Behind the Rise in Prices: A Plan to Torpedo the Dollar
This Is What Happened to Our Land, Not “NoamChomskyLand.”
Who do you think was one of the Bush Administration’s key players on the economy?
If you say Paulson or Bernanke, you might be half right. But there’s another no-name lurking around in the background who tends to be doing the wrong thing at every key moment in the covert history of he Bush (or should we day “Bush League”) Republic.
His name is Jim Wilkinson. He helped organize the GOP protest/obstruction of the Miami election recount in 2000.He was the White House’s key media spinner at the Doha Coalition Media Center. A reporter from Texas said he used techniques first perfected by Stalin. He was an architect of the Republican convention in New York in 2004. He was later dispatched to keep an eye on and act as ‘dissembler in chief’ for Condi Rice.
But at a crucial moment in the history of the western world, Mr. “I work in the shadows” Wilkinson became chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, the Goldman Sachs Embed in the Cabinet.
Operative Wilkinson was then given the assignment of monitoring the world’s financial markets in a secret operation modeled no doubt on the great intelligence plan that produced the Iraq War.
His qualifications for this historic role?
See above.
As Mike Whitney reported at the end of October in 2006 — a day before Halloween — the US was then engineering the drop in the dollar to “improve competitiveness” — ie subsidize US exports in a flawed attempt to reduce the growing balance of trade gap. The result was summed up in the headline: “The U.S. Dollar is kaput. Confidence in the currency is eroding by the day.”
Whitney saw then what our media has still yet to report or understand. Was it a “trick or treat?” Read on:
“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.”
This was months before the subprime meltdown in August 2007, or the more recent hike in food prices and oil prices. Their plan, blessed by business and the banks, was implemented step by step. The consequence was intended.
News, as we know, passes by so fast, and unless a story is repeated ad-nauseum, no one remembers it or looks for the context and background of breaking developments.
Whitney quoted Richard Daughty from “his prescient article, The Phase of Impact” the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Dept have already manned the battle-stations.
Here’s an excerpt: “Mr. Paulson, the Secretary of the Treasury, is, by virtue of his ascension to the throne, now the head of the shadowy President’s Working Group of Financial Markets (which was created by Presidential Order 12631) and he is insisting that they meet more often, namely every 6 weeks!
This whole Working Group thing was originally set up as a fallback, ad-hoc, if-then defense to deal with possible economic emergencies, but now they are routinely meeting every 6 weeks. He has even ordered Jim Wilkinson, his chief of staff, to ‘oversee the creation of a Treasury Command Center to track markets world-wide and serve as an operations base in a crisis’! (Wall Street Journal) World-wide!!
The American government is moving to take control of the world-wide economy as the result of an anticipated crisis? Yikes!”
Now let’s fast-forward to the present, well after this widely foreseen crisis erupted. As oil prices climb, the public is angry. And who do they mostly blame? The oil companies and the oil producing states, of course. They have no clue that this crisis was the consequence of decisions made by the Bush Administration to devalue the dollar with its “crisis manager” Jim Wilkinson playing a central role.
Political writer Jerry Policoff questioned the “politicized polls” on who is responsible for the oil hikes. He noted that most people and pollsters don’t realize that the fall of the dollar precipitated all of this.
I asked him if he thought this squeeze had been orchestrated.
His response:
“I don’t think there is any doubt about that, and the Saudis said as much when Bush asked them to rev up production to bring down the price. Their reaction was pretty much that the U.S. should stop undermining the value of its own dollar before asking other countries to take a financial hit on oil.”
And sure enough, once again, as AP reported, last Friday, President Bush “failed to win the help he sought from Saudi Arabia to relieve skyrocketing American gas prices.”
The President’s own bombast was also faulted for driving oil prices higher, as Bill Scher noted, “Bush’s saber-rattling with Iran raises concerns of war and more disruption of oil supplies, which prompts speculators to raise prices.”
A day later, Treasury Secretary Paulson was asked what he was going to do to strengthen the dollar. He waffled — claiming a “strong dollar” is important but then changing the subject to “market fundamentals” in a speech to pump up CONfidence. (The first three letters of that word gave the real mission away.) He avoided a straight answer with a flurry of “uh, uh, uh,” halting phrases and contradictory assertions. The speech was characterized as “optimistically pessimistic.”
Ah so, so maybe there’s more to this than meets the eye and the wallet. In Europe the press is already blaming the banks for their role in the continuing economic collapse.
On May 13th, the President of Germany, Horst Kohler, a former head of the International Monetary Fund lashed out at bankers, calling them, get this, MONSTERS.
It takes one to know one.
In a page one story in the Financial Times, he said global financial markets have become a “monster” that must be “put back in place” for their “massive destruction of assets.” He called for tougher and more efficient regulation.
This is the strongest criticism of bankers by a European leader since 2005 when German Vice-Chancellor Franz Muntefering attacked Hedge Funds as “SWARMS OF LOCUSTS” whose profit maximization strategies…”posed a danger to democracy.”
No one was listening then. Is anyone listening now?
Crises just don’t happen out of the blue unless there is a natural disaster, and even they are made worse by a deranged military junta like the one in Burma, inadequate preparations, and flawed building standards thanks to corruption.
When I was in China visiting the Three Gorges Dam, for example, I was told about a major revolt in the National People’s Assembly against the dam because it was in a known earthquake zone. The leadership then imposed its will. So far, the big Dam is safe, but 400 others aren’t. 50,000 people are not alive either.
There is a financial quake still underway today with its own shocks and aftershocks. Will anyone in our media look at the precipitating role played by the bankers and the Busheviks including our old friend/fiend Jim Wilkinson?
You can almost predict that wherever he shows up, there’s gonna be a disaster.
