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Pitchforks and Protests: The Fury Down Below
Will Public Anger With The Ongoing Rip-off Have An Impact?
It took a little time but the American public is in a state of growing fury, looking for who is to blame for their declining economic fortunes. It's being called a "populist fury."
Jon Stewart has a hilarious graphic of angry citizens armed with sticks moving across his TV screen to represent the protests he knows will be coming. Three million marchers in France this past week can't be all wrong. What has been someone else's crisis is now everyone's problem and the public is pissed off.
Some government officials are dismissive.
Of AIG, Lawrence Summers, Obama's top economic adviser quipped, "The easy thing would be to just say... off with their heads... "
He added, "AIG's hands are tied."
How does he know? The last time I looked, he wasn't a lawyer or a judge. In fact, glib comments are far easier than analysis of this catastrophe. At any rate, those AIG bonuses are only small part of a bigger rip-off.
The wisemen pundits of the press have joined in to pacify the public. Yes, it's bad, they say, but put down those pitch forks, ha ha, there's nothing you can do.
Here's financial columnist Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post:
"We're angry. We're frustrated. We feel cheated and abused. We're not going to take it anymore.But then again, we don't have much choice, do we? Sure, we can demand that a few more heads roll on Wall Street, or at the Treasury, or that a few hundred million are clawed back from financiers who never deserved it. But the reality is that no matter what we do now, tens of trillions of dollars in wealth have been lost. All that's left is simply an elaborate exercise in settling up the accounts."
Accept, Accept, Accept, counsels this wise man.
Some in the industry are starting to quake. "Several industry executives, observing the pressure being exerted on AIG and other big banks, say they are worried about joining in government efforts to rescue the financial system in the newly charged political environment. ‘Am I afraid of the populist outrage? Yes,' said Lynn Tilton, chief executive of Patriarch Capital, a private-equity firm that has weighed making such an investment."
Others are afraid for more than their capital. One AIG executive told a reporter he had been threatened and that even his kids had been abused. A few weeks back, Bill Maher publicly praised the Chinese government's way of dealing with corporate criminals. They shoot them, he said approvingly. Ponzi purveyor Bernie Madoff had attracted stalkers outside his former penthouse prison with signs that said "JUMP."
Now, the financial Times reports, "US federal regulators have warned of a ‘rampant Ponzimonium' as they disclosed they are investigating hundreds' of possible scams in the aftermath of the $50bn fraud allegedly perpetrated by Bernard Madoff."
The New York Times has predictably put down the outrage, noting, "Some people are vengeful, calling for jail, public humiliation or even revolution over the decision by A.I.G. to award $165 million in bonuses to employees who were in part responsible for the insurance giant's near collapse - though few go as far as Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who has suggested that company executives should ‘resign or go commit suicide.'" The outspoken Grassley later said he overspoke and then denounced companies sucking on the "tit of the taxpayer."
The LA Times report that a cultural shift is underway with the notion that the wealthy are not worthy is catching on:
"With financial crisis and scandal as backdrop, Americans are questioning whether plutocrats are either indispensable or deserving.'We may soon come around to George Orwell's view that the only difference between rich and poor is income - ‘The average millionaire,' as he put it, ‘is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit.'
There's also a social value in suppressing income inequality. In a country with only a slightly less ingrained tradition of civility than the United States, the AIG affair would provoke rioting in the streets.
Robert Shiller, a Yale University economist and coauthor of ‘Animal Spirits,' a new book about the psychology of economics, comments on the current crisis: ‘there's anger and a sense of injustice taking hold, and it's not in the interest of wealthy people -- you don't want people on the poor side of town to be angry with you.'"
Yet, who are the real "animals?" The victims of the collapse or the profiteers?
The US government is preparing for real unrest as incomes and homes disappear. New laws have been passed to curb civil unrest. Michel Chossudovsky writes on Global Reseach on plans to set up Guantanamo-like detention centers on military bases:
"The outgoing administration has laid the groundwork. Various pieces of ‘anti-terrorist' legislation (including the Patriot Acts) and presidential directives have been put in place since 2001, largely using the pretext of the ‘Global War on Terrorism.;A bill entitled the National Emergency Centers Establishment Act (HR 645) was introduced in the US Congress in January. It calls for the establishment of six national emergency centers in major regions in the US to be located on existing military installations.
The stated purpose of the ‘national emergency centers' is to provide ‘temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster.' In actuality, what we are dealing with are FEMA internment camps. HR 645 states that the camps can be used to ‘meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security.'
There has been virtually no press coverage of HR 645."
In England, some anarchists are calling for class war saying the only way to stay warm in a financial crisis is to "burn a banker." The British government is taking this rhetoric seriously and reportedly put the Army on alert for an expected "summer of rage."
Overall expect more crime, protests and unrest. It doesn't take a weatherman to see which way this wind is blowing.
The challenge of course is that most activists are no clearer on a comprehensive program for change than the politicians, the business world or the media. Republicans are focusing their fire on Tim Geithner, who they perceive as the weak link in Obama's chain. Democrats are bashing business and each other, as is often the case. There seems to be no extra-Congressional opposition/movement to challenge all the finger pointing.
We need a serious plan for the public to rally behind, a set of demands that make sense. We are in a whole new period with an enraged public ready to act. How do we avoid descending into empty slogans, conspiracy distractions and a blame game to target "irresponsible borrowers," or that old standby that the Jewish cabal of bankers or whoever else seems most blameworthy?
Don't think these issues will go away. Will political activists be able to rise to the occasion?
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Show All04.25.09 http://EndTheFed.us
Yes, that is what we must do. End the Fed. Repeal the Federal Reserve Act and put our monetary system under control by Congress and the Treasury Dept. as it should me according to our Constitution. We need to control our money and not borrow from the bastard private bankers of the Federal Reserve. The money is backed by us, the taxpayers. Why the hell should we borrow our money from them and pay them interest on it? We need to set limits to usury.
Bailout the banksters? No!! Let the market take care of it. Bankrupt banks get closed not given more money to steal from us. End the Fed. Reregulate the banks and put our monetary system in government hands.
WW III started on 9/11. THEY (the financiers, the corporatists, the globalists, the USA and the shadowy lingering British and Roman empires) started it. Now, we (the common people, with dreams stolen, fettered and shackled to THEIR economy) have to finish it.
Power to ALL protests and protesters, the world over.
Put a finish to the ones who did this. Finish them. For good.
Or the earth will finish all of us...
'nuff said.
Seems right to me!
"We need a serious plan for the public to rally behind, a set of demands that make sense."
I would argue we need to at least come to some kind of consensus as to what the fundamental--emphasis on fundamental--problems are for what ails our society (and others across the globe) before a serious plan can be set.
http://www.perfecteconomy.com/
There is no way to Peace. Peace is the Way.
Yet another writing from some sort of parallel America, one where over 60% of the citizens aren't obese, lazy, dumbed way down, drugged way up, disconnected, and, deep down, just as greedy as Madoff, AIG, and nearly every politician sucking off the lobbyist tit.
Think the big boys are scared? Is that why they continue to brazenly steal billions without even pausing to hiccup? Aside from some angry words and a few diehards walking around in circles with a silly sign, they know they ain't got nothing to worry about because We The Taxpayers are a pacified, divided joke lacking even a minor league King or Hoffman or Hayden to lead any sort of significant charge...
"We The Taxpayers are a pacified, divided joke lacking even a minor league King or Hoffman or Hayden to lead any sort of significant charge..."
So... you're suggesting that self-interest has replaced the public morality of the principles & ideals of freedom at just about every level in society?
...citizens...deep down, just as greedy as Madoff, AIG
Unfortunately, this mentality is all too true. Somehow, people who ought to know better think that it is okay to make money off other people's backs and think that the "ruling class" has somehow earned it all. There are many that believe like JTP they too can be rich and powerful "one" day.
...pacified, divided joke lacking even a minor league King or Hoffman or Hayden to lead any sort of significant charge.
This is another instance of the slave mentality - waiting for a king to lead them. As a Republican observed recently, guerilla tactics work just as well to instigate social change.
It's about time that the public woke up to the fact that we've been getting robbed for the last 30 years. I was a young woman in the 60s and the present loss of buying power is way understated. A single wage earner supported an entire family back then. Of course we didn't have all the high tech gadgets and families generally had one car and one TV. But your job covered all your family health care costs, a bag of groceries cost $5 and you could buy a house for under $10,000. Most of our national wealth was in the middle class. There was plenty of injustice in those times, but destroying the middle class wasn't one of them.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
BeForKids: Excellent post! Right to the point!
Things started to get out of hand in the 70's, when the rich and powerful pooled some of their fortunes and created "think tanks" and hired some very good scholars and public relations specialists to write books, magazine articles, newspaper editorials, travel the lecture circuit, host talk radio shows, and later, with cable television, have their own propaganda programs. All with the intent of undermining Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal" and the progressive legislation of Lyndon B. Johnson. (Aside from invading Vietnam, which was totally unjustifiable, LBJ became a progressive President.)
The so-called "conservatives" who call themselves Republicans, are actually "reactionaries," because they react negatively to every piece of legislation that doesn't benefit the rich and the super-rich. For the most part, the Democrats are the same, throwing the masses a few tidbits now and then to prevent a "people's revolution" from happening, being overthrown and maybe worse. With almost forty years of propaganda of this nature, the overwhelming majority became lethargic and apathetic to fight for honesty and openness of public servants~that's ALL they are~from the President on down to the lowest elected official~who usually don't listen to their constituents anyway, in a meaningful way.
In the beginning of the 20th Century, the Sherman Anti-Trust Laws were put in place to protect the public from the corporate monopolies of the capitalist class from gouging the public and manipulating prices. For the most part, they worked, and when Reagan became president, he looked the other way, and it has been getting worse ever since.
Has the Obama and the Democratic Party majority the will to start rescinding all the illegal laws the Bush/Cheney Crime Family passed in the last eight years, starting with the Patriot Act, a direct violation of the US Constitution? Write your Congress critter and Senators, and see if they are willing to do so. Ten to one, they'll tell you about terrorist threats and the all that nonsense.
As a nation, we have a lot of soul-searching to do as to why we let the situation get out of control, because we are fast becoming a third world country with no middle class, the backbone of society.
We need a serious plan for the public to rally behind, a set of demands that make sense.
Goal: Create an economy based on real wealth.
Here are some concrete steps:
1. Change the system to reward production and the immediate management of such production.
2. Restrict the lowest paid and highest paid jobs in an organization to a ratio of 12-16:1. (I am perfectly happy to explain how the 12-16 comes about if people are interested. I have posted on the topic earlier on CD and HuffPo).
3. Take over the Federal Reserve - all monies guaranteed by the US people should be created by them instead of paying interest to the Fed.
4. Decrease the size of the finance industry - it should only exist to grease the wheels of the economy. In essence, no multi million dollars jobs for pushing paper around.
5. Regulate the stock market and investment as gambling. Further, ensure asset to debt ratio is around 1:1 for such organizations.
As I've come across the word "concrete" along with similar words--it usually comes down to the concreteness of appealing to people’s self-interest. Isn't that what got us into this mess?
The above plan actually aligns the interests of most of the individuals with that of the collective. It is in their self-interest to support it. However, the problem is many still believe that they can be rich and powerful "one" day at the expense of others, which is what got us into the mess.
Without any policy changes, we can immediately implement the fixed ratio concept - CostCo already does this with a ration of 14:1. People can also move towards doing business only with such organizations.
We can move towards a real wealth economy without government intervention too, but that requires steady evangelization over time.
"The above plan actually aligns the interests of most of the individuals with that of the collective."
Well,...if you say so. What I see here is merely a laundry list of specific goals--as if the problem all along was the lack of this list and not the ability to achieve what's on it.
And I'm guessing the numbers are bible passages.
Or lotto numbers.
as if the problem all along was the lack of this list and not the ability to achieve what's on it.
And I'm guessing the numbers are bible passages.
Or lotto numbers.
So you focus on the specific representation of ideas instead of substance. Further, you conveniently ignore the points about us having the ability to create social businesses or businesses with an egalitarian streak, and providing people with alternate views that can help address the systemic issues.
The list enumerates a few things - it's a start.
Hmmm, it would be nice if my lotto number picks would actually win something.
"So you focus on the specific representation of ideas instead of substance."
That's the first time I've heard our principles and ideals referred to as that--but I don't think you're alone with regard to this view. Which may be the problem.
As for those numbers--best of luck with that.
Sioux Rose
T.S. Good recipe. I would include a #6, essentially a means to lessen unemployment with a back-to-work program aimed at greening American technology and infra-structure.
Excellent. Run this by Senator Franken. He's new and he's not buyable.
what helps now is to
i) publicize non-stop which are the great fortunes that demoblicans are trying to save with their wolf calls about "saving the financial system";
ii) denounce the owners of these fortunes as members of a self-anointed neo-feudal class who can do no wrong, and with individual names and net worths (but no addresses though; and no, nobody in this farce wants to save "the banks" or "WS", how can anybody be so naive and fall for such an obfuscation!);
iii) convince the public that the bailout money should be used to jump-start the economy directly with or w/o the co-operation of WS and private banks; and
iv) make sure that Obama and the demoblicans are confronted at every stop with questions about who are the specific *individuals* who would benefit personally most if the financial system is "saved" and why exactly these special *individuals* deserve so badly to be saved at a price of billions of dollars each.
changing the public's mood and informational sophistication will give Obama the freedom to move in the right direction. he is smart, he does not want to be a martyr and go down in flames in front of a passive audience.
so let's stop complaining about WS, the banks, and the great leader's lack of leadership and vision. let's make sure the citizenry understands where Obama should go and why and that it starts demanding it and loudly so.
we should ask the citizenry, e.g., if it really wants that the randolphs' billions in derivatives be purchased from them by the taxpayers at face value "to save the financial system"... !?
Ah! some guerilla tactics here.
we should ask the citizenry, e.g., if it really wants that the randolphs' billions in derivatives be purchased from them by the taxpayers at face value "to save the financial system"... !?
The real question is we have to ask the citizenry whether they are willing to go back 30 years in the development scale, for the US to give up its dominant economic status, and its military superpower status.
If the citizens are okay with the above, we can then ask them the question about the derivatives.
The last time the plutocrats got the people this riled-up someone shot the Archduke. Heckuva job.
It took a little time but the American public is in a state of growing fury, looking for who is to blame for their declining economic fortunes . . .
What is the majority of the American people so angry about? Beginning with Nixon, they voted in the gangsters, thimblerigs and pickpockets who have destroyed, and are destroying, their way of life. So what are they so angry about? Is it that they have finally realized how foolish they've been to believe the Republicans and the Democrats? I include myself.
To some degree at least, they should be mad at themselves for being such gullible fools.
And they probably are, if they are honest, and I suppose that makes them all the madder.
Is this an explosive cocktail?
All that is lacking in this situation is a 1980 Lech Walesa like figure to climb the proverbial gate and assume leadership. When and if that happens, the Wall Street douche bags and their banking and corporate cronies would have real cause to be scared.
nate if i may - let me suggest that obama is no lech walesa
surrounded as he is by wall street insiders, many of whom authored the financial deregulation laws, is it any wonder that he is giving all our cash to wall street
no explanation - they can't even tell us what if anything we are going to achieve in bailing out these rotten institutions
now aig is suing to reclaim 385 million in taxes they have previously paid
talk about chutzpah
there is no shame in this crowd
as we get cleaned out by the wall street sharks - as the author points out - the bankers are ready for the much-too-late fallout of civil unrest
fema prisons
generally, people are too stupid to follow the conversation around credit swaps and the like - thanks to a rockefeller controlled education none of us can think in complexity
our abstractions are dull and the stuff of gruel
this is a by product of 1 million hours of watching corporate tv
your breath stinks, your armpits are rody, your skin blanched
lose weight
get a hard on
choose the right suitcase
we are automatons
cramming macdonald's shit down our throats
no healthcare
sick and ailing on so many levels
we are being played like cheap fiddles and we are being fucked like cheap whores
it shouldn't be too hard for blackwater and dynecorps hired mercenaries to shoot the best of us and intern the rest of us
they've had a lot of practice over there is iraq and afghanistan - soon to be pakistan
led by the no shill obama
welcome to the fascist states of america
the day has finally arrived
And yet, driving around town, things LOOK normal.
Where IS all that rage?
Of course the elites are not scared, we're all out consuming (still).
POWER TO THE SHEEPLE !! BWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAA!! Nobody is going to do squat if it means missing the next installment of Lost or Survivor. Were all fucked and we know it.
We need another tax a sales tax for every transaction that takes place on wall street and an immediate tax on their winnings
Rep. Welsh from Vermont tried to get this in numerous times and always gets shot down but you are right. We could track everything they do this way as well.
I think the invasion of privacy of the current federal government is troubling enough. What kind of perverts did Bush let snoop on fellow Americans through the wiretapping and other un-Constitutional activities? It continues -- Obama switched songs and supported FISA. Some change there. But at that point of wanting to "track everything they do," why not just install video cameras in microphones in every house, car and office they own?
If these crooks were prosecuted for fraud for printing money out of thin air and creating credit via fractional reserve banking, then we wouldn't worry about playing catch-up with some punitive taxation. Of course, then the government tax collectors wouldn't have jobs, and the politicians wouldn't be able to reap the loot of inflationary fiat money, so better to stomp & storm about AIG getting $170M in bonuses -- which is 1 penny out of every $10 that Congress voted for them last fall to do with as they wish.
Yeah, I see that about the HR 645 of which I was unaware of until now and hopefully obama will not sign this one and there will not be enough 'political elite' to override a veto. The bill that concerned me most is the HR 1955 bill which I don't believe is law yet and hopefully obama will not sign either. Hopefully all
"""The outgoing administration has laid the groundwork. Various pieces of ‘anti-terrorist' legislation (including the Patriot Acts) and presidential directives have been put in place since 2001, largely using the pretext of the ‘Global War on Terrorism."""
this will not be used by obama or congress.
But is it not all too obvious as to what is the meaning here? The criminals who created this mess and benefitted from it know all too well the turmoil that will be created and they wanted all these 'anti' directives, bills and any other excuse available to further separate us the peasants from those crooks who stole the money and still want to kick people out of their homes just because they cannot find a job to pay the bills so they can live the 'free life' while the others will live the life of a prisoner in for life. Yeah, I can see where people will get pretty upset with that.
And, this is most obvious: """There has been virtually no press coverage of HR 645."""
Why would there be, those media 'elite' want us to be surprised with what those that will eventually revolt will encounter. Things the complicit MSM don't report or distort it so that one isn't sure what was just run past them. Exactly what I would expect by a MSM that is owned and controlled by 4 or 5 neoconservative 'keepers of the truth' or 'orwell's ministry of truth'. Obama really needs to direct his attention to this part of our country, force break up of the neoconservative hold on the information needed for this country to function as a democracy.
And then, there is the urgent need to put the strictest of regulations, oversight, tranparency and accountability on the lobbyists that have been bribing congress for I guess the beginning of time. It is bribery, it is illegal and those members of congress involved need to be investigated also.
Finally, letting those 'too big to fail' to go ahead and fail so as to redo all that they were allowed to get away with in their criminal enterprises. This especially means the termination of the Federal Reserve and/or any other central banking ventures in this country. I really feel if these areas are attended to and action taken, then the effects of this financial crisis will be lessened sooner.
Unfortunately, one of the worst tendencies of Congress (not just this one, but most) is that it doesn't want to repeal bad legislation. It may want to tinker around the edges of existing law, but, it simply does not readily admit bone-crushingly stupid mistakes--either its own or those of its predecessors--and that's a severe hindrance to getting the necessary changes in place.
AIG could not have put itself in the mess it's in had Glass-Steagall mostly repealed in 1999, because under that law, insurers could not dabble in the sort of exotic securities sales and exchanges that it actively sought after passage of Gramm-Leach-Bliley.
