Paulson's bailout is a preplanned financial endgame

[DoomandGloom]

We all know the Supreme Court just allowed corporations to make unlimited donations to political campaigns.  Can there be any greater sign that we are an oligarchy? Here the LATOC thread on the ruling.

http://www.doomers.us/forum2/index.php/topic,60638.0/topicseen.html

As a lawyer, I'm not going to waste my time reading justifying this corporate takeover over American politics, which is really just the caisson carrying away the dead body of American voter.

I've practiced law too long to waste my time reading a nefarious court decision somehow justifying giving corporations Constitutional rights.  It won't be long before they are given the right to vote, and that we individuals will only be counted as 3/4 of a citizen.   

Corporations are a great front for criminals because there's no one to point the finger at - the "shareholders" stand off in the background and we see headlines like "Goldman Sachs Pays Huge Bonuses "  and we don't associate that with some multi-billionaire in the shadows who owns a large portion of the stock. Now these "shareholders" have the ability to steer huge sums of money to the government whores without limit. This entire country has already been hijacked in so many ways and this is just some icing on the cake - and there's nothing anyone can do.

[Seahorse]

On the edge of systemic collapse.

https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/88/chris-hedges.html

[Seahorse]

The Elite engineered a coup.

http://www.alternet.org/story/145667/the_economic_elite_have_engineered_an_extraordinary_coup%2C_threatening_the_very_existence_of_the_middle_class

[Seahorse]

"None of what is happening in the world, including the editorials of foreign newspapers, is coincidental or innocent," Blanco said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE61D04V20100214

[BlueOwl]

The Elite engineered a coup.

http://www.alternet.org/story/145667/the_economic_elite_have_engineered_an_extraordinary_coup%2C_threatening_the_very_existence_of_the_middle_class

From that article:

Casualties of Economic Terrorism, Surveying the Damage

The devastating numbers across-the-board on the economic front are staggering. I'll go through some of them here, many we have already become all too familiar with. We hear some of these numbers all the time, so much so that it appears as if we have already begun "to normalize the unthinkable." You may be sick of hearing them, but behind each number is an enormous amount of individual suffering, American lives and families who are struggling worse than they ever have.

America is the richest nation in history, yet we now have the highest poverty rate in the industrialized world with an unprecedented amount of Americans living in dire straights and over 50 million citizens already living in poverty.

The government has come up with clever ways to downplay all of these numbers, but we have over 50 million people who need to use food stamps to eat, and a stunning 50 percent of U.S. children will use food stamps to eat at some point in their childhoods. Approximately 20,000 people are added to this total every day. In 2009, one out of five U.S. households didn't have enough money to buy food. In households with children, this number rose to 24 percent, as the hunger rate among U.S. citizens has now reached an all-time high.

We also currently have over 50 million U.S. citizens without health care. 1.4 million Americans filed for bankruptcy in 2009, a 32 percent increase from 2008. As bankruptcies continue to skyrocket, medical bankruptcies are responsible for over 60 percent of them, and over 75 percent of the medical bankruptcies filed are from people who have health care insurance. We have the most expensive health care system in the world, we are forced to pay twice as much as other countries and the overall care we get in return ranks 37th in the world.

In total, Americans have lost $5 trillion from their pensions and savings since the economic crisis began and $13 trillion in the value of their homes. During the first full year of the crisis, workers between the age of 55 - 60, who have worked for 20 - 29 years, have lost an average of 25 percent off their 401k. "Personal debt has risen from 65 percent of income in 1980 to 125 percent today." Over five million U.S. families have already lost their homes, in total 13 million U.S. families are expected to lose their home by 2014, with 25 percent of current mortgages underwater. Deutsche Bank has an even grimmer prediction: "The percentage of 'underwater' loans may rise to 48 percent, or 25 million homes." Every day 10,000 U.S. homes enter foreclosure. Statistics show that an increasing number of these people are not finding shelter elsewhere, there are now over 3 million homeless Americans, the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population is single parents with children.

One place more and more Americans are finding a home is in prison. With a prison population of 2.3 million people, we now have more people incarcerated than any other nation in the world -- the per capita statistics are 700 per 100,000 citizens. In comparison, China has 110 per 100,000, France has 80 per 100,000, Saudi Arabia has 45 per 100,000. The prison industry is thriving and expecting major growth over the next few years. A recent report from the Hartford Advocate titled "Incarceration Nation" revealed that "a new prison opens every week somewhere in America."

Little do we know our Coke has turned to a can of salted vinegar-water and yet we can't help cheering, "Coke is it!" because it always has been, or so we've been told, and always will be, or so we've been told.

