make huge profits on the backs of the poor. These people are greedy criminals, and they are in control and Bush is handing them the keys of the kingdom. Being narrow-minded, greedy, and selfish, they have destroyed it.

Never saw it coming. Seriously. The levees in NO? Who coulda guessed? 9/11? No warning whatsoever, ever, never. Shiites and Sunnis aren't BFFs? If we only knew. Kurds? What the...? Enron's just a pyramid shell scam? But "Forbes" called Ken Lay superCEO or some crap, didn't they? Who knew? A mining lobbyist in charge of Mine Safety during a period of escalating, deadly accidents? That wasn't a good idea, you're saying?

Every year, Congress "investigates" price gouging "accusations" against the "oil companies," and every year, they reveal the oil companies are TOTALLY BENEVOLENT and would never, ever, do anything nefarious to increase their already obscenely obscene profits. Congress will soon say the same thing about every greed-addicted bloodsucker on "wall street."

"kengarjagalouski August 17th, 2007 4:32 pm

Lobo Gris:
for me it goes back to the early 80's..
the house of cards has been on edge,
but never seems to fall.."

I agree that it goes back to the eighties, that is when they started the Maquiladoras. I usually just date it to the nineties when I write about it because that is when it really accelerated and took off.

As for falling I don't see any more magic rabbits that can be pulled out of the hat. Between accelerated outsourcing, the fall of the dollar, massive military spending to prop up the economy, and people using the equity in their homes as ATM's there just isn't anymore there, there. That is why my prediction is that pretty soon we all fall down go boom.

Even the Repubs think so. They figure the Dems will win in 08 but the economy will crash and they will get back in 2012.

Lobo Gris

The problem with so much of the discussion going on these days is the use of sweeping terms in highly generalized and presumptive ways (eg, global corporate capitalism, socialism, liberal, deregulation, etc.) There are just too many different aspects and sub points inherent in these ideas, and too many variations in how they may be interpreted, implemented and managed to be productive by such casual use.

We need to examine our assumptions. The biggest assumption of all, inherent in all these discussions, that remains almost entirely unexamined, relates to the nature and method of the banking structure. "Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes its laws" - Rothschild
(See http://www.freedomdomain.com/bankquot.html for a few more)

Mammon and Broken Robot both make good points, as do others. When the history and nature of money are properly understood then it should become clear how a nation's money and the profits of its paper/financial markets are the derivative blessing and rightful domain of that nation's people - by virtue of their collective productivity. In contrast, privatized money unjustly capitalizes upon the fruits of their efforts, while at the very same time enslaving them as debtors and unduly influencing their will. As long as our money is privatized we can never be truly free with a government of, for and by we the people. Instead, it is very much like a large migrant farm of wage slaves, with the very real fact that most will not achieve financial independence.

For obscure reasons our forefathers did not provide for a publicly owned national finance and banking system, but - just a thought - it is possible that Amendment X provides the opportunity.

BTW: "If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy" -James Madison

Frank1569, that's how we distribute political power in this this glorious capitalist democracy we call U.S.A.

Greed is doubtless the worst of the capital sins!

The busts are caused by the booms. With a well designed and managed economy, you smooth out both. But when you smooth things out, there is not the opportunity to make a killing for some. Within transitions come opportunities and that is the name of the game. The continuous ratcheting that will leave the top 1% with 90% of the wealth.

Predatory lending is a term that describes the practices of all lenders. There are no longer defined legal limitations in the United States on predatory lenders. Since usury laws ended in the early 80's there has been a consolidation of unethical lending under laws that the banking industry shepherded through congress and state legislatures. These laws hurt the middle class in insidious ways that allow lenders to advance plainly criminal lending to the working class. Financial institution standard practices maximize their effect by an invented credit reporting and credit score scheme that is legitimized through propaganda advertised to Americans daily while lenders sell the idea retail. Most people pay 4-6% points above their risk level under this scheme. Over many years the American public lose much of what might have been savings for retirement to these predators. This is perhaps the true meaning of bank robbery: the bank robs the customer.

