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TechnoratiChanging the Rules of the Blame Game
A
cartoon in the Sunday comics shows that mustachioed fellow with monocle
and top hat from the Monopoly game -- "Rich Uncle Pennybags," he used
to be called -- standing along the roadside, destitute, holding a sign:
"Will blame poor people for food."
Time to move the blame to where it really belongs. That means no more
coddling banks with bailout billions marked "secret." No more allowing
their executives lavish bonuses and new corporate jets as if they've
won the megalottery and not sent the economy down the tubes. And no
more apostles of Wall Street calling the shots.
Which brings us to Larry Summers. Over the weekend, the White House
released financial disclosure reports revealing that Summers, director
of the National Economic Council, received $5.2 million last year
working for a $30 billion hedge fund. He made another $2.7 million in
lecture fees, including cash from such recent beneficiaries of taxpayer
generosity as Citigroup, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. The now defunct
financial services giant Lehman Brothers handsomely purchased his
pearls of wisdom, too.
Reading stories about Summers and Wall Street you realize the man was
intoxicated by the exotic witches' brew of derivatives and other
financial legerdemain that got us into such a fine mess in the first
place. Yet here he is, serving as gatekeeper of the information and
analysis going to President Obama on the current collapse.
We have to wonder, when the President asks, "Larry, who did this to
us?" is Summers going to name names of old friends and benefactors?
Knowing he most likely will be looking for his old desk back once he
leaves the White House, is he going to be tough on the very system of
lucrative largesse that he helped create in his earlier incarnation as
a de-regulating Treasury Secretary? ("Larry?" "Yes, Mr. President?"
"Who the hell recommended repealing the Glass-Steagall Act back in the
90s and opened the floodgates to all this greed?" "Uh, excuse me, Mr.
President, I think Bob Rubin's calling me.")
That imaginary conversation came to mind last week as we watched
President Obama's joint press conference with British Prime Minister
Gordon Brown. When a reporter asked Obama who's to blame for the
financial crisis, our usually eloquent and knowledgeable President
responded with a rambling and ineffectual answer. With Larry Summers
guarding his inbox, it's hardly surprising he's not getting the whole
story.
If only someone with nothing to lose would remind the President of that
old story -- perhaps apocryphal but containing a powerful truth -- of
the Great Wall of China. Four thousand miles long and 25 feet tall.
Intended to be too high to climb over, too thick to break through, and
too long to go around. Yet in its first century of the wall's
existence, China was successfully breached three times by invaders who
didn't have to break through, climb over, or go around. They simply
were waved through the gates by obliging watchmen. The Chinese knew
their wall very well. It was the gatekeepers they didn't know.
Shifting the blame for the financial crisis to where it belongs also
means no more playacting in round after round of congressional hearings
devoted more to posturing and false contrition than to truth. We need
real hearings, conducted by experienced and fiercely independent
counsel asking the tough questions, or an official commission with
subpoena power that can generate evidence leading, if warranted, to
trials and convictions -- and this time Rich Uncle Pennybags shouldn't
have safely tucked away in his vest pocket a "Get Out of Jail Free"
card.
So far, the only one in the clink is Bernie Madoff and he was "a piker"
compared to the bankers who peddled toxic assets like unverified
"liars' loan" mortgages as Triple-A quality goods. So says Bill Black,
and he should know. During the savings and loan scandal in the 1980s,
Black, who teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri,
Kansas City, was the federal regulator who accused then-House Speaker
Jim Wright and five US Senators, including John Glenn and John McCain,
of doing favors for the S&L's in exchange for campaign
contributions and other perks. They got off with a wrist slap but Black
and others successfully led investigations that resulted in convictions
and re-regulation of the savings and loan industry.
Bill Black wrote a book about his experiences with a title that fits
today as well as it did when he published it four years ago -- The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One. On last Friday night's edition of Bill Moyers Journal,
he said the current economic and financial meltdown is driven by fraud
and banks that got away with it, in part, because of government
deregulation under prior Republican and Democratic administrations.
"Now we know what happens when you destroy regulation," Black said.
"You get the biggest financial calamity for anybody under the age of
80."
What's more, the government ignored warnings and existing legislation
to stop it before the current crisis got worse. "They didn't even begin
to investigate the major lenders until the market had actually
collapsed, which is completely contrary to what we did successfully in
the savings and loan crisis," Black said. "Even while the institutions
were reporting they were the most profitable savings and loans in
America, we knew they were frauds. And we were moving to close them
down."
There was advance warning of the current collapse. Black says that the
FBI blew the whistle. In September 2004, "there was an epidemic of
mortgage fraud, that if it was allowed to continue it would produce a
crisis at least as large as the Savings and Loan debacle."
But after 9/11, "The Justice Department transfers 500 white-collar
specialists in the FBI to national terrorism. Well, we can all
understand that. But then, the Bush administration refused to replace
the missing 500 agents." So today, despite a crisis a hundred times
worse than the Savings and Loan scandal, "there are one-fifth as many
FBI agents" assigned to bank fraud.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner "is covering up," Black said. "Just
like Paulson did before him. Geithner is publicly saying that it's
going to take $2 trillion -- a trillion is a thousand billion -- $2
trillion taxpayer dollars to deal with this problem. But they're
allowing all the banks to report that they're not only solvent, but
fully capitalized. Both statements can't be true. It can't be that they
need $2 trillion, because they have massive losses, and that they're
fine...
"They're scared to death of a collapse. They're afraid that if they
admit the truth, that many of the large banks are insolvent, they think
Americans are a bunch of cowards, and that we'll run screaming to the
exits... And it's foolishness, all right?
"Now, it may be worse than that. You can impute more cynical motives.
But I think they are sincerely just panicked about, 'We just can't let
the big banks fail.' That's wrong."
Black asked, "Why would we keep CEO's and CFO's and other senior
officers that caused the problems? That's nuts... We're hiding the
losses instead of trying to find out the real losses? Stop that...
because you need good information to make good decisions... Follow what
works instead of what's failed. Start appointing people who have
records of success instead of records of failure... There are lots of
things we can do. Even today, as late as it is. Even though we've had a
terrible start to the [Obama] administration. They could change, and
they could change within weeks."
He called for a 21st century version of the Pecora Commission,
referring to hearings that sought the causes of the Great Depression,
held during the 1930's by the US Senate Committee on Banking and
Currency.
Ferdinand Pecora was the committee's chief counsel and interrogator, a
Sicilian émigré who was a progressive devotee of trust busting Teddy
Roosevelt and a former Manhattan assistant district attorney who
successfully helped shut down more than a hundred Wall Street "bucket
shops" selling bogus securities and commodity futures. He was
relentless in his cross-examination of financial executives, including
J.P. Morgan himself.
Pecora's investigation uncovered a variety of Wall Street calumnies --
among them Morgan's "preferred list" of government and political
insiders, including former President Coolidge and a Supreme Court
justice, who were offered big discounts on stock deals. The hearings
led to passage of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934.