[Seahorse]

"The Corporation (Goldman Sachs) Must die"

http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/kirby/2010/0216.html

[Seahorse]

"Wallstreet's Bailout Hustle."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/32255149/wall_streets_bailout_hustle/print

LATOC discussion on it:

http://www.doomers.us/forum2/index.php/topic,62397.0.html

[Seahorse]

How Goldman Sachs secretly bet on the US housing crash.

WASHINGTON — In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.

Notice how the article also says Goldman benefited from Paulsons actions as Secretary of the Treasury (remembering the Paulson came to the Treasury from GS):

The firm benefited when Paulson elected not to save rival Lehman Brothers from collapse, and when he organized a massive rescue of tottering global insurer American International Group while in constant telephone contact with Goldman chief Blankfein. With the Federal Reserve Board's blessing, AIG later used $12.9 billion in taxpayers' dollars to pay off every penny it owed Goldman.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/11/01/77791/how-goldman-secretly-bet-on-the.html

 Discussed here:

http://www.doomers.us/forum2/index.php/topic,63103.0/topicseen.html

Now, all this seems like "new news" to the sleeping public, but you heard it here first on LATOC.  Unfortunately, the general public is incapable of pulling their head out of their asses, yet they complain about how bad things stink.

[Seahorse]

The guy who outed Maddoff says don't trust your government.  Further, evidence that US Secretary of the Treasury Geitner laundered money to AIG. 

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

[DoomandGloom]

Which is true?

A. 1% of the US population owns 99% of the wealth.

B. Elections are bought.

C. Politicians are bought.

D. Government jobs are sold.

E. The judiciary is bought.

F. All of the above.

Most of the people you see on TV and in the news are really just front men for the 1% who remain (mostly) anonymous.

If you ran the show whose interests would you be protecting? If you have the morality of these people (and the egos - they REALLY think they are the reason we have prosperity when in fact they are the reason we have inequality - or maybe this is just how they justify their existence to themselves) you would be protecting your position of money and power at all costs - especially since there are no real ramifications (see F above).

[Seahorse]

Nice article on the parasitic nature of Goldman Sachs and the other ilk on Wallstreet.

http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/G+_Articles/Entries/2010/1/30_The_frog,_the_scorpion_and_Goldman_SachsBy_James_Rickards.html

[Seahorse]

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2010/03/nobel-prize-winning-economist-federal.html#comment-form

Nobel Prize-Winning Economist: Federal Reserve System is Corrupt and Undermines Democracy

Joseph Stiglitz - former head economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and a nobel-prize winner - said yesterday that the very structure of the Federal Reserve system is so fraught with conflicts that it is "corrupt" and undermines democracy.

Stiglitz said:

    If we [i.e. the IMF] had seen a governance structure that corresponds to our Federal Reserve system, we would have been yelling and screaming and saying that country does not deserve any assistance, this is a corrupt governing structure.

Maybe we're getting somewhere with this issue . . . Read more at the above link

http://www.doomers.us/forum2/index.php?action=post;quote=963510;topic=63314.0;num_replies=4;sesc=1c4b887ea22dac7cee2093c7765a3f02

[Seahorse]

http://www.kitco.com/ind/Wieg_cor/roger_mar042010.html

"Central and global bankers with their politician partners have now seized control of entire nations. Taxpayers have been victims of the largest robbery ever in history and it’s not over yet. There is no going back and “no new normal” returning to the old paradigm recovery. They would like you to believe this but we say no way. The world is permanently changed forever..."

[Seahorse]

Good MSNBC video on the Lehman fraud as determined by the US examiners.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/35841681#35841681

[illingsk]

http://www.kitco.com/ind/Wieg_cor/roger_mar042010.html

"Central and global bankers with their politician partners have now seized control of entire nations. Taxpayers have been victims of the largest robbery ever in history and it’s not over yet. There is no going back and “no new normal” returning to the old paradigm recovery. They would like you to believe this but we say no way. The world is permanently changed forever..."

Ever since the corporatists won the trifecta (i.e control of the Judicial branch of government with respect to the passage of corporate personhood by the Supreme Court to go with their control of the executive and legislative branches of government), the've been feeling pretty good about themselves. Now that government is completely irrelevant to the rest of us, they've decided to take the next logical step and direct those stupid, incoherent, undependable fatassed Teabaggers via Dick Armey's miss-information network called Freedomworks.org to bitch-slap anyone with even the slightest notion of what Liberty is.