Just say NO. Don't participate in this usury system. If you find yourself tricked into a high interest rate, don't pay. Send them $5.00 per month and ignore them. Have a loud whistle near the phone to discourage any and all unwanted telephone calls.

There needs to be a MASSIVE strike NOW! I have read about starting it on Sept. 11- it's a GREAT idea. BURN the whole damn thing down.

"[With the decline of society] begins, indeed, the bellum omnium in omnia [war of all against all], which some philosophers observing to be so general in this world, have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man. And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.

Your window is too small. Way too small. Open the door.

For the last 3500 years every Aryan Empire in the "West" (read global north), e.g. Persian, Greek, Latin, & Keltoi has been a one trick pony - Transfer the productive wealth of the Empire from the Many to the Few through Conquest and by owning all human labor. We have been clever in changing the forms of the rape but the game has never changed.

My Latin Aryan cousins in Rome ran the same game 2 millenia ago. The Oligarchy forced the small farmers off the land to create huge slave plantations, driving those farmers into the cities, glutting the labor markets and driving the cost of labor down down down. Sound familiar? These practices haven't changed in millenia. Neither has our Caste System. Are you willing to totally reject servitude in all its forms? With your deeds? Good. Now you are an "enemy combatant". You have exactly
the same civil rights Jose Padilla had ten minutes ago - NONE. Now you know it. What are you going to DO about it?

Of course, if we keep on doin what we're doin right now, we're going to keep getting the same result, aren't we?

Do something totally different. Master is highly creative. We must be equally creative to create the mortal wounds that will kill Master forever, first in our hearts, then in our world.

Couldn't be simpler.

The stock market is a bamboozle for the guy in the street, for the diminishing middle class and for the rest of us. What ever happens on Wall Street it can only affect those on Main Street adversely. FOX news pronounced that the economy is growing by leaps and bounds, that this rollycoaster ride is just a liitle burp, a hiccup. Darn, if that didn't sound more like a gargantuan belch to me. Sorry, but here in middle America it ain't so good, business is way down and folks are losing their benefits if not losing their jobs. I guess the economy looks good from where you are standing, which is definitely not here in the streets of the heartland.

time to stop paying taxes, folks. almost 50% of federal tax dollars go to two things:

THE MILITARY (pentagon, war, vets, nuclear crap, dept of energy, CIA, etc.)
SERVICING THE NATIONAL DEBT (interest mostly, not paying down the principle)

that leaves 50% of federal revenue for other useful things, and we know there's a lot of BS in that too. (and i know the military thing dwarfs the debt thing; the point is they are a waste of money)

and now global finance stands to lose trillions of dollars b/c of a regulatory scheme that they devised, but you & i are expected to bail them out while we lose our homes. they'll lose paper wealth, while the average joe & jane lose real wealth: their property.

THEY ARE MAKING YOU PAY FOR TURNING YOU INTO A HOMELESS PERSON.

how much more of this crap are americans gonna take?

anybody here have any pointers on not paying federal taxes? for us schlubs working for the Man?

btw, i don't mean medicare/social security. i gladly pay for those. i mean federal tax.

*Do something totally different. Master is highly creative. We must be equally creative ...* luckylefty

Article 1, Section 8, endows Congress with the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof. That was a very good idea, "totally different", you might say, in its time that money would be regulated by the people and not the Crown, the elite crew.

But this was just the seed for a growing and evolving understanding of money. At that time, money was a commodity, something tangible with "intrinsic" value, gold & silver. It was hard to monkey with because there was a finite quantity of gold.

And that was the problem, the limited amount of money which choked off the demand for credit. There wasn't enough money to go around. This was such a problem for Lincoln in the Civil War that he used the Government power to coin money in a new way. He issued the greenback. This was not gold or silver, it was so-called "fiat" money. The power to "coin" money became the power to "create" money.

The evolution in the understanding of money was underway when money was separated from a commodity like gold ( or sheaves of tobacco )and understood more abstractly as a simple standard of value, or medium of exchange that in itself had no "intrinsic" value. Money became "credit" and its value could be regulated according to circumstances.

