The Bail Out: Just say NO!

  Bloomberg reports today that the European Union is contemplating regulating hedge funds: 

“http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aPD_prVa1owQ&refer=home“

     Nothing the U.S. Treasury or FED does will mean anything until hedge funds are regulated. The reason we are in this mess to begin with was a long period of artificially cheap credit and lax regulation of entities like hedge funds which use borrowed money and shares to leverage and speculate on anything from stocks to bonds to oil to grain… These are private pools of capital which in their heyday returned double and even triple digit percent gains with little to no regulation or tax.

     We may blame the mortgage crisis for the failure of banks and investment houses, and indeed the mortgage market was a bubble… But the real question is what supported the mortgage bubble? It’s the same thing that supported the tech bubble before it and has supported the commodities bubble since the mortgage bubble burst… Artificially cheap credit and leverage.

     Truly a casino economy in which the investment banks lend money to hedge funds which bet wildly (sometimes leveraging up to 30 times their original capital investment). This drives up the prices of investments in a bull market and drives down investments in a bear market.

     Each time the excesses of easy credit wreak havoc on a segment of investments such as technology stocks, or mortgages, or commodities… The hedge fund capital moves onto the next sector.

     The problem is now that the easy capital has dried up, the investment banks stop dealing the easy credit drug and the hedge funds act like desperate addicts and do anything to get more.  Now the US is being robed to feed the addiction.

     The banks now have the administration demanding free passage of a no strings attached bail out. What this amounts to is the banks asking the government… aka… the taxpayers, for a loan or a mortgage. When you go get a mortgage how much of a down payment do they require? How much interest do they charge? We as taxpayers should demand at least as much from the banks as they would from us as borrowers.

     The same tactics which got us into Iraq are being used again here… Hurry! Don’t think, just re-act. Give us a blank check. Just as Iraq was not responsible for 9-11 and just as the invasion of Iraq was preconceived before 9-11 as a way to reward the military industrial complex. So now this bail out is not going to go to the people who need it, but to reward the banking industry and the hedge funds. It’s a devilish model we’ve seen before… Remove all impediments to greed and let the profit gorging go on to the point of crisis, then create fear and panic in the population and rush them into giving up their money and their freedom as citizens to save those who created the problem and who have already reaped all the rewards.

     It’s corporate capitalism in the good times and corporate socialism in the bad times. Have you ever wondered how capitalism and democracy have been able to co-exist in America? The answer is they haven’t. It’s not real capitalism because the government protects the corporations. It’s not real democracy because the citizens have given up their freedom and become consumers… Locked in a debtor’s prison on the outside world.

     If the government takes on all the risky “toxic” assets of the banks do you think they will in turn wipe out your credit card debt, or your car loans, or your mortgage? Of course not. But they are trying to make you afraid that if you don’t give them your money they will stop giving new loans. My question to the American people is do we really need more loans, more debt, more credit? Show them that it’s really them that are afraid and not US.

     Stand up and say no to this. In the coming months and years economic times are going to be tough enough. We don’t need more debt from the credit-drug pushers. We need the money the government is going to use to bail the banks out to fund our schools, our social security, our new industries, our health care.

     It’s a critical juncture in American history right now and each of us can do what we can to stand up and say no more! Do you want 30 more years of the corruption, the scandals, the wars, the fear…? All in exchange for a credit card to go shopping with. Or do you want a real country where the real engines of American growth… The American workers are able to work and have time to be with their families, can afford to put good healthy food on the table, can afford health care for their children and themselves when they’re sick, can afford to clean up the environment, can afford to give their children an education?

     Do we not realize that if we agree to this bail out we agree to let the next generation of Americans be the first to do worse than their parents? And for what? For fear that we won’t get that extra credit card, or the extra vacation, or that new car.

     If we choose to let the financial version of the invasion of Iraq happen because we are afraid of the financial version of 9-11 we have really learned nothing over these last 8 years. It’s time today to do something.  Speak to people you know, write emails to your senators and congressmen, stand outside with a sign… Anything. But it must be done NOW before this bail out passes through the legislature.

     Don’t let Bush and Cheney get away with another trillion dollars of our money before they leave office. It’s our tax money and we need it more than the banks do.

     http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/

 

 

 

King George II

“In war, truth is the first casualty.” ~Aeschylus

 

            Imagine for a moment that our government has been hijacked by a totalitarian regime.  Let us imagine for a moment that we view the events of the past 8+ years in reverse order so that those events which we assume to be effects are indeed causes:

 

·         George W. Bush has still not been impeached and no investigation has ever been formally launched.

·         The country of Georgia under US auspices provokes Russia to counterattack, allowing the US to gain the political will in eastern Europe needed to go forward with the missile systems

·         The federal reserve bank assumes control of the financial system to assure its “security” while oil companies and oil producing countries such as Saudi Arabia reap record profits.

