Filed under: american union, bernanke, bilderberg, Carbon Tax, Central Banks, CFR, DEBT, Dollar, Economic Collapse, economic crisis, economic depression, Economy, Europe, global economy, Great Depression, Greenback, imf, Income Tax, Inflation, jim tucker, manipulation, New World Order, North American Union, NWO, Paul Volcker, Stock Market, tax, UN, US Economy, van rompuy, VAT, world government
Bilderberg: Raise Taxes, Cut Services in U.S. and Europe
NoWorldSystem.com
April 11, 2010
The Bilderberg Group will meet in Sitges Spain on June 3-6 in efforts to advance their agenda for a new global economic system, they will agree to prolong the recession until 2011. The Bilderberg will discuss plans to level the living standards of Europeans and Americans with 3rd world countries so that we’re all poor together under their World Government Dictatorship.
Bilderberg watcher Jim Tucker discusses his inside information on the groups current agenda; they intend to make all “Europeans and Americans to pay higher income taxes because their plan to level the world so that 3rd world countries rather than living the European and American standard of living drops until we’re all poor together under their world government.” says Jim Tucker. “They manipulated the worldwide depression and now their exploiting it for their own selfish reasons, they intend to [prolong the recession] at least until 2011 for their own purposes, and now we have Bernanke (Bilderberg Member) telling a private group businessmen in Texas ‘it always seems easier putting them off until the day they cannot be put off any more’ he said that ‘we’ve got to raise taxes and cut services.'”.
UPDATE
This week, both past Bilderberg attendees Bernanke and Volcker called out for tax increases.
Bernanke said quote; “These choices are difficult, and it always seems easier to put them off — until the day they cannot be put off anymore.” “To avoid large and ultimately unsustainable budget deficