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TechnoratiMcCain Blasts Wall Street Failure, Neglects To Mention His Adviser Helped Cause It
As the news broke of the Lehman Brothers meltdown and the rest of the latest financial crisis, John McCain, speaking at a campaign rally in Florida on Monday, angrily declared,
![[If McCain wants to hold someone accountable for the failure in transparency and accountability that led to the current calamity, he should turn to his good friend and adviser, Phil Gramm. (Timothy A. Clary/Getty Images)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/0915-09a.jpg "0915-09a.jpg")
And in a statement released by his campaign, McCain called for greater "transparency and accountability" on Wall Street.
If McCain wants to hold someone accountable for the failure in transparency and accountability that led to the current calamity, he should turn to his good friend and adviser, Phil Gramm.
As Mother Jones reported in June, eight years ago, Gramm, then a Republican senator chairing the Senate banking committee, slipped a 262-page bill into a gargantuan, must-pass spending measure. Gramm's legislation, written with the help of financial industry lobbyists, essentially removed newfangled financial products called swaps from any regulation. Credit default swaps are basically insurance policies that cover the losses on investments, and they have been at the heart of the subprime meltdown because they have enabled large financial institutions to turn risky loans into risky securities that could be packaged and sold to other institutions.
Lehman's collapse threatens the financial markets because of swaps. From Bloomberg:
Bond-default risk soared worldwide as the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. sparked concern than the $62 trillion credit-derivatives market will unravel....
Lehman, the fourth-largest securities firm until last week, has been one of the 10 largest counterparties in the market for credit-default swaps, according to a 2007 report by Fitch Ratings. The market, which is unregulated and has no central exchange where prices are disclosed, has been the fastest-growing type of so-called over-the-counter derivative, according to the Bank for International Settlements.
"The immediate problem is the derivative default swaps market, in which a plethora of institutional accounts and dealer accounts are at risk,'' Bill Gross, manager of the world's largest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co. in Newport Beach, California, said in an interview with Bloomberg Radio yesterday. "It induces a tremendous amount of volatility and uncertainty.''
Barclays Capital analysts have estimated that if a financial institution with $2 trillion in credit-default swap trades were to fail, it might trigger between $36 billion and $47 billion in losses for institutions that traded with the firm. So the Lehman fiasco--caused in part by the use of unregulated swaps--could lead to ruin elsewhere in the economy.
Gramm is responsible for the rise of the wild and woolly $62 trillion swaps market. And he was chairman of the McCain campaign and a top economic adviser for McCain--until he dismissed Americans worried about the economy as "whiners." After that comment, McCain dumped Gramm. But was Gramm truly excommunicated from McCain land? Last month, he attended a meeting of McCain's top supporters in Aspen, Colorado. And at a dinner that day, McCain singled out Gramm for praise. Last week, failed Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul revealed that Gramm, now an exec for Swiss banking giant UBS (which also lost billions of dollars due to subprime loans and swaps), had recently called him as part of a McCain effort to win Paul's endorsement. Paul turned Gramm down. (Both Gramm and Paul are Texas Republicans.) Gramm's Paul-courting effort seems to indicate that the fellow who has done much to cause the current financial troubles (and who was once considered a possible Treasury secretary should McCain win the White House) is back in the good graces of the McCain campaign.
Shortly after McCain promised he would "clean up" Wall Street, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, his running mate, appeared at a Colorado rally on Monday morning and proclaimed that "John McCain and I will put an end to the abuses in Washington and Wall Street that have resulted in this financial crisis." She promised a McCain administration would "reform the way Wall Street does business." (She was short on details and spent more time discussing Colorado sports stars from Alaska.) What neither she nor McCain has explained is how they plan to be able to reform Wall Street when they are being assisted by 177 lobbyists and the guy who greased the way to the current crisis with a backroom legislative maneuver. If McCain and Palin are serious about never putting America "in this position again," they ought to consider seriously writing down any economic advice they get from Phil Gramm.