And you can also predict that the mainstream press will be looking the other way, more than happy to attack any critics suspected of telling the truth or living in what the all knowing New York Times columnist David Brooks so cleverly sneers at as “Noamchomskyland.”
Ha! Ha!
Tell that to the cashier the next time you pay too much for a loaf of bread.
News Dissector Danny Schechter edits Mediachannel.org. He directed IN DEBT WE TRUST (indebtwetrust.org) and wrote a forthcoming book on the crisis called PLUNDER (Coldtype.net) Comments to Dissector@mediachannel.org
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.
The economic elites are no bigger than you allow them to be through their public relations and psycho tampering. History shows that they are easily overwhelmed when the larger society is provoked. It’s up to the more sophisticated among them to rein in the loose cannons like Bush. Not doing so runs them all into the ditch. The time is near and they better step up their actions before History does it for them. This nonsense of corporate ascendancy over Nation States is the work of the megalomaniacs among them. Culture is much to strong and lasting to be replaced with nutcase world dominion economics. Wealth has once again proven to be a sickness.
It is the purpose of government to transfer the wealth of the nation from the Many to the Few through conquest and by owning our labor. Welcome to the 19th century. You are prepared to grub like animals now for the Richfilth Masters of America. America will grovel very well. Just remember, keep your mouth shut, your head down, your nose to the grindstone, and when Master says jump you say, “Yes, sir Master, how high?” Obedience. Total submission. It’s the right choice for you. Master may let you continue to suck wind and support his palatial wealth, for a little while. After all, you HAVE TO accept your life on any terms right?
After all, you will not do anything to oppose them will you? You CAN’T do anything anyway, you’re programmed for helplessness and it feels natural now, doesn’t it?
Goood American…that’s right, just go back to sleep and tomorrow the chains will feel like they’ve always been there.
A concept for the twenty-first century that cares for every human being.
http://www.trafford.com/07-2440
This concept is predicated upon the following immutable foundations and purposes;
To provide everyone that needs it with a basic living standard, as of right, impervious to ideological dogmatism. Ending world poverty.
To encourage all Nations, of any and all persuasions, that adopting this concept will bring harmony and economic stability to all communities.
To ensure that freedom of enterprise continues as our chosen way of life. To establish egalitarian processes in the workplace.
To promote the understanding, that each nations domestic economy is markedly different from all others. Particularly in areas such as incomes working conditions and cost of living. It is totally irresponsible for developed economies to force workers onto low wages in order to compete with unprotected low-waged workers in foreign lands.
To create a system of currency and exchange that stabilizes domestic economies and prevents or limits exchange manipulations by, Futures Traders Hedge Funds and others.
To establish the domestic economy such that it is no longer necessary to collect weekly or monthly taxes from incomes, trading, industrial, or corporate activity.
To establish a system whereby all of the Nations public sector infrastructures of what-ever kind are initiated by Government and realized through Private Sector contracts.
To re-establish a Bank wholly owned in perpetuity by the Government that will issue and control all domestic Credit, Foreign Exchange Rates and the issuing of the domestic money supply.
One Precondition.
We must accept a revolutionary change in the way in which we view and understand the way our economies must function.
Our Economies exist primarily to serve the needs of Humanity and as a system that works to distribute the means for individuals to live.
This system as presently constructed has fatal flaws. By definition, it is impossible for this system to succeed. It has been tried for hundreds of years. It can never, without reorganisation, provide everyone with work and reliable income.
Because the world population is growing exponentially and dynamically and because our present system is bedeviled with counter productive controls and regulations, booms and busts, the bias of political ideology and manipulation by vested interests, it cannot succeed.
We could view our domestic economies as being huge vehicles transporting us through time. Because population growth, the load our vehicle carries, is expanding so relentlessly we must constantly arrange to maintain the level of fuel in the tanks. Deny the fuel witness poverty and starvation.
So, this most important of decisions must not be allowed to reside in the hands of right wing or fascist ideologues. They are not Gods deserving of the power of life and death over their fellow travelers on our vehicle.
This is why we must have a system that does not tax others in order to provide the civilized and humanitarian needs of those less fortunate. This is one less reason for right-wing politicians to bribe us for a vote.
The great strength of the Universal Economy concept is that it disadvantages no one rather it advantages everyone.
Not only must we keep our vehicle moving it is of paramount importance that we make sure everyone is on board. This way lays social and economic security not only for us but also for all the worlds future travelers too. Money supply must start with the poor.
The foundations for a Universal Economy.
Present the concept to the electorate with full explanations and education concerning its principles of operations. Request a democratic mandate to alter constitutional requirements where necessary and introduce all legislative changes simultaneously.
Create a government owned bank to be responsible for the creation and control of domestic credit and money supply.
Abolish floating exchange rates and instead empower the Reserve Bank to set exchange rates determined by the desirability or importance of particular types of transactions to the Nations economic health. Adopt or create a separate currency for exclusive use in foreign transactions. Domestic currency no longer permitted to be used externally.
Establish a small charge to be levied on all foreign exchange transactions and all trades on the Stock and Market Exchanges.
Totally cease the weekly and monthly collection of all taxation in the domestic economy, e.g. from wages and salaries, small business and corporate profits, goods and services industries etc. Instead, impose death duties at the rate of fifty percent on all value of estates above one million dollars. Delayed for two years then phased in over next five years.
Create a new tax to be levied on all transfers of “capital” out of the domestic economy. This tax to be varied or adjusted having regard to the National economic best interest and the purpose of such transfers. Those transferring capital out of the domestic economy will now make a contribution towards the provision and maintenance of our national infrastructures. We may recall that no other private or individual taxation has been levied on such capital.
There will be one way only to transfer capital out of the domestic economy. That way will involve the purchase of an international means of exchange through the reserve bank.