In the preface to his 1939 memoir, Wall Street Under Oath,
Ferdinand Pecora told the story of his investigation and described an
attitude amongst the Rich Uncle Pennybags of the financial world that
will sound familiar to Bill Black and those who seek out the guilty
today.
"That its leaders are eminently fitted to guide our nation, and that
they would make a much better job of it than any other body of men,
Wall Street does not for a moment doubt," Pecora wrote. "Indeed, if you
now hearken to the Oracles of The Street, you will hear now and then
that the money-changers have been much maligned. You will be told that
a whole group of high-minded men, innocent of social or economic
wrongdoing, were expelled from the temple because of the excesses of a
few. You will be assured that they had nothing to do with the
misfortunes that overtook the country in 1929-1933; that they were
simply scapegoats, sacrificed on the altar of unreasoning public
opinion to satisfy the wrath of a howling mob..."
According to Politico.com, at his March 27 White House meeting with the
nation's top bankers, President Obama heard similar arguments and
interrupted, saying, "Be careful how you make those statements,
gentlemen. The public isn't buying that... My administration is the
only thing between you and the pitchforks."
Stand aside, Mr. President, and let us prod with our pitchforks to get at the facts.
104 Comments so far
Show AllThose that say we must move forward and not dwell on the past, to me, undermine justice..
Because what is justice, but correcting wrongs done in the past. And, making sure that those that have committed those wrongs, pay their "debt" to society.
How one can call it justice anyways, when small time criminals get long prison sentences, while those that bilk the public of trillions, walk.
So, when I think of it perhaps the idea of "justice" is a lie in it's self.
Especially, when in many cases, imperfect men corrupted by greed, are the ones handing it out.
There is no future possible without redressing the past.
Those 20 million of my people who were murdered so gringos could crow their "manifest destiny" genocide slogan are still waiting to be acknowledged and redressed.
Without that, gringos are simply toast.
Good riddance.
Senators and Congressmen should have their terms in office limited too - just like the President. This would certainly cut down on corruption and no more "Favours R'Us" gangs. People without scruples wrapping themselves in the flag.
Did it ever occur to anyone that Obama knew going in about Summer's financial background with hedge funds? Financial disclosure statements are required for top level positions like the one Summer's holds. Presumably, there is a gatekeeper for the gatekeepers checking conflicts of interest. Apparently, no one gave a shit thinking it would slide under the corporate owned media radar screen, or they were just playing the game the way it is always played inside-the-belt-way. Feign ignorance if it becomes public. Obama is a sales man and a magician of the slight of hand, just like Reagan. It is not about Larry or Gueithner, but about Obama. He got exactly what he wanted: namely a couple of Wall Street Insiders. The results predictable. And the Third Party voters told you so. Had Obama believed his own marketing schema, ie, "Change we can believe in" he would have selected Korten and Krugman. 100 Days in and Obama is starting to generate the foul odor of corruption.
Well, Bill, you lost some of my respect. Why are you people dodging and weaving around Obama?
Yes. If Kucinich or Paul had been on the ballot, I'd have voted for one of them. But the media told the Sheeple they were unelectable, so neither got his party's nomination. So I had to take the two-fer. I voted for an African-American and a woman, Cynthia McKinney. My brother whined about my choice that a vote for a Third Party candidate was a vote for McCain. Hell, we wouldn't be any worse off with McCain and at least the mess wouldn't be blamed on Democrats.
When will the Americans stop being stupid and vote for who is GOOD, not for who is "electable". That's how we got one of the greatest con artists of our time in the high office...
Don't feel bad about your choice. My friends and family cursed me on my vote for Nader. They even said I'd be a single and a loser like Nader for the rest of my life but I never backed down. I love Mckinney too and admit I had a hard time choosing between the two. I wished they'd run together on the Green ticket.
Bubba Clinton was the Gate-Keeper in our Chinese Wall. The sellout of our industrial base to China by the Clintons and the Bush Families has yet to be
announced. All the King's men {Clinton the King} are in the Obama regime.
We have been sold out again. {By Obama} this time around.
Who will tell the people? Senator Dodd the Banking Commissioner, who is in bed with AIG, and has a cottage in Ireland, is a participant of the Sell-out.
What's a measly couple of trillio dollars?
How does 70 trillion sound?
Or 550 trillion?
The U.S. Government has crafted a distortion of reality. They have found a way to cover up 85% of the nation's actual debt!
The Feds essentially keep two sets of books that make up America's debt portfolio. The first set of books is the widely publicized "National Public Debt." The National Public Debt is currently over $11 trillion and is climbing at a rate of almost $4 billion per day. This is the figure that's quoted in the evening news and on the famous U.S. National Debt Clock in Manhattan. In the past century, this debt has skyrocketed nearly 400,000%.
But the National Public Debt doesn't even come close to telling half of the story.
The U.S. Government Is Another $60 Trillion in the Hole!
The U.S. government doesn't classify future financial responsibilities such as social security, government-sponsored health care, and other contractual obligations as "public debt." With this simple act of reclassification the Feds have been able to shield the American public from the truth about the country's actual debt position. Nevertheless, these financial obligations will cost the American taxpayers roughly $60 trillion!
This debt is no secret among Washington insiders, nor is the fact that the government is trying to hide it. In fact, David Walker, the former U.S. Comptroller General and the nation's top accountant between 1998 and 2008 said, "As the federal official who signs the audit report on the government's financial statements, it is apparent that our government's financial condition is far worse than advertised."
Walker has also said, "Current federal financial reporting and budgeting provides policymakers and the public with an incomplete and even misleading picture."
Add it all up, and the United States government is on the line for almost $70 trillion in total financial obligations, including public debt.
This is today’s scenario. Lets look at what’s coming:
The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a new report a few weeks ago called "The Federal Government's Financial Health." In this report, the GAO reported an expected increase in National Public Debt of over 500% within the next several decades! And this is the U.S. government's own estimates!!!
A similar move in the nation's actual debt — that's the National Public Debt plus all other fiscal responsibilities — would result in a total financial obligation of over $550 trillion! That's over $1.8 million that would be owed by every American citizen!
But back to the present: America's current $70 trillion debt works out to about $500,000 per working American or to put it differently, every American child is born into debt owing nearly a quarter million dollars! The interest on that debt alone is going to cost almost twice as much as educating the child!
And here is the most interesting bit: the blame for this swindle cannot be attributed to one party, Democrats or Republicans, but is rooted in the whole system.
Democracy, in it’s current form, is the tyranny of a few cunning circles with controlling and omnipotent lobbies and mass media propaganda, that use the ignorant majority ‘mandate’ of the voting masses for their treacherous agenda. The two-party oligarchy manages the profit and wealth flow for a relatively small elite. Most pivotal parts of this machine are tightly interwoven and are made out of the elite’s cronies and benefactors of this abominable theft and fraud. Their lobby established a two-flavoured (Dems and Reps) system that plays ping-pong with citizens’ votes, draining all chance for a desperately needed radical change of ways (And if you deny that a radical change of ways is desperately needed, you are ignorant or part of this morose parasitic machine).
This system has been able to keep the voting masses in a state of acquiescence and convenient ambivalence. Common lifestyle was provided by loan, education is geared around producing useful subjects rather than freethinking individuals, the masses were kept occupied with inane entertainment, silenced by welfare payments and war games, manipulated by corporate controlled mass media, and preoccupied by hope-inducing wishful hogwash that we have a choice under this system.
The system is unsustainable for various reasons and will undergo drastic change. The severity and direction of change depends on the severity of lifestyle destruction, economic depression and public mood (Madhoosier further down makes excellent points).
The circus is still performing but they are running out of new acts. The crowd looks displeased.
I would like to point out an interesting rhetorical maneuver which seems to have permeated and structured the framing of the "who's to blame" question on a variety of issues, mainly in the mass media. Since when has "accountability" been equated with "blame"?
Since 9/11, when the greatest screw-up in national security history (if that's what it was) for which not one person in a position of responsibility was fired or demoted or anything? Now we have a great deal of lip service being paid to accountability, but actually holding persons accountable becomes "playing the blame game." This of course is something one would admonish children about doing, but it seems to have become a preferred admonishment in the public discourse. Of course this serves the out of office Republican Party and the multifarious members of the Bush Administration very well, and I suspect this semantic switch originiates with them. But, as Moyers et al point out, the Obama Administration is packed with "accountable"and "blamable" subjects in regard to the current economic fiasco, ie Summers, Rubn, Geithner et al. So this rhetorical device serves both Bush and Obama, the latter who tells us not to "look back" but only ahead, in keeping with his "change" message which also serves to keep from having to open huge cans of slimy worms publicly while dealing with a very sticky economic situation. Remember children don't try to hold "those accountable, accountable" that would be playing the blame game.
Sioux Rose
YACH: I sure hope the Chinese don't read your post...
Ha, in their own very capitalistic greed they didn't see it coming that they have been had too. They too will find out that you can't eat washing baskets full of worthless money.
A friend of mine joked the other day "Want an insider tip on future-proof investments? Invest in corporal punishment technology."
I don't agree. In desperate times, a single bullet will become the preferred choice.
Good comments by all, but nothing will change unless the public takes action, and the power-elite knows this. When the French and the Russians had enough, they took matters into their own hands and did change things.
Obama is a standard, get-along Democrat, just another politician pleasing the super-rich and the over-paid and compensated pencil pushers, ( otherwise known as executives ), and for catering to the Department of War Making, ( erroneously called the Defense Department ), but has enough people fooled into thinking he is a liberal and progressive. With the exception of Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor, how many real progressives has Obama appointed to Cabinet posts? And the Wall Street swindlers, shysters, and soothsayers are still there, only this time in his inner circle.
But, he's articulate compared to "Tex," before him, and one thing for sure, the American people are easily conned. Bill Moyers knows the score, but being such a polite person, he probably withholds his real anger in what has happened to our country, and poses questions calmly, without projecting agitation.
Sioux Rose
PEACEMAN: Well said.
Bring America Back !!!!......It is not too soon to let The Prez know that
4 years rolls around pretty fast, and one Presidential Term is Enough if
he continues to give us Bush' third term !!! That's what we have so far !!
Moyers is correct that Obama is an Obstructionist, preventing investigations of the Bush war crimes, economic crimes, and 9/11 itself !!
It did not start with torture and bailouts, it started with Sept 11, 2001 !
Moyers rhetorically asks, "Who the hell recommended repealing the Glass-Steagall Act back in the 90s and opened the floodgates to all this greed?" [Answer; Clinton, Phil Gramm, and Robert Rubin]
Moyers also notes that, "after 9/11, The Justice Department transfers 500 white-collar (bank fraud) specialists in the FBI to national terrorism. But then, the Bush administration refused to replace the missing 500 agents."
These two points, and many others, suggest the existence of a long-term, bipartisan, political enabling mechanism guilefully working at the behest of a continuing ruling-elite 'corporate financial Empire', which controls our country by hiding behind the facade of its two-party 'Vichy' sham of democracy, and which Empire directs a continuing and consistent 'game plan' of abusing American military power for oil resource extraction, and looting American financial 'commonwealth' to support its elitist Empire designs of global rule and extreme wealth exploitation.
Our current financial crisis and collapse did not develop only since the collapse of Lehman Brothers on 9/15/08, nor did the plan for a global hegemony based on controlling 'oil access and power' spring full blown as a result of 9/11/01. Instead, both of these 'shocks' (and the doctrine of using 'shock' as a facilitator of popular fear and policy distortion) were planned well in advance of the shocking events themselves ---- and may well have actually produced BOTH SHOCKS specifically to advance these plans of the Empire.
It now appears quite certain that the 'shock' of Lehman failing on 9/15 (of 2008) was intentionally precipitated by the ruling-elite 'corporate financial Empire' as a "second shoe dropping" in the domestic financial sector, after the first 'shock' of 9/11 (2001) produced a supposedly foreign terrorist threat to the Empire's oil territories.
Such a "one / two punch" would be very consistent with Hannah Arendt's prescient warning during the era of the Nazi Empire that, "Empire abroad (always) entails tyranny at home." Certainly, the 9/11 and 9/15 combination punch (or 'shock doctrine') produced both the justification and guileful excuse for the imperialist military attacks "abroad" to secure and exploit oil and geo-political power in the world's dominant Middle East energy reservoir, while the second 'shock' and brinksmanship forced the global reserve currency of US dollars to be sucked into the financial reservoir of the ruling-elite Empire's corrupt banking sector "at home".
It is more than ironic that even Hitler did not need two Reichstag fires to transmogrify the German Republic into the Nazi Empire, and yet, 9/15 (the collapse of Lehman, and the beginning of this economic 'shock doctrine') is clearly the 'second shoe dropping' in this tragedy begun on 9/11 by the ruling-elite 'corporate financial Empire'.
From, "9/15, the 'second shoe dropping' beyond the 9/11 shock"
(copyright 2009, Alan MacDonald)
Sioux Rose
ALAN: Astute and prescient post. Someone's got his thinking cap on.
Sioux you crack me up, you're such the schoolteacher. I haven't heard that since junior high school.
Bring America Back !!!!....I will echo this pertinent and insightful post from
amacd=== The Big Bailouts were and are the shock and awe to the USA Economy,
just as 40,000 laser guided missiles were the shock and awe in the pre-emptive
War on Iraq !!!! The bombing and sham War on Terror allowed the Neocon
war criminals to destroy our rights and constitution, and the Big Bailout Scare
allows The Funded Elite Wall Street to raid our Taxpayer Treasury, and dip into
our pockets for eons of time to come !!
***The concept is a transfer of wealth allright, take the hard earned $$$ from
middle America and give it to the Big Banks, Big Auto, Big Parachutes and the
ever lovin' Military Industrial Complex.......
***We knew from Obama's Vote for FISA Crimes, he would be an Obstructionist
and not a Changeist !!!! No Change, No Hope, No Promise !!!! Just Rhetoric
and a lot of mighty pretty words.........lots and lots of pretty empty words !
every payment received, every payment made, into a publically accessible database. without this everything else is an empty show.
