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Wall Street Socialists
The financial crisis gripping the U.S. has the largest banks and insurance companies begging for massive government bailouts. The banking, investment, finance and insurance industries, long the foes of taxation, now need money from working-class taxpayers to stay alive. Taxpayers should be in the driver's seat now. Instead, decisions that will cost people for decades are being made behind closed doors, by the wealthy, by the regulators and by those they have failed to regulate.
Tuesday, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury Department agreed to a massive, $85-billion bailout of AIG, the insurance giant. This follows the abrupt bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the 158-year-old investment bank; the distressed sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America; the bailout of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; the collapse of retail bank IndyMac; and the federally guaranteed buyout of Bear Stearns by JPMorgan Chase. AIG was deemed "too big to fail," with 103,000 employees and more than $1 trillion in assets. According to regulators, an unruly collapse could cause global financial turmoil. U.S. taxpayers now own close to 80 percent of AIG, so the orderly sale of AIG will allow the taxpayers to recoup their money, the theory goes.
It's not so easy.
The financial crisis will most likely deepen. More banks and giant financial institutions could collapse. Millions of people bought houses with shady subprime mortgages and have already lost or will soon lose their homes. The financiers packaged these mortgages into complex "mortgage-backed securities" and other derivative investment schemes. Investors went hog-wild, buying these derivatives with more and more borrowed money.
Nomi Prins used to run the European analytics group at Bear Stearns and also worked at Lehman Brothers. "AIG was acting not simply as an insurance company," she told me. "It was acting as a speculative investment bank/hedge fund, as was Bear Stearns, as was Lehman Brothers, as is what will become Bank of America/Merrill Lynch. So you have a situation where it's [the U.S. government] ... taking on the risk of items it cannot even begin to understand."
She went on: "It's about taking on too much leverage and borrowing to take on the risk and borrowing again and borrowing again, 25 to 30 times the amount of capital. ... They had to basically back the borrowing that they were doing. ... There was no transparency to the Fed, to the SEC, to the Treasury, to anyone who would have even bothered to look as to how much of a catastrophe was being created, so that when anything fell, whether it was the subprime mortgage or whether it was a credit complex security, it was all below a pile of immense interlocked, incestuous borrowing, and that's what is bringing down the entire banking system."
As these high-rolling gamblers are losing all their banks' money, it comes to the taxpayer to bail them out. A better use of the money, says Michael Hudson, professor of economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and an economic adviser to Rep. Dennis Kucinich, would be to "save these 4 million homeowners from defaulting and being kicked out of their houses. Now they're going to be kicked out of the houses. The houses will be vacant. The cities are going to [lose] property taxes, they're going to have to cut back local expenditures, local infrastructure. The economy is being sacrificed to pay the gamblers."
Prins elaborated: "You're nationalizing the worst portion of the banking system. ... You're taking on risk you won't be able to understand. So it's even more dangerous." I asked Prins, in light of all this nationalization, to comment on the prospect of nationalizing health care into a single-payer system. She responded, "You could actually put some money into something that pre-empts a problem happening and helps people get health care."
The meltdown is a bipartisan affair. Presidential contenders John McCain and Barack Obama each have received millions of dollars from these very companies that are collapsing and are receiving the corporate welfare. President Clinton and his treasury secretary, Robert Rubin (now an Obama economic adviser), presided over the repeal in 1999 of the Glass-Steagall Act, passed after the 1929 start of the Great Depression to curb speculation that caused that calamity. The repeal was pushed through by former Republican Sen. Phil Gramm, one of McCain's former top advisers. Politicians are too dependent on Wall Street to do anything. The people who vote for them, and whose taxes are being handed over to these failed financiers, need to show their outrage and demand that their leaders truly put "country first" and bring about "change."
Denis Moynihan contributed to this column.
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Show AllA related right on article on counterpunch:
http://counterpunch.org/walker09182008.html
"While the 2008 presidential election has justifiably received a great deal of attention and has been the subject of a substantial amount of political commentary, it should not be the case that progressives remain silent in light on the tremendous crisis engulfing capitalism in our moment.
Nor should progressive analysis of the current economic crisis be framed by a cult of personality critique that places full blame on the rogue Bush-Cheney regime.
If progressivism is to mean something more than just a euphemism for center-left Democrats or more than the latest Democratic branding strategy in light of the decades long conservative assault on the term liberal, then progressives must articulate a substantive critique of what John Bellamy Foster terms “monopoly finance capital.”
However, if progressives ignore the deep and systemic crisis of capitalism that, at best, marginalizes the lives, dreams, and hopes of the majority of American citizens, progressivism in the 21st century will not only be impoverished, but will also be part of the problem and not the solution to the general crisis of democracy in America. "
http://almusawwir.org/resistance/
Good points, and thanks for the links.
So, socialising the losses on Wall Street and related industries is OK. But socialising medical care is not? If the taxpayers are going to foot the bill on losses made by private corporations and wheeler-dealer speculators, then taxpayers can foot the bill for every American to have the security of accessible medical care.
That is a good question
Yeah, the Right always wants to privatize profits and to socialize losses. Social Darwinism is normally the name of their game. Any sharing of wealth is one step from Stalin, I suppose. Unless they themselves are about to lose all of a sudden, then they call for the State they otherwise loathe so much to bail them out. Such darlings, aren't they?
I've always chuckled when I heard the term "socialized medicine" in the US. Unknown everywhere else. As a smear. Opposed to what, I wonder? Opposed to "Let those who can't afford medicine just die"?? Well, why doesn't the Righ please just say that aloud and in every campaign confirm that this is their vision as the opposite of "socialized medicine".
BTW: The US military devours such a huge part of the US public expenses - if you consider the wars, the rebuildings, the downstream contracts to industry etc. - and are so generously endowned to provide the kind of benefits to members of the army - the kind of benefits normally associated in America with "socialist" ideas - that whoever endorses all those goodies (i.e. the US Right) should never ever be allowed to use the word "socialized" with a sneer.
The whopping expense for the US military funnily enough are never an issue in a US presidential campaign. Weird.
Oh, and the Guardian has quite an interesting article about Obama and the fear that is gripping Americans now: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/18/wallstreet.barackobama
Re the article in this link, considering who built this "economy", if it's your biggest concern, you will vote for neither one of the "majors"
But then you would live too long and consume more resources that will burn the planet with your CO2 emissions.
But hey, owning 80% of AIG should facilitate the privatization of social security and mandating health insurance for all (if you can not afford to pay you go to jail)
The other thing is:
Yes this obviously inevitable financial meltdown is finally underway, and yes the power elites will strive mightily to hold onto (and increase) their share of power as the aftershocks play out in the economic system...
A larger system, the living Earth, destabilized by industrialism and overpopulation, is heading toward an equally obviously inevitable meltdown. When that hits in earnest, the power elites will strive mightily to hold onto (and increase) their share of power (already laying their plans, Google the CIA and Pentagon reports on global warming and global security in the 21st century).
Take care of yourselves, take care of your neighbors, take care of the living Earth around you. Do not buy anything that you do not actually need. Build skills and daily practices that improve your ability to take care of yourselves, your neighbors, and the living Earth around you.
Nice to see Amy deservedly lather it on both the Repocrats and the Demublicans.
could it be that this financial meltdown is a "shock wave" to push the electorate to mccains camp? when in doubt go with the old wrinkly war monger for saftey and security.
If nothing else these occurrences show how "capitalism" is merely a fantastical idea - as social creatures we can only function in socialism, regardless of what name is placed on the activity, or how corrupt that activity may become.
From now on the use of "capitalism" or "marketplace" as the driving or corrective factor for economics should be viewed as sign posts that their users are indulging in fantastical thinking, disconnected from organic humanity, and a threat to the human endeavor of happiness and pleasure on Earth.
All for one and one for all, it's all it's ever been and ever will be...regardless of how it's applied.
Capitalism is not the problem. Free market "competitive" capitalism is good. Crony monopoly (cartels) capitalism is bad. In a perfect world, there is a mix of capitalism (profit seeking enterprises) and socialism (social welfare, basic needs, infrastructure). The US government accounts for most of the spending in our economy, so we are more than 50% socialized.
"that’s 1,000 trillion dollars.3 How is that figure even possible?" - like Enron's accounting method of placing projected future earnings as an asset, it's possible through fantastical(no organic reality) thinking. I make a distinction between capital (wood, rock, human skill...organic realities) and capitalism ( a thought form, no organic reality, though it does help organize as a motivational word organic actions). As we form contracts to trade and work with capital it's always an organically based reality carried out in an organic social forum, where the human being can only be sliced in half and considered 50% in fantastical terms (though if you sailed with Columbus you might have sliced a member of the indigenous labor force in half for not bringing you a certain allotment of gold - this type of action occurs of course from fantastical thinking, a disconnect from organic humanity, a discounting of the capital of human labor). I agree to a certain amount of freedom to use capital as one would, but place limits on this, as in the case of using the capital of depleted uranium in Iraq to enforce the management of the flow of oil capital for one mafia management group over another( or the said slicing in half of a member of human capital). When one focuses on the organic reality the pleasure of commerce is derived from the doing; this pleasure far exceeds the excitement of fantastical Enron like future earnings (though this usurps the wealth of capital in the short run), while in addition developing a viable social network.
I meant it accounts for more of our GDP than the private corporate sector (2.9 trillion vs 2.0 trillion).
Also, the Federal government owns over 30% of our land (60% of Alaska).
"The US government accounts for most of the spending in our economy, so we are more than 50% socialized."
Did you perhaps mean *all* government? I'm seeing federal outlays as around 20% of GDP.
Interesting article here:
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/its_the_derivatives.php
"Derivatives are financial instruments that have no intrinsic value but derive their value from something else. Basically, they are just bets. You can "hedge your bet" that something you own will go up by placing a side bet that it will go down. "Hedge funds" hedge bets in the derivatives market. Bets can be placed on anything, from the price of tea in China to the movements of specific markets.
"The point everyone misses," wrote economist Robert Chapman a decade ago, "is that buying derivatives is not investing. It is gambling, insurance and high stakes bookmaking. Derivatives create nothing."1 They not only create nothing, but they serve to enrich non-producers at the expense of the people who do create real goods and services.
In congressional hearings in the early 1990s, derivatives trading was challenged as being an illegal form of gambling. But the practice was legitimized by Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, who not only lent legal and regulatory support to the trade but actively promoted derivatives as a way to improve "risk management." Partly, this was to boost the flagging profits of the banks; and at the larger banks and dealers, it worked. But the cost was an increase in risk to the financial system as a whole.2
Since then, derivative trades have grown exponentially, until now they are larger than the entire global economy. The Bank for International Settlements recently reported that total derivatives trades exceeded one quadrillion dollars – that’s 1,000 trillion dollars.3 How is that figure even possible? The gross domestic product of all the countries in the world is only about 60 trillion dollars. The answer is that gamblers can bet as much as they want. They can bet money they don’t have, and that is where the huge increase in risk comes in. "
So this is whats really going on behind the smoke and mirrors, Derivatives were designed as the ultimate financial weapon of mass destruction. The purpose being financial terrorism to eliminate the USD as a reserve currency and replace it with a new currency controlled by the IMF/World bank (carbon credits and carbon tax). Sir Bubbles did not get knighted for nothing.
When that happens, the US might start looking like Zimbabwe since we will no longer be able to raise money to fund our expenditures and pay off our debt. We will need to borrow carbon credits from the IMF who will do so, but with conditions, such as privatizing social securrity, eliminating medicare, selling off some of our military assets to the UN, etc.
Frankly, our assets are already being sold off now.
BTW, IMF will audit the Fed in 2009. I do not think the toxic waste being now held by the Fed as assets will pass the test.
