Hitler devalued the currency too. It keeps investors at home, squeezes the little guy making him/her less able to keep track of criminal government let alone protest, and those who have enough to remain insulated do exactly that. It is no great revelation that Bush Co. has caused the US economy to tank. It has been clear along that this was the intention.

weaken it and drown it in the bathtub. Which Republican was that?

Mis-direction is what magicians use to put the trick across. This is what has been used all along by the Republicans (what a misnomer!)in the quest for their Holy Grail of destroying the public sector and rolling back the 20th Century. So Noam Chomsky is a nutjob, huh?

Living in Davidbrooksland is a well planned project to finish off a dying planet. At least Mr. Chomsky connects the dots as well as Mike Whitney and Mr. Schechter. When we go down in flames they will have every right to say, "We told you so!"

penscot - that be Norm Coleman

Eric Barth - magicians rely upon an audience that wants/needs to be duped and misdirected. I have only recently started to look at the Financial Times on a daily basis. Thom Hartmann is great at explaining complicated finance material.

Mainstream press won't dig into this. Content control is the name of the media game. We are on our own to find info, let alone do anything as a citizenry to change it.

It was Republican anti-tax strategist Grover Norquist who said he didn't want to eliminate the Federal Government, just "get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Opportunistic flip-flopper Norm Coleman is evil and stupid enough to have said it, but it was Norquist.

Danny Schecter is a great reporter. If one-tenth of the reporters in this country had his integrity and fearlessness, we never would have gotten this deep into the mega-mess we are in. But of course the media never would hire anyone with the integrity and fearlessness of Schechter, which is why he is on his own.

The people at the top of this regime really do want to undermine the economy, destroy government programs, and privatize everything. They really do care nothing for democracy or humanity or the living Earth. And they really have succeeded in setting the stage for the grandest mega-catastrophe in the history of humanity and the living Earth.

Of course i recognize that lowly common folk like myself have to carry blame along with the grand crooks who are our "leaders" and manipulators. They never could have done it without millions of us ignoring warnings and accepting absurdities while the train of civilization accelerates downhill toward the granite wall of reality.

"The U.S. Dollar is kaput."

The U.S. is kaput is more like it. Auf wieder sehen, meine Damen und Herren. Bis spater und sieg heil. Sind sie fertig fur John McCain?

See? It wasn't incompetence after all!

Hedge fund types don't want to have to care about tomorrow. They get their castle in the sky with a gatling gun turret to mow down anyone coming after them. Many indicators seem to vindicate this view: climate change, population growth, epidemics, peak oil, etc. Got to find a way to abandon money.

Having just returned from Europe, where a euro cost nearly a dollar sixty (around 2000 or so it cost 96 cents) I have felt the bite. And, not being an economist, am perplexed by its slide.

But you don't need to be an economist to have some understanding of the Bush administration. And even the untrained can see that greed, greed, greed determines nearly all their policies.

What have the Bushies done for the American people? What have they done for the world besides jam an insane American presence into the Middle East? And after more than seven years the answer is "nothing." Maybe that's why Bush only has a 29% approval rating. And maybe many Americans have sobered up enough to see that bread and butter issues may affect them more personally than the hobgoblins of the far right.

Destroy the federal government? Divert taxes to corporations? Privatize as much as possible not for the common good but for corporate greed? While, if that's not enough, forcing their personal religious beliefs and so-called "morals" onto the rest of us? I wouldn't put it past them.

The business elite who enforced the shock doctrine on so much of the world are now intending to force this bitter medicine on the US. Adam Smith pointed out that no one who wants to be repaid will lend money to a government because repayment is always pennies to pounds. Since the US has auctioned off and exported all its manufacturing capacity, what future can we expect?

I have a hope and fear. I hope that the citizens of American will awake to the power that they have as a group, and then I look around and fear that there is no way they ever will....

We must not be afraid to speak up because we may lose everything we have, for if we don't speak up it is certain that it will be taken from us.

And what does Obama have to say about all this? Answer: Not a word.

And why? Answer: Simple. Look in Obama's pockets. Those are corporate dollars. And those corporate dollars will wind up enacting the same corporate-friendly polices as the corporate dollars in McCain's pockets, Bush's pockets, the Clintons' pockets.

Great article, Danny Schechter. But what are you doing publishing it at commondreams.org? CD's ownership is going to support Obama.

What has Obama said about unionization?

What has Obama said about the gap between the rich and the poor and the rich and the middle class? A gap greater than in any other advanced industrial country. A gap greater in the US than at any time since 1929.

What has Obama said about the shift in wealth fro the poor and middle class to the rich? The greatest shift in wealth in the history of the world.

What has Obama said about the bloated Pentagon budget? About America's empire?
About torture? About the CIA? About habeas corpus? About the shredding of the Constitution? About illegal wiretaps? In short, about the "felt lives" of millions of people inside and outside America?

For the *real* Obama, click here -- http://www.counterpunch.org/gonzalez02292008.html

When the Corporate Media tells us that the falling dollar may be a good thing, I too believe that it was planned.

This is a VERY important point; that the fed devalued the dollar and not the market.

Schechter is all wrong. Bushco couldn't plan a walk around the block. The fact of the matter is that the major holders of our debt are running away from the dollar because they don't see any relief in sight. They are quietly unloading their T bills at bargain basement rates and shifting to the Euro as the common world currency. The administration's plan to invade Iran never had anything to do with nuclear arms. It had everything to do with Iran's threat to shift to the Euro for oil pricing. Now it's way too late to save the dollar and it certainly is Bushco's fault but it isn't the result of some nefarious plot. It's the result of their disastrous miscalculation in Iraq and there's no one who's going to bail them (us) out of bankruptcy.

Is there a more true example of group insanity or what? "Normal" humans would be happy with a good job, a fine family, all bills paid, creature comforts, a bit left over for some fun, kids' college, emergencies. But this cult with their insatiable appetite for more unimaginable wealth and total control over all fellow (sub)humans - what the hell is the point?

Okay, we surrender, you win. You own it all. We got nothing. Congratulations.

Now what, assholes? Y'all gonna give it back and start the game all over again?

Memo to medical community: find a cure for Super Jumbo Greed and slip it into our water supply...

Bush is NOT a a failure! He is a monsterous success at transforming a somewhat free and democratic USA into a much less free, much less democratic USA. He is not failing! He is achieving his goals! He has taken the treasury and given it to his pals! He has given massive tax breaks to the rich! What else can you call that but success?

Just because you didn't want the shark to bite off your leg does not mean that the shark is a failure.

Everybody should read Naomi Klien's book "Shock Doctrine". It is a perfect explanation of how and why BushCo does its ugly work.

Jeeezzze, vampire economics. Is the moral rot of the rich environmental or hereditary?

We rabble are just fleas on the dog, as we are called in private by our betters in the closed financial circles of our overlords. We can protest only so much and the dog will keep right on going, even right over a cliff, and we fleas will go right along for the ride.

We fleas must CHANGE DOGS before he goes over his cliff. In our case the dog we are on is the mutt conglomerate of the Wall Street/International Banking Junta and the GlobalUberRich and the Republican Fascist Party and Capitalism/Freidmanism/Randism.

Capitalism is finished and exposed as a phony 'filosofy' and pseudo-science. And it is a disaster as an ethical life system. It cannot lead forward to a peaceful and stable and sustainable future.

There are other visions that can, if heeded, do so, with great joy for the now-enslaved multitudes. These alternatives are socialist in inspiration. See the Scandinavian countries for examples of socialism, and see Mexico and Chile and Columbia and Saudi Arabia and Iraq for the REAL examples of capitalism (and no, Soviet and Chinese Communism were NOT socialist structures, anymore than any dictatorship is, especially as in the cases of Russia and China those that really modelled themselves specifically after the modern business Corporation, complete with 'Chairman' dictators!)

Now choose!

