Remembrance of Things Past - Part 2
By CRAIG DELLA PENNA on August 20, 2009 at 5:01 PM in Current Affairs
Crud Layer 2
The intention of it all.
What a catastrophe, they cried. What a horrific financial debacle, the sky is truly falling and we must have all your money right this instant lest even more dire events come to pass… how could this have happened? Who could have foreseen this… Whoa!, wait just a minute, it kinda looks like some folks did see it coming:
Simon Johnson was the former chief economist for the IMF, presumably he knows what he’s talking about and knows whom he is talking about as well. He makes a statement part way through his interview with Bill Moyers that is absolutely staggering, in reference to a statement by one of Morgan Stanley’s top officials, Johnson says:
“What he’s basically saying is business as usual. Go about your daily lives. Get the bonuses. Re-brand them as awards. But it really shows you the arrogance, and I think these people think that they’ve won. They think it’s over. They think it’s won. They think that we’re going to pay out ten or 20 percent of GDP to basically make them whole. It’s astonishing.”
Mr. Johnson goes on to describe the coup de main that occurred last fall as eerily familiar to him. It’s the exact scenario the IMF and the World Bank have used for decades to destroy the economies of Third World countries, except this time it was used on the US – deliberately.
Another part of the puzzle is revealed almost by accident by Representative Paul Kanjorski (D-PA). In a C-SPAN interview on his opinions about the financial crisis, Rep. Kanjorski makes the following statement:
“On Thursday (Sept 18, 2008), at 11am the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw-down of money market accounts in the U.S., to the tune of $550 billion was being drawn out in the matter of an hour or two. The Treasury opened up its window to help and pumped a $105 billion in the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks. They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn’t be further panic out there.
If they had not done that, their estimation is that by 2pm that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the U.S., would have collapsed the entire economy of the U.S., and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed. “It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it.”
Another piece drops into place courtesy of Matt Taibbi who writes an article in Rolling Stone, titled:
“Inside The Great American Bubble Machine” here
Where he shows that Goldman Sachs has been involved in the engineering and manipulation of every market financial crisis of the 20th – and now the 21st – centuries. It is interesting to note that no other company has GS’s history of placing (one might almost say: infiltrating) so many, many partners in positions of authority in the US government (and other influential positions) :
Henry H. Fowler - 58th United States Secretary of the Treasury (1965-1969)
Robert Rubin - Former United States Treasury Secretary, ex-Chairman of Citigroup.
Henry Paulson - Former United States Treasury Secretary.
Joshua Bolten - former White House Chief of Staff
Jon Corzine - Governor of the State of New Jersey.
Michael Cohrs - Head of Global Banking at Deutsche Bank
Jim Cramer - founder of TheStreet.com, best selling author, and host of Mad Money on CNBC
Ashwin Navin - President and co-founder of BitTorrent, Inc.
George Herbert Walker IV - member of the Bush family and current managing director at Neuberger Berman
Robert Zoellick - United States Trade Representative (2001-2005), Deputy Secretary of State (2005-2006), World Bank President.
Mark Carney - Current Governor of the Bank of Canada
Neel Kashkari - former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability
Malcolm Turnbull - Australian politician, currently the federal leader of the Liberal Party of Australia.
John Thain - former Chairman and CEO, Merrill Lynch, and former chairman of the NYSE.
Robert Steel - Chairman and President, Wachovia.
Reuben Jeffery III, Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs (2007-)
Romano Prodi, Prime Minister of Italy twice (1996-1998 and 2006-2008) and President of the European Commission (1999-2004)
Mario Draghi, governor of the Bank of Italy (2006- )
Massimo Tononi, Italian deputy treasury chief (2006-2008)
Way too cozy for effective regulation of the financial industry, note discussion below of how GS alumnus Henry Paulson torpedoed a GS rival to trigger the Obama Election Financial Crisis.
Last, let’s go to Professor James Galbraith (yes, son of…) on the causes of the financial crisis (From the Texas Observer):
Causes of the Crisis
James K. Galbraith
May 01, 2009Mr. Moderator, you ask what is the root cause? My reply is in three parts.
First, an idea. The idea that capitalism, for all its considerable virtues, is inherently self-stabilizing, that government and private business are adversaries rather than partners…; the idea that regulation, in financial matters especially, can be dispensed with. We tried it, and we see the result.
Second, a person. It would not be right to blame any single person for these events, but if I had to choose one to name it would be… former Senator Phil Gramm. I’d cite specifically the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act—the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act—in 1999, after which it took less than a decade to reproduce all the pathologies that Glass-Steagall had been enacted to deal with in 1933.