Checked out the link - excellent! Recommend it as a an explanation that even I can understand.
And then, if you're a Republican and the persons kicked out of
the house are black, you quickly send a non-forwardable letter
from the Registrar's office, and it comes back, and you say,
"Heh, Heh, Heh," and the black people never can vote, and you
say, "Oh, we Republicans are so irreverent, such mavericks:
I just love us so much!"
Actually, though, Republicans, you're nothing more than scumbags.
That goes for the good people, too. Through association with
scumbags you have become scumbags yourselves.
Marx was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt about that...Old Marx was as dead as a doornail...
... He saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change - not a knocker, but Marx's face.
Marx's face...the hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air; and though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless.
"Humbug!" he mumbled. "Marx is dead."
At this the spirit raised a frightful cry. Then shook his dreadful locks, and grinned most heartily.
"I have returned with a message!" the ghost of Marx grinned even more heartily.
"What is the message? He ventured, stepping back, fearing to hear.
"The message is...I told you so!"
He covered his ears and crouched in realization.
" The horror! The horror!" He cried.
Richard Mellor
Ms Goodman writes: "The people who vote for them, and whose taxes are being handed over to these failed financiers, need to show their outrage and demand that their leaders truly put "country first" and bring about "change.""
This is where it all ends for liberal bourgeois thinkers like Ms Goodman. A lot of what she writes none of us can disagree with but what is completely missing in her world view is the role of the working class. The idea of an independent mass workers party does not enter the picture for Ms Goodman.
What does she think will occur if outrage begins and takes to the streets, workplace occupations, wildcat strikes, homeless protests etc.? What will happen is that this movement will tend to throw up its own political representatives. The liberals will try to divert this movement as they always do to the Democratic Party. This party will not serve our interests. It is a bug business party.
But Ms Goodman does not see the working class as a force that can lead, as a force for change. I can only imagine that she sees it as this mass that empties on to the streets hopefully and forces what she mistakenly refers to as "their leaders"to act, to act against their own self interest in a party that belongs to them by introducing measures that serve working people.
In the real world this mistaken perspective is what leads people like Ms Goodman to end up betraying workers and actually attacking us and working to destroy the very movement that she claims will bring positive change.
http://weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com/
http://www.myspace.com/unionguy510
Well this is a bizarre attack on Amy Goodman.
If the people in this country start organizing and taking action, Goodman will be on the front lines reporting what is happening, like she always is.
Apparently you can see into the future and you know that she will "betray" us. What a crock.
Are you upset that she is not personally organizing for mass action? She's a reporter, and her reporting explicitly privileges non-mainstream perspectives, including organizers and outsiders. Where do you get your "liberal bourgeois" rant from?
You go, Amy!
Well, Mr. "knowwhatsup" or "unionguy" or whatever.....
I have to ask why, if you are really concerned about knowing "what's up", or in favor of unions, you would even consider for a nanosecond to have a page on my-Rupert-Murdoch-Space.com, trying to drive eyeballs (and revenue) to one of the most evil, propagandistic and anti-union bastards on the planet.
Perhaps you should step back and get a clue. Particularly before you make a pathetic and nonsensical attempt to bash Amy Goodman, one of the few truly independent journalists we have left in this increasingly fascist nation of ours.
I have re-read your screed three times now, and I still can't seem to find any evidence of a logical argument.
Or maybe first I should ask...do you work for Rupert Murdoch?
There is one thing I can agree with you about however. When you write:
>> It is a bug business party.
It sure is a bug. A bug up my ass.
Either you know nothing of Amy Goodman or you are a propagandist. Or an idiot. Or all of the above.
I listen to Amy Goodman every morning, she's awesome. Excellent article, highlighting how Dems are really no better than Pugs in many ways.
Today I heard one of Obama's economic advisers on Pacifica Radio and he sounded just like Obama. He waffled and tried to be at once for the bailout and against it. He said Obama wouldn't second guess the Fed but when asked if Obama agreed with bailing out AIG he said Obama would have done things differently. Typical vagueness and avoidance of taking stands whenever possible. Prior to the collapse what was Obama saying about deregulation? For that matter wasn't McCain a champion of the deregulation policies that have brought on this fiasco? Dweedle Dee meets Dweele Dum.
The first step to solving this crisis is abolishing the federal reserve and ending fractional reserve lending. Then, if these actions don't do it themselves, its breaking these large banking institutions into a million pieces. Banking should be a local operation and should be kept simple.
All these booms and busts are engineered by the large banking institutions and their main tool is the federal reserve... which is not a government agency, its a privately owned corporation whose shareholders are not disclosed. We are just told they are owned by the areas banks. Well... the bankers are in charge of the institution that controls the money supply?
You have try and look at this through a different paradigm... nothing is being lost here except for the savings of middle class americans who were responsible and saved their money for retirement. For the big boys, power is just being consolidated into JP Morgan Chase (from Bear) Bank of America (getting country wide and merrill on the cheap) and the federal reserve (fannie, freddie, and AIG).
This whole thing has infuriated me so much that I can't coordinate my thoughts. When it comes to MONETARY POLICY... I think the libertarians are right. We need to abolish the central bank and restablish a fixed money supply. That's one of the few things I agree with them about... but I think its the most important issue and its an issue that NO ONE is talking about, or just oversimplifying.
ABOLISH THE FEDERAL RESERVE! They control the money supply. It's a fiat currency... and if you doubt me just look a dollar bill, it says federal reserve note on top... no US treasury note. Progressives need to analyze their stance with respect to monetary policy and really examine the macro effects here.
For example I keep reading about "our tax money" being spent on bailouts. I got news for ya, it aint your tax money. The fed just prints it out of thin air. That doesn't mean its free, actually just the opposite. What happens is the money supply is increased, therefore creating inflation, which means the money you have is not lost, its just worth less. That's the fallout from this and thats what we won't feel for a while, but inflation is going to be horrible and deliberate inflating of the currency to consolidate the banking system is more of an injustice to working familys than ANYTHING.