·         As a result of US Treasury monetary policy and Fed Reserve interest rate policy the U.S. dollar falls heavily with the resulting spike in oil and commodity prices which are priced in U.S. dollars.

·         The meltdown of the “sub-prime” mortgage market triggering events which eventually bring the U.S. financial system to the brink of bankruptcy.

·         The US Government discontinues reporting of M3, which is a measure of the money supply in circulation and which would, if used make clear the inflationary policies of the US government.

·         George W. Bush encourages the American public to buy homes at a record pace thereby creating the largest boom in US housing prices in history.

·         The US invades Iraq and occupies it for the next 5+ years

·         The CIA plants evidence which link Iraq to Al Qaeda and to weapons of mass destruction.

·         Tax cuts are passed which benefit primarily corporations and the highest net worth individuals.

·         The patriot act is passed which lays the groundwork for future expansion of the executive branch of government including the use of extraordinary rendition, torture, and domestic wiretapping.

·         Afghanistan is attacked in an effort to destroy the Taliban who provided support to the 9-11 Saudi Arabian jihadists.

·         George W. Bush tells the American public the most good they can do is go back to their normal lives and go shopping.

·         Saudi Arabian Jihadists hijack 4 passenger planes and fly them into civilian and military targets on 09/11/2001.

·         George W. Bush losses the popular vote but becomes president when the supreme court affirms a controversial election in Florida, a state of which his brother is the governor.

·         The neo-conservative think tank ‘Project for the new American Century’ is founded and publish among others a document entitled Rebuilding America’s Defenses which lays out the political utility of “some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.”

·         Bill Clinton avoids impeachment on charges of perjury after lying under oath about a sexual affair he had which was investigated by order of congress.

·         Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait and Bush’s father attacks Iraq in the fist gulf war.

·         Bush’s father, former head of the CIA and vice president under Ronald Regan becomes the 41^st president.

·         Donald Rumsfeld under President Regan visits Iraq to meet with Saddam Hussein and re-affirm the US’ support for Iraq against Iran.

·         The CIA trains Osama Bin Laden along with other Jihadists to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.

·         The US installs Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq and provides conventional, chemical, and biological weapons systems which are used against Iran and Iraqi Shiites and the Kurds.

·         George H. W. Bush receives Saudi Arabian financial support in his Texas oil business and early political career.

 

 

The following excerpts are from an article written by David Bromwich entitled Georgia and the Push for Cold War and which detail some of the conclusions that can be drawn from observing

“When Mikheil Saakashvili (The Georgian President) attacked the Russian peacekeepers in Tskhinvali, he expected to find success, or, at least, some cashable Western support. Part of his wish was granted. As soon as the Russians counter-attacked, an American politician was ready with threats and dire prophecies. John McCain was out of the gate on Georgia long before George W. Bush or Condoleezza Rice or Robert Gates made their first statements for the record. Why? Who gave McCain his early cue?

A fair bet is Saakashvili, through his closest American friend and former agent, Randy Scheunemann. Since Scheunemann is John McCain’s adviser on foreign policy, this looks like a dangerous contact — dangerous, that is, for the security of the United States. Yet it follows a pattern. Scheunemann was the agent of Ahmed Chalabi in agitating for the war against Iraq. He is a former director of the Project for the New American Century, which welcomed a world at permanent war, dominated by the U.S., as the order of the 21st century. And Scheunemann is as closely linked as it is possible to be — while holding a nominally different post — with the American Enterprise Institute, the Office of the Vice President, and the Weekly Standard: the most drastic and persistent lobbying network for the Iraq war, and the group that lately pressed the hardest for a war with Iran.

Seven and a half years into an administration that seems likely to go beyond January in all but name — so deeply are its patterns now ingrained in the culture of lawmakers and the mainstream media–the signs are strong that we are run by a government-within-the-government. The heart of the second government may not lie now in the connections between the West Wing and the OVP (Office of the Vice President), since the president now wants to know even less than he previously did; but the vice president is interested as always in everything: his men would be sure to know of the unorthodox gambles in the campaign of Scheunemann-McCain. And Cheney, as it happens, spoke out soon after McCain, and in language closely aligned with his.

Under the new American regime of military force, the world does not respect us as it once did. But it does fear us. And for a nation that is militaristic — whose highest virtue is military glory, whose medals of freedom are chiefly awarded to military men, whose idea of genius is most nearly answered by the general who devises the battle plan — for such a nation as we are becoming, to be feared may be the highest of attainments. The neoconservatives have long said so. This was the burden of their two leading documents published in the year 2000: the William Kristol-Robert Kagan anthology Present Dangers, and the Donald Kagan Gary Schmidt-Thomas Donnelly treatise Rebuilding America’s Defenses. An essay exploring the methods for overthrowing Saddam Hussein, in the first of these volumes, was contributed by Richard Perle. The second and more technical volume contained the famous sentence about the political utility of “some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.”