I’d also cite the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, slipped into an 11,000-page appropriations bill in December 2000 as Congress was adjourning following Bush v. Gore. This measure deregulated energy futures trading, enabling Enron and legitimating credit-default swaps, and creating a massive vector for the transmission of financial risk throughout the global system. …
Third, a policy. This was the abandonment of state responsibility for financial regulation… This abandonment was not subtle: The first head of the Office of Thrift Supervision in the George W. Bush administration came to a press conference on one occasion with a stack of copies of the Federal Register and a chainsaw. A chainsaw. The message was clear. And it led to the explosion of liars’ loans, neutron loans (which destroy people but leave buildings intact), and toxic waste. That these were terms of art in finance tells you what you need to know. …
The consequence … is a collapse of trust, a collapse of asset values, and a collapse of the financial system. That is what has happened, and what we have to deal with now.
Can “stimulus” get us out?
As a matter of economics, public spending substitutes for private spending. … But it is not self-sustaining in the absence of a viable private credit system. The idea that we will be on the road to full recovery and returning to high employment in a year or so therefore seems to me to be an illusion.
And for this reason, the emphasis on short-term, “shovel-ready” projects in the expansion package, while understandable, was a mistake. As in the New Deal, we need both the Works Progress Administration … to provide employment, and the Public Works Administration … to rebuild the country. …
The risk we run, in public policy, is not inflation. It is lack of persistence, a premature reversal of direction, and of course the fear of large numbers. If deficits in the trillions and public debt in the tens of trillions scare you, this is not a line of work you should be in.
The ultimate goals of policy are not measured by deficits or debt. They are measured by the performance of the economy itself. Here Leader Armey and I agree. He spoke with approval, in his remarks, of the goals of 3 percent unemployment and 4 percent inflation embodied in the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978. Which, as a 24-year-old member of the staff of the House Banking Committee in 1976, I drafted.
Professor Galbraith leaves out some key components in my opinion, such as Alan Greenspan, the Ayn Randite Chairman of the Fed who blithely ignored his duties to regulate the Federal Reserve, choosing instead to allow classic laissez faire capitalism to pillage the economy unchecked until, at last, there was just nothing left to steal. And the original cardboard cutout president: Ronald Reagan – this dumb cluck bought into every idiot notion of trans-national capitalism extant and held the door open for every lowlife scumbag thief in the entire political/financial spectrum. Yes, I’m talking about Gingrich and Gramm and Norquist and all the rest of the neo-con bastards who have tried to take this country apart brick by brick for almost 30 years.
And last, but certainly not least, there is our Glorious Leader…
Crud Layer 3
The Zen of the Con
…How did BO(zo) get elected anyway? All the hype aside let’s look at what happened in the last six weeks of the general election campaign (and let’s leave the primaries alone, I’m still burning about them but that’s a story for another day).
In the middle of September it was looking bad for BO(zo). His numbers weren’t going anywhere and McCain was trending up. It was looking increasingly like McCain had the momentum and could win by 1 or 2 points in November.
Then several very important things happened in quick succession:
1. Financial crises were triggered on several fronts simultaneously (see above). I say ‘triggered’ because these crises did not happen sui generis they were very deliberately set off to gain a desired effect.
2. Major financial backers moved en mass to back the Obama campaign.
3. Ad buys by the Obama campaign increased to a ratio of 3-4 to 1 and in some cases 10 to 1 over the McCain campaign.
4. The Obama campaign collected almost $200 million in September.
Do you really think that Obama got $200 million in September 2008 because Grandma emptied the cookie jar and little Suzie gave up her lunch money? …really?
The financial ‘crisis’ that had everyone running around in the middle of the night doing their Chicken Little imitations was, first – very real but, second – artificially initiated. The fact is that this crisis could have occurred at any time over the last 2-3 years, the entire thing was being held together by spit, baling wire …and mutual terror, the Wall Street Guild of Thieves knew that the jig was nearly up, they just didn’t want it to go Postal while their hands were in the till.
The most likely tipping point was in the spring of 2008 when Bear Stearns collapsed but that was papered over by a shotgun marriage to JPMorgan/Chase (do some research on those names and your head will explode), why? Because a financial collapse at that time served no useful purpose, the Bush administration had one foot out the door, there wasn’t going to be an impeachment or even an investigation and it was way too far from the election to make any difference – people who can’t find Iraq on a map simply can’t be expected to remember a financial crisis that happened six whole months ago, jeez!
Ah, but there was a convenient fall guy close at hand for Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (ex-CEO of, wait for it… Goldman Sachs) in the form of Lehman Bros a fierce competitor of GS and run by Richard Fuld, a personal enemy of Hank Paulson who thought he was truly pond scum (it’s all relative in the financial services world). So, in early September, as things were beginning to sour for BO(zo), some calls were made, some rumors launched, some flags went up in the air and, lo and behold, Lehman Bros is denied the help that was given to Bear Stearns just six months earlier although both firms were in strikingly similar situations – and Wall Street went down in flames.
Think I’m a garden variety conspiracy nut? Read on…
Bush/Cheney knew in 2006 that there weren’t going to be any repercussions for any of their crimes (remember Nancy “Impeachment is off the table.” Pelosi?) so they forged on with their plans to control the agenda of the four years 2008-2012.
Foreign policy was already charted so far as they were able, the Iraq war was winding down and the Bush/Cheney policy of having a standing US army in Iraq borders for decades to come was as safe as possible. Think I’m wrong? Take a look at Bush’s pronouncements on the size and length of stay for US forces and then compare them to what BO(zo) is actually doing there, identical aren’t they?
But foreign policy is Republican meat & potatoes, the real problem was how to:
1. Continue to suck the blood out of the US economy, while
2. Laying the groundwork for a Republican victory in 2012
The economy is usually a solid Democratic issue, when it’s bad the people vote in the Dems to fix is (so they can then vote in the Repubs to steal it all again, there now, isn’t that all clear?). But no one gets out alive if they’ve got a financial disaster on their hands, yes, I know FDR was the exception but he was exceptional – do you think BO(zo) has those kinds of chops?
So, how to create a continuing financial train wreck that will devastate the country long enough to guarantee a Republican White House in 2012?
First, you have to have a ‘useful fool’ to front for you – this is why BO(zo) won the nomination, his Astroturf campaign was actually supported again and again by generous donations from the corporate elite, not the netroots support you heard so much about (I can show you exactly how this was done: it’s fun, foolproof and completely untraceable).
Next, you need to manufacture a compelling financial narrative that does three things:
1. Shuts down real consideration of issues in the election in favor of knee jerk responses to perceived impending disaster.
2. Mandates predetermined actions for at least a year, probably two - guts the opposition in the 2010 elections and guarantees no meaningful action until 2012.
3. Remains so radioactive it drowns the ‘useful fool’ as it becomes impossible to blame the previous administration for the continuing debacle.
Hmmm… sounds very familiar, doesn’t it?
Last, there is the Law of Maximum Inertia of Stupidity. Ever hear of Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus? No? Well, he was the unfortunate guy the Roman Senate put in charge of defeating Hannibal in the Second Punic War. Hannibal was a military genius who had brought his army from Carthage in North Africa (about where Tunis is today) and was merrily romping about northern Italy pillaging and burning anything in his path with gay abandon. The Senate had sent several other generals to get rid of this pest but they kept being massacred (along with several tens of thousands of troops) as Hannibal thought up new and clever ways of running circles around them.
Fabius (for short) knew he was no match for Hannibal in the field but he also knew that Hannibal was vulnerable because his supply lines were very, very long. Fabius harried Hannibal’s foraging parties, never engaged in a pitched battle, kept his own lines internal so Hannibal had no chance to march directly on Rome. In short, Fabius waged a war of attrition, wearing down Hannibal’s resources until he had to abandon the campaign. He did it so well that it’s now called the Fabian Strategy.
What the heck does this have to do with the here and now?
Well, over the past eight years the Bushies have been assiduous in placing and replacing mid and senior-level posts in government with dyed-in-the-wool neocon soldiers. In the last two years of the Bush/Cheney administration there was a concerted effort to get these parasites ensconced in the civil service where they can never be dislodged. Remember the fanatics they got into the Justice Department? Well, it looks like they were doing the same thing in every other government department.
The feckless Democrats have either completely ignored this maneuver or are just too damn dumb to think of it, I‘m not sure which. So they are now confronted with a solid wall of bureaucracy that is fundamentally opposed to everything they are supposed to stand for. Good luck to Team Obama in getting any results through this Fabian crew.
Not that they need help in screwing up their follow through. Huge numbers of political positions remain unfilled six months into the Obama administration’s first year – the kinds of positions that do the grunt work on getting legislation passed and programs funded and implemented. No one seems to care about the actual workings of government. Important positions at crucial agencies, Treasury for instance, remain unfilled – now because no one wants the jobs. Anyone with a brain can see the train wreck coming and no one wants to be on board when it happens. To top it all off, the cabinet departments themselves are in disarray, since Obama has appointed a Czar for almost every cabinet post no one knows where the actual governing power lies: Who gives the orders? Who has the imprimatur to carry them out? And most important: to whom does Obama listen?
We don’t have a government, we have a Persian court.
Stay tuned for RoTP - Part 3
(Release: November 13)
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Craig,
Continued good work at drawing out a complex set of connections.
OT. I’d like to pick your brain about the metaphoric significance of satyrs and cyclopes to the Greek polis. Please e-mail me.
You might like this.
http://riverdaughter.wordpress.com/2009/08/20/the-culture-of-cannibalism-in-us-politics-part-one/
SM
Oh Steve I wish you would tell us all. I laid out some maybe outrageous things to think about. So far nobody has laughed in my face or called me a tinfoil hat person. At least not out loud
T,
One function of the plays of ancient Greece, and the festivals in which they were performed,was
to bring the citizens together to experience and discuss fundamental questions about what constitutes proper interrelations between individuals, families, communities, humanity, and the cosmos. I think the wisdom contained in these plays is applicable to life today.
If this is something that interests you I recommend “The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy” by Martha Nussbaum.
Here is an excerpt from Pindar’s Nemean Odes quoted from the book:
Some people pray for gold, others for boundless land.