All exports and imports will be subject to evaluation to determine their economic relevance or importance to the National economy. Goods entering must be paid for with our foreign exchange medium. Importers will purchase the foreign exchange medium based on an exchange rate determined by the strategic importance or economic relevance of the items concerned adjusted and calculated to neutralize inflation.
This process will serve to regulate in a sensible way not only the flow and type of goods involved but also our foreign exchange balances. The national economy must be regulated in a way that does not include direct and obvious sanctions, which may offend other nations. However, we must reserve for ourselves the right to manage our own economy, without incurring foreign debt that may act to disrupt domestic growth.All exports of precious items such as gold or diamonds will pay the tax.
Exports in general will be subject to a provision that establishes certainty regarding full repatriation of payment for the goods back into the national economy. This will protect the integrity of our tax-free economy and assist in the detection of undesirable movements such as untaxed capital transfers and payments for drugs.
Introduce the payment of a social wage to be paid as of right to every member of the population that needs it, men women and children, varied to suit the basic living costs of each category. The amount to be paid based on current pensions and benefits. No conditions or qualifications, no departmental enquiry or invigilation will be required or allowed.
Entitlement to the social wage will be for whole of life as and when needed.
Of course personal private additional provision is always possible.
The social wage will be paid regardless and recipients will be encouraged to take up any and all education, training or employment. Including all kinds of volunteer work in the social and local government sectors without penalty or loss. The take up of education, training and volunteer opportunities will attract a fifty percent increase on top of the basic social wage.
Employers will engage employees knowing that the social wage is paid. Employees will not be required to sign contracts. The employer will provide a letter confirming rates of pay and other agreed benefits and conditions. Government will legislate basic conditions such as holiday entitlements. Employers will not be obliged to provide sick pay allowances because the employee will be in receipt of the social wage.
Minimum or basic conditions of employment will allow either party, with one working days notice, to terminate employment. Employee entitlements must be paid within twenty-four hours of notice to terminate. Claims involving unfair dismissal will not be allowed unless the employer has demonstrably broken the law.
Any type of employment agreement may be negotiated between employers and employees but one side may not force its conditions on the other. All duress must be reported. The employee remains free to withdraw his labor by seeking employment elsewhere.
Employers will not be collecting any kind of taxation and they will not be required to pay compulsory employees contributions to retirement funds. Employees may save separately to supplement the government pension or they may negotiate additional employer provision.
Employers must be responsible for providing a safe working environment. Government will legislate all protections.
Government, both State and Federal, will be responsible for providing all public infrastructure requirements. Universities schools colleges, hospitals, roads, bridges etc. Politicians advised by qualified experts will plan for and supply through our universities and training establishments all manner of educated trained professionals and trades people.
Provision of infrastructure will be controlled by the availability of required resources, workforce, materiel’s and professional expertise. Planners will plan and government through parliament will approve release of funds.
All education services and health services will be provided free.
To make all this into a reality the Government will cause to be created and issued a continuous supply of debt free social credit.
Since this currency is for domestic circulation only and since our domestic currency will be considered to have no influence or direct bearing on costs prices or values in any other economy, there can be no legitimate objection.
Though there will be screams from currency manipulators.
The Universal Economy concept is a revolution; it is aimed squarely and positively at the general welfare of all people. The lives and well being of potentially millions of people will be lifted out of the pocket books and purses or the whim of the rich and influential and be given a real chance to lead independent self motivated productive happy healthy lives.
Democracy and freedom of enterprise are enhanced and encouraged whilst the problem of providing work and income for all and that most pernicious of diseases, poverty, are neatly taken off the back of business and industry.
The voyage of discovery
into the twenty first century economy.
Because the Government will be creating a continuous supply of domestic social capital, providing all domestic credit, providing the social wage, providing free health education and support services, providing all public infrastructures, providing basic retirement pensions and not collecting any weekly or monthly domestic taxes,
Then;
Government is taken off the backs of industry,
Poverty is being positively eliminated,
Work places become egalitarian,
Industry operating costs significantly reduced,
Export prices more competitive,
Corporate profits enhanced,
Less need to export our productive plant and machinery,
Huge encouragements for small business start-ups,
Attractive environment for foreign capital,
Positive opportunity to address environmental pollution,
No foreign debt to finance domestic housing and consumption,
Domestic credit interest rates fixed and stable,
Foreign Aid can be domestic product (wheat, milk powder meat etc?),
Farmers get more stable incomes,
Trained and educated workforce tradesmen and professionals,
Industry is motivated to retain work force,
Work force has basic income back up,
Free education for all,
Free health care for all,
Freedom to build more homes for the poorest among us,
The future of the Nation, our children, with unlimited health care and education, happier more secure parents.
A continuous uninterruptible social wage stabilizes economy,
Money supply is leading indicator of Gross Domestic Product,
Exchange rate working for us, fixed, honest and government controlled.
New bank controlling and issuing all our domestic credit,
Sovereign control of domestic economy vested back to government,
Ending the fraud of economic rationalism and globalization.
The private free enterprise sector will be left to do that which it can do best; to increase our productive capacity, to develop and bring to market new sciences, innovations and the world of tomorrow. A world that must include safe working environments and equitable incomes for workers that brings the product of their labors within realistic reach.
What is the point in having a market economy in which the domestic population cannot reasonably share? Why do those at the top deserve such grotesque incomes whilst those at the bottom must accept constant reductions making many working poor?
TAXES.
We consist of populations that are expanding exponentially with seemingly unquenchable needs and wants of all kinds even at the most basic levels of existence. Yet instead of recognizing these facts we choose to impose a system of taxation that in effect puts the brakes on everything and worse, is expected always to be the only source providing for all those needs and infrastructures.
The responsibility of providing for the greater part of other peoples needs is placed on the shoulders of the relative few who earn a surplus to their own needs. The only way for this to function successfully in present conditions is for everyone to have incomes resulting in surpluses that will allow the required levels of taxation to be levied.