Most of the large banks in trouble now are in that fix because of trading in the very instruments that the Commodity Futures Modernization prohibited the government from either regulating or overseeing.
These were laws that the financial industry lobbied--expensively--to obtain, and Congress was willing to go along, because it meant continued lavish campaign contributions (and access to wealth via the revolving door), despite the fact that those laws and others were just plain dumb, dumb, dumb. Any idiot could see the end effect of implementing them.
The very obvious solution would be to junk them, begin enforcing once again the laws that do work and get back to a regulatory structure that effectively prevents high finance from behaving like a four-year-old with multiple credit cards in Toys `R Us. Because, given the opportunity, they always will.
Too, the administration isn't helping these changes along. The great fear within the administration, I think, is that because the financial services industry is now 21-22% of GDP, fully a fifth of the economy today, that causing big contractions in it will cause big contractions in the economy--i.e., there's nothing left to replace its "output." That's a misperception, leading to an error. Much of high finance didn't actually create wealth--it simply extracted existing wealth from the rest of society and concentrated it in the hands of a very few--the actual added value going into the computations of GDP was, as we've seen in the last year, entirely fictitious.
That, combined with the perception that the very few people causing the meltdown are the only ones capable of understanding it and fixing it, is at the root of the problem, I think. Whether Obama realizes it or not at this point, he's not being served well by people who sincerely believe that restoring Wall Street to its previous splendiferous glory will be good for the economy. It will just be good for the numbers that make up the GDP, and that's another misperception--that GDP and overall economic health are the same thing. If we use artificial standards--including the fatcats buying and selling pockets of hot air to each other--to calculate economic health, we will, inevitably, get results that don't reflect reality.
I don't know quite how to change this. Repeating common sense seems to have no impact, and telling Congressmen to fix their mistakes as a futile as trying to convince penguins they can fly. Short of forcibly defenestrating the Masters of the Universe to make a point, we're not likely to see effective change nearly soon enough.
"Much of high finance didn't actually create wealth--it simply extracted existing wealth from the rest of society and concentrated it in the hands of a very few--the actual added value going into the computations of GDP was, as we've seen in the last year, entirely fictitious."
This cannot be emphasized enough -- the extraction of existing wealth from the rest of society -- simply by declaring a piece of paper to have value because its value "derives" from that of an "underlying asset", and then buying and selling these pieces of paper as though they were some kind of real capital like a house or a factory or a machine or a pile of aluminum ore. They were, and are, simply buying and selling pieces of paper at a profit or loss -- AND THAT IS ALL IT IS. It is preposterous, fraudulent and simply astounding that taxpayers are now expected to cover the losses on these pieces of paper backed by NOTHING except an "agreement" that they have wealth because some other real asset has wealth. Astounding.
I have referred to the sites below several times and will again.
Since 1982, when Reagan gave tax breaks to the rich, wealth has continued to trickle up (or surge up). In 2004, 1% of the people in this country had 34.3% of the wealth. The next 9% had 36.9%; the next 10% had 13.4%. The poorest 80% of people (that's most of us) had only 15.3%.
The number are available at the Economic Policy Institute.
http://www.epi.org/
They have been put into pie chart form (along with other disgusting numbers) at:
http://www.inequality.org/
Click on "By the Numbers" and page through the charts.
The Bush tax cuts have allowed more money to move upward:
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines06/0405-12.htm
The Economic Policy Institute has a series of books "The State of Working America" for different years. Excerpts from the books are available at the site.
The skewed, obscene distribution of wealth in this country undermines the middle class and destroys the poor. It also gives an inordinate amount of power to a handful of people. They control policy and much of the media. It has become difficult to know what or who to believe.
Conservatives have accused Obama of wanting to redistribute the wealth. I certainly hope this is true. If he tries, however, he will be hit with the power of the elite. I begin to fear for him.
Any plan that is going to work would have to contain at least some element of surprise, as the corporatist elites will be more than ready for a simple frontal political assault. They have their corporate media to back up the right wing media to turn populist rage against the policies that might help the common people. And they obviously are getting their detention centers ready for those who are not so easily manipulated.