I pray to my fellow citizens
until my limbs are wrapped in earth - a man
who praised what deserved praise
and sowed blame for wrong-doers.
But human excellence
grows like a vine
fed by the green dew
raised up, among men wise and just,
to the liquid sky.
We have all kinds of needs for those we love -
most of all hardships, but joy, too,
straines to track down eyes that it can trust.
Pindar, Nemean VIII. 37-44.
On another note, the links you put up are pretty outlandish. For example, if some mysterious group whose purpose is to control human population has been working at that aim since archaic times, isn’t clear that they have failed miserably?
Then again, it is not a secret that I am a member of groups that advocate for women’s rights all over the world. Some of these rights are the right to control their own bodies and their birth cycles. Accordingly,you might want to be careful about what I have to say because I am a member of a conspiracy (conspirare - to breath together)that wants humanity to gain control over our population numbers.
SM
Huzzah!
I intended to give you kudos on your last post, Craig, but the spam monster has a taste for my posts.
I think you’ve nailed it.
“First, you have to have a ‘useful fool’ to front for you.”
“Next, you need to manufacture a compelling financial narrative,” and then,
“Last, there is the Law of Maximum Inertia of Stupidity.”
That boils it down to the nitty-gritty, the ugly reality that liberal Dems are unwilling or incapable of admitting: they were had from the get-go.
As a life-long Dem, this gives me no joy because I think this gross betrayal, this perverted ideology is leading us all to absolute ruin.
We have a Ponzi scheme, posing as a government. And both parties, Democrats and Republicans, are to blame. They’ve corrupted themselves from the inside out. It’s time to call the guilty for what they are: felons, thieves.
If you’re not sick of what’s happening? You are not paying attention.
they are all crooks; i’ll second that.
No mention of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac … ???? Geesh! They were the primary link between the government largess and corporate greed. (I agree with part of about gov’t and business being partners rather than adversaries). Without the twin terrors priming the pump with propped up mortgages, banks wouldn’t have the products to turn into derivatives. Am I wrong?
More good information, thanks for being here for us.
It is reasuring in all the insanity with the MSM and the current administration, that we have a safe haven here.
Here is a devolping story
Congressman: Fed Engaged In A “Coverup” Over BofA/Merrill (BAC)
http://www.businessinsider.com/congressman-fed-engaged-in-a-coverup-over-bofamerrill-2009-6
Thank you for this series, Craig. You’ve got me in suspense. How will it all turn out in Act III? Well done!
How will it all turn out, indeed!
WHO used it? Foreign countries? Bush/Cheney? Goldman Sachs? The IMF? The World Bank? All of them together? Who? Who? Who? Someone has to know where this run originated. Because what keeps them from doing it again?
Wildly off topic I hope
For years I had heard some of the conspiracy theories and shrugged them off as being too far from reason. However I did plenty of research and didn’t forget the possibility it could come about.
Things seem to be following the pattern for what was predicted. One list of some of the family names of players are the “Black Nobility” not based on color but actions.
http://wikicompany.org/wiki/911:Black_Nobility
Four of the names on the list are ancient family names of mine. I know that I am not one of their members. So maybe it is after all a wild tale?
An article is here.
http://illuminati-news.com/black-nobility.htm
I see basically the same picture described here—as far as it goes. But there are many questions in my mind about the true loyalties and power base of Obama’s Democratic puppeteers like Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emmanual, and Larry Summers. Both parties have been stringing their voting members along shamelessly, but I can’t see any real opposition of the respective leaders on any significant issue with the possible exception of how to deal with global warming. I think we have reached the point where the corporations rule the world (for the moment) through the US President and the US Congress.
As for the bureaucrats….I think everyone of them below the departmental leaders, have been neutralized. They are being paid to do as they are told by the politicians and keep their mouths shut. The rules, regulations, statutes don’t mean what they used to. The bureaucratic politicos do as they darn please unless some public interest group files a lawsuit, which may not do much good anyway because so many judges are in the corporate fold as well.
It’s an ugly, depressing picture that has been compounding since 1963 at least.
Perhaps since WWII, if you are a Gravity’s Rainbow fan.
The site below lays things out with facts and dates.
A History Timeline of Population Control
http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/populationcontrolagenda2.htm
Baxter International
It was Baxter International
http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2009/02/27/8560781.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baxter_International
An amazing essay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you, Craig.
Having said that, I think I will start growing my own food.
Open polinated or heirloom seeds and do not forget the medical herbs. Just search herbs and ailments. Check world seed search for some of the more exotic ones. One good source is from France.
So let me get this straight. You’re saying that BUSH is responsible for putting Obama into office in some grand scheme to destroy the country to win it back for the Republicans? Huh?
What are you going to tell us next? That 911 was an inside job? George Bush did that too? Puleeese.
The Leftist side of the Democratic party put this guy into office through strong arm tactics(Acorn and affiliates) and money from billionaires like Soros.