71 Comments so far
Show AllRoses are red
Violets are blue
Phil Gramm
Well, you know
Palin solution to the financial crisis....combination Bake Sale and Cross Burning
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
It is a lot worse than you can imagine,,,,
Here is the spread as of 30 September 2007, about 1 year ago. This is in millions......
Total Derivatives
JP Morgan Chase 91,734,451 million dollars; OR I might add they are leveraged
74:1, that is 91.7 TRILLION DOLLARS!
CitiBank National 34,004,072 milloin OR 34 TRILLION DOLLARS!
Lehman Brothers and the others were at the bottom of the list at 29,982.
You have not seen anything yet, cause you know what? This time next year, we will be hanging all the Bankers. AMERICA is done! Through! The debt is so high, that not only can it never be paid off, the exponential rate has destroyed America, and we will never recover......
Coffeelover,,,,,
Obviously the fix is more Tax cuts for those who helped to create the mess. There has to be some way those people who used manipulation and fraud can keep all that money so as to ensure everyone prospers. Right?
The consequences of these actions were being predicted YEARS ago. There is no way in hell it was not forseen. It was seen as a way of looting America and Americans to ensure one group of people prospered.
If it was forseen, as I believe it must of been, then it was deliberate and the Government of the United States ensured it would happen.
It IS a Lootacracy. Pelosi will not lose her home or retirement benefits. Nor will Obama...Or Gramm or GW Bush. They will all claim to "feel" the pain and apparently that good enough for the electorate.
We need to give the loot to the looters today so they can let it trickle down tomorrow. No wait, tomorrow we need to give them more loot so it can trickle down the day after tomorrow. No, the day after tomorrow...
Oh, I get it, it is an infinite loop, like in a beginning programming class. The day we get ours is always going to be "tomorrow." Those looters sure are silly gooses, aren't they? Don't they know that Mr. Arbusto told us "You can't get fooled again!"
Just watched the John McCain speech (BO too)...... We're in some deep, deep shit here!
Lets start now "Impeach McCain"
Only if you elect a congress full of Greens. By now, you know its a useless waste of time to ask the Democrats to impeach a Republican.
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"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
Senate Hearing with Feingold on C-SOPAN.org now. Will probably be on later, in case youre interested. About the unPatriotic Act, FEMA< civil rights, etc.
That is exactly the difference between McCain and Obama: What you hear come out of their mouths. But if you observe behaviors and critique the people the candidates have chosen to surround themselves with, they are both paving the same road to hell. Wait until you see what Obama does (or doesn't do) in office. Rhetoric schmetoric.
Oh, I don't know. How much is Obama talking about the role that Bill Clinton and the Democrats played in causing this.
Then Sen. Graham may have written and sponsered the bill in the Congress. But it was also supported by Bill Clinton's administration and he happily signed the bill.
Joe Biden, Al Gore, Bill Bradley all supported this Bill Chris Dodd didn't vote yes (his vote wasn't needed), but he supported the bill and was happy at the signing ceremony.
If you want surrealistic reading, the statement that Bill Clinton made at the bill's signing ceremony is online.
http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/ls241.htm
"And today what we are doing is modernizing the financial services industry, tearing down these antiquated laws and granting banks significant new authority. This will, first of all, save consumers billions of dollars a year through enhanced competition. It will also protect the rights of consumers."
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"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
McCain is no maverick. He's a Joker!
Anyone notice the differences between Obama's response yesterday, and McCain's?
Now all you McKinney/Nader/Barr/Paul voters: tell me there's no differences between the two candidates! I heard remedies from Obama, nothing from McCain!
Of course, you have to ignore the roles that Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Joe Biden and the rest of the leading Democrats played in helping to create this mess in the first place.
After the Great Depression, some key reforms were put into place to keep this from happening again. It was a joint project between the Democrats and the Republicans to destroy these reforms. See above for the link I give to the transcript of the ceremony where Bill Clinton signs this bill. Its a love-fest between Gramm and Clinton and everyone else who collaborated in this.
So, at the key time, when we needed the Dems to oppose the banking industry and the Republicans to protect the reforms that were in place to prevent this, the Democrats and Republicans worked together to shaft us.