Moyers and Winship seem to think we need the elites. Nothing could be further from the truth. The people don't need the elites. It's rather the other way around. The article on CD yesterday on local currency testifies to this.
What would it be like without the elites and their big investments? We would get our food from the local mom-n-pops instead of godzilla markets. Who makes the loans? The guy down the street who we see in the local mom-n-pop. The old ways return to replace the modern ways. Less convenience. But better all around, with huge potential to be truly great to the level that the people contribute.
We on the far left see this huge potential. Now are we going to have a renaissance in civic scholarship? Can we get G. Soros to fund that? Get him to fund the authorship of e-textbooks?
You might imagine re-chartering the federal government to A. do no harm, and B. promote and protect the infrastructure that enables all small local communities to share standard protocols, methods, policies, and information, experimental results, ideas, innovations. And provide loans and buffers to each other to smooth out crop yield irregularities, production shifts, etc.
Some 30% to 70% of the elites' big capital projects have been very poor choices, made not to serve the people's better interests but to serve elite interests. There are no practical barriers to making big capital projects serving the people's interests close to 100% of the time. Again the hippocratic oath comes into play. So it's very reasonable and near urgent at this point, to shut out the elites entirely from developing infrastructure projects.
The people will underwrite the projects we chose. The result is: we don't need elite capital. This is the basis for denying wall st both bailout and bankruptcy protection.
Would you consider making yourself available for Secretary of the Treasury?
Ya know, the mafia knew how to deal with those who stole from them, which is why few ever dared to take the risk.
In Texas, we have what they call the "castle law," as in, your home (and car) is your castle. If you catch someone even attempting to break in and steal, you can defend yourself and your property with lethal force.
Maybe that can be amended to include pensions, retirement funds, hard-earned tax dollars...
we are being treated to a diverting theatrical production while our wallets are being picked...
"Stand aside, Mr. President, and let us prod with our pitchforks to get at the facts."
With our best pitchfork, the referendum.
"Be careful how you make those statements gentlemen. The public isn't buying that...My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks."
That's quite a statement by Obama, if he actually said it. Makes you wonder though, what was he saying? Be careful how you veil the truth? Be careful not to reveal too much?
Was it a benign admonition to colleagues to be more careful? warning about the rabble forming outside the hallowed walls? Or was he attempting to warn the bankers to be more truthful?
Who's side is he on?
Who's side is he on?
Answer: Barack Obama's
Every time I hear one side or the other changing the rules on blaming, I am reminded of the novel I read by George Orwell titled "Animal Farm". Call me a psycho but our country's politics appears to be accurately following the one in "Animal Farm". Just look at how our current administration is continuing Dubya's economic hells and even expanding on FISA. I don't even want to see what 2012 will look like when the Obama shills go out of their way to defend him very badly for reelection. I was already sick of the Republicans but now the Democrats copying the worst of their ways all the while acting so cowardly makes me just as mad at them. Sometimes, I feel like screaming at them and begging them to stop blaming the Republicans and just be themselves for a change. No more pandering to the GOP and then blaming them !
Erich Arthur Blair, one of my earliest heroes in fact. I am certain you have read "Nineteen Eighty Four" also. Two and two can sometimes be five you know.
If you've ever seen his early photos you might be surprised to see the resemblance to Sean Penn...
If only we had more like Elizabeth Warren, chair of the TARP oversight committee, although she is crying in the wilderness. She needs prime-time time and lots of it. Where are the indictments? Where (other than Mr.Moyers, bless him, and a few others) are the investigative reporters? What is wrong with a country that will listen to everything Limbaugh says but doesn't have time to suss out the facts of their own unraveling?
Those who have risen to power have never done it on their own. They are always answerable to someone, Unless they have big wads of money lying around like the Bushits.
There is a system in place that people work through to become president. You can only reject so many facets of the system while you are climbing.
Obama is part of the Broken system.
1. It is never too early to let him know that.
2. He is already challenging some of the Bushit's illegal actions, and trying to do so as a part of the system - I think he knows he may well end up like Abe/JFK/RFK/MLK if he goes against the grain too quick. He may end up that way anyway. I think that is why we have to let him make his way.
3. Expecting him to be Superman agains this system is being a teenager. This guy has more Lex Luthors around him than the number of Watchmen.
4. If you have the balls to get into the system and get up against it, act.
5. This article is brilliant. Bill Moyers has been part of the system in the sixties, and know what he is talking about. The thoughtfull penning of the article, and all the voices against the bailout must be put in the mainstream media as often as possible. the Glen Becks of this world will never let this happen. They are the people we should be marginalizing. Alternative media is the way out. We have elected Obama who worked the system to get where he did. He knows how much he owes to whom. We have to lessen his burden and pave his way.
Love
Zero
Thank you, Zero.
A thoughtful post.
ZeroPointField writes that Obama "...is already challenging some of the Bushit's illegal actions....- I think he knows he may well end up like Abe/JFK/RFK/MLK if he goes against the grain too quick..."
- Please tell us which of Bush's actions he is supposedly "challenging." He isn't challenging the War on Terror (except by renaming it). He isn't challenging the Wall St bailout -- in fact, he's expanding it. He isn't seriously challenging torture, since he specifically says renditions are still justifiable. He's expanding the war in Af-Pak, and dragging his heels on leaving Iraq.
Obama's problem isn't a matter of not going "against the grain too quick" -- it's that he's not going against the grain AT ALL. In all essentials, he's continuing Bush policies, as well as protecting Bush admin officials from accountability for their crimes.
There's a big difference between "challenging Bush's actions" and merely applying a new coat of paint to the same rotten structure.
Don't take this too hard but I have some issues with some of your points. Pleased to meet you by the way and I like a lot of what you've posted on this site as I've seen your posts in the archives.
"He is already challenging some of the Bushit's illegal actions, and trying to do so as a part of the system - I think he knows he may well end up like Abe/JFK/RFK/MLK if he goes against the grain too quick. He may end up that way anyway. I think that is why we have to let him make his way."
I don't know where you're getting that idea but haven't you heard that he's already expanding on Bush's wiretapping?
"Expecting him to be Superman agains this system is being a teenager. This guy has more Lex Luthors around him than the number of Watchmen."
Nobody's asking him to be Superman. The weasel's making more mountains out of ant hills by pandering to the Lex Luthers to begin with. If Superman were like Obama, Lex Luther would be winning.
"If you have the balls to get into the system and get up against it, act."
My voting 3rd party and for better pols on all levels of government is what I've done. If you're voting for pols who'll give lip service on "hope and change" but keep the status quo, you're without realizing it part of the problem. Ever tried voting on courage and convictions from your mind and heart and on the issues? Don't go by the corporate media polling inventing stupid probability crap about who's "electable". Try making the supposedly unelectable politicians electable by opening your heart and mind and paying attention to their history and stands on the issues.
Excellent post.