See www.dieoff.com for another even more advanced socialist-style example that would allow a far better, far more humane world, but would mean that the overlords would have to give up a vast amount of power. So a struggle for understanding and change is necessary.

But count on our Masters to obstruct us and bark at us to the effect that "that there other dog don't hunt", and distract us with inanities, and continue to steer the Big Dog they control, with us fleas astride, over the cliff and into the grand canyon below.

And to Mordechai, of "Auf wieder sehen, meine Damen und Herren!":

Life is a Cabaret, Old Chum. America is now that Cabaret.

And our new National anthem? "Money makes the world go round, the world go round, the world go round. That clinking clanking sound."

So raise a glass, and sing along with the NeoConWarmongers and CapitalistGreedmongers and, of course, those inimitable songsters Georgie B and Dickie C, "the day will come when THE WORLD IS MINE, tomorrow belongs to ME!"

Gas was 25 cents/gal when I started driving but now it takes a whole bag of Bushbucks to fill my tank. If we continue like Zimbabwe it will take Bushels and Bushels of Bushbucks to fillup any car. I wonder how many miles per Bushel of Bushbucks a Stanley Steamer gets - AS fuel not to buy fuel.

This article was terribly written, unless it was intended to be scatterbrained and confusing. He may have brought up some interesting points, but he went nowhere with them. What exactly was the point of this except to say "Jim Wilkinson and the Bushies are to blame!"? Why not just write that without all the rambling?

People should really read Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine, the Rise of Disaster Capitalism." If you read it you will not be surprised at this article. It seemed to be just a matter of time before "structural adjustment" would hit the US and throw us back into the dark ages; which is what this group of people really wants, because they will be rich for the rest of their lives. Who cares about after that?
Anyhow, read the book.

SDF has articulated this situation correctly. "Shock Doctrine" is what the oligarchs in this country have imposed on other countries in the world, and now intend to impose on us. Our country is very nearly completely lost to evil people in control of corporations, the media, and our government. There is no practical way to stop this madness, only ways to try to escape fighting for the crumbs the oligarchs will drop to distract from their massive theft of our money and standard of living.

Operation mockingbird is still going strong so very few people are aware of the real cause of the problems facing us.

http://www.worldreports.org/news/132_refinancing_the_world_and_refloating_the_u.s._dollar

Lots more at http://www.worldreports.org/news

sansf,
Actually, I think it was Grover Norquist, another Republican/Traitor.

YOU WANT A STRONGER $ YOU HAVE TO STOP PRINTING THAT us$. tOO MUCH $ AND NOTHING TO BUY !

In order for The Powers That Be to execute any plans with a scope larger than themselves, requires some level of complicity from the many.

For example, how often do the few dominate the many on this site? The few have the capacity to submit a lesser influence than the many. If the many agree with the few's point of view, they become complicit. The only defense that prevents easy sublimation of the many by the few is knowledge. When sufficiently informed, the many predictably support the whole. The many will also support the entire biomass if informed realistically. Simply put, those at the top of the food chain are dependant upon all underlying links and know it intuitively.

It seems that we must now evaluate our knowledge. How can one accept anything as knowledge without performing the due diligence?

To examine all data apart from our own individual experiences is a colossal undertaking. Instead, we often defer to our sense of trust. This sadly leads this conversation to the most widely trusted sources. The authorities and sources supplied by our TV hosts.

If we each consider the trustworthiness of these individuals, how well do they score? These experts have proposed so many proven incorrect positions, so many times now that we can no longer accept their viewpoints without double checking. Sad commentary Indeed, It creates such an undue burden for the many, when Journalists cut corners on due diligence it can ultimately only be considered as shifting the due diligence upon the shoulders of the many.

How much better would these Journalists be if directed toward national education rather than marketing? Marketing also has a place, don't get this wrong, it's just that our News is not that place.

Lastly, can we embrace lifestyles with smaller economic footprints than those enjoyed by our forbearers? The question further reduced is, can we accept a lifestyle requiring less demand on the ecosystem than all others before us have?