So, gee, Obama made a pretty statement now that we are all screwed by this. That's so nice. But, if we hadn't had a bunch of Democrats in charge in the 1990's, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.
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"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
I'm trying to imagine lipstick on Phil Gram. Ugh!
McCain need not promise to "clean up" the Wall Street. It is already cleaned out, lock, stock and barrel.
"Barclays Capital analysts have estimated that if a financial institution with $2 trillion in credit-default swap trades were to fail, it might trigger between $36 billion and $47 billion in losses for institutions that traded with the firm."
The implication of a 3.6 to 4.7% financial 'hit' on the 'institutions' that traded is at a minimum a distortion of a magnitude so repulsive it is criminal intent to defraud.
The pension funds of retirees, institutions, who could lose that sum of 3.6-4.7% of $2 trillion would, could bankrupt those 'institutions,' and kill those retirees. Even California's pension fund, one of the largest in the nation, would suffer a 25% loss of assets. And the mutual fund holders of IRAs', KEOGHs' etc., those 'institutions' of diverse holdings? Those individual retirement accounts, do they suffer yet again the financial irresponsibility of complicity?
American capitalism at it's finest.
The problem is not Gramm but the entire extreme right gutter culture. You have to completely seal off the gutter to keep the flying gargoyles off the backs of the people.
The problem is an electorate quite happy with cheap toys made in China and purchased with usurous interest rates. Until our voters awaken we will continue to be nothing more or less than a profit center for those who really run our govt.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
.
He's gonna find out who did this and he's gonna go get 'em for us, give us their names, flush 'em out of their caves, bring 'em to justice. Worked well for the li'l buckaroo from Texas - why not the li'l buckaroo from Arizona? You can see that some of the best minds in the country are working on this, and we haven't even sent in the moose hunters yet.
Nickel and Dimed from The American Ruling Class!
http://www.wilypython.net/Nickel%20and%20Dimed%20.asp
"We ought to have a raffle for the one who can come up with what will be the most despicable Republican behavior and /or lie of the 2008 election. We’ll call it the Daffy Duck award." - Steve
Is McCain going to clean up the way he did in the Keating Five episode during the 1980s savings and loan scandals? He very nearly committed political suicide because of his involvement in trying to rescue his friends and financial allies who were knee deep in the crash that destroyed the life savings of thousands of Americans. If you look to McCain to help you out, you better be in the top 1% of the economic demographic. If you aren't, well, check your pocket, he might have already picked it.
The Keating scandal increased the debt for EVERY American $2,000, and although McCain disavows profitting from it his name was used to pull it off.
How do we know McCain is a reformer?
He wants to privatize Social Security
If you look at the article's accompanying picture closely, you can see "BLACK EYES" beginning to develop under McSame's eyes.
"DIOS MIO! IT'S AN APPARITION!"
(LOL)
I didn't have to look closely to see that black eye, and I just got back from having my eyes dilated. Was wondering who'd punched him.
This reply to all of the below. palin is the most absurd choice for a leader that has ever been devised by that criminal Carl Rove and the republican liars. Clean up world street indeed. The Republicans can't even attend to their frozen minds set in the 1950s. The US is a country that cannot be believed by those apart from it looking at it with some objectivity. it was forged by revulsion of the Brits and shaped in the later centuries by the Hollywood myth.
I have followed here in CD Liberal thinking and have patiently read the thoughts of dreamers, the pseudo intellectuals, and the great scholars who think they have the sort of thinking to be able to help bring this country back from the horrid mess it has become and the abyss it has brought the world.
Those here who offer their great ideas to help us to think more clearly pride themselves that they can influence direction in this plutocracy. None here have touched the central issue, this countries greed, the economy and your 401ks that rely on Wall Street and prop it up. You have been sold this means of security and you have bought it as good Americans. Most here believe it is your way to survival. But we see time and again that World Street cares not a wit for American or human survival. Greed is a very difficult and human characteristic that holds nothing or no one sacred, as of course some of you now know but its too late. The ticker tape is the clock of doom brought o you by Bloomberg and CSNBC. This is the larget scam in the history of the world.