Glenn Beck and Chuck Norris were recently fantasizing about populist armed uprisings, and mused about militias in Texas working to help Texas break free of the US. In response to those who call for some out-of-the-box thinking, possibly clever leftist propagandists could take advantage of the momentum created by the rabble-rousing of the far right, and start pushing for a constitutional amendment to partially break up the US (as a famous Russian professor recently predicted), turning it more into a loose federation, maybe something like the EU, that would allow each state to be sovereign and to determine virtually all policies that would apply in the state. That could appeal to those on the right and the left. It would have the added benefit of providing beautiful irony, with a fair amount of symmetry, as a man who is identified as African-American and who claims to use Lincoln as a model and often tries to be associated with Lincoln could preside over the break-up that Lincoln worked so hard to prevent.
A loose federation would provide for more local control, breaking up a federal system that the common people long ago lost control over, and would shake up the economic and financial system to the point (i.e. some of the neoliberals' magical creative destruction) that any number of new possibilities would arise. And last, but not least, a fractured US could not continue to terrorize the weak and vulnerable nations around the world.
There may be only a small chance that such a movement could gain enough momentum quickly enough to catch the corporatists so unprepared they could not harness the means to stop it, but maybe a small chance is all we have. It is one option, an off-the-wall out-of-right-field one, but one option anyway.
My Great, Great Grandfather faught to keep the union together and I will do the same against all susstionist!!!
Re-asserting the 10th Amendment would be a great place to start, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
One place to steer clear of the EU example is monetary policy. Relying on one state-issued fiat currency backed by force of legal tender laws spells the same fate as the current Federal Reserve System -- namely, concentration of power in the hands of central banksters.
Federal Reserve system has more power than the EU setup. Done right, the Fed Reserve system is better, done wrong...
The Fed exists to inflate (increase) the money supply. The new dollars created out of thin air depress (decrease) the value of the existing dollars in your pocket. But it doesn't happen instantly.
First, the banksters, who created the paper, and the politicians, who back the paper by force, get to spend it. They enter into any bid for goods and services on the market with all the extra paper money they just printed into the game, from stocks to houses.
Let's say you're playing poker with five cards. In the case of doubling the money supply, the central planners deal themselves five extra cards. Statistically, they are in better position to win, with ten cards to choose from versus your five. So they bid up the game because they can't lose.
The prices go up.
Meanwhile, your still static paycheck buys you less at the grocery store that week, or maybe next week. Or maybe just bread goes up this week and steak next week, although by now you switched to hamburger, so the steak price doesn't sting as much. Or the government and banksters may just have SNAP'ped off that steak option altogether on your bread and circuses cards:
https://www.ebtaccount.jpmorgan.com/JPM_EFS/
http://www.fns.usda.gov/fsp/EBT/
http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2009/03/19/
bofa-offers-monstrous-promotion/
As to the question of "done right" or "done wrong," when in the course of human history is it right to steal wealth from the people by devaluing the savings from their labor, forcing dependency for debtors on creditors and for individuals on government?
The Fed exists to increase or decrease the money supply. They are currently re-writing history, doing everything they can to increase the money supply. Even so, businesses have a hard time borrowing unless their collateral is first rate, after all, will the consumer buy knowing he may lose his job? For now, deflation is every bit as likely as inflation. I don't think most understand that things could get a lot worse and if it does, then not spending money is of utmost importance to the consumer which would severely hinder employment and such a deflationary spiral is a bugger to end.
I believe we are operating from two different definitions of the word inflation, yours from Keynes and mine from the Austrian School of economics. I tried to be clear with the example I gave but you did not address any of those points.
Just for a moment, please try to take a look at it through the Austrian definition, and you'll see that the inflation already happened and continues to happen every time the Fed pumps more money out of thin air into the economy. It rarely goes the other way. Historic charts show this growth of the money supply -- what the Austrians call inflation -- disproving the second half of your statement that, "The Fed exists to increase or decrease the money supply." Because in practice, the Fed never decreases the money supply as much as they increase it:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h6/hist/
The Fed is today doing what it always does: inflate. Interests rates at 0%? Check! Another $1.2T printed this week to buy up debt? Check! They are bankrupt of other ideas.