That "Pleased to meet you...." stopped me cold.
Can I guess your name?
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
Please allow them to introduce themselves.
They are men of wealth and taste.
Woo-woo.
Criticism gladly expected.
You have to pick your fights in your work place. If you are all abrasive all the time, you will be taken down fairly quickly. Even the most powerful man in the world has to tread cautiously - the crux of my point.
I am glad you are voting third party. I saw Obama stand for somethings against the way things were being done, and I worked for his campaing quiet a bit. I think it is a unrealistic to think there would be a candidate that stands for each and everything each one of us stands for.
I try to be locally active in issues that concern my small town in Colorado. I would love to be part of a storm that does elect a viable third party candidate. I understand your angle of voting on your convictions, but knowing the stolen elections and the republican stance, I wanted them out of power first. They flagging and failing now. I believe a third party candidate could have a real chance in the next 12 years.
I did not know Obama is extending warrantless wiretapping. I thought he had reversed the way these were being executed.
I will take the next 3-1/2 years over Republicans. And as I said no. 1 in my original post, I want to work with this guys as much as possible, rather than weaken him. We will have our voice heard again at the end of his term.
Love
Zero
Amen to that Zero, finally a posting that is logical, pragmatic, and well-reasoned. I had to travel pretty far down the comments to find a posting like yours, and I couldn't agree more or have written it any better myself. We need to support (and I am not saying blindly support)the President that many of us worked very hard to get elected, having to fight through racism, ignorance, and insanity to get here. Cheers Mate!
Sioux Rose
LOYAL: For all your pragmatism, you'll be SUPPORTING him ($$$$) all right, as will your children and grandchildren given the way his inside circle and their "prescription" for the nation's fiscal woes have been designed. They get the benefits ($) and you get to work as a serf for generations to pay it off, unless the entire world monetary system collapses in which case is that something you would champion? Think it makes sense that the Wall St wizards get to play fast and loose with global currencies so that the ones on the bottom who could barely fork up enough pennies for rice no longer can feed their own families? Meanwhile this rich cloud-9 assembly get to play with billions, a trillion here a trillion there, with NO accountability. Sure, that kind of leadership may work for authoritarians who really believe some "father figure knows best," but pragmatic? Pragmatic if you ARE the banker/hustler... just wait till there is no more largesse available in programs like Social Security.
Another analogy: If you made a chicken soup and kept adding water, pretty soon there would be no nourishment in that soup. That soup is the US treasury... the dollars are the watered down "taste" of nothingness left in the pot.
What you say makes sense, and I do not disagree with your reasoning Rose. I simply think that it is way to early to cast Obama off in the "corporate tool" pile. I do not envy anyone that has to clean up the Bush excesses, including the first bailout you mentioned that came from Bush late in his term with no strings attached. I just think that the people clammoring for 3rd party rule and impeaching Obama are not being serious or thoughtful. Unlike the Repubs, there is a chance that I could be wrong on this, but there is also the chance that you could be wrong also. Much respect to you as I know that you are a caring, thoughtful human and that goes a long way with me. I wish you the best in the spirit of informed discussion luv...
One thing the pitchfork quote lets us know is that nothing will change as long as we are being "serious or thoughtful". It's absolutely essential that we show him the pitchforks. I've been telling my friends for years that things aren't bad enough yet to generate real change. Obviously things aren't bad enough yet for Loyal Opposition. He's in a dream world. He's blaming the first bailout on Bush, but Obama lobbied hard for it.
Sioux Rose
LOYAL: I appreciate your exceptionally polite demeanor. In all honesty, however, I do not see much ACTION on the part of Obama to shift the ship of state away from its eager approach to the abyss. The times call for so much more, and most of what we've seen from him are standard insider postures. These are not only frightening, but more than suggestive of a massive moral sell-out at a time the US cannot afford more of same, nor dare I say, can most citizens of our fragile world.
Ok, if you really believe in pragmatism, you might try joining us in giving Obama a wake up call. Then again, I'm pissed off that he admitted to engaging in continuing to sellout unless we made him change his mind from what his victory speech told us. Besides, if you had checked out Obama's voting record while in the Senate, his campaigning, and the direction he's heading, the outrage would make more sense. Look, I wish Obama all the best and that's why we're trying to wake him out of his slumber even though folks like myself voted Nader or Mckinney.
I'm still open to voting for Democrats and Republicans but only those who can actually prove their worth. They're not too hard to tell apart these days. I know this may sound shocking to some of the folks here who know my ways of voting but I'll admit that in my local and state elections, I have come across a few Democrats and Republicans who actually are in touch with their constituents and they have earned my vote. Most of them will usually keep their promise. Heck, even Obama wasn't so bad when he was state Senator. He started screwing up once he won his seat to US Senator in 2004 and got worse year after year.
I'll admit that replacing Kit Bond with a 3rd party candidate is a very long shot. Maybe if the MO Democratic Party will allow someone ala Dennis Kucinich or Bernard Sanders type in will I vote for that candidate. I don't want to weaken anyone myself but the way Obama's handling the financial crisis, foreign policy, and even pressing ahead for more wiretapping is scaring the life out of me.
"We will have our voice heard again at the end of his term."
Rrrrght. So, kind of like President Clinton, Obama just has to make nice with the powers that be. After he's done enough for them, he can sneak in a little for the little people that he really represents. Now why would the evil powers that he has to pacify allow that? Two words: Monica Lewinsky.
Yup
Opportunistic Guys, these Democratic Presidents.
System's Broken.
Love
Zero
If he doesn't know who might be responsible, Obama is either not as smart as he seems, or simply doesn't care to know. I'm more likely to think that he knows, but doesn't want to say. I'm am just pissed that the government keeps giving billions of dollars to people who are the reason we are in this mess, and the give-aways just keep on coming.
This is no longer my and your money, this is our kids money, and our grandkids money, maybe even our great-grandkids money! My opinion is that government spending is very appropriate in the circumstances, but the choices of what we are spending it on..I can't even find the words. Never mind the fact that they are trying their best to make sure we never really know who it is that is getting our money.
Next up in the bailout line (per CNN this morning) life insurance companies, who were so invested in the stock market, that they are running out of money.
Its way past time to stop bailing out companies and start bailing out the people. Stop giving money to financial giants, hoping that the same people who made the mess will be responsible enough to save us from it, while in the mean time, people are being evicted and die from lack of healthcare. How about universal healthcare, could of been had for a small fraction of what we're throwing into the bottomless pit. Probably could have just paid off all those peoples mortgages and let em stay in their houses.
No more money for thieves and liars! They made bad loans, then packaged em up and sold em as good loans, that's fraud! They took massive risks, knowing from the past that if it all went south, they could go to their bought and paid for government and demand public coverage of their losses. Its called privatized gains with socialized risks. The only solution is massive unrest from the bottom up. If you aren't getting paid by these liars and cheats, you should be mad as hell, and those in charge need to know it.
"Never mind the fact that they are trying their best to make sure we never really know who it is that is getting our money."