The essence of the fight for human retrieval and the reestablishment of ethics, morals and purpose, that so many who write here would like to see, is the reason people spend there time reading many of these petty responses to the problems we face. Those who respond to the articles here, are written by people who are surely less than the quality of the true thinkers likes Nietzsche, Camus, Dostoevsky and so many others who wrote about human fallibility, the human condition and power, so well.
Those who write here, are people generally frustrated and feel helpless in terms of where we see this entire human global adventure going and see clearly that this American election can possibly hold the seeds to genuine change in America, if not the world. or at least, you once thought that until the DNC got hold of Obama. However, many are not fooled by the array of candidates and their claims to complete truth and fairness, as it should be. A healthy pessimism is necessary so long as it is not cynicism.
However the McCain Palin disaster throws all previous pessimism about American politics once and for all out the window to be replaced by cynicism where it should rest. Some of us understand that survival is surely not based in the petty politics practiced here on this blog but a clear recognition that there are people writing who genuinely care about the sate of this power gone amuck called the USA.
Sadly, we all know that the slate of candidates running leave a great deal to be desired. Yes, they have all dissembled, as politicians are wont to do, in the endless necessity for compromise. One cannot come from the masses, be a politician who aspires to become president of the USA and a woebegone culture and not have to assume the sickening compromises that would attract support so as to allow a candidate to continue on the quest and be pure. Impossible! When I think of the charges against Obama, that he supported that toad, Joe Lieberman I have to laugh at the simplistic methods used to bring down a candidate and the lack of understanding of what is necessary to be a politician in this country, no soul!
But there are some who hold out the small hope that if Obama, the lesser of all the evils presented to the electorate, somehow becomes president he may become another great man in the office and in effect serve the people, the country and the globe. He is the only one who holds that possibility, without question if we join and accept some of the thinking here. It is so because of his background, his actions in Chicago, despite his missteps and the fact that this is the final chance at survival for the human family!
We must take this chance and hope that the creeping filth that has brought humanity to this pass will not assassinate him; if he truly tries to affect the changes that must take place in the USA for it to be able to take the lead in the world once again as it once did, based in truth, and caring and concern for what humanity confronts. However, having said that i do not think the world wants what the US has to offer any longer. The need now, as never before to the present degree, is to help draw the world back from the nightmare now taking place. As we see Obama withdraw from his principles and his early rhetoric we know that he has had to sell out to the DNC and power politics. However, looking at the republican slate offered to the USA his was a minor aberration and necessary.
The climate, energy, food, water, the oceans, forests and so many other issues will require a man that has the youth and the guts to try to bring about the change that is fundamental to his campaign alone, since he has captured the belief of so many that believed it to be impossible. However, in the end it all may be too late!
I think it's downright silly to refer to Obama as the last chance for survival of the human family. Hardly.
The type of change we need to survive on this globe will never come from Washington. The bedrock of civilization itself is diseased and crumbling.
Change will come from a shift in the way we orient ourselves to the world, recognizing, as our ancestors did, that humans are not the center of all existence.
Change will come from each of us, starting now, and building life boats in our own communities, so when this big travesty finally collapses, we are not left without the ability to meet basic needs.
We need to join CSAs, start worker-collectives, encourage community ownership, create local currencies, and interweave our lives with those of our neighbors so we are dependent on one another for survival again.
I expect absolutely none of this to come from Obama. If anything, it is least likely to because we'll all breathe a sigh of relief, let our guards down, and try to continue everything as if the collapse is still not right around the corner.
THIS more than anything, is why I vote Green. It's not to elect a Green president, it's to EDUCATE people about what really needs to change.
If my goal was to make the American Empire last a little bit longer before it implodes, and to make sure that we all live a little more comfortably until then, then Obama would be a great choice.
But my goals are to radically shift our culture, altering our crashcourse with extinction. You can say I'm an idealist, but if we don't all start making this our primary objective, then you can take your so-called hope and throw it out the window.