The elite, patiently waiting in the wings since the Revolution finally saw their chance to steal the money power around 1913. They wanted that power to create money and regulate the value thereof, so they created their phony "Federal Reserve" system to fool the rubes. They took the concept of fiat money to a new level.

They printed up paper money and loaned it to the government, at interest. When the government created the money, the greenbacks, it was free, no interest. But the Federal Reserve consirators slyly tricked the government and created the money on behalf of the government, adding a little interest premium for their trouble.

That is where we are today. The Federal Reserves funds speculation for its privileged members and acolytes, and all the rest of us, too, but it is the Wall Street casino that does the real gambling and the Federal Reserve that loans them what they need to carry on the grand swindle of the republic. When things get out of hand, as now with the "housing bubble", it is the work of the Fed, abusing the money-creating power to fund the greed of a parasitical class of gamblers and swindlers.

So, what should we do that is totally different? Eliminate the Fed, outlaw all the bullshit "financial instruments" Alan Greenspan finds so laudatory, and return the power to create and regulate money back to the Congress. Instead of being the hand maiden of the Fed, the Treasury would be the money-creation engine, the job of which is to supply the economy with sufficient credit, and not too much or too little.

We have the opportunity to create an enitrely new economic model, based on Constitutional precendent. We can build a new economic machine.

Money is a game that all agree to play, a game with rules that must be fair and equitable for all. The game can be called "Social Credit"

It is not totally different, in truth, it's just that we've never tried it.

Hitler tried it back in the 30's when Germany was crushed with hyperinflation and debt. Hitler said: "Fuck you all. I'm going to create my own money game." And that's what he did. Germany became an economic miracle.

The conspirators at the Fed and the owners of the international money machine are planning to do what Hitler did on a global scale. They are systematically destroying the US dollar in preparation for the "Amero".

The people of the US need to seize the money power now and destroy the Fed before the global aristocrats pull off their greatest swindle yet. The totalitarian power of money belongs to the people. It only becomes totalitarian in the hands of dictators and the global scum who fancy themselves entitled by birth to enslave the rest of us.

Thanks to all the serious economic thinkers on this comment thread. Having lived through the Nam era that was followed by terrible inflation, I am wondering when hard core inflation is going to hit resulting from the Iraq/Afghan deficit war crimes spending ? Some say that sort of spending begins to create an inflationary kick-back in about 6-10 years and we are on year five at the moment. I think we are already seeing cost of living increases due to the higher oil prices brought on by the reduction in Iraq's production resulting from the invasion and occupation. Good for Big Oil but tough on consumers. And of course by the time serious inflation sets in, the war profiteers will be long gone with their capital already invested in the next scam ! The rest of us common folk will left holding less valuable dollars and higher living costs. S.O.S.

lenin actually said, the capitalists will sell us the rope with which we shall hang them.
He was wrong on just about everything, see 'lenin as philosopher' by pannekoek for detail... but I just like accuracy from the anarcho-economics team..

You will probably see inflation and the further decline in the dollar throughout the next decade, long after Bush is gone. In the 60s, they increased the money supply to pay for the war, so the inflation was felt in the 70s. But with the Republican Borrow and Spend, it will take a bit longer to get going, but last a lot longer.

sLiMsHaDy, please look at your dollar bills - they are federal reserve NOTEs - a loan from the FRB to US.

Dr. RZ, so very true, but what if we the people owned the bank? Would it still be predatory if those profits were used to provide social assurances and public infrastructure, for the common good, rather than for private wealth?

JG, our forefather's possessed greater insight and wisdom then we today - their conversations, much in writing, were deeper and more meaningful than most folks are capable of appreciating. The nature of man is however still suspect.

LuckyLefty, yes, yes yes. Do something different? It's within our reach.

Cruxpuppy, it has been deemed that Congress does not actually have the power to create money. The power to coin money is not the same as the role the FRB plays in creating and lending money. But I believe this right/responsibility can be taken by we the people under Amendment X. It certainly shouldn't be given to private wealth mongers, at the expense of the nations citizenship. (I believe Lincoln issued greenbacks by excutive order, not under Congress - And some will say that both Kennedy & Licoln were assasinated because of their intentions regarding the printing of money?? Dunno, just saying...)

Rik, regardless of how/who said what, capitalists profit hugely by selling the guns, bullets, bombs, etc by which we war amongst ourselves. BTW, any insights on how Lenin was financed?

Sjc_1, an optimist.

"So much for the magic of the 'market' which we are continuously told, solves all problems."

Be prepared for a major market implosion. The Federal Reserve, liquid(ity) band-aids will only slow-down the bleeding of this gaping wound they've created through "irresponsibe" lending policies. And while the predators of this industry make $$Billions in good times, they always get bailed-out by taxpayers in bad times - bad times which they have created and profited from.

If you can still find room for humor after years of Wall Street criminals and market manipulations, don't miss this link: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_gilbert&sid=aO_Nh8kt4JgQ

Best wishes.

"sLiMsHaDy, please look at your dollar bills - they are federal reserve NOTEs - a loan from the FRB to US"

Who cares about them? Since thery are bound and determined to rig the game against US, I am saying that I do not intend to participate. If enough quit the game, the game folds.

"sLiMsHaDy, please look at your dollar bills - they are federal reserve NOTEs - a loan from the FRB to US"

Who cares about them? Since they are bound and determined to rig the game against US, I am saying that I do not intend to participate. If enough quit the game, the game folds.

Dr. RZ, so very true, but what if we the people owned the bank? Would it still be predatory if those profits were used to provide social assurances and public infrastructure, for the common good, rather than for private wealth?

Why would the public bank need profits?

The cause of all world problems and US problems is basically capitalism. Capitalism cannot work anymore, it belongs to the XX Century. What americans and people must learn is that social systems DO change thru out time. Capitalism was not here forever, and it will not stay here forever, the system is grinding to a halt, because as Lenin and Marx predicted, that capitalism has many contradictions which we are seeing right now, and cannot allocate resources. Because capitalism wether we want it or not, leads to concentration of wealth in a few. Marx said that the problem is international. People are so closed minded, they think that this is a neocon thing. Remember that when Marx wrote the Communist Manifest, neocons were not ruling, sooner or later the masses will wake up from their slumber and will revolt against this system

Dr RZ, c'mon, you seem like a bright guy - to provide social assurances and for the public infrastructure - a government needs money to function and public bank profits could offset taxes, secure funding for socially sound investments, and provide more equitable investment funds and insurances for everyone.

The most effective argument used against liberals for more than three decades has been about bleeding heart tax and spending - regardless of the social benefits derived - essentially argued as giving away the farm. You're question plays right into that thinking.

On the other hand, creating a fiscally sound, self-sustaining public financial institution based on sound business concepts is the only way to eliminate those arguments, and to end the tax and spend or borrow and spend paradigms we find ourselves caught in - unless you can think of a more equitable way to fund government and provide egalitarian support for all people, that doesn't lead to clashes between the classes over inequitable redistribution of wealth and infinite tax crafting.

It's so simple - leverage the concept for public rather than private good. And frankly, it is absurd to think that a public institution should not run as a sound business - no wonder the repugs have a hold on our eco-political system - Apply the idea of sound business and profit for the common good by making us all shareholders in our national wealth. Or keep giving it to the private wealth mongers. Control or be controlled - that's why.

The problem isn't with the stock market isn't the basis of capitalism or the divide between the hyper rich and us mere mortals who live paycheck to paycheck. It's more fundamental.

I buy a stock or bond or other instrument on the premise that I will be able to sell is to someone else some time in the future for more than I paid. If there is an infinite number of investors, this is fine. Otherwise, someone gets left holding the bag and having to sell at a loss. It's known as the Bigger Fool Theory of investing -- that is, there's got to be a bigger fool out there than I am.