Sorry, makes us contemporaries appear a little greedy. This leaves population size to cope with.

Let us deal with it then.

If all couples collectively decided to bear only a single child, how many generations, are required for reducing our population to 19th century levels?

Let's see, 6.7 billion divided by two is 3.35 billion, divided by two once more is 1.675 billion. In two or three generations, we can attain a population density that has been very manageable. So where does our problem lie now?

Looking toward the future, we have the Greater North American Co-Prosperity Sphere being quietly pushed by BushCo and Big Business.

The plan is to have a Festung America consisting of the former provinces of the United States, Mexico and Canada. It is designed for American Big Business to rape and exploit Canada's vast natural resources using cheap Mexican labor, all to probably be overseen by Homeland Security and Blackwater's SS.

The new currency will be called the "Yanko" or "Amero" or some such. Our savings will be worth little or nothing and there will be no social services whatsoever.

If you are in need, go beg from a rich man.

If you read your history, you'll see that in Germany, the Junkers owned approximately 99% of the wealth and supported Hitler's Reich which swore to protect them. The rest of the German people were allowed to fight over the remaining 1%. Every man was promised a job.

Farmers were tied to their land, forever. Workers were assigned jobs at bare subsistence wage and no ability to either protest, or change jobs. They were also expected to "patriotically" donate a percentage of their subsistence to government "charities." Of course, they could always join the Wehermacht and help conquer the world.

And here we go again!

Governments always pay off deficits by inflating--- this is nothing new and has been a forseeable occurrence since we invaded Iraq and did nothing but borrow to pay for it. All of us, except the super rich will lose. Our standard of living will never be the same and those on fixed incomes will be hurt most. My personal plan is to go to subsistence living, growing what I can.

I forget the exact address, but a google search not that long ago turned up data on the price of oil in a bunch of different currencies. If you look, you can see the effect of a falling value of the dollar. But its only a matter of degree. Oil has gone up in all the currencies. Its not like the graph in Euros showed the price of oil falling. You can see it seeming to go up more in dollars, but it was basically the same shape of graph in every currency.

Its a tradeoff. A cheaper dollar should help keep some jobs in the US. We can make things and export them cheaper. On the other hand, everything imported costs more.

If you like the idea of supporting local people who make stuff, its not a bad thing. The exports they compete against got more expensive. On the other hand, if you like going to Walmart and buying stuff made in China, now it costs more.

All of what we're talking about starts in the overlying value system that we are all 'trained' to participate in--and that's the 'dominator story'...dominate or be dominated. This story/value system has evolved over the last 5000 years--and it impacts every system we have--marriage (men over women), families, communities (rich over poor, white over black) such that the 'corporate CEO's' who are part of pushing the world to its limits in the name of profits--actually believe they are doing the right thing.
And its also why Bush, Paulson, Wilkinson--the whole lot of NeoCons are so peaceful in doing what's described in this article. From the 'dominator value' system--they are doing what is right and necessary and that is why they continue to do it without ever flinching.

This 'dominator' value is so pervasive no one even sees it--its is accepted as the "way things are"....but the thing is--its just a story and stories can be changed. The new story is outlined in Riane Eisler's work, "The Real Wealth of Nations--creating a caring economics". In this book, she exposes the dominator story and shows how we change the value system to one of 'caring'--for humans and the planet--and create a new economic system she's titled "Partnerism"....

There are solutions--but as Buckminster Fuller said--
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

Let's stop fighting the existing reality. Let's build a new model--and in this process we can heal ourselves and the planet
www.realwealtheconomy.com www.rianeeisler.com www.partnershipway.org.

Its more like the elites were fighting to keep the dollar strong for a long time. Now, if anything they've just given up.

The real cause is mentioned above. We keep printing $100 bills. We have deficits in every possible area. When you hear about a $60 billion trade deficit, that means we buy $60 billion more in imports than we export. That means $60 billion more of those $100 bills accumulate overseas.