But we do know. It is the 400 (four hundred) in this country that own 50% of the wealth. Beyond those 400, it is the 1% (one percent) of the people in this country that own 90% of the wealth. These would be the primary targets were we to investigate who it is that are getting our money.
"Its called privatized gains with socialized risks."
Also known as fascism.
"The only solution is massive unrest from the bottom up."
Agreed. With our demonstrations we must target the fascists.
Who do you think bought and payed for Obamas' presidency? Forever the capitalist class has chosen who we get to vote for. It's a grand illusion this representative democracy of ours. Anybody that was paying any attention at all could see that Obama was in lockstep with the Bush policies before the election. Remember he stopped campaining to rush back to Warshington to vote for the first bailout. The man knows who he works for and it sure as hell isn't the publics interests.
Politicians do a lot of gladhanding, the objective of which is advancement in their chosen career field. By means of this effort, they might be invited into the hidden primary where discussions are held and arrangements made to advance a candidacy that, subject to the endorsement of New Hampshire, will emerge as the “serious” contenders as reported by the MSM – which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nobody who has passed through the hidden primary will emerge honorable and decent and all candidates who are not invited to the hidden primary, when mentioned at all by the MSM, will be ridiculed as vanity candidates. Obama would not be president, could not even have been considered a serious candidate, if he had not already confirmed that he would protect the interests of the wealthy from the public. At all times the nation is supposed to “come together” for its leaders, despite the fact that such unity serves only those whose interests trump those of the public.
Sioux Rose
Class Act: Excellent analysis. Is it possible Moyers doesn't get it? Or is he playing naive like Lieutenant Columbo barely letting out the suggestion that Obama might BE an insider? It's not like Obama is some innocent bystander, he PUT THESE PEOPLE into positions where they could free up what's left of America's assets. Is this the next installment of "Shock and Awe," this time directed at America's fiscal future?
One wonders if all this was planned like the "Project for a New American Century" long enough ago to have provided time to build those 2.2 million holding pens, a/k/a prisons. Then when the really bold set forth to protest, they'd have their beds waiting, with Habeas Corpus iffy, and many Tasers acting as "Thy rod and thy staff" to corral the remaining sheep herds.
Exactly, Sioux Rose. He's not an innocent bystander. He bamboozles with his words, but his actions speak louder. As far as I am concerned, this is the financial equivalent of 9-11. Yet again, all the regulators, prosecutors, investigators - the entire law, order and defense infrastructure stands down, stand aside while the country is attacked from within. What is taking place is against the rule of law and is as outrageous as the Bush lying for war, torture, spying, etc.. In fact, it's just a continuation, a consolidation. And yes, I think it is planned.
I want to like the guy, but Bill Moyers plays dumb so well that I'm not sure he's playing.
"I want to like the guy, but Bill Moyers plays dumb so well that I'm not sure he's playing."
I've listened to Bill Moyers for a long time, and he makes me think. Unlike everything else these days, the movies, television, books, etc., where nothing is left to the imagination, I find it very refreshing to listen to one who speaks softly, hinting at possibilities, asking questions and never giving the answers, putting in place all those things that makes your brain kick into gear and sents you off to find the truths and answers behind the words he's given you.
Indeed, unlike some reporters claim, Bill Moyers reports, you decide.
We have to wonder, when the President asks, "Larry, who did this to us?" is Summers going to name names of old friends and benefactors?
--------------------------
If Obama doesn't know who did this to us than he's a bigger idiot than Bush.
Ten minutes and a dial-up internet connection and you can know all the involved parties.
Besides, Obama is only interested in looking forward, he's said so many times.
That's exactly right. It's striking & ironic that even in an article trying very hard to penetrate the usual fictions, the authors still choose to believe that Obama himself is honorable, & is simply being "misled" by wicked advisors.
Do they really think Obama would fill his economic team with the likes of Summers, Geithner, Bernanke, Goolsbee, etc, without having any idea of what those guys represent? 100% of Obama's selections for his team were pedigreed Wall Streeters. There were ZERO selections that were critics of Wall St or deregulation -- no Krugmans, no Stiglitzes, Dean Bakers, or J Galbraiths.
A team like that isn't selected by chance.
Sioux Rose
DAVE B: Exactly! NO odds in the world would have put together the very persons responsible for deregulation and the pain felt round the world unless the whole thing was premeditated to start with. Of course it is. Do you think Moyers doesn't see/get that?
Precisely. Moyers does get it. He understands perfectly, but he is where Loyal Opposition thinks Obama is. Moyers can't get too strident or he'll lose his job at Petroleum Broadcasting Corporation. We are fortunate Moyers can walk that tightrope and bring us people like William Black.
Sioux Rose
ANTI: I think you're right. In some journalism/writing classes they recommend that the narrator suggest not TELL. Moyer's is a master of THAT art. It helps him toe the diplomatic line and maintain his job.
If *I* knew along with 10's of thousands of people like me knew then Barack Obama knew.
Its the same bloody thing as the Iraq Invasion and all the "laymen" who knew Iraq no threat, had no WMDS and did not support Al Qaeda.
This hiding behind "I did not know" is a crock.
It's to early to give up on Obama, but there is danger ahead, the more powerful a family, the longer it takes for an abuser within the family to hit bottom and get help. They often go the voluntary route, fancy treatment centers, counselors indeed all available resources, until a criminal act forces them to actually go through a program and demonstrate change before being released. Even then the success rate isn't wonderful. It is the process of first resort for the poor, but for the powerful it is last resort.
Small business has failed all over main street in the small towns of our nation, but we are now faced with the to big to fail, and we are still hiding their problem. If we don't start now, and continue to hide this problem things will get really ugly before it unwinds.
Thanks Bill for the good work
It's to(o) early to give up on Obama,...
----------------------------
No, it's not.
Last night Keith Olbermann finally gave Obama the smack-down he thoroughly deserves over his use of "states-secrets" privilege and something entirely new called "sovereign immunity" to block all lawsuits (regarding spying and torture) against the government.
With this move Obama not only shows he accepts the Bush/Cheney idea of an all-powerful "unitary executive" but actually began to build and strenghten it.
We're now at the mercy of a government that can literally violate us and our rights in any manner possible and then BLOCK us from taking them to court.
These are the powers a tyrant dreams about.
Again, Obama is doing this now, not Bush.
Do you wish to rethink your comment that it's too early to give up on him?
(When I find a link to the video I'll post it).
The concept of "sovereign immunity" has been around quite some time. Historically speaking (in the context of the history of the USA), the practice of exercising sovereign immunity took some hits. Today, the federal courts may not uphold efforts to revitalize claims to sovereign immunity, if those efforts put at risk core rights articulated in the Constitution (particularly the first Ten Amendments).
Sorry, but "sovereign immunity" is not "something entirely new." It used to be called "the divine right of kings."
Funny thing, that sense of entitlement. It seems able to reproduce itself across generations, vast oceans of space and time, and even bloodlines.