But those paying the taxes have an effective political ideological veto that permits them to avoid this responsibility. Therefore not only is it impossible for industry to create employment for all, rich in surpluses, it is also unlikely that those enjoying the surpluses will ever consent to proper provision for the poor and poverty stricken. The world poor cannot wait any longer.
This system creates deep physical emotional psychological distrust and anger on all sides of community, both for those that pay the taxes and those who perforce must be the recipient beneficiaries. We can stop this.
We spend a great deal of our precious resources collecting these taxes creating criminals out of the defaulters. The answer is to stop collecting taxes.
Taxation is a misunderstood imposter. Misunderstood because we persist in not recognizing the harm and futility of it. Fraudulent because this system of taxation cannot by definition ever do what our politicians and economists tell us it will do.
Interest rate manipulations.
Why do we have variations in interest rates? When capital is in short supply. When the Reserve Bank alters the base rates. When lenders of all kinds perceive a change in what the market will bear. When price and wage inflation gathers momentum. When property values rise too quickly. When banks and financial institutions act to recover losses resulting from poor investment decisions in the markets.Just to name some of them.
The most important and influential of these are the adjustments imposed by the Reserve Bank principally for reasons of price and wage inflation in the domestic economy. Speculators can cause the price of property to rise, workers need higher wages to afford housing: so the reserve bank raises base rates to control inflation, raising the cost and affordability of the same housing. Workers wages are put on hold.
Every imaginable contrivance is used to control wage inflation. Consider, when the price of luxury cars falls, then that fall counteracts the rises in other things like fruit and vegetables. My point is that very few workers and pensioners buy luxury cars but incomes are frozen. This contrivance and others like them has no place in the cost of living index of those earning low basic incomes.
The Universal Economy, which has at its heart “the principle of the general good and welfare of all people” will set and hold low rates for housing loans.
We are told rates should be high relative to the rest of the world in order to attract foreign investment. Rates should be low in order to encourage domestic business expansion. Rates should be affordable for those building homes particularly for those on the more modest of incomes.
Yet the reserve bank attempts to ameliorate these diverse events by imposing adjustments to the base rate, which massively disadvantage some mortgage holders and small businesses, which then is often followed by foreign nations adjusting their interest and exchange rates to maintain competitivness.
This causes Markets and the Exchange Rate to fluctuate. But why should domestic family homes have to carry an interest rate that is subject to such diverse needs and fluctuations?
Interest Rate manipulation is misunderstood because we continue to ignore the fact that any given change will affect people unequally and unnecessarily for some disastrously. Such manipulation makes victims of family homeowners for something entirely beyond their control.
For these adjustments upwards take no account of the hardships to those who have struggled to build or buy a family home or perhaps start a new small business who now cannot afford the higher rates. Property values could drop. But by now these homeowners and new small business start-ups are being evicted and bankrupted.
The rates will come down at some time in the future but too late for these people who have now lost their equity and may also still owe the banks money. We can change the system to stop this happening.
Acceptance of the Universal Economy ensures the restoration of the general good and welfare of people and Nation. Government will set interest rates and fix terms that will remove all market and ideological uncertainty for those concerned to pay off the family home mortgage.
INFLATION.
We live in a world where the population is constantly expanding not only expanding but where we continue to get bigger as individuals as we get older. This is a natural phenomenon to be observed in many of the world’s processes.
As we grow larger we need more food, larger clothes. These increases in quantity of food and larger clothes can be described as inflation. Whichever way you toss it these increases are the result and effect of growth. We are evolving into larger more developed and mature people. This is our destiny. Are business, industry and science any different?
Now should we tell you that larger clothing is out of the question because too much clothing is being produced, would you believe us and should you or could you decide to stop growing? No of course not. To stop something growing may mean damaging it causing its demise.
Yet that is the effect others are causing with their particular techniques and methods to control inflation.
Inflation is misunderstood because we have politicians and economists who tell us that inflation (growth) has to be curtailed. In response we reduce the money supply and discretionary spending in order to halt inflation and at the same time we damage whatever we are growing.
Economies are dynamic entities; costs can go up and down, as for instance when we create economies of scale. Reducing the supply of money in the economy causes damage. When we do it using the guise of taxation or interest rate adjustments we are damaging the lives of the very people we should be protecting.
A right wing government believes it must always bias the economy to favor the already rich; the gulf between rich and poor is no accident. The policy of “trickle down” is simply feel good rhetoric. Such governments pay no heed to the notion of the general welfare.
We can stabilize the economy by fixing interest rates for essential and strategic economic elements such as mortgages for home building and mortgages for farm and agricultural development and by fixing exchange rates for a planned predetermined range of circumstances.
By removing taxation from the economic equation we remove untold stresses from all levels of government, business and the community, just as importantly we remove a huge stumbling block from the path of trade and industry. Industry is no longer being “pruned”, so to speak.
When exchange rates are fixed and pre-determined, our international trade is regularized and most trade and economy distorting, often questionable, activities are eliminated from the process.
Inflation (growth) cannot be eliminated but it can be understood and accommodated. We do that by keeping a close watch on a basket of basic standard of living items and annually adjusting the social wage. When the general economy is not performing at the levels thought appropriate then the business community will be advised by government to raise the basic remuneration of their employees.
Whatever levels inflation aspires to must be accommodated in all our cost structures, its called free enterprise. This is not to say we must stop searching for the economy in all things. Nothing grows faster than free enterprise and it can fail twice as quick often because of dishonesty.
Does it make sense to have a dynamic industrial sector and a community of potential consumers trying to live on “the smell of an oily rag”?
Remember, the Universal Economy seeks to ameliorate the worst aspects of imported inflation pressures through intelligent use of fixed exchange rates. As our importers buy foreign exchange to pay for those imports the exchange rate can take into account any price increases by absorbing the increases in the amount of domestic currency they pay.