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" -Epicurus
Ike, all the rays of hope come from the far left of the political spectrum - and they are bright!
Seditious September 15th, 2008 3:15 pm
" millionaires and suckers."
Millionaires are not born every minute but suckers certainly are - and by the boatload. Most of them in this country. Think Obama's going to get a bounce out of this awful news? The MSM will blame it all on him.
Strategic shopping - Make the corporations that own our government " FEEL THE PAIN".
how do we get this started?
I wish I could give you a good answer. The ruling class seems to have all the bases covered. Possibly a list of targets, and the net. The net is not very cohesive though.
Signs of hopefulness....The Fed refused to bail out either Lehman or Merrill. They were forced to rescue Fannie and Freddie, half a trillion in mortgages and scores of countries invested therein made that necesary.
This is certainly a window into how corrupt, greedy and woefully shaky is this house of cards economy but until China refuses to loan us any more money we will get through. Our $10 Trillion/year GNP will help too.
One really good thing to come out of this mess is a probable end to Reaganomics and deregulation. We will see a lot more regulating of our financial institutions you betcha!
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
ardee September 15th, 2008 5:26 pm
"The Fed refused to bail out either Lehman or Merrill. They were forced to rescue Fannie and Freddie, half a trillion in mortgages and scores of countries invested therein made that necesary."
Half a trillion? Try 6 trillion in mortgages between Fannie and Freddie.
Lobo Gris
We will be TOLD "this legislation will clean up wall street".
Right, zaz, and this will happen when pigs stop wearing lipstick. (my apologies to pigs LOL)
The spin and lies:
Seeking to calm frazzled markets, President Bush assured the country his administration is "working to reduce disruptions and minimize the impact of these developments on the broader economy."
The simple truth:
The Dow Jones industrial average plunged more than 500 points in afternoon trading.
McCain, you Keating 5 money-taking pressure-applying friend of a banking crook, back when you were a maverick you helped lead the charge to remove the effective government oversight on banks. Over the last 8 years you loyally followed up the rear on that charge.
Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here! [a croupier hands Renault a pile of money] Croupier: Your winnings, sir. -- "Casablanca", 1942
double bounce. Sorry. CommonDreams takes minutes to respond.
This Friday, September 19th, is National Talk Like a Pirate Day (no joke). Instead of trying to imitate the late Robert Newton as Long John Silver in "Treasure Island", say things like:
"The fundamentals of the American economy are sound."
"We have had tremendous successes in Iraq."
"The American way of life is non-negotiable."
Etc., etc., etc.
Now you'll sound like a Pirate.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
If there is anydoubt left in anyone's mind who will be able to stop this slide, I have some land in Houston that I want to sell to you.
This article seems to be both truthful and fair comment on McCains involvement with Phil Gramm, idiot though he may be, wealthy from selling out the American citizen.
"McCain Blasts Wall Street Failure, Neglects To Mention His Adviser Helped Cause It"
Typical GOP hypocrisy. But the Red-Stater's won't get it. They never do.
There are only two kinds of Republican voters: millionaires and suckers.
I'm a red stater and I get it. You are right though. While this economy is nothing to be proud of, it has yet to reach the levels of the Great Depression. And even then, the monied elites don't lose their power so easily.
Think they'll jump out of windows this time?
I don't think America and the future president Obama will change things as fundamentally as we would like to think (and as much as we really need). The reason I say this is that things are still not as bad as they were in the Great Depression--the last time there was REAL reform in this country.
Allthough the current economy is nothing to be happy about, it was far worse in the early 30's when FDR was swept into office. Then we had an official unemployment rate of 25% (unofficially probably closer to 40%) and those with jobs had sharply cut wages. The present housing crisis, while bad, can't compare to back then; when in New York alone 5000 families a week were being evicted. When banks were failing by the thousands. My dad was a farmer and he remembers that corn was selling for - 5 cents a bushel--you took corn to the local elevator and you had to pay them five cents to take it.