I wish progressives would read more on this issue because it's so fascinating... so amazingly simple and disgusting that the blatant injustice just jumps out at you. Plus between abolishing the Fed, ending agressive foreign policy, and enforcing domestic liberties like privecy... you have three issues to unite with the libertarians on. With a coalition of progressives and libertarians that focus on just those three issues then splinter after the objectives are met you might actually have a viable third party.
Also keep this in mind people. Since the begining of the industrial revolution up until the middle of the 20th century, prices for goods and services went DOWN. Our entire lives, we've seen prices go up, generally about 3% a year. And this inflation is talked of like gravity or the sun coming up, it just happens. Well that's total BS! That's bankers using the federal reserve to profit of the devaluation of our currency. When you increase the money supply, the inflation doesn't immediately take effect. It takes time for that money to work it's way through the system and, eventually bid up prices. But when that money is first spent after being created, it has the value of the currency at that day. That means they make huge profits off free money and we end up paying for it by having our hard earned money devalued. Inflation is a scam, PLAIN AND SIMPLE!!!
Ohh yeah the libertarians might have an issue about the income tax too. Turns out that all of our income tax doesn't actually get used to pay for a single government service, project, or salary... hell it doesn't even pay for bombs to drop on brown people. It actually goes towards paying off government debt. But who owns all this debt? Sure China and the other tigers own alot, but the investment banks and federal reserve own most of it. You see, even though THE CONSTITUTION says congress is "To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;" it does not actually print dollars. It prints treasury bills and bonds... which are basically dollars except at interest. The government issues some piece of paper it says is worth a dollar plus interest after so many years and then... gets a dollar. Think about this, there is now a dollar the government can use and eventually where are they going to get more dollars to pay off that debt... because that debt is actually larger than the amount of dollars floating around out there. Well gee... lets just issue more treasury bills and bonds to the fed! And the cycle goes on and on. Even with a surplus budget (which liberals love to shower clinton with praise about) our debt will still increase. And back to our income tax, well that's where it goes. Personally I feel that taxes are necessary and should be progressive, but they should actually pay for something. Check out The Grace Commission Report that Regean killed real fast after he read it.
PLEASE RESEARCH THIS ISSUE! I RECCOMEND READING THE CASE AGAINST THE FED BY MURRAY ROTHBARD AND GOOGLING "THE MONEY MASTERS" WHICH IS AN EXCELLENT DOCUMENTARY!
As I understand it, the extra money the Fed is printing to foot the bills, is covered by assets, i.e. their share of the banks they saved. Which should keep a reign on inflation nevertheless. Only money-printing that's not backed by assets would fuel inflation massively (see Zimbabwe).
Also, I am told that the money that has been doled out to support financial markets are in essence short-term loans with high interest rates.
This is the explanation I got from bankers.
This fantasy that we can or should unite with libertarians drives me completely crazy! Progressivism and libertarianism are imcompatible as they are completely opposite philosophies. I actually dislike libertarian party MORE than I do Democrats or Republicans - they are scary fantasists who don't get that we NEED regulations because when we don't have them situations like this one can and do happen.
Libertarianism makes sense except that the planet earth has no defense. It's concept is centered around human needs and ignores Natural Resources, which will need a good attorney and should be considered an asset.
Any destruction of this asset, should be taxed and go into a world fund to keep our planet healthy.
The Greens are the ones who value our home planet and want to keep it healthy. But they will get bogged down trying to make too many rules.
You can't be all capitalist or all socialist; government should be a mix of both.
What needs to stop is socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.
"Abolish the Federal Reserve" is about as easily done as "Eliminate greed from the Republican (or Democratic) Party!" Progressives and Libertarians can't unite on this or anything else because they have fundamentally different philosophies, and there are about 700 different versions of each one. If they could unite on this, why haven't they united on forcing impeachment and bringing the Bush-Cheney junta to justice? It's not gonna happen. We can Google and research all we want, but we're not going to form some big coalition that takes care of these Wall Street hucksters once and for all. But we can always blame each other for being "negative" or whatever, displacing our rage to each other because we're powerless to do anything about this mess. Take to the streets! Get mown down by Blackwater or herded off to their domestic Guantanamos for torture and imprisonment. Armed rebellion should take about two days to thoroughly quash. These Wall St. motherfuckers stole this country right from under our clueless noses a LOOOOOONG time ago, and they have the protective apparatus necessary to keep us at bay any time their bad karma comes calling, and it's howling at their huge castle doors now. About our only hope is that they start jumping out of windows and hanging themselves, en masse, like 1929 all over again. Except that was mostly a myth.
Google video: "Money as Debt"
Thus, in the course of two weeks, the Federal government has doled out hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money in bailouts and loans for failing financial institutions. It has carried out the unprecedented nationalization of the insurance giant American International Group (AIG) with what is widely seen as a down payment of $85 billion. The firm holds nearly half a trillion dollars worth of questionable credit derivatives on its books.
Not a single vote was taken in either house of the US Congress on these measures, much less by the American people. Rather, the bailouts of Bear Stearns and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, like the takeover of AIG, have all been negotiated behind closed doors between Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke and Wall Street executives.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that congressional leaders were hastily informed of the deal to bail out AIG only after it had been struck.
“Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle expressed concern yesterday that they have had no control over when and how federal money has been used to curb the panic on Wall Street,” the Post reported. “While many have been convinced that the moves so far have been necessary to prevent a wider financial meltdown, they said they felt confined to the sidelines as power to make momentous decisions has been concentrated in very few hands.”
The impotence of Congress and the Democratic Party was expressed most nakedly by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Democrat of Nevada), who declared Wednesday that in the face of the unfolding financial catastrophe, the Senate would go ahead with its planned pre-election recess. There was no point in staying in Washington as “No one knows what to do at the moment,” he said. The Democratic leadership indicated that it would probably not reconvene until January, unless summoned by Paulson, Bernanke and Wall Street.
read more: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/obam-s19.shtml
"Not a single vote was taken in either house of the US Congress on these measures, much less by the American people. Rather, the bailouts of Bear Stearns and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, like the takeover of AIG, have all been negotiated behind closed doors between Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke and Wall Street executives."
“Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle expressed concern yesterday that they have had no control over when and how federal money has been used to curb the panic on Wall Street,” the Post reported. “While many have been convinced that the moves so far have been necessary to prevent a wider financial meltdown, they said they felt confined to the sidelines as power to make momentous decisions has been concentrated in very few hands.”
NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.
-- ekaton --
Ric,
Thanks for that addition to my coollection of coolwogs to begin a sojourn of tapestry assemblage.
I'm hoping the dreams of sleep requests will awaken the boomer generation to the Siddharthha manifest of misspelled words being revelation for "Aid to Rejected Prosaic Cultural Poly Sci Boomers."
Congress members of my generation ignoring these cynical blisters of cash for free speech the SCOTUS allowed as being equal free speech has worn thin the fabric of parchment. Any discussion of Congress as an effective voice for the electorate has been copyrighted and now requires a dollar per consonant, five dollars per vowel, fifteen dollars per syllable, each additional syllable up to three forty dollars, above that it becomes $800.00 an hour for 'speech required in civil society in the presence of higher legal authority.'
This is why members of Congress deny their Constitutional responsibility to coin money whenever the "Fed" screws the American taxpayer without so much as a warfle, fart, cough, or "Excuse me?"
If in doubt, call your Congressperson to say, "Can I donate more to the underprivileged wealthy whose frailty of speech has been subjected to the hoarseness of viral payback?"
If ignored, dial 911 and ask for an antidote for murderous rage of being left out of the party for free speech rights to corporate welfare. If Bush or Cheney refuse to call back as is required by law for accepting SCOTUS favoritism in illegal activities, you have only one option.
Take a shit in a legal sized envelope. Go to the Post Office, pay to have it sent 'Delivery Confirmed' or 'Registered Mail' with a suitable insurance coverage. I figure my shit is worth at least $18.00 a consonant, $72.00 a vowel, etc. But then I use expensive men's trendy stink. I do that for identity of class requirements.
Copyright DogLeg 2008
Man I love the idea! Should I fashion my own stamp made from lightly-perfumed, shit-stained toilet paper, fasten it to the legal-sized envelope and then seal it with a kiss?
Republicans and Democrats turn into socialists! The losses of the corrupt banking institutions are now socialized with taxpayer money, however the profits to remain private. Welfare for the rich!
In his speech Wednesday in Nevada, Obama declared that the tumultuous events on Wall Street represented a “final verdict” on the “economic philosophy” of McCain and the Republicans, while proclaiming his conviction that “our free market has been the engine of America’s great progress. It’s a market that has created a prosperity that is the envy of the world.”
What “free market’ is he talking about? It is “free” only in the sense that society exercises no control over its predatory and socially destructive misallocation and misappropriation of the wealth created by the working class.
In a serious crisis, all talk about the evils of “big government” and the virtues of “self-reliance” and “private initiative” is dropped and a vast expansion of government power is carried out to intervene in the “free market” in order to rescue the financial aristocracy, with the American people footing the bill.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/obam-s19.shtml
One thing is certain, the plans to rescue Wall Street that are now being prepared with Democratic support will be paid for by working people, through the destruction of their jobs and living standards and the gutting of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and what little else remains of social benefits in America.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/obam-s19.shtml
"What “free market’ is he talking about?"
"Free Market" simply means that buyers and sellers participate freely. Government regulation of markets will simply add another consideration to those who decided whether to participate or not.
With the nationalization of corporate risk/debt, the precedent has been set. Now let us nationalize those aspects of our system that are absolutely essential to the welfare of the nation and if we are to be the nation that we claim to be or strive for. These would be the healthcare (or lack thereof), energy, water and sanitation, transportation, education, etc. (the basic infrastructure of a civilized society). These should be Public Utilities (as they have been at various times in our history).
I'm afraid the progressives have lost, you can vote, you can shout, you can scream it won't make make a blind bit of difference, the depression is coming, the poor will get poorer and the rich will legislate themselves immunity to poverty as well as enshrine their rights to get richer.
The change will happen when people start fighting in the streets (as the increasingly desperate poor will do) the anti terrorism laws will be put into full effect, private Blackwater esq security companies will employ mercenaries to "restore order", up until someone has a very public Marie Antoinette moment at which point enough people will probably think enough is enough and decide they having nothing left to lose by fighting.
Meanwhile in another country that has accidently become the worlds superpower, a lobbiest will whisper quite words and hand bundles of cash to the nations politicians stating that the world could be made an oh so much better place if corporations where given free reign.
Hearing Obama, Mccain, Palin and Biden being interviewed on the financial crisis is like seeing a pack of deer in the highlights that can pontificate while they get run over.
The media spent more time up to last week talking about Palin's lipstick and pregnant kid than on the tidal wave many saw from 100 miles out.
And when the MSM tries to explain the current financial crisis to the people they act like their talking to 7th graders.
It's pathetic.
NEW YORK - Wall Street extended a huge rally Friday as investors stormed back
into the market, relieved that the government plans to kiss it and make it well.
Egad! WE need the WPA and they offer the RTC.
An economic analyst says by buying out investment giants, the USA had transformed into the USSRA (the United Socialist State Republic of America).
"This transformation of the USA into a country where there is socialism for the rich, the well connected and Wall Street (i.e. where profits are privatized and losses are socialized) continues today with the nationalization of AIG,” Nouriel Roubini said.
The truth is becoming evident: you cannot stop the collapse of a pyramid that is rotting at the foundation by making repairs at the top. The whole 'solution' to stemming the financial collapse was a** backward from the beginning. If very early on homeowners were provided an alternative to foreclosure, either by an orderly sale of their homes, or refinancing with and extended mortgage (even 40 or 50 years, if necessary), the banks could have kept some money coming in on whatever property they held; having the owner pay SOMETHING while remaining in the home clearly would have been preferable to letting the home foreclose and rot on the lot.