As the population increases so does the money supply, so inflate. If they don't inflate enough, we could have a horrendous deflationary death spiral like the 1930s. The Fed has a problem since Greenspan held the interest rate low too long (along with a shitload of other financial mistakes). So their hands are nearly tied, they try to shove more money out there, but the banks won't lend unless businesses have A1 credit.
"As the population increases so does the money supply..."
How does that happen? Do people print up their own money? I don't understand.
If you look at inflation as theft, because it robs people of their savings over time, then arguing for just the right amount of it doesn't make any sense. Stealing is wrong. And that's all the Fed knows how to do.
No need to print money, it's all just numbers in a computer. Right now they lend it out at between 0 and 1/2% interest. When inflation shows up they raise the rate so there's less interest in borrowing and the money supply goes down. I believe the Fed's long term goal is to shoot for about 2% inflation, as that seems to keep things humming along fairly nicely. Unfortunately we're in unexplored economic territory at the moment and so the uncertainty factor is high. Any way this is my view, although in truth, I only took Econ 101 and slept through quite a bit. Who would have ever guessed that economics was as interesting as Bob Dylan, women, and mind-altering substances?
Stop being beholden to the corporate corrupt system... just stop it. STOP paying taxes, stop paying back your loans (every freaking penny), stop paying back your credit cards if you don't need them for dental work, etc...
My dad informed me, as I work abroad now, that I'm about to go into default. I say bring it on. I'm not concerned and I'm not paying into social security, and even if I was, I won't be relying on it in any way when I will retire. (you can't as you don't get a dime's worth of decent subsistence on it) I doubt if there will be much left. It's a joke. What has uncle same given to its citizens? NOT free healthcare, not affordable housing, not safe mass public transit, not protecting its employees and their rights against the arbitrary whims of corrupt employers, not green jobs, not quality jobs that are not already outsourced...etc.
I will be mailing them a reason why and telling them what they can do with the paperwork in not so polite terms. I'm getting rid of my one credit card as soon as I don't need it anymore when all of my dental work that I need is handled and it's outdone its usefulness. It's not all going to be paid off, that's for sure.
Another guy who's here working in the same program, won't be paying off his debts or student loans either. He was vehement about that. Screw them he said.
We, the sheeple, need to stand up for our rights and not back down, too scared to act otherwise...to scared to not pay back loans, etc. As long as we have such suckers willing to kowtow to the establishment, then there will be no revolution. But I'll be damned if I'm not going to do my part at least.
All the state employees need to stop going to work, there needs to be a massive march to the capitol....double what he heard about in France...and this needs to happen and more. People need to stop using their cars if they can...shut-down strikes galore.... stop playing the GAME. That's the only way. Burning down buildings is all fine and dandy, but there need to be LOTS of protesters and not some small whimpering renagade section of the populace.
Simply put, until there is massive outrage and ACTIONS taken, all the rhetoric in the world we're spouting off on online blogs won't do a darn bit of good.
Some people stand by their word and some do not when inconvenient. Feel free to pretend you're a stand up guy, just fighting against the system. And by the way, most retirees are damn glad for SS.
You already made your point above. Care to expound on why you're part of the problem then? And this is why nothing can/will be done in the future because there are too many of your kind sitting around on your butts and not lifting a finger against the system. The system wins in the end. Congratulations, now keep flipping the channels and get the hell out of the way for the rest of us few who feel more than a sense of outrage as we, the taxpayers, keep getting ripped off in the most flagrant way possible.
yo graceful:
as a dude that went on strike in '92 i know well what it is about to not pay taxes..the first thing is you are no longer a taxpayer..nothing to complain about anymore..
'n i have not had a tv since the 70's--no channels to flip here..
'n before strike time i paid enough into ss to get back 12 c notes a month
'n i live very comfortably on these 12
'n if the 12 are removed i will be ok
or i will be dead
"does it matter??"
ken
Good for you. I don't know what SS benefits you get, but obviously I know plenty who could not survive solely on it. They rely on their pensions.
For me, it doesn't matter as I personally wouldn't bank on it for the future.