Should the money supply become unweildy because of sustained absorption of so-called inflation then we simply devalue our domestic currency. Since the value of domestic currency has relevance only to domestic circulation the process of devaluation is completely neutral. Prices and incomes are all equally affected.
Seeing inflation as evidence of growth.
When government says inflation (growth) is rising too fast, the Reserve Bank will raise interest rates as the preferred technique to slow it down. There is no specific focus as to where such inflation (growth) actually originates. So when interest rates increase they increase costs for everyone regardless. For those on high incomes, the ones who receive seemingly unlimited increase in incomes, for those on low incomes for whom increases in pay require virtually an act of parliament.
Yet none of these may have been the originators of inflation (growth). Inflation (growth) in this particular instance may have arisen from increases (growth) in costs and prices of imported content, or perhaps because a domestic supplier of raw materials, having installed new production equipment, needs to be compensated for it. Costs and therefore prices will always want to rise to feed growth.
So long as we perpetuate the fraud of depressing wages to improve competitiveness with foreign low wage nations we are curbing our growth. This action would make sense if our workers were going to spend their money in the economy of the low wage nation, but they are not.
Exporting our productive capacity certainly reduces our growth.
When wages are depressed in the cause of fighting inflation or reduced in the cause of competitiveness, when interest rates rise, we reduce the purchasing power of wage earners and that in turn must reduce the turnover (growth) of business. Small business suffers most.
Workers are laid off, reducing discretionary spending power, sales go down, the unemployed need support from taxation which is money taken out of peoples pockets reducing their discretionary purchasing power. Round and round it goes.
We must understand that inflation is borne of growth and needs to be accommodated. It is not a signal telling us to cut workers wages.
When inflation (growth) rises, the control of inflation (growth) does not lay in cutting wages by increasing interest rates. No, wage levels should be lifted. Then as the new wage increases other prices, we may see that as the means which shares and distributes growth through the economy. This does not mean that all inflation (growth) must push up wages.
We must recognize the difference between sustainable growth and any limitations pertaining to supply of materiels, infrastructure and labor.
The monopoly or producer that pushes up prices far beyond acceptable returns to shareholders simply because they can will be creating market distortions affecting the distribution of discretionary spending.
Consumers will not purchase products they consider to be too expensive and they will not purchase products that they cannot afford. Such considerations are best left to “the market”. There will always be the entrepreneur who sees the opportunity to produce more cheaply. Plus we have not discounted intervention from imports when necessary.
How then to explain the phenomenon of low inflation? Low inflation is a concomittent of low growth. When our manufacturing sector has been relocated overseas and instead we must import our “goods” from the place that now possesses our manufacturig capacity;then all the growth (inflation) has occurred in that exporting nation. Therefore that element of “growth” (inflation) will not reach our shores. We then experience deflation because we have exported our growth.
This in effect, retards our economy; production capacity has shrunk, workers lose opportunity to earn discretionary spending power.
Our trade deficit worsens placing stress on our foreign exchange. Foreign debt increases. The nation must now produce more exports to repay it.
One of the great strengths of The Universal Economy is that it provides unlimited stimulation to all domestic economies. The government has unlimited opportunity to provide all necessary infrastructures and all important, necessary and strategic services for the people and nation.
The focus of government is now centered on the nations navel, as it would be for every nation accepting the Universal Economy concept. This leads directly and positively to the elimination of poverty. The nation will now grow equally and equitably without the need to impose ideological constraints or “persuasions and coercions” as in the past.
In summary.
When we consider world trends into the future it is easy to visualize all the difficulties that will confront governments, population growth, income distribution, provision of housing health and education, provision of all kinds of infrastructure, provision of support for science and research, provision of all human needs from accommodation up.
The system currently in use will not function it will collapse into chaos because it is also subject to the whims, peculations, manipulations fraud and dishonesty created by individuals and the centres of corporate and financial power.
When all of the world’s problems are configured into a giant “network” of possibilities then there is only one formula that can meet all these “triumphs and disasters”. That formula is the concept of a Universal Economy. “Outlined” in these pages.
The Universal Economy relies on two main precepts.
That government provides and maintains the basic economy.
That free enterprise is largely left to do what it does best in the commercial economy.
Government ceases the collection of private and “individual”taxes and instead provides to the economy a continuous and uninterruptible supply of debt free social capital. Instead of “trickle down” the economy is primed from the bottom up. Government provides cash for all infrastructures including housing health education and all other government services.
And government provides every individual with a social wage based upon current pensions and benefits. This underpins the economy and positively sets out to eliminate poverty for the first time. The social wage will also function to “condition” relationships between employers and employees. Most anger dissatisfaction and disputation will now subside.
The government creates a new bank to own in perpetuity. This bank will supply all credit to the domestic economy, personal, agricultural and industrial. It will set, fix and maintain interest rates and terms.
The government will cause the reserve bank to prohibit the use and circulation of domestic currency outside our national borders. The reserve bank will establish a range of fixed exchange rates designed to enhance our national economy and purpose, embedded into “trade agreements”.
All who require access to our domestic currency from outside our borders may only purchase it from the reserve bank. All who require foreign exchange from within our economy will purchase it from the reserve bank. All transfers of capital in and out of our economy must pass through the reserve bank for purposes of taxation (outgoing), for relevance and priority (incoming) perhaps for government support and entitlement to premium exchange rates.
All transactions across share and trade market exchanges will be lightly taxed.
Free enterprise is left to do what it does best.
There will be some regulation. Working people of all types must be supplied with the best of health and safety protections, penalties must apply to transgressions. Environmental pollution must be contained and restricted, new research will be required.
All enterprise will operate in a tax-free environment.
Enterprise will be employing a workforce permanently in receipt of a social wage. Any wage payment arrangements will be between employer and employee and or appointed Union representatives. Government will legislate minimum conditions applying to holidays and rest breaks.