That is the very FOUNDATION of the problem, which now is being realized. If the problem had been addressed sensibly on this level from the get go, any 'bailout' required would have been far less than it will be now. Regardless of who we believe was 'morally' responsible, the foundation of the problem must be fixed and/or stabilized.
The blame game at this point does not get anyone anywhere. Sensible regulation should and will no doubt be enacted, but the fire at the bottom must be put out first. New regulation can be thrashed out later. Painting the temple at the top of the pyramid simply will not work. Stabilizing mortgages at the bottom, even now, can prevent further collapse--at least where the mortgage bomb is concerned. That will help the economy in many other respects as well. Having a sturdy foundation benefits all levels of the pyramid. Those running things have so far been too stupid or foolish to admit it. On the other hand, homeowners must not be given 'free' mortgages, but to be able to continue to pay what they were paying before the increase, until other terms can be worked out, or their home sold.
This is all common sense, really, because the 'asset' (especially a home asset) is only valuable if it is taken care of.
Sorry for th double post,but I just have more to say on this..
Are any us really surprised buy this?
They know that the average man as no real power and can in the end do nothing about it..
All those profits that were made over the last 8 years will not be given back to the taxpayer.The huge multi-million bonuses paid many on Wallstreet will not be paid back.
People are losing their homes all over this country as result of their greed..
What the government is doing is keeping the well to do,well to do at our expense..
This is the purpose of government.
So Rick... Tell me, where does the power lie if the common man does not posess it?? It is not power that ordinary people lack, it is power ordinary people choose to ignore. We allow the subtleties and piecemeal handouts that a life of convenience provide all the while ignoring the prison we create around us. A prison of complacence, hypocrisy and cowardice.
We can live this life continually looking for answers and guidance from so-called "experts" and "entrenched" elites; whether in the university, Wall Street, the Pentagon or political parties. Or, we can create our own reality and define our own existence through direct, grassroots involvement in the socio-political arena of our choosing.
I would agree that the role of representative government is to act as handmaiden of the wealthy and privileged. That is precisely why the welfare state was developed. It's purpose was to establish inalienable rights for those who reserve the right of property, not to property. Remember, it was wealthy land-owning elites that catapulted the welfare state into existence. This is a fine distinction that should be understood and should provide justification for the dismissal of the welfare state or any authoritarian state with imbedded dominion tactics for that matter.
Socialism for the rich is but one expression of this plethora of usury and exploitation that Amy describes...
We cannot dismantle the so-called "master's" house with the tools that was used to build it...
The current economic crisis has roots that go back to the first real efforts in the late 1970s and 1980s by the right-wing think tanks, large domestic and international banks--including the World Bank and IMF, certain multinationals and their bought politicians, etc., to push for economic "free trade" globalism--GATT, NAFTA and WTO. This economic push was simultaneous with the spread of Milton Friedman's anti-regulatory mindset which has, for over four decades, infected too many U.S. Fed Chairmen and Secretaries of the Treasury.
Neo-liberal right-wing DLC Democrats like Robert Rubin, Joe Biden , Joe Liebermann and dinosaur Republicans like Phil Gramm, Jim Leach, Thomas Bliley, Alan Greenspan and others were key in deregulating the banking and finance industry in the late 1990s. This deregulation is the main cause of the present financial crisis.
The Republican drafted Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 was signed into law by neo-liberal, "free trade," DLC Democrat Bill Clinton. It effectively repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 that served as a post-Depression firewall against the merger of stockbrokers, commercial banks, investment banks and insurance companies.
Not giddy enough with that economic betrayal of the American people, Senator Phil Gramm shoved the Commodity Futures Modernization Act through Congress mere hours before the 2000 Christmas recess. This Act legalized mortgage swaps that distanced the originator of the loan from the ultimate collector(s).
Commercial banks, investment banks, stockbrokers, hedge funds, international banks, foreign banks, etc., all piled on to get into the debt "swap" business--using a bewildering and proliferating number of "securitization" and "debt instruments." The originators of bad loans were often separated by numerous transactions and degrees of legal responsibility from the ultimate collectors or "owners" of mortgages that were often traded in huge blocs of serial numbered mortgages using Enron-style, Arthur Anderson pseudo-accounting and off balance sheets operations.
To quote Mike Whitney (http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney09152008.html):
"Securitization has failed. The cuts to the Fed's Funds rate have failed. The auction facilities -- TAF, PDCF, and TSLF -- have all failed. The off-balance sheets operations, the debt-pyramiding asset-inflation, the Enron-style accounting, the SIVs, the CP, MBS, CDOs, have failed. The subprimes, the piggybacks, the option-ARMs, the Alt-As have all failed. Structured finance has failed. The system doesn't work; won't work; can't work. It's built on the misguided assumption that capitalism can thrive without capital; that one dollar can be infinitely magnified by complex debt-instruments and mega-leveraging to generate real wealth and keep the wheels of finance and industry humming along. It can't be done. The system is under-water."
Friedman devotee, Alan Greenspan, at the Federal Reserve catalyzed this process into fiscal suicide by repeatedly lowering interest rates--an unprecedented 17 times in a row. Artificially cheap loans. This predictably, nay, inevitably incited dubious loan originators into providing unsustainable volumes of lending to questionable borrowers. And it also incited larger scale "debt swappers" to sell and launder this straw debt to any suckers--domestic or international--they could hook. This is where our deregulated domestic financial institutions took advantage of the "free trade" push for deregulation of international banking and "more open markets." Part of the hook was to encourage suckers to sell this bad debt further on down the line around the world to more suckers. More distance from loan origination to loan collector or guarantor. Remember Orwell? War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength? Add: Debt is Profit.
