Paulson's bailout is a preplanned financial endgame

[Abhaha]

If you want to watch Kaptur and Johnson online with Bill Moyers, here is the web address:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10092009/watch.html

[Seahorse]

Read this current blog on how the US is being pillaged by the banks and forward it to everyone you know.  People are going to be pissed over the next few years, they therefore need to know who to get pissed at.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/10/ongoing-cover-up-of-truth-behind.html

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/10/ongoing-cover-up-of-truth-behind.html


Write your CONgressman and tell them to support Ron Paul's audit the Federal Reserve push.

[Seahorse]

Bankers brag about their control on Washington.

No one should be surprised at the bankers’ dominance of Washington. They even boast about it. Hailing a further emasculation of the powers of the proposed Consumer Finance Protection Agency, the American Bankers’ Association recently issued a press release commending lawmakers for removing “the unworkable requirement that communications with consumers be ‘reasonable.’”

http://www.counterpunch.com/andrew10152009.html

[Seahorse]

Where's The Outrage?

I don't know about you, but I am outraged.

I am outraged and not just about Goldman Sachs, but about a process that allows, even encourages political pandering, by time and time again rewarding leveraged riverboat gamblers and failed institutions and at taxpayer expense.

I am outraged that real people are suffering massively while the influence peddlers have stolen the country for their own personal benefit.

I am outraged at a political system that is totally unresponsive to the American people.

I am outraged by campaign contribution and lobbying processes that allows corporations to buy votes with donations.

I am outraged how legislators ignored the wishes of the people who clearly did not want these bailouts in the first place.

I am outraged that very little of this is in mainstream media. Why is this stuff not on the frontpage of every newspaper in the country or at least in the editorial pages?

I am outraged that the average US citizen is not aware of any of this, instead depending on CNBC, or "The View" for their interpretation of the world.

I am outraged how special interest groups have exercised their power to monopolize the economy for the benefit of themselves, US citizens be damned.

I am outraged that all these bailout programs are doing nothing to alleviate the massive consumer debt problems. Every program, virtually every program was designed to bailout lending institutions, not consumers.

I am outraged at fees charged by banks receiving bailouts.

I am outraged over government pension plans and government pay scales massively out of line with the private sector.

I am outraged that Congress and this administration thinks the solution to massive budget deficits are still higher budget deficits in excess of a trillion dollars.

I am outraged about indictments. Paulson Admitted Coercion to force a shotgun wedding between Bank of America and Merrill Lynch yet no indictments were handed out. Let the Criminal Indictments Begin: Paulson, Bernanke, Lewis.

I am outraged that US citizens are not concerned enough and not educated enough to demand change.

I am outraged that the two party system has failed. Neither party has delivered meaningful change on budgets, on taxes, on social security, on deficit spending, on the size of government, on military spending, or fighting needless wars.

I am outraged at a Fed that purports to be "inflation fighters" when the only source of inflation in the word are central bankers, and their fractional reserve lending policies.

I am outraged that Greenspan and Bernanke could not see a housing bubble that 1000 bloggers could see.

I am outraged at the selective memory of Bernanke when speaking to Congress about these problems.

I am outraged that Bernanke's one sided response to asset bubbles, letting them grow without end, then bailing out the financial institutions that cause them.

I am outraged the Fed exists at all. It is a useless organization that cannot see bubbles, that panders to banks, that supports inflationary policies that are tantamount to theft by fraud.

I am outraged that the Obama Administration promised changed and did not deliver. "Yes We Can" was a lie. The reality is "It's Business As Usual, Only Worse, With Higher Deficits".

I am outraged there is not enough outrage over this.

Where the hell is the outrage?

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

The outrage is there and has been for years.  Americans are politically deaf and dumb.

In the video, bin Laden addresses Americans and rails against the ills of economic exploitation, multinational corporations, and globalization. He tells them to liberate themselves from "the deception, shackles, and attrition of the capitalist system." Similar to his incitement of Muslims against their oppressive, "apostate" rulers and the meddlesome West, bin Laden now seems to be trying to galvanize Americans against their own harsh socioeconomic and political system.