Because everyone has a guaranteed social pension in retirement employers will not be called upon to make compulsory pension contributions. The parties will be free to negotiate extra conditions and contracts on a strictly mutually acceptable basis including superannuation. Employers will be called upon to provide sick pay only when the cause of absence is clearly due to workplace conditions, a doctors certificate will determine this question.
Employers will not be called upon to pay for any other absence because employees will be in receipt of the social wage.
Employers and employees will each be entitled to end any work agreement by the giving and receiving of one working days notice.
Essential advantages.
Community and government may now establish a network of wages and salaries, a network of considered “relativities” that will apply to all people employed by government.
Since government will be issuing all domestic credit there will be no further need to borrow overseas for the purposes of domestic building or consumption.
In the event of a natural disaster, hurricane, drought, fire, flood, tsunami, volcanic eruption, terrorist emergency, then government will always have access to the necessary domestic capital to fight and be ready for it.
This concept is capable of establishment in every nation on earth to serve the needs of all humanity and will cost very little to introduce. You can play a very important part too in helping to establish a revolution in the way the world is run.
This introduction calls upon those who have at heart the general good and welfare of all people, to circulate it to everyone they know.
The Universal Economy is not Socialism and not right wing conservatism; it is the best of both.
Please assist me to gain community and Political acceptance for The Universal Economy concept. My contact details are set out below.
Yours Faithfully,
Thomas W. Adams. EMAIL; tom22tom@internode.on.net
Consumer based businesses will suffer from the middle class squeeze as well. Many industries will suffer from inflation.
Bush’s economic policies are in fact dumber than his foreign policies.
Congress has not held Bush Accountable for anything - yet.
Only the Voters can hold Congress and the president accountable.
The Voters should hold each and every congress member of the last 8 years accountable.
Here is the tool… built for Americans to take back their government. www.My-Representative.org.
Stop listening to campaign promises and start holding them accountable!!
This American Life (the radio version) aired a show last week that explained the subprime mortgage part of this scheme in an intelligent and easy-to-understand way. Check it out.
Ron Paul talked about all this during the Republican “debates” (read: managed press events). Too bad most people didn’t listen.
Thomas W. Adams
Wasn’t this basically what Buckminster Fuller was outlining in “Critical Path”?
A good article. There is truth there. People unfortunately do not understand money, through no fault of their own.
Read the Web of Debt by Ellen Brown. The truth won’t set you free, but it will make you madder that a red hornet with a twisted stinger.
GovtAccountability, www.My-Representative.org is an interesting
site. I like the concept. Unfortunately I was the only one in my Congressional District to respond. Unfortunately my rep is a neo-con and largely opposes my views. He is pro military, pro bible, and anti environment. The people here love him, however they do not like high gas and food prices. It will be interesting to see how they vote this time around.
Namaste, the Mayans actually had very little to say about 2012. Most of what we hear today is New Age Embellishment. However, thought can generate physical manifestation. Therefore, the transformation may be something very modern as opposed to ancient. The Mayans set the date. It is up to us to guide the change. The negativity is weakening and the movement toward restoration of balance is growing. The world is undergoing paroxysms of change at the same time for the first time in history. Survival demands a positive transformation. The year 2012 brings world focus to the need for positive transformation. The Earth Mother is forcing people to awaken. Good change is in the air….
Its bipartisan, folks: No one remembers the gala celebration of NATO’s 50th Anniversary held in Washington, DC just in the middle of Clinton’s bombing of Belgrade’s factories and infrastructure and culmination of the long-planned imperialist dismemberment of Yugoslavia…
An obscene $100 million extravaganza paid for by the multinational defense corporations and others ready to cash in…
The mezzo-soprano Jessie Norman sang…’He’s (or rather We’s) Got the Whole World in His Hand’… Each guest had a chocolate globe of the world covered in gold-leaf served up for their dessert delight…
It was the Banquet of the Titans…carving up the world and Bush is clearly a most skillful player in this grand orchestra of pillage!
I’m glad we have spineless democrats to defend us against this onslaught.
All of you so called “liberals” that keep voting for democrats are complicit with Bush and Cheney.
Vote Green Party, or don’t vote at all. www.GP.org
Excellent article, Mr. Schechter. You said everything that I felt about this administration. Of course they have done everything in their power to destroy the Dollar. Those bastards like Bush, Bernanke and Paulson should be hanged for economic treason. Even the Mexican Peso has become a flight to safety in this climate.
There is absolutely no proof whatsoever that a new President or a “new” Congress will change anything. Period. However, there is ample proof that whomever takes the helm will work to consolidate the wealth and the power of those who sent them there to begin with. That’s American (and world) history my friends.
That is exactly why Obama will not bring change, why BHillary will not bring change, and why McSame will not bring change.
Look, many will agree that the father of American progressivism in Presidential form was FDR. The New Deal, all that. Well, the New Deal was nothing more than a scam to consolidate wealth, and it worked wonderfully. It was the beginning of Haliburton for crying out loud! Remember Harriman, Brown and Root?
Meanwhile, I will just keep on waiting for the revolution. And when it arrives, I’ll be there with guerilla gear on.
It’s a shame that the author of this article doesn’t research the underlying economic issues that led to this problem, and instead falls into the typical Common Dreams template of “Blame Bush” and “It’s a neocon conspiracy”.
First, this problem was not created by Bush. It started in the mid-90s when Greenspan became chairman of the Fed and demonstrated a propensity to print money at the slightest hint of any problem in the equity markets, a/k/a the Greenspan Put.
Bush is accountable for not taking any action and being too stupid to understand what was going on, but then again, every presidential candidate — McCain, Obama, Hillary, Nader — says hardly a word about monetary policy. The only candidate with a clue was Ron Paul, and people didn’t take him seriously because no one wants to acknowledge how flawed our fiat currency is.