"In their lives there's something lacking/what they need's a damn good whacking"
---George Harrison, "Piggies"
Yes Jethro, the "unitary executive" apparently isn't unitary enough for Obama, hence "sovereign immunity". It is as new as torture...ooops I mean "enhanced interogation"
I will substantiate what you watched on the 'Daily Show.' I thought at the time with Obama's behavior prior to his election and all the documentation after his election that it is pretty unavoidable. I wonder if we are too jumpy after 8 long years with a sociopath, then I remember all his 'bipartisan' enablers, and my actually witnessing his two faced behavior and the crooning of 'forward looking' and the equally noxious 'impeachment is off the table' music from the siren of Congress. And I am running to the bathroom to vomit the poisonous words from my brain.
Pelosi as the guest all over the bandwidth of images. I cannot, will not watch. No more. I have had all I can hate from this culture. When hate is a soul killer, a mind killer like the current rash of psychopaths murdering their children or innocent people where an ex-wife works or a little girl in a fucking suitcase. Jeeze. It huurrtttss. And these cheap suited politicians are in bus station bathrooms sucking long and hard on the moneyed balls of inbred fruit flys so they can lie to us, steal from us and laugh at us.
We are the deer in the headlights.
Olbermann had to get up to speed...he screwed up when he and one of his regular sidekicks (the British one with glasses) mocked and dismissed the G20 demonstrators.
and he regularly hounds FOX? Please.
Turley, however has been Obama's case for awhile.
His name is Richard Wolfe, or as you so eloquently call him (the British one with glasses). I find him to be a calm and collected voice of reason, with no visable agenda. He was referring to the protestors correctly as "Professional Protestors", who come out whenever there is an event that can get them publicity. That is why the protests ranged from "Free Tibet" supporters to "More Rights for Single Fathers". He was also pointing out the British Press' tendency to ask only "Gotcha" questions to any leader that happens to be in front of the podium on that day. But don't let me get in the way of your rant, heaven forfend!
No it isn't to early.
The time to call him out is NOW--because by using others its too early wait and see approach or starstruck cult hero allegiance blindness this stuff gets rammed through.
Seriously though if he does dare rise against his masters, what do you figure his life expectancy would be ?
odoco
I agree Vern. Obama's support of Bush's coverup of illegal wiretaps (and actual expansion of the interpretation of the Patriot Act), the hiring of the very thugs who destroyed the economy, equivocating on Iraq, etc. all give pause. He is doing some good things, e.g. environmental issues, but unless we push him we will, undoubtedly, either succumb to his own ambition and hubris, or be controlled by the system, or both. It seems it always works that way.
Those are just a couple of bones tossed so people can point to these minor policy shifts as representing some seachange.
Obama's ideological high-minded prattle is getting old fast. He must think we are fools for not recognizing what it really is: lying.
To use a physical analogy the banksters were manufacturing gold bars (the overrated mortgage backed securities) their accomplices in the rating business were then certifying that the gold gars were solid 99.9 pure gold but priced well below the price of gold. The greed-headed investors snapped up the gold bars in record numbers, one day a buyer of the gold bars needed some cash so he took a gold bar to a gold dealer and attempted to sell it. The gold dealer assayed the gold and discovered that the bars were actually gold plated lead. When news of this hit the street nobody was willing to buy gold bars, and their value plummeted. Since both the greed-headed investors and the banksters had made massive campaign contributions to Uncle Sugar the Banksters and investors ask Uncle Sugar to buy the gold plated lead bar so they could return to the vital roll banksters and investors play in the economy.
The hitch was that the banksters and investors wanted Uncle Sugar to buy the worthless lead bars at the price of gold.
Uncle Sugar faced a dilemma, let the banksters sell their worthless lead bars off at the cost of lead, which would result in the banksters ending up in prison on fraud charges, let the investors sell off their lead bars at the price of lead which would cost the investors billions of dollars, both of which would starve Uncle Sugar of his sugar. Or Uncle Sugar could buy back the worthless lead bars at the price of gold and saddle the Fed, the Treasury and especially the American taxpayers with an enormous debt load and a pile of worthless lead bars.
Uncle Sugar, as beholding as he was to the banksters and investors, said screw the taxpayers and is now buying worthless lead bars at the price of gold.
But the rub is that the banksters were running many other scams, and when the gold bar scam was disclosed other investors looked closely at their other financial investments they’d bought from other banksters and discovered that they too had been screwed.
As these other investments (derivatives) plunged in value it became clear that just buying back the gold plated lead bars would not be enough to keep the financial Master of the Universe and the banksters solvent. Uncle Sugar would have to buy back the entire package of fraudulent worthless securities…at or near their original value.
This was beyond the means of even Uncle Sugar, to create the amount of money required to buy back that many nearly worthless securities Uncle Sugar would have to max out his Visa Card. Long before enough worthless securities had been purchased to allow the banksters to go back to their old ways Uncle Sugars Visa card would adjust up to a 25% interest rate and create hyper inflation.) Uncle Sugar's other option would be to print so much money that the value of the dollar would be less than the cost of the paper and ink it takes to print them. (At which point it would take a wheelbarrow of greenbacks to buy a loaf of bread [aka hyper inflation].)
I think the underlying problem is a massive case of denial centered on Wall Street that's spilling over to Washington. Unlike the denial of the banksters at least Bernie Madoff manned up and admitted his guilt.
Wall Street can not accept that like Madoff, they were running unsustainable financial scams (derivatives). Wall Street is unwilling to accept the fact that their financial schemes differ only slightly in style from Mr. Madoff’s financial voodoo Ponzi scheme.
The banksters, The Fed., the Treasury, the White House and Congress are much like Bernie Madoff’s investors that can’t accept the fact that their investments have disappeared into thin air. In the unlikely event the banksters are called to justice you can bet that damned few are going to admit their guilt...unless Uncle Sugar sweetens the deal.
What we are currently facing is that the Treasury of the United States, the Fed, and the Federal government are attempting to bail out financial scams (derivatives) seventy times larger than Bernie Madoff’s measly $56,000,000,000.00 Ponzi scheme.
Should The Fed., The Treasury and the Federal government follow its current path these institutions will soon be insolvent. A path that if followed has no guarantee that it will succeed and a high probability of massive failure which will be catastrophic for the vast majority of the World’s population.
Really the only question to be answered at this point in time is who is going to take the fall, one percent of the banksters plus half of the rest of us? Or zero percent of the banksters and ninety nine percent of the of us?
Sioux Rose
MADHOOSIER: A most excellent parable. Should humanity survive the triplicate sins of corrupt finance, coveting war, and unsustainable (given the overload) ecosystems... yours would be a great "Aesop's Fable" for 22nd century children.
It would seem there is a third option: since all the Wall St ponzi schemes were largely based on an illusion of worth, what actually owns value still exists: human resources & resourcefulness, the merchandise in our shops, the homes already built, the land that blooms. What has failed is the symbolic basis for tender. Therefore as is being seen in communities developing their own parallel "dollars," we may see more direct barter which is not a bad thing.