"Poor and exploited Americans, unite against your capitalist laws that make the rich richer and the poor poorer," the former multimillionaire businessman tells the camera. Never before has bin Laden utilized the grandiose language of Marxism in his statements to the American people. And yet, he says, Muslims and Americans are alike; they are both victims of the capitalist system, which "seeks to turn the entire world into a fiefdom of the major corporations under the label of 'globalization' in order to protect democracy."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0913/p09s01-coop.htm

[steelmoon]

The outrage is there and has been for years.  Americans are politically deaf and dumb.

Agreed.  The outrage is contained to the few who have made themselves aware.  The rest live in a virtual unreality, like the complacent and distracted citizens in Fahrenheit 451.

I think Shedlock's got it right and Kunstler's vision of a spontaneous uprising by the economically dispossessed remains a fantasy.  For now at least.

In any case, uprisings are not led by the masses, but by rival would-be elites.

[Seahorse]

Steelmoon, I agree.  I was starting to read The Communist Manifesto again in light of recent political and economic events.  Most writers, philosophers generally agree that there are the haves and have nots (the proletariat). Our own forefathers feared mob rule by the prols.  In the end,change ultimately comes with power struggles in the ruling class.  So, if there is to be change, it will be change as economic power moves from West to East, change in reserve currencies etc.  Where that will leave us prols in the U.S.?  I don't know.  It can't be good.

[AntiSocialite]

In some ways, Seahorse, the current hallucinations of wealth in our elites will work to our advantage. As Adam Smith painstakingly pointed out in The Wealth of Nations, money (even gold & sliver) is not wealth. It is the productive stock of a nation-state and the ability of its population to put it to use. In spite of our aging, creaking infrastructure, we are still able to use it to deploy labor for the purpose of creating wealth. Furthermore, we have subjected our workforce to enough wrenching change over the last 30 years that we arguably have one of the most flexible, mobile and adaptable labor forces on the planet. Once the holograms of our elites get shut off, one by one, they will be left to face the fact that they need our labor to continue producing "their" wealth. I can see debt-serfdom being acceptable by the current generation of Americans, but not outright slavery. Cultural mythology is the basis of power. They will have to work within that framework.

[Seahorse]

Anti-socialite,

You make an interesting point that as oil and energy production declines, this "artificial wealth" or capitol will be go down in value and labor will increase in value (I think Marx would agree).  What I've been wondering is this, energy will not completely run out.  The Bourgeois can get by without them for the most part, with modern farming, machines etc.  So, I could see a hypothetical world with where a ruling elite simply live like kings, with very few prols to do what little manual labor there is.  What I don't know is how many people are actually needed to keep the haves in power. 

But, for now, we have a gov't taken over by fewer and fewer Bourgeois who are actually killing themselves off in this crisis, for example the death of Bear Sterns and Lehman brothers.  This result of ever increasing crisis hitting capitalist and destroying themselves entrenching the power of the survivors was also predicted by Marx.  It seems Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan will live to fight each other another day.

[AntiSocialite]

Seahorse,

I detect two separate forces at work here (albeit born from the same cause). The first is the evaporation of hallucinated wealth, and what actions may be expected to be visited upon the proletariat in the efforts to reclaim that wealth. The second force at work will be infighting among the elites over the ever-shrinking pie of wealth, real or imagined.

I was aiming my prior comments to the former. The U.S. is wealthy, by any measure. The fact that we owe trillions or quadrillions or bubblillions in paper IOU's to ourselves or other countries is fairly immaterial. Our wealth lies in our infrastructure, our hard-working, mobile, literate (OK that one is a bit arbitrary), and flexible labor force, and in our fortunate geographical location among the continents. Anyone who wishes to remain wealthy must tap into this dynamic. Static wealth is simply shit sitting in a closet. Real wealth is expressed in one's command over the labor of others. In order to harness and extract energy, one depends on the acquiescence of the proletariat. They will need to be CONVINCED to provide their labor to deploy the energy the elites need. Whether the current concentration of wealth is tenable within the current American mythology is debatable, but that isn't my point. A plurality of citizens will need to be kept "happy" in some way, no matter which way you slice the pie (pun intended).