For awhile, that wasn't a problem as the $100 bill was essentially the world's currency. You could use them to buy anything anywhere. So, people didn't object and worry when they got more of these buy selling stuff to America.

But, after awhile, there are so many of these that people start to get nervous. There's nothing solid behind the $100 bill. You can't trade it in for a $100 worth of gold like you could before Nixon. We destroyed that to pay for Vietnam. So, if you hold a bunch of $100 bills you might look around and see everyone else with a bunch of $100 bills. You start to get nervous that there are too many of these out there. Their value is set by the market, so if everyone starts selling them there's always a chance that they become worth much less than what you think. So, you don't want to get stuck with those when everyone else dumps theirs. That makes everyone nervous.

When you see the US running huge deficits, you get more nervous. When you see the US following what seems to be insane policies, you get more nervous. Eventually, you start selling off some of those $100 bills. As everyone does that, like anything on a market where there's an over supply, they become worth less money.

If my fellow Americans don't like this, here's what to do.
-- stop running trade deficits. stop buying stuff from overseas. including oil. including cheap crap from china.
-- stop running deficits ... government, corporate, personal. Live on what you've got and stop borrowing.
-- have a sane foreign policy. Stop making the world nervous.

Actually, I like the idea of a new model. But in the existing model, that's what we'd need to do if you want a 'strong dollar'. Its what we used to do back pre-Reagan. Live sanely and within our means. Simple stuff basically. I'm old enough that I grew up being taught by ancestors who lived through the Great Depression. And the above is exactly what they said.

The dollar is always coming further down now. The money printing government pays for the military and for the oil, and floods the world with US treasury bonds and dollars. An old hyperinflation game. So there is always downward pressure. The trick is for the insider traders to know before hand when the market is going to be artificially jiggered to help the slide downwards, so their friends in the currency markets and hedge funds can place their bets on the table beforehand.

I am always amused when the news people report how the value of the Australian dollar is worth so many US cents, and soon, it will be how many dollars. They never present the Australian dollar as related to stronger currencies, and never present the information in the light of the current worthlessness of the US dollar. Just being associated with the US dollar is a sign of worthlessness.

"The financial crisis that we now face was created by design. It is intended to destroy the labor movement, crush the middle class, quash Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, reduce our foreign debt by 50 or 60%, force a restructuring of America's debt, privatize all public assets and resources, and create a new regime of austerity measures which will divert more wealth to the banking and corporate establishment."

Thank you, Danny Schechter...... nice work!

Every time these mutha-f$$kers pull-off another get-rich-quick-scheme with the help of our legistlators,it's always the poor and middle class that lose out while the super-wealthy add millions and billions more to their financial portfolios.

WE THE PEOPLE have got to put an end to this corrupt bullsh!t.

"WE THE PEOPLE have got to put an end to this corrupt bullsh!t."

Yes, we do, and it won't be accomplished peacefully either.

This administration makes me believe more and more in the John Birch Society's New World Order idea. They will do anything to screw America in the name of freedom? More like in the name of Corporate Greed. They tell us to be scared of the terorists abroad, but we really need to worry about the terrorists in our government.

Isn't this why Ron Paul wants to abolish the (criminal)Federal Reserve Banking system?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70hogc_9UVE

wsws.org website: thanks for the link,but it won't do much good to show those kind of facts here.
Many here won't be satisfied until everyone is in the employ of the government because the government loves them.

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks...will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs. -Thomas Jefferson

Abolish the Federal Reserve!

Danny Schechter, in this article, makes several references to Mike Whitney. I've been reading Mike Whitney's articles on www.counterpunch.com for a few years now and I'm amazed at how consistently, and prophetically, right (as in correct) he's been over the years. But who is Mike Whitney?

Reading this article, and books like Shock Doctrine, as well as Kevin Phillips' Bad Money, makes me wonder if a new president or congress is going to really make one iota of difference in the way things are going. The system seems bought, corrupt, rigged and on it's own path of gluttonous ruin. It's so far out of my puny ability to influence that the best I can do is to try to simplify, to stay healthy, to be a good friend, a good father, and foster connections in my small community.