And big corporations. Corporations don’t just give money to one party, they donate to the guy they think will win, to curry favor with them. Nobody who has a brain believed that the people sending in their lunch money got this guy elected.
You Hillary supporters were screwed by your OWN PARTY. And now you want to blame it on Bush?
I truly wish that Hillary had won. At least she and Bill would never purposely try to destroy this country. And I hope you Dems can win your party back from these thugs. These mobsters in office make Bush look like a schoolgirl.
Either way, both parties have screwed, and will continue to screw the American people. All they care about is their own power. I want them ALL thrown out of office.
Tammy–see below. Those of us who were involved heavily in the primary were aghast after Hillary suspended her run and were hell-bent on stopping Obama. Many of us then went on to help McCain’s bid because we could tell what a horror O’s people were bringing onto our country. What really, really maddened us was the apathy of the Republican Party about the election. Those were the neo-con faithfuls, unwilling to give Hillary a chance to have eight years to do some righting of the mess we were in. So they sent out McCain and did nothing to help him.
Craig’s argument fits the reality of what I experienced. See below.
You misunderstand. I think that Bush and Obama were funded by, and take orders from, the same people. When those folks saw that Bush/Cheney had screwed the pooch they just changed their flags and trotted out their very own Democratic sock puppet - Obama.
The last thing they wanted was competency and integrity in the White House. And I agree with you about Hilary and Bill.
I also agree that both parties are irretrievably corrupt and they should all go to jail.
I keep sayin’ it hoping it’ll catch on: 3rd party anyone?
Are you starting one? Sign me up!
You are spot on. Obama is a wholly-owned “subsidiary” of the same parent “company” that owned the previous Administration. Any semblance of this administration to change and new politics is just skin deep, as it were.
I’m all for a third party as long as it doesn’t morph into some single-issue wedge-driver.
Absolutely, spot on. I’m a Dem, sickened by what I see going on in my own party. But if anyone thinks I’m making a pivot and running with open arms towards the Republicans? Think again. Like Diane, I supported McCain in 2008, not because he was a Republican [which, of course, he is] but because I thought he had a streak of independence to shake off the shackles. Maybe he would have. Maybe not. But his own party offered lukewarm support at best and the coup de grace was suspending his campaign, going to DC, and then doing . . . NOTHING. None of us know what happened behind closed doors, but had McCain stood up and said what he said after the fact: “this is generational theft,” he might have had a chance.
So please, let’s not play revisionist history. Craig is right: both these parties are corrupt and they’re killing the country, day by day.
I wish we had a viable third party. Because I would cast my vote immediately and never look back.
Right with you, voted for McCain for the same reason, I don’t belong to any party and never will again. Country over politics from now on.
Absolutely, Greg! Thanks for a great article!
It just seems to me that you were blaming Bush for getting Obama elected, and frankly, I’m sick of hearing about Bush.
I’m a conservative, but the Republican party disgusts me. The extreme Right ran the party for Bush, and that pissed me off.
And Obama only represents the extreme Left.
A third party? Unless they get a Soros-like figure to fund the campaign, it won’t happen.
I just want to clean up the corruption on both sides. Like I’ve said before, I’m conservative, with many Democratic friends, and we discuss issues of the COUNTRY not the parties.
I don’t label all Dems as wackos any more than I label all Repubs as wackos. We really DO need a middle.
I would have been happy with McCain or Hillary as President. McCain, because he’s never taken any pork, and I think he truly would fight for this country, and Hillary, because after seeing her in action against Obama, I was actually seeing her as a great President. In her position now, she’s nothing more than a lacky for Obama, and that disgusts me.
I wish Hillary would resign as SOS and begin campaigning against Obama. If all the Hillary fans fought hard, and rallied some of the people who now realize that Obama was a big mistake, she could probably take him in 2012. I’m serious. The people are seeing this Marxist BO for who he is, and the people ARE rising up.
I don’t see anyone on the conservative side as yet, but I personally don’t care who runs this country as long as they aren’t MOB bosses like Obama and his crew. These kind of people destroy cities like Detroit, DC, etc, and care nothing about anyone but themselves. THEY MUST BE VOTED OUT.
And please, I’m so sick of hearing about Bush. He’s gone. Can we all focus on the jerks that are destroying us NOW?
Not blaming Bush so much as getting people to see that the actions of Bush and Obama make them identical political puppets.
As to the rest of your comment: agreed.
Craig,
A convincing and depressing post.
All you said before this seemed so apparant to me at the time. But as for the $200, though it was clear to me that O was not getting his money from little Suzie and from Grandma, for sending off to my friends and family who are still unwilling to admit their blindness, I would really like a list of the entities that gave this $200.
I think it’s the only way to wake some people up.
But also depressing for me is the neo-con Repubs that sold out McCain. I had been hoping against all hope that we could have a respite from a one-party government for a while.
I do remember just being sick to my stomach the whole time Reagan was president. Then I remember being angry all the time Daddy Bush was president. With “W” in the White House, I felt that I really needed to be on anti-anxiety drugs the whole time.