Americans are so wrapped-up in the myth of Yankee self-reliance that only something as drastic as the Great Depression makes us look at real change.
Another critical factor present back in the 30's but not present today--a strong sense of solidarity in the laboring classes. It was the fear of the laboring classes in this country finally uniting and taking over the truly frightened the ruling economic elite into allowing fundamental reforms to save themselves.
Even with all these factors on his side, FDR still faced tremendous opposition to his reforms; and even an attempted military coup to drive him from office.
So while I do feel that Obama will make some changes, I don't think he or the American people--under the present situation--are going to truly tackle the fundamental problems that need to be tackled for true reform to take place.
Only the truly naive think Obama is "the answer." What he isn't is the same old thing. In order to turn this behemoth of a society, you have to make a 1 degree turn in a positive direction. McCain/Palin is a guarantee of full speed ahead on the track we've been on. Do we drive off the cliff? Or try to turn before we plummet to our doom?
JH - The ship of state, like all ships, does indeed turn slowly. I'm afraid the truth of your analysis is lost on so many of the Nader/McKinney/Paul supporters here who fail to see reality. The truth is if any of those fringe candidates found themselves within smelling distance of actually attaining the presidency, they would have to triangulate, compromise, and desert some of their cherished principles to enable their election. Because Obama has done that (way too much, in my opinion) they condemn him and praise fringe candidates who never have, and never will, make those hard choices. That's why someone like Kucinich can look so good to us in the debates - because even he realizes he will never have to put his policies in place in the real world.
Maybe you misread the objectives of third party candidate supporters as electing a figurehead to solve all our problems, instead of building a multi-faceted movement that uses the campaign for the presidency as an educational and organizing tool.
The late George Carlin put it best:
“If you vote, you have no right to complain...If you vote and you elect dishonest, incompetent people and they get into office and screw everything up, well, you are responsible for what they have done. You caused the problem, you voted them in, you have no right to complain... I, on the other hand, who did not vote, am in no way responsible for what these people have done and have every right to complain, as loud as I want to, about the mess you created that I had nothing to do with...”
So rather than protesting this farce by not voting, I vote for the Greens, lending support to real people who are out there doing the work that needs to be done, rather than pulling one of the levers the corporations want me to, like some trained monkey.
If you think the major parties will prevent the impending collapse, dream on.
I don't care how slowly the ship turns, the problem isn't merely changing its course. The problem is recognizing that it's sinking entirely, and we need to completely abandon the ship for something entirely new.
You can have fun sailing your sinking ship in a new direction. We'll see how well that works out.
First of all, Carlin was a comedian - his bottom line was getting a laugh - and he is wrong about voting. If you don't you have no right to complain about the choice.
If the problem is not changing course but abandoning ship, then voting third party is not the answer. That's not abandoning ship, that's just putting less muscle on the rudder.
The ship may turn or it may sink. Whatever it does you piddling into the hurricane with your 3rd party votes will not result in any other alternative. Voting Republican or 3rd party is a vote for sink; voting Democratic is a vote for turn, no matter how minor that deviation might be. That is the reality. Do whatever you want, for whatever reason, but don't try to justify or rationalize it as a positive change.
Here, here so true. Realism, realism, realism. Thank you. This monster is really hurtling in the wrong direction. Obama is a significant improvement; let's go for that.
You will be surprised how much, and how quickly, things can get worse.
And when things fall apart *this* time, there are quite a few countries that will try to kick us when we are down: Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Russia, China, India, Malaysia, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Egypt, Libya, ... well, you get the idea.
There will also be a brain drain *out* of the U.S. - all the people that came here to make money, to start companies, to do science, to give their families a 'better life' - watch how quickly they jump a sinking ship. How long will educated, ambitious Chinese stay when the U.S. is in a depression, and China is booming ? How long will overseas Indians stay when India is flourishing ? How long will formerly prosperous Venezuelans, Argentinians, and Brazilians stick around when South America is integrating and forging ahead ? How long will Brits and Germans stay when Europe has 10 times the science budget ? I think 10 or 20 million key people leaving could be a tremendous blow to the U.S. - there are only so many Subway franchises, WalMarts, JiffyLubes, mall saleswoman, taxi driver and HomeDepot jobs to be had once the core of the Economy is wounded.