Second, it’s not a conspiracy because many people have been talking about this problem for many years. The dot-com bubble and the real estate bubble are closely related, i.e. all problems created by loose monetary policy that began under Greenspan. There is no conspiracy here, just incompetence at the Federal Reserve. There’s no need to make Jim Wilkinson out to be some scary Bushie in the shadows pulling strings. He is a bit player at best, and the author never even really explains his role, except to say that he’s chief of staff to the Treasury Secretary.
All of the issues that led up to this crisis have been discussed in the mainstream media for years. The Economist has had an article about financial bubbles in the United States practically every week for the past ten years, including how we’d end up in the situation we’re in now. So this is not a Bush problem and it is not a conspiracy: it is the result of years of mismanagement of our currency by “Easy Al” Greenspan and “Helicopter Ben” Bernanke.
Madame Defarge remembers all.
THOMAS W ADAMS,
I was reading your Universal Economy and I found a couple of things that don’t sound feasible or fair.
If nothing in the domestic economy is taxed except Death taxes of estates (50 percent of anything over one million) and nothing is taxed if the estate is under a million, than how is it fair that a family that is one dollar short of a million does not get taxed but their neighbor who has one dollar more in worth has to give half away to the government?
Also you say that all foreign capital exchanges should be done with a separate currency but that would all be taxed according to what is deemed best for the people… Well doesn’t that set up a huge bureaucracy in each country that would be fighting and arguing over which country and which producers get the best deal?
Have you run this past wsws.org website for an opinion or to get published there?
Also a question for wsw.org May 19th, 2008 2:28 pm,
You say:
“Great article, Danny Schechter. But what are you doing publishing it at commondreams.org? CD’s ownership is going to support Obama.”
—–
How do you know that and even if they do support Obama, why should they not publish Danny Schechter and if CD is so bad why are you publishing your comments here?
Is wsw.org going to publish Danny Schechter?
Also you say “For the *real* Obama, click here — http://www.counterpunch.org/gonzalez02292008.html”
Well is that a biased view of the real Obama since Gonzalez is Nader’s VP candidate?
Now if Obama turns out to be as bad as your opinion, which I would want to question your facts for accuracy also, than that would be a great time to organize a new third force for positive change while in the meantime, since Nader has no chance to win come November, and since Obama is a fast learner and much younger that most of us, I hope that your criticisms are helpful for him to be a good president, much better than what we have now and more open to new Ideas of how we can realistically build a better world for everyone.
Namaste, good to see you back too.
I understand the basics of inflation devaluing the Dollar, and that effect on increasing exports….
I understand the basics of deregulation, taxcuts and destroying social saftey nets to make the rich richer….
I understand the basics of trade deficits and outside powers gaining our assets….
Bur I do not get the connection between a devalued dollar and the US controling world economics….???
It makes more sense in terms of the FedReserve making gains….
But will someone please connect the dots for me please? (that the author claims the devalued dollar will control the market)
dustinchicago,
I didn’t get that either.
Unless it is just that the Feds economics so far have been pretty fantasy based.
dustinchicago wrote: But will someone please connect the dots for me please?
Come on, Dustin, don’t you know by now that every major world event is somehow instigated by neocons (with help from the Jews) to tighten their control over the global economy? And if you don’t know that, it’s only because the mainstream media refuses to tell you “the truth”.
I kid, I kid. And I was this article was kidding too, but the author is trying to be serious. I wish he could take off his blame-bush glasses for a minute and realize that the Bush administration is shitting their pants at how far the dollar has fallen and that they wish they could stop it because it does nothing to help American hegemony. A falling dollar strongly discourages the use of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, which greatly reduces America’s clout on the world stage.
It constantly amazes me that people like the author of this article believe that on the one hand the Bush administration has total control of the world’s economy such that they can dictate the value of the dollar at their whim, yet at the same time, they believe that those same Bushies are incompetent idiots who can’t do anything right. You can’t have it both ways.
The superclass are only lojal to them selves.
They don’t feel obligatet to a nation or to the population.
For them we are only serfs.
The logic they live by is to make sure that any government presently in charge will support their needs. Clinton, Bush, McCain or Obama - it dosen’t really matter. The Dems conventional wisdom say that “New Deal”policy made things better - did it really or was it just an “appeasement” to calm the masses, while the transfer of wealth keept on?
http://www.counterpunch.org/dunbar04012008.html
They have no real ideology except to rule, some way or another.
Read what Dr. William Wirt testified in a Congressional Hearing in 1934:
Wirt testified he was told Roosevelt was only a puppet; that his hosts had made propaganda a science, that they could make newspapers and magazines beg for mercy by taking away much of their advertising; that provided they were subservient, leaders of business and labor would be silenced by offers of government contracts for materials and services; that colleges and schools would be kept in line by promises of federal aid until such time as they were under safe control; and that farmers would be managed by letting key operators “get their hands in the public trough.”
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/9l.htm
Well, Bush doesn’t have control over the economy or the Fed or any of the Worlds Central banks and no prez ever did…. the banks and large corporations have basic control over the economy and the politicians and the press.
He would like us to think he is in control and that is why he has to lie about everything.
I think the only time he told the truth on purpose was that he ordered the torture of war prisoners and that was just because he was proud of it and knew nobody could stop him.
He could start a shooting war with Iran but then it would be out of his control after the first bombs drop.
So even though our economy is tanking, he wants us to think he is in control so he sets up like in the article:
———
” Here’s an excerpt: “Mr. Paulson, the Secretary of the Treasury, is, by virtue of his ascension to the throne, now the head of the shadowy President’s Working Group of Financial Markets (which was created by Presidential Order 12631) and he is insisting that they meet more often, namely every 6 weeks!