I needed a break so badly from the theater of the absurd I had been living for so much of my adult life. It’s become a Twilight Zone experience now with BO–you know the one where the little kid is a monster and wishes everyone into the cornfield. (The adults are scared to death, and the child is in control.)
Of course I meant 200 million–not $200.
Wasn’t it reported that the lion’s share came from Wall Street?
Also the giant loophole on the web that allowed foreign entities to donate through prepaid credit cards.
So many places to look.
I really liked this article. Looking forward to Part III.
Off topic but whoa! MSNBC playing the race card and editing video to make their propagandistic point. Contessa Brewer claiming that gun-toters are white racists while the video of the African-American man carrying the gun outside the townhall meeting is edited so you can’t see his face or hands. Unbelievable. How low can MSNBO go?
http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/0809/Righty_bloggers_slam_MSNBC_over_gun_clip_network_responds.html?showall
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2009/08/18/msnbc-no-mention-black-gun-owner-among-racist-protesters
Obama’s traitorous FISA vote was a signal that he would play ball. That he could and would say one thing and do whatever was best for his own self interests.
To allow for “lawbreaking” That he could be bought.
Q. What is an honest politician in Chicago?
A. One that stays bought.
So far Obam looks “honest”
word.
Whoa, whoa, WHOA–hold on there a minute! I am stuck at crud layer #2, where you display Galbraith’s letter. If I follow correctly, you are agreeing with him, but here is what doesn’t add up: that system was NOT capitalism!!!
How can you point to all the connections between government officials and the banking industry–which amounts to oligarchy and corruption–and call that ‘capitalism’?!? It has government scum crusting and oozing all over it! Please DO NOT try to lay the blame on free market capitalism when it is government officials–whom we the people TRUSTED to act in the best interest of the general welfare–who completely orchestrated this mess. I don’t give a hoot if they had a “D” or an “R” behind their name, THEY are the ones who encouraged evil to take root and flourish! They are practically dousing the tree of evil with miracle grow!!
No sir, nuh-uh, you cannot blame the free market. The free market is the only system we have that is blind to power and position. It rewards those who think ahead, act resourcefully, and work hard. It is GOVERNMENT that rewards according to power and position. We need LESS of it. Our government officials egregiously failed to protect the free market and instead choose to abuse it to their own wealth and advantage. They are trying to pull a fast one on the American people by blaming this on something other than themselves and crying that they need MORE power to supposedly regulate and control MORE things so they can enrich and empower themselve MORE, leaving we the people in the dust. Don’t buy it!!!!
SNJ:
Blaming the free market is like blaming a wolf for killing a lamb. What I blame is our collective fantasy about the free market - represented by your statement “The free market is the only system we have that is blind to power and position. It rewards those who think ahead, act resourcefully, and work hard.”
This is so wrong I hardly know where to begin.
The free market is ALL about power and position, it rewards deceit and treachery, that is its nature. Buy low, sell high, Never give a sucker an even break. I’ve got mine and screw you. These are the credos of the free market, not to see this is just being willfully naive.
Capitalism and ‘free’ markets are completely amoral - not immoral - amoral, morals simply do not apply. There is no ‘bad’ free market or ‘good’ free market, nor is there bad or good capitalism.
The big problem we have is that we do not recognize this. So we do not recognize our part in this as the government - this is the only place were we, the people, have the chance to restore the balance. When government gets corrupted by the wealth and power of the capitalists we get to where we are right now: up the creek without a paddle.
My 34 yr old small business was grown on 3 rules:
1. Honesty and fair play pay in the end.
2. Do everything you promise to do.
3. The customer is always right.
Capitalism is not the problem…
The individual ethics and honesty or lack there of of the individuals is where Capitalism has a big problem.
Those on the foul end of the spectrum may even be criminal. Why do we look the other way? Why are we just going to “move on”?
When George Bush admitted to the country, hell… to the world, that he wired tapped without warrants, in clear violation of law…
What did the country do?
What?
A collective sigh and back to the TV.
The systems are not the problems.
We are the problem.
I agree!
Greed is the problem.
So Craig, it looks like insanelysane lives the life of a “free marketer”.
You know, build a business, sell a product to people who want it, make a profit.
How is that what’s wrong with this country?
It sounds like Craig is talking about the stock market and those people produce NOTHING.
I believe that laws should be passed so the NO BUSINESS, NO UNION, NO CORPORATION are allowed to give ANY money to ANY campaign. Period.
That way we don’t have any of this co-mingling of government and business.
Of course, politicians would never vote for that, because they would all lose their sugar daddies.
That’s why I think they ALL have to go bye bye.
Do over.
This is why we have the Congressional Branch to make laws and the Judicial Branch to ensure they are followed. These are governmental responsibilities: to make sure the players have rules and are following them. If we have a problem, it is because government failed us.
They only make the rules, they are not supposed to play the game for us!!
Free markets have no personalities–they cannot “be” amoral, bad, or good. A free market is simply a situation. In it’s most basic form it is an interaction between two people who exchange goods or services of their own volition and on terms agreed between them. They would never create this interaction if one party did not agree to it!