A Titanic global web of bad debt and various market instruments that were traded as bets on how that inherently unsustainable debt (and the rate of new lending based on the initial Fed-rates-abetted deregulatory pyramid scheme) would perform over time soon blossomed and then grew monstrous. Who cared if a questionable borrower was not qualified or if the appraisal of some property value was inflated, so long as the debt was "swapped" away, or insured by suckers down the transaction line, before some future foreclosure? All the bankrollers and their legislative backers planned to bail long before the housing bubble burst. Phil "Americans are Whiners" Gramm is now filthy rich and unaccountable. I wonder how much of his personal wealth is tied to this bad debt and at what level of the game...
The Fed did their part in all this for political, economic and neo-conservative "national security" reasons not all of which were directly related to the mortgage market. The inflated housing market created the politically useful pretense of a legitimate "growth economy" that, in fact, wasn't producing true middle-class economic growth and hadn't since the end of the techno-bubble in 2000. This pretense was critical to maintain in an increasingly false economy with historically unprecedented tax cuts for the super-rich during war-time featuring multiple, open-ended war expenditures. By 2002 Team Bush, our true ruling Oligarchs and their members in Congress were relying more and more on loans from creditor nations not just for federal government operating money but war financing as well.
And here's the end of the gang plank: China, our biggest creditor, holds about a fifth of its currency reserves in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt. The U.S. has now been revealed as a straw economy with a plunging dollar that will fall with the value attached to those Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac assets by Treasury Secretary Paulsen and the Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke when they were nationalized. This means the pressure is on China to cut the portion of its currency reserves that it holds in dollars. Other foreign investors and central banks are under the same pressure to limit their purchases of US Treasury bills and securities.
Pt II:
Without the foreigners to lend us sufficient operating money, and with a tax policy straight out of the 1880s Gilded Age during war-time no less, the U.S. government is overdue for a revenue crisis that will be TRAUMATIC to 98% of Americans. Our national priorities have been backwards for 28 years. They are about to be redefined perforce and there is not thing one any politician, image consultant, banker or network news hack can do about it at this late date except spew increasingly obvious nonsense.
The domestic U.S. economy no longer manufactures any big ticket export items in large numbers besides weapons and weapons systems. Under Duhhbya we don't even create enough service wage jobs for all the people entering the economy. Our winner-take-all laissez-faire ruling class has hogged the soaring profits from the multiplier effect on worker productivity created by the computerization of the workplace that took place in the 1990s. All the national wealth is now over-concentrated at the top of the class structure. Wages for 60% of workers have been relatively stagnant for over ten years. Secure pensions and jobs are a thing of the past. Unemployment is rising with inflation and both will soon soar.
Because of all of the above, our real economy now is dangerously dependent upon maintaining a certain level of consumer spending. As credit tightens for strapped consumers whose middle-class industrial jobs are gone with the "free trade" wind, inflation sinks its teeth, the dollar falls, unemployment climbs, more banks and other financial institutions implode and a new Resolution Trust Corporation tries to swallow the un-swallowable--consumer spending will constrict along with the already depressive economy into what may quickly become a vicious cycle. There will be a lack of adequate income for consumers on one hand, and a lack of adequate revenue to repay government debt (and continue to operate the government AND pay for multiple wars that still have no end in sight) on the other. First will come increasingly histrionic Republican attempts to destroy Social Security and what's left of the Welfare State. Then the U.S. may be forced to withdraw from some or all of Bush's wars prematurely with endgames as botched, bloody and potentially costly as Bush's occupations.
Congressional Ways and Means and Appropriations Committee Chairpersons will scream in anguish and plead for help from the world's banks who will first scoff at our regressive tax policies. Either the super-rich and their tenders in the upper-middle class will submit to late 1940s (immediate post-WWII) levels of taxation, or we will be unable to sustain our annual $500 Billion dollar defense budgets, Medicare or any other large expenditure of note. A lot of deeply indoctrinated Republicans who are not rich are about to gain a new and very personal perspective on economics. Hopefully, neo-conservatism will be swept away along with the DLC.
Kruschev said, "Sell the capitalists enough rope and they will hang themselves with it." Former KGB man Putin and the old Maoists in the Chinese government must barely be able to keep from bursting out laughing when dealing with Team Bush these days. Older Brits who remember the fall of their empire (and they were much better at it than we ever will be) must be averting their eyes from us in shame.
As a former old Brit, I can tell you the end as we know it is just around the corner!
And to think you guys thought that universal healthcare was socialist and un-American, just look at how this govt is intervening in everything you touch.
You didn't know how good you've had it for so long. Now is the time for retribution (right-sizing). Pity you didn't learn from history - all Empires fall eventually. Maybe History in high schools should be MANDATORY, as well as FINANCES and GEOGRAPHY. McCain thinking Spain was in S.America!!! Please. I would have expected that from a red-neck but from a future President? It only gets better, doesn't it...
Good luck to you, mates!
I just read that "Bush administration wants hundreds of billions, new powers ASAP to attack financial crisis".
HELLS NO.
Please tell your friends to call all of your legislators and tell them they better not authorize anything. This is Shock Doctrine: Let things fall apart and then do an "emergency" transfer of billions with no regulations to the super wealthy under the guise of saving the economy.
HELLS NO. Let the bastards go under. Confiscate their property under RICO.
If there is economic rescue to be done, use the money for directly helping those who are being thrown out of work or are losing their homes.
If we give them more taxpayer money they will continue in their ways and dig us into a deeper hole. I would rather give money to the wino on the corner than to these guys.
Joe
Anybody have any idea how many Americans who are registered to vote, are registered as either a democrat, a republican, an Independent a Green, a Libertarian etc?
I guess if the American people favor one party or another en masse, it kinda diminishes with the theory that you can run under another ticket and have any hope on Sams Hill to win.
I was just thinking the other day that politics has gained a certain pseudo marriage with religion. They both seem to represent a system of belief that should be separated from administration. It seems that today we have the catholics(Republicans) and the (protestants) Democrats of old battling it out for representation of a totally corrupted church(government)
People should not be voting on such personal and biased beliefs. They should vote on which candidate can serve all of America.
sanda writes "Third party candidates push the party/parties for change, but it does not appear that the way it does so is by having folks vote for them. It didn't in 2000, did it?"