 

            Ron Suskind in his book The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism claims that the White House illegally ordered the CIA to forge and disseminate false intelligence documents linking al-Qaeda and Iraq along with the presence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. What is preventing congress from calling an independent counsel like Kenneth Starr who can bring an investigation forth through which George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and the rest of the Bush administration can answer questions under oath?

           

            Why might the Democrats in Congress be so reluctant to investigate and impeach Bush, no matter how damning the evidence against him? What if the 2000 election was managed to ensure that Bush would win? What if individuals and organizations which pledge allegiance to no nation in particular facilitated and allowed the events of 9-11 as a means to launch wars of aggression and consolidate power within the executive branch of government?  What if the president had seized the power of unlimited, unchecked domestic spying? Would the president’s political opponents be subject to intimidation and blackmail?  Can we imagine that our country has allowed the president so much power as to effectively prevent the political avenues of dissent and opposition? 

           

            Can we recognize in the following paragraph anything that rings true today?

 

 “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…  when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

 

            What incendiary, unpatriotic, and dangerous document could the above have come from? It is from the second paragraph of the Declaration of independence.  Perhaps we should re-read the documents upon which our country was founded and ask ourselves just how far we have come from the principles upon which we gained our freedom.  Can it be true that we are now the incarnation of the very worst abuses of power against which a revolution waged and a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal was founded?

 

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

 

 

The last summer of George

          With gas at $4 and no end in sight we are entering the final act of the tragedy that is the presidency of George W. Bush.  A true global pyramid scheme, the global consortium of banking and oil which has installed GW Bush and has controlled the agenda for almost 8 years is now in a profit reaping feeding frenzy.  The billions of people that walk the earth are the food for this cannibalistic machine of power and wealth.  As January 2009 approaches and with the assumption of a new president on the horizon, the last stages in the life cycle of this incarnation of the beast play out.  As billions of people starve the oil interests who directly installed GW Bush in the 2000 election take their fill.  The planned occupation of the Middle East continues to try and achieve its goal of connecting control of oil reserves and pipelines from Afghanistan and Iraq to the Caspian Sea. 

            Thinking of the state of current global commodity prices, foreign exchange rates, and debt markets one cannot help but ask how this state of economic affairs benefits those interests who stand to profit from high food and energy prices, a weakened US dollar, and a never ending military contract and defense operation.  Think of the US’ reaction after 9-11 and ask who stands to benefit from the Invasion of Afghanistan and the passage of the patriot act.  Think of who benefits from the US’ invasion and occupation of Iraq.  Ask how the son of Texas oil men with close connections to Saudi Arabian oil men benefits from oil prices at historical highs.  Ask how the son of a former director of the CIA, Vice President, and then President benefit from the continuation of the “war on terror”.  Ask how the son of the Saudi BinLadin Group and former CIA operative against Moscow benefits from bearing responsibility for the events of 9-11.  Ask who not capturing Osama Bin Laden benefits?

            When viewed together and with the benefit of hindsight a picture emerges.  What more will the global interests reap in this final act? 

 

The Buck Stops

After WWII it was a common perception that in terms of the presidency and the United States as a whole that “the buck stops here”.  We had the preeminent system of government, military, and economy.  Even as the Soviet Union controlled their sphere of influence, America continued to grow and expand its power.  Of course by 1991 we witnessed the official end of the soviet empire.  In fact the soviet empire by that time had become a dead shell of its former self.  Internally the Soviet Union had been dying from the inside out since the late 60’s.  The reasons for the soviet demise and the demise of any empire are many and complex.  Fundamentally though it was a stubborn adherence to ideology at the expense of the living reality of the nation which dooms a state.  We can see that the very willingness to adapt to economic and social realities in China have been the source of their continued ascension to the heights of power.

Perhaps on this Memorial Day we can look inward and see that we in America shall soon join past empires in history if we do not adapt.  George Bush is indeed the worst president in the history of this nation for a number of reasons.  Economically, he has sold out the American dream at the pleasure of profit.  Politically, he has sown the seeds of despotism and the death of democracy at home.  Militarily, he has sacrificed our lives in a war of aggression based on lies. 

We should not grant Bush so much credit though.  Can we really believe that an idiot like him can actually pull off such a coup from within?  The truth is Bush is as much a tool as the rest of the American people in this takeover.  Do you think it is a coincidence that Osama has not been caught?  The same people that installed Bush in the presidency have facilitated 9-11 as a means of taking power.  The coming economic depression, global conflict, and loss of the rights of man are the price we shall all pay for our complacency. 

On this Memorial Day the heart of the American dream is among the freshly dug graves of those dying in Iraq.