GOVERNMENTS can be amoral because governments are made up of people. Only people can be good or bad–situations simply exist in space and time, and a free market situation never exists unless both parties mutually agree to take part in the interaction.
This is the crux of the whole matter: In the free market, when you buy low, from whom are you buying? From someone who agrees to sell! When you sell high, to whom are you selling? From someone who desires to buy!
No one is forced! Everyone participates of their own free will! (If you want to buy too low or sell too high, no one will want to participate with you.)
Only government FORCES people to buy & pay for things, and therein lies the difference.
you said it Craig; there is NOTHING in “capitalism” that is in any way shape or form opposed to corruption, market fixing, fraud, slave labor, etc. etc. in fact, it tends towards embracing these things, because as you said, it is amoral, and dishonest/unethical practices often succeed in making the practitioner richer.
i am not at all anti-capitalism, but am also not a naive fool who believes that unregulated capitalism is the answer to all of society’s ills. capitalism must be regulated appropriately to prevent social darwinism from turning 95% of the population into serfs. to do that, of course there must be a government which is not a bought and paid for tool of powerful (often “capitalist”) interests.
There are no slaves in a free market. You take a job because you agree to the wages and conditions. No one forces you. If you don’t like it, you can take your skill set elsewhere and see what price you get for it. You cannot blame the market if your skill set it not as highly valued as you want it to be.
As for corruption and fraud:
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=175
Looking at what we have now and blaming the free market is like jumping off a bridge and then blaming the bridge for injuring you.
From CBO to Senator Kennedy as Chair of HELP
Source: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/104xx/doc10431/07-02-HELPltr.pdf
Very well done. The truth isn’t what it appears to be, it isn’t what it should to be… it is what it is. Obama is functionally a neocon mole, whether by voluntary choice or happenstance it works out the same for us. Maybe the next golden child will be Romney or Perry or Crist… it really doesn’t matter and either way we may be looking at the return of the Bellamy salute.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellamy_salute
Craig,
I have one more question. I have some friends, as nervous about O as I am. They’re covinced this whole nightmare is brought to us by the Bilderberg group. How does that all fit in, or is it all just another unfounded conspiracy?
And I ask because I am in the Twilight Zone, so to speak, now because of O. I’ve been burned badly by a political party I stood with for a long, long time. I feel paranoid about everything, and don’t want to become a raging conspiracy theorist, though it has felt for some time now that there has to be a time when the conspiracy theorists are actually right.
But–since I mention the Twilight Zone, I don’t want to be like those paranoid citizens in one episode who convince themselves the aliens have come and end up shooting someone who is innocent. The irony is, of course, that the aliens did actually set things in motion so the citizens would turn on each other. I just want to shoot the right people, so to speak.
Obama’s crew fooled everyone, and I believe that Obama was being groomed by his “handlers” for this race for a long time.
Hillary just got beat by pure, mob organization. It took everyone by surprise.
Hell, I live in Minnesota and Franken won votes in counties where there were more votes than PEOPLE.
You guys feel ripped off? I feel your pain. But if we can live through Jesse Ventura, we can live through the vile, self-absorbed, un-funny Franken.
You know you have an idiot as a Senator when he asks “Perry Mason” questions of a nominee to the Supreme Court.
Living through Obama for more than one term? I don’t think our country will survive it.
Not everybody. there were many not fooled by Oliar. PUMA, for example. We saw what he was. We knew he was anoth Bush.
Diana:
Wow! Great question, huge topic, which probably has a book in it but it’ll have to wait until I finish the one I’m working on.
Short answer:Yes, but not quite what ‘Bilderburg’ implies. The seeds of capital accretion go back into the Middle Ages and have to do with royalty, the peculiar rules of Christianity in regards to lending, which led directly to the role of European Jews in setting up viable banking systems.
The most important change came in Holland and England at the end of the 17th century when exploding trade made it possible to force an alternative to Spanish control of global economics (through their gold and silbver mines in the Americas).
England had two major banks vying for control of the economy. One was housed in the South Sea House in London and was based upon the Asiento trade (the trans-Atlantic slave trade). All the big money was behind it. The other was the brand new Bank of England, housed on the grounds of the Tower of London and run by Sir Isaac Newton. The BofE guaranteed the purity of its golden guineas on the reputation of Sir Isaac but the currency was backed by the economic strength of England itself. Sir Isaac’s bank prevailed.
This was the foundation upon which, capitalism and the entire Industrial Revolution was built.
BTW, it seems that some English ‘boffins’ have investigated the matter of tinfoil hats. Apparently they don’t protect you from the aliens’ mind rays - they intensify them…
Diana, check out Tarpley’s book Postmodern Coup and also Alex Jones’ documentary The Obama Deception at the following website:
http://infowars-shop.stores.yahoo.net/obdedvd.html
Also, the economist and ultra-conspiracy theorist LaRouche has some interesting theories about who the world puppet masters are.