Now, to address the latter force (elite infighting over pie slices). Banished elites don't just skulk away quietly. This is why Bloody Mary needed to be imprisoned by Elizabeth I. Elizabeth needed to neutralize her competition, but couldn't very well provide a martyr to Mary's Catholic followers (a REALLY good reason why we don't just kill Osama bin Laden). It was only after Elizabeth consolidated her power that she was able to try and kill her nemesis cousin. The elites currently in power are not concerned about spontaneous uprisings, per se. Such things are easily dispersed. It is OTHER elites (usually recently banished - think Lehman Bros.) who seek to use the prols for regaining their lost pieces of the pie. This is what the current power brokers fear. Personally, I expect a gradual regional realignment along ideological (i.e. mythical) lines. Areas prone to violence (think Mexico) will continue to settle their power struggles in such a manner. Areas more tolerant of an overbearing nanny state (think pacific northwest) will continue to tolerate oppressive tax/fee burdens. Europe is fucked. They will devolve into their centuries-old squabbles and reduce infrastructure and capital deployment to mere shadows of what exists today. Russia wins, in that scenario. I expect China to retain regional hegemony, but it's anyone's guess how the Asian proletariat will be treated in their elites' efforts to command wealth. I suspect it won't be pretty. Americans have an advantage in our "wild west" and "personal freedom" mythologies. They MUST be tapped into in order to get us to work. The vast evaporation of paper bubblilions will have no effect on this mindset, IMHO. In spite of the fact that we are armed to the teeth, I don't see a civil war breaking out. Such a thing must wait until we re-regionalize. That will take at least another generation (again -- future predictions are all IMHO).

[Seahorse]

"Bernanke Guilty of Coercion and Market Manipulation"

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/10/bernanke-guilty-of-coercion-and-market.html

[Seahorse]

Calls for a showing of outrage in Chicago to get Congress to stand up for the people and protect them from the banks.

Showdown is a series of demonstrations when thousands of Americans - retirees, farmers, workers, homeowners, renters, students, clergy, and small business owners - come together on the streets of Chicago to demand a banking system that puts the American people first and a Congress that makes it happen!

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/10/express-your-outrage-at-showdown-in.html

[Seahorse]

PBS Documentary on the banking takeover.

Snippet here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP4d5paLECs (External Embedding Disabled)

Documentary here:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/

[Seahorse]

As he defended the bank’s lavish bonuses, Lord Griffiths said the general public should “tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity for all”, saying also that “we should not ... be ashamed of offering compensation in an internationally competitive market which ensures the bank businesses here and employs British people”.

http://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-exec-inequality-is-the-path-to-prosperity-2009-10

We should tolerate the inequality?  We should continue to use taxpayer money to give bankers lavish bonuses?  Why?  He argues bc they employ us?  Really?  Isn't unemployment rising?  Are they going to put us all on the bankster payrolls? 

What he is trying to shove down our throats is trickle down economics, which means, if we are rich, then you should be happy with the scraps we throw out every now and then.  However, keep in mind that the only thing that trickles down, or rolls down hill, is shit.

[AntiSocialite]

As he defended the bank’s lavish bonuses, Lord Griffiths said the general public should “tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity for all”, saying also that “we should not ... be ashamed of offering compensation in an internationally competitive market which ensures the bank businesses here and employs British people”.

http://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-exec-inequality-is-the-path-to-prosperity-2009-10

We should tolerate the inequality?  We should continue to use taxpayer money to give bankers lavish bonuses?  Why?  He argues bc they employ us?  Really?  Isn't unemployment rising?  Are they going to put us all on the bankster payrolls? 

What he is trying to shove down our throats is trickle down economics, which means, if we are rich, then you should be happy with the scraps we throw out every now and then.  However, keep in mind that the only thing that trickles down, or rolls down hill, is shit.

While it's deflating to witness such hubris, it also starkly illustrates the magical thinking being engaged by TPTB. For 20 or 30 years, the American people bought this horseshit. We're not buying it anymore, but nobody at the top has noticed.

[Seahorse]

Max Keiser interview with Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former assistant treasury secretary, who says, we no long have a gov't, we have special interests in charge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmvLPmSKn7o (External Embedding Disabled)