And that's without bringing up Peak Oil - that will add injury to injury.
Sounds like the Republican plan to rid the country of all those blood-sucking immigrants taking our jobs and our ER care and our national identity, boo-hoo. The Reagan Republicans have destroyed our country like a neutron bomb - the humanity is already dead, and it's only a matter of time before the buildings, infrastructure, and farmland rot away from neglect.
God forbid they charge WAR TAX profits on those who made out like bandits from the IRaqi "adventure," or finally raise taxes on the rich, or go after the money safely stowed away in off-shore banks, a favorite device of the big corporations. The $ is there... it's just been distributed mostly to the same ones who have brought a variety of disasters upon U.S. (and others).
see: "windfall profits tax"..on the books, not enforced, not like the govt could use the money or anything......
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
THAT, Siouxrose is an excellent idea! So is the idea that the old men that start he wars should go fight them. We had Vietnam-=vet grandmothers die in Iraq--let all the neo-cons go--for the first time.
"...swear they're ain't no heaven but I pray there IS a hell"
Works for me. Lets send Bush, Cheney and all the Neocons that somehow forgot to show up in Viet Nam to Iraq to fight. I'll volunteer to pay for their M16's if they are worried about the National Debt.
I'll chip in some old hockey pads for their body armor!
Mitt Romney could just send magic underwear!! Couldnt resisit...
Book Report
Title:
Project for the New Corporate Century
Subtitle
Help the Big Guy Help Himself
Authors:
BushCo Neocons & Criminally Minded Lipstick Pigs
Synopsis:
Screw the future... we want it all and we want it now. Stand back pinko commie countries on the upswing, or else say hello to our tommahawk nuclear cruise missile bling bling!
Seems like money is its own lottery system, and since it's been off the gold standard is truly fiat currency. So long as we all "believe" it has worth, we continue to trade our lives (hours) for it. The prices of housing (this was so true in the Florida Keys) in many areans quadrupled in less than 20 years, as if any other wages (apart from CEO "salaries") rose as quickly. Now it's all coming apart. Meanwhile a significant segment of US jobs are tied to military or its bastard component, the mercenary subcontractors. And nature is extracting her toll, too: fires in California, floods in the Midwest, floods from Ike and other yet to occur storms. Insurance companies are getting one punch, while the big banks who packaged these corrupted loans are getting another, and who gets the 3rd punch? US taxpayers... heckuva job, Bush & a long list of enablers.
McCain dumping on Wall Street is like George Wanker Bush badmouthing alcohol.
Are there any commenters out there who are trained economists or are otherwise well schooled in the Dismal Science? If so, what are the chances of this whole economy going down the toilet?
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the winds blows". But most Americans seldom venture outside except to go from their car to the controlled environment of the mall or workplace, then back home to watch the latest Palin gossip, unaware of the (quoting Greenspan) "The financial hurricane of the century", about to hit.
Yes we do. Sadly, they blow the way of a conservative Democrat.
And like trying to predict damage from hurricanes, no one really knows what's going happen. Good luck.
what are the chances of this whole economy going down the toilet?
Without going into a long treatise about why, it isn't about chances. It is about when, not if, it is going down the toilet.
Lobo Gris
The Republicans finally destroyed all of FDR's recovery programs. Unfortunately they delibertly bankrupt the US Treasury so that the Democrats couldn't use it to restore prosperity.
America could surely use the WPA and the Civilian Conservation Corp now.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives plans to debate legislation this month to inject another $50 billion of stimulus into the faltering U.S. economy, mostly with the goal of creating new jobs, a senior House Democratic aide said on Monday.
Amid fears of wider economic damage from turmoil on Wall Street, the roughly $50 billion would aim to spark needed road, bridge and other construction projects that help create jobs, with details still being worked out, the aide said.