I guess my question is also whether O is a fool being used–because his narcissistic personality fits someone else’s agenda–or if he is aware of the goal? (Somehow–I’d be more inclined to see Axelrod or Emanual as the conscious players.) Pelosi and Reid, Barney Frank and Ted Kennedy are just Party hacks fooled by the money O raked in and fueled by their own egos and sheltered too long from the real life of ordinary American citizens.
Craig hints at some of the powerful players–e.g., the Goldman Sachs connection. But I want to know if we’d be fighting an organized group conscious of its outlined goals, or if there is just a large group of players with the same philosophy and same hopes for a new world order that will benefit them.
I clearly see the Bush/Cheney group working toward something like what Craig points out. The use of paid mercenaries doing awful and wasteful things in Iraq fits so much into this scheme. I am still shaking my head that this sort of thing passed without a blink of any Comgressman’s (or woman’s) eyes.
I would love a third party to join. I would just hope we had a group of leaders who could really devise a strategy, and really knowing who exactly the oppositions players are is important.
As we’ve been saying: “A pox on both their houses.” Aside from a 3rd party, what strategies do we have to defeat these criminals? Even then, it seems so deeply embedded, I feel completely clueless.
The criminals running the banks make me so crazy that I feel like just throwing in the towel and walking away from it all. Of course, I won’t but I feel the need for revenge.
Yep Martha, I try real hard not to get all wee-wee’d up about it, but just about all I had was the equity in my house, and it’s pretty much totally gone. Watching the fat cats in these mongo “too big to fail” financial outfits, who caused the crisis in the first place, walking away whistling cheerfully with huge bonuses, well, yeah, I get a little wee-wee’d, even pissed.
Thank you so much, Craig. bho the fraud struck me as a snake oil salesman the first time I heard him. Then I read up on the IL Combine pretty early in the primaries and quickly understood that both Dems and Repubs are bought by big money. Corporations and government taking away individual citizen rights and money with a bought propaganda media machine equals fascism.
We need more Hillary and Bill values, compassion, intelligence and service among We the People.
If you look at the long-term players in this debacle, it’s clear that the core of this group leans Democrat.
George Bush is not a Wall Streeter,, and neither is Cheney.
But Geithner is. Obama’s mother was in international finance. Obama himself was heavily involved in legal issues regarding banks in the 90s.
What was the only faction in Congress to vote against TARP? Conservative GOP in the House.
Was Henry Paulsen a Conservative GOP? No he was not. In fact I heard him be referred to as being a Democrat half the time , though I was never able to find anything official that ever said that.
In fact, Paulsen was so different that lunatic Matt Stoller approved his nomination. From mydd
The people I see at the core of this are Larry Summers, Ruebens, Jamie Gorelick, Rahm, Tim Geithner.Paulsen, the Fed chairs, the GSEs, the ranking Democrat committee membrs.
If you want to see a legacy of incompetence and economic ruin, do a background research on Tim Geithner.. He’s a menace.
George Bush was an ideologically incoherent moderate.
Everyone else in this saga seem to be very driven.
As President of the United States, Bush is directly responsible for allowing himself to be usurped by Henry Paulsen.
Remember that weekend when John McCain suspended his campaign.. I rememer hearing the most bizarre behavior about all these people … Bush was not driving the agenda. Treasury was… and it seemed like Treasury was talking more to the Dems and Obama.
Well, this is one way to look at it I guess.
While I can agree that the timing of last fall’s financial meltdown is suspect and was orchestrated to help assure the installation of our current POTUS, I have no doubt this latest bubble was going to burst sooner or later. The housing market was irrational and it didn’t take an ivy league education in economics to see it. And millions of people profited from it before it burst — not just the financial sector and some investors. Builders, real estate agents, title companies, many and various contractors, home improvement and department stores, insurance companies, etc., etc, all made money for several years because of the booming housing market. They’re just not as well-situated as influential financiers to have survived the bust. But is this really anything new? What alternative is being suggested here — government control of everything? What will that solve, if government is complicit?
I’m beginning to feel that the only way there’s a fighting chance to combat crony capitalism (and that’s what this article depicts) is to reduce the influence and power of the political class. It would involve radical changes that I can’t honestly foresee though.
(I can show you exactly how this was done: it’s fun, foolproof and completely untraceable).
Intentional is a “strong word”. Respectfully, Craig if so it would be a unique criminal act.
I’ve considered you just “garden variety”, but with out citation, saying it was intentional, is fertilizer. I am not saying you are incorrect, it just seems that you call human nature intentional.
Bear and Sterns and Chris Dodd is a sad chapter in the book of hypocracy. The 200 million BO got was the sound of the whip cracking on K st.
oops, I’ve never considered you just “garden variety”,
My bad. If anyone who has been writing the healthcare bill in the House, has dyslexia like me, one of those “stike this and insert that” they did is out to get me.
You can never have to many commas.
What you might want to call blackmail under any other circumstance. ,