The reasons it didn't in 2000 are that
a) not enough people pulled third party levers
b) the Dems successfully placed the "spoiler" label on Nader so that his ideas, positions, etc. were not even considered.
If progressives had the same "courage of their convictions" as the right wing does, we would have a progressive Dem candidate. The Dem leadership knows that to adopt truly progressive positions would be to kiss their corporate funders goodbye. As long as they are confident that they can keep the votes of their erstwhile base no matter what they do, they don't have to go progressive. The way to keep those votes is to a) engage in the politics of fear (e.g. "think of the Supreme Court!") b) totally smear any progressive opposition, e.g Nader, as "spoiler". Put a and b together and, Voila! you have the TINA syndrome I keep hearing over and over again.
If the Dems were as concerned about answering to their base as the Reps are about theirs, Kucinich would be the VP candidate. But the Dems have calculated that, when all is said and done, their base does indeed seem to be a bunch of "whiners" who, after complaining about things on sites such as this, will, nonetheless, pull the Dem lever in November, if they vote at all. This dynamic has been "working" for the Dem party for well over a decade; the corporate Dems,, even if they don't win the big enchilada, nevertheless keep control of the party and all the perks that go along with it.
Nothing of significance will change until progressives refuse to go along any more. We don't have to "win" this election, all we have to do is vote in numbers significant enough so that we cannot be marginalized any more. When the Dems did their big Nader smear in '00, they waited to see if it would work in '04, and must have breathed an enormous sigh of relief when the Nader numbers grew smaller instead of bigger. If too many of us hadn't chickened out (marching in NY in '03, then voting for pro war Kerry in '04?!), the Dems would have either amped up their attacks on Nader (we see the residual here, often enough) or come up with a better candidate (I have never seen a serious claim that Obama is "anti-corporate"). If we chicken out again, as too many of us will probably do, we will have lost another opportunity, as we did in '96 (post NAFTA), '00 (post Seattle) and '04 (post war). So here we are post FISA, bailout, Trade, you name it, all of which are screwing us royally and all of which are promoted by both parties - and once again we are being scared into voting Dem. Good Grief! We progressives may have our hearts in the right place, but apparently we are an easily frightened lot and as soon as the party line goes in gear, we lose our courage and our convictions and fall into lock step again.
Pt 2
Every time the Dems screw progressives (which, if you look at public opinion on the major ISSUES, includes most of us), and things get worse and worse, I keep thinking, "Maybe next time we'll have figured it out." But, nope, we chicken out again and then, whenever the "electable" Dems fail to mount anything resembling even a credible opposition, let alone a decent program, bitch about NADER not forming a third party! Third party of whom? All you folks who claim progressive positions and aspirations but won't vote for the guy who embodies them for no other reason than that the MSM has drummed into your head "He can't win!" Give me a break! Is there ANY progressive out there you would vote for if the MSM said "(S)he can't win"? Conversely, is there ANY jackass out there you would eliminate even though the MSM had declared him/her one of the 2 "electable" candidates? All the folks who decry the MSM as a bunch of spinmeisters, seem, nevertheless, to grant it great credibility when it comes to determining who's "electable", never mind failing to question whether "electability" is a better criterion than who has the best ideas.
I weep for the progressive agenda as too many of us who promote it oratorically sabotage it electorally. Sorry folks, but we deserve the government we put and keep in office. Vote for what you want, not for what somebody else, with their corporate agenda, has told you is the best you can get. Face it, for all the reasons that we are well aware of, NO real progressive will EVER have the mantle of "electability" bestowed on him/her by the MSM and, what is really frosting my cookies these days is that far too many of our so-called progressive media and gurus have fallen in line with this "thinking", or rather lack thereof. Good Heavens! Betrayed by our own "spokespeople"!
If you detect a note of exasperation in this post which, I am sure, will be criticized as being less than courteous or tolerant, it is because I have been seeing this unfold, predictably, for too long and am seeing it in the process of happening again. This political scene is like the movie "Groundhog Day" - I just don't know how far along in the movie we are - how many more repetitions do we need before we get it right? And, perhaps more importantly, will we have a chance to "get it right" before time runs out and we won't be able to get anything at all? I express my exasperation because I want you to share it for the simple reason that I understand that, too often, "reasoned discourse" of the kind that is promoted here, and, rightfully, valued, is, sadly, too often not enough to convince us that, faced with "insurmountable" odds, we must, nonetheless, fight the good fight. Reason, or at least what passes for it, is, apparently, not enough to overcome the "unelectable" label, once it has been attached, and yet that is precisely what must be overcome if we are to make any real progress. How "reasonable" was the American Revolution? Were they fools to freeze their hemorrhoids off at Valley Forge? What if they had quit because they "didn't have a chance of winning"? Why are we not ashamed of ourselves for being such unworthy heirs?
If, as they say, you are not angry at the political establishment of BOTH "major" parties, then it is because you are either dead or not paying attention. And if you ARE angry and want something better, not just "less bad", then, for pete's sake, VOTE for it, regardless of "the odds". If you really like Obama, or McCain and think that either has the best ideas for how to progress, that's fine and we can argue that, but, frankly, I am driven to distraction, as you can tell, by those who won't vote for a candidate whose analysis and ideas they agree are the best because (s)he is - "unelectable".
Nader is on the ballot in 45 states, which have enough electoral votes to produce a Pres. Do you want what he stands for or not? If you do, you will NOT get it with either McCain OR Obama as is increasingly clear.
(PS - this post is NOT directed at sanda, who, for all I know, may agree with me - or not. The "you" and "we" I keep using are generic. I posted this stuff here because the question sanda included - "It didn't in 2000, did it?" - prompted me to answer, and once I got started, the rest "came of itself", as it were.)