This whole Working Group thing was originally set up as a fallback, ad-hoc, if-then defense to deal with possible economic emergencies, but now they are routinely meeting every 6 weeks. He has even ordered Jim Wilkinson, his chief of staff, to ‘oversee the creation of a Treasury Command Center to track markets world-wide and serve as an operations base in a crisis’! (Wall Street Journal) World-wide!!
The American government is moving to take control of the world-wide economy as the result of an anticipated crisis? Yikes!”
—————-
So obviously the writer, Danny Schechter, is kidding that is why he says “yikes!”
I believe He is exposing how the Bush gang wants us to think they are in control, when only the Greed is in and out of control and has been for as long as I have been paying attention… So can they have it both ways? nobody has stopped them yet.
Good article Danny!
This is a horribly written article very short on facts and understanding. We have Massive deficit spending to fund an unwinnable war. We had inflation leading to a housing bubble to cover their tracks and make the American public feel richer. The popping of that bubble as people with no jobs can’t afford mortgages so nobody could afford homes anymore. This wasn’t some nefarious plot. You are confusing cause and effect. The American economy collapsed after the tech bubble and never recovered. Generous terms to the bankers caused lending to skyrocket and a housing bubble. No economy to support the mortgage payments caused it to collapse. The smoke and mirrors worked for a bit but couldn’t go on forever. The federal government got out of the economy business and went into the military and homeland security spending business. These were all short sighted policies bound to fail in the long run. Look at the dow jones, S&P500, and Nasdaq from 2000 to present. One has gone up a tiny bit…the others are actually down…LOL. Go to the St. Louis Fed Reserve web page and look up the historical charts for our Gross Federal Debt and yearly Budget/Surplus graphs. It could be any simpler to understand why we are…where we are. Why would the dollar go anywhere but down when we quit making products to trade and offer the world nothing but death and destruction. That is why the dollar is in the crapper. You people couldn’t be anymore clueless. The belief this is all a Republican plot is completely laughable. The Democrats and Republicans have been controlled by the banks and Wall Street for the last 100 years. Our “best and brightest” ivy league educated elite have made a mess of things. They know it! That is the reason they are meeting every 6 weeks. Our power and prestige are in free fall. They are starting to get very very nervous about it. The American people exist to serve their interests…as far as they are concerned but they don’t want to lose their privileged place in the world.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard66.html
We should print progressive money… spend it on progressive organizations/items… live by a progressive dollar.
Limited oil, infinite money….
What do you think the result of that equation is going to be?
The Fed is handing money over to the large trading houses at below the rate of actual inflation so that Wall Street can cover it’s losses on the great real-estate bubble. Of course the majors then turn around and invest it in short-term commodities futures. Since the Fed is inflating the dollar commodity prices go up, they collect, skim profits, repay the Fed….wash, rinse, repeat…..
It’s a free money machine. Does anybody but me see a problem with creating a giant “free money” machine?
The Fed won’t quit because telling the world the US is broke in an election year is bad news. The world can’t quit taking our money because they already hold so much of it. Everybody in the trading chain is trapped because nobody has the ability to sustain an independent economy anymore.
We’re playing “how fast can we spin the merry-go-round” with the world’s economy.
(reprinted from my earlier posting in Gristmill)
Certainly true pangolin…Election year doesn’t really matter though. The fed won’t quit because they are blood brothers with the banks and wall street. Its their giant “free money” machine. It will go as long as the rest of the world still accepts US dollars for payment. The “global economy” is tied to the US dollar and our financial institutions…unless the rest of the world gets so fed up with us their central bankers all huddle together and agree on something else. What a useless bunch of losers our leaders are!
dboylon and pangolin, you guys are “on the money” with your observations, but unfortunately your comments will go over the heads of most people around here because you don’t mention neocon conspiracies, the corporate-controlled mainstream media, or the stupid sheeple. I swear that most Common Dreamers would sooner believe that Karl Rove keeps a weather machine in his basement and he caused Hurrican Katrina to kill all of the blacks than they would believe that the Bush administration was simply incompetent in the face of a natural disaster. Along those lines, they would sooner believe that the drop in dollar was somehow orchestrated by Bush to increase the power of corporations than they would believe that the idiots managing our monetary system plainly screwed up and they don’t know how to clean up their mess.
I’m amazed that some of these commentators on these boards slam the author, and at the same time give Bush a free pass on the incredible shrinking Dollar. Maybe one could find fault in the article, but to excuse Bush and Bernanke, come on! Who’s really clueless here? Flame me.
forextrader, I’m not sure to whom you are referring, but those of us who are slamming the article are not giving Bush and Bernanke a free pass. Rather we are saying that the shrinking dollar is the result of 20 years of monetary mismanagement; it’s not something that the Bush administration deliberately decided to do just within the last couple of years.
The skyrocketing price of oil is largely due to the falling value of the dollar. Bush, as dumb as he is, knows that high oil prices are going to severely hurt Republicans’ chance to hold onto the White House in Novemeber. He would prefer for the dollar to rise in value if he could control it. Are you saying that Bush wants the dollar to fall? That’s what I don’t agree with. What does he have to gain from a falling dollar? If America wants to remain at the center of the global economy, a strong dollar is essential to accomplish that.
Rimpinths: Of course Bush wants the Dollar destroyed. Why not? The US is in hock to rest of the world. We are financing an illegal war and our piggish government with money we don’t have (I.e. borrowed money). In return Bush wants to pay back the world with worthless Dollars. I respect that people have differing opinions about whose responsible for the falling Dollar. What I resent is those that disagree with the author and myself as being clueless and other patronizing comments like that. I don’t claim to have the absolute truth. I’m just expressing an opinion just like you. I will partially concede that US Dollar mismanagement happened before Bush as you stated (it started when idiot Nixon took us off the Gold Standard in 1971), but Bush and his thugs ramped up to the nth degree.