I dine once every two weeks at an upscale Italian restaurant about 40 miles from my home and the staff knows me. I asked if they have seen a drop in business, and given that they cater to the upper end of the "market," they said no. I mentioned that I used to give away clothes I no longer wore, but was considering holding them as a basis for trade against such things as squash and tomatoes. They laughed when I said I felt things were about to "get to that." And since I am yet to develop a green thumb, I have no problem trading clothes to those who might like a new blouse in exchange for some produce. What IS collapsing before our incredulous eyes is the false system that allots to things an illusory basis for presumed value. Everything that has genuine value existed before this fall, and will continue to exist. It comes down to who gets to lay claim to it?
If all these toxic loans also include the ACTUAL HOMES that people have foreclosed on, given the insane odds (the tax payer picking up more than 90% of the fees/risk according to the Chicago School/domestic disaster capitalist team) the homes should belong to the people. Someone asked on another thread who has access to bid on these items? And who among this team of compromised integrity is fit to scrutinize, given the tendency among insiders to skim off the top?
It would be ideal to have a citziens' army lock up all the Wall St brokers and their bosses until they emerged with a deal that was fair for all... not in their favor exclusively.
Madhoosier, what an excellent analogy.
I would disagree with one thing, though: "the fact that their investments have disappeared into thin air." SOMEBODY got that money. It went somewhere, bought something, whatever, but some M.F.'er got it and probably still has it hidden somewhere.
Switzerland has virtually totally anonymous banking laws as do the Cayman Islands.
If Bernie managed to stash some away there Uncle Sam won’t be able to get his hands on it unless Bernie was dumb enough to leave a trail or the account numbers for investigators to find.
The way Ponzi schemes work is that as new money comes in and instead of investing it in stocks, bonds or what have you the new money is applied as the steep profits on the existing accounts. When the economy hits a recession and people start withdrawing money and less new money comes in the house of cards collapses.
The few people that withdrew a lot of money (money that had been growing at 12% a year, supposedly year after year) in the months before the collapse will make out like bandits. (Assuming that the bankruptcy judge doesn’t take it back)
In reality I doubt that less than a third of the supposed $56,000.000.000.00 ever really existed since a very large portion of that $56,000,000,000.00 was Bernie’s scam and existed only on paper and in Bernie’s imagination.
Madhoosier,
I agree with you that a great deal of this "crisis" was because of the movement of "theoretical money" substituting for real assets.
It's hard to feel bad for people who have airplanes and yachts getting taken because they believed they really could get a 30% return on their investment, but they did give up actual cash and someone somewhere has it now.
My husband, a man of few words, has for years said "Nuke Switzerland" whenever the topic of hidden finances comes up. He says the law should be changed so that if you want to do business in the US you should be required to make ALL of your finances available to authorities, whether you have them in a Swiss bank account or not.
The status of Switzerland (and that of other countries that provide secrecy in banking) is the way the criminally wealthy publicly thumb their noses at the rest of us.
Recently, Switzerland agreed to grant access to at least some of its accounts.
Good post.
The Fed and the Treasury are responsible for regulating the financial system. IF the Fed and the Treasury admit that the banksters ruined the financial system they incriminate themselves, especially since they supported much of the de-regulation that allowed the banksters to create their ponzi schemes.
The representatives of the people allowed this to happen thus the people take the fall.
I really appreciate Bill Moyers' efforts but where was he a few years ago?
A few years ago Bill Moyer was knocked off PBS by the FCC and was out in the wilderness with the rest of us. And there were many trying to get him to run for President.
odoco
Mad Hoosier - excellent post, illustrative and relevant. As I have said so many times here, until there is legal accountability, nothing changes. When immunity and impunity are devices of the powerful, the system never corrects itself, and the people are forever at its mercy.
The comedian, Lewis Black, in one of his monologues was describing the reallllyyy rich in this country who evidently are competitive people. They go by the number of houses and countries they live in. They go by the number of super expensive exotic automobiles, etc. Yachts by number and footage. But he says I can beat all of them with my personal 'balls washer.' He says he pays all her health care, big salary, great retirement.
So when he walks into a big party, she is in front of him washing his balls while everyone looks on, flabbergasted. No one has a personal ball washer but him...
I almost choked to death laughing my ... off.
You don't suppose Obama is Bush's ...?
Naw. Naw, hell no. Jeez, ya think?
Three cheers for Bill Moyers, Michael Winship, and Bill Black (and Paul Krugman, Joe Stiglitz, Nowriel Roubini, Simon Johnson, Robert Reich, Jeffrey Sachs - and probably a host of other leading economists who know better than what Obama is doing so far about the economy). We have to hope he will get the message, as you say, and step aside so we can get about the business of straightening out this mess. I'm a bit dismayed that the clamor for this change hasn't caught on more since Friday night when Moyers and Black first talked. It should be the lead on every "progressive" website around the world. It should make the evening news soon!
If I went around passing bad checks all over town, I'd be prosecuted for fraud. If you parked the car while I went into the bank, you'd be accused of conspiracy in my bad check scam. And if two cops saw what was going down and stood aside, that would implicate them as well.
Why are these MBA thugs and their accomplices in Congress and the SEC being held to a different standard? Why aren't the RICO statutes being applied?
Who's guarding this henhouse, anyway?
I wish Black were wrong, but I'm just not stupid enough to believe that he is. Summers-Geithner-Axelrod-Emanuel are the President's Achilles' heel. I think I channel Molly Ivins and Thomas Paine when I say "OH, SH*T AMERICA!"
An Achilles Heel that he himself created. Are we to believe that Barack Obama, the Harvard graduate, appointed men to key positions in his administration without being aware of their history, their leanings and their probable paths of action?
Revolutionaries want things to become so bad that people are forced by the very calamities around them to take up arms. I wish to see no violent revolution in this nation but the circumstances seem ever more ripe for such an event. Of course we have a ways to go yet but we seem on the descending path to calamity.
odoco
Thanks Bill, for truly keeping hope alive, and sensibility, and integrity. This country is now being manipulated by a financial cartel divorced from governmental control, in fact, it may well be controlling the government. I don't want to sound the 'radical alarm bell' here, but that is the classic beginnings of a fascist state - the merging of the corporate / government entities. I would hope, indeed pray, that those folks in the lower socio-economic realms that align themselves with the right of the political spectrum would begin to see that this struggle, this greed and manipulation, truly is 'class' originated. The Republicans have used the term 'class war' to deflect any criticism, always stating it is the language of the Marxists and Leninists. Well, I agree! And Marx and Lenin (and Engels) described the current situation perfectly.
The one thing the financial and political elites of this country have always feared is the consolidation of the lower masses into a single political entity - and the ability to express itself through participatory democracy. That time is nearing. Poor whites, Hispanics, blacks, union workers, field workers, domestic workers, workers for justice and peace, all of us - the time is now to demand accountability. This is not the time to be optimistic about Obama, or to believe your congressmen / women or your senators - this is the time to be vocal, write letters, get involved in the political process - especially during primary season, it is the time to stop contributing money to the two major political parties, IT IS TIME TO STARVE THE MACHINE.