I like what solutions2 had to say today 5:40pm. I agree.

1

The torpedoed dollar: don't know if a deliberateness or incompetence behind it is more scary.

The Bush-adm. and supporters are good at keeping us guessing at that: whether they're sly or stupid - which is worse?

Or in a mix, what proportion of sly to stupid do they have?

Do they really have a deep plan for world control slowly being implemented? And is this plan seriously derailing, or is it succeeding? Or is there no plan that's remotely feasible, only the general human SNAFU being even more FU by Bush-co, with lots of people preferring above no plan to hope that after all there's some rational conspiracy behind the apparently increasing incompetence? Is it a cover-up there that's been going on so long no one quite remembers what grand Bush-plan is being covered up?

Hard to know fully. But there are some pretty sinister plans in many quarters, that we know. With more plans being hatched as the turmoil of suspicion about obvious lies (Iraq, remember?) grows. But the plans are disconnected, possibly holding together only in the fragmented dreams of the shadowy owners of the privately owned Federal Reserve – the central bank which is neither Federal nor a Reserve.

Maybe they're "shaking the money-tree" again, fleecing the middle-classes, as has happened with some 30-40 year intervals in the capitalist economies (perfect for bringing in the next generation of victims).

In group-think among the set of some 6,000 globally superrich, don't expect a feeling of responsibility to settle on too many of them - they've all got the rest of the group to blame instead of themselves. Circular self-delusion going around a semi-permeable system, that's the best plan the superrich have come up with. Plus a lot of half-baked plots that may turn us into a more half-baked world than ever.

To fix this, I'm afraid we're all going to have to chip in. We're all part of the system - the global system of humanity mingling with other species.

I'm waiting for the deep global outbreath that says: "No more of this foolishness! We humans can do a lot better. And we can do it without this obsolete greed and growth for growth's sake." And then the castles fall, left behind as irrelevant.

The mathematical proportions of 'harmony' and how that relates to our contact with our surroundings, is more important to research now than the dollar or material wealth.

Any change is an opportunity for good, as long as we stay alert and lead it to good.

*SNAFU: «Situation Normal – All Fucked Up». WWII-expression.

Will the inner cities with their thousands, starve in silence, these idiots won't be happy till Americans are killing Americans. Do they believe the kind of violence that these Freedman's are pushing will be restrained to the cities? Just plain idiots. I guess when the cities are aflame and people are dead in the streets, then they'll be happy! Just plain idiots.

Reading this article, and books like Shock Doctrine, as well as Kevin Phillips' Bad Money, makes me wonder if a new president or congress is going to really make one iota of difference in the way things are going.

Rebelnow,

Yes, a new president will make one iota of difference. Maybe not much more, but compared to what we have now, I'll take that iota.

The issue is, what will we do then? We need to keep pushing (if we ever started) back hard on the corporate system, whoever the president is. I'd rather have someone there who at least gives me a little more breathing room than say, someone like McCain, who will suck the air out of everything and leave us gasping.

It's so far out of my puny ability to influence that the best I can do is to try to simplify, to stay healthy, to be a good friend, a good father, and foster connections in my small community.

I hear you...and agree. Oh, and simplifying is key. The less we buy from the powers that be, the less power they have. That may be the last vestige of power we have in this country.

SOLUTIONS 2: Excellent post. Hope we can implement its wisdom on a larger scale soon!

There is way too much conspiracy in this article. I think its just bad money policy like bad foreign policy president after president finally coming home to roost. No conspiracy just greed greed and more greed.

Someday we will all wakeup in the U.S. of Argentina..
A book suggestion, "Creature from Jekyll Island a Second look at the Federal Reserve", by G Edward Griffin.

Namaste

I only dip in here now and again.

What's with the new moniker? (Sorry, if it was explained earlier, but, as I said...)

hedology -

The government doesn't print money, the Federal Reserve does. (it is not "federal" or gov't, it's a private bank). The Fed then loans that newly minted money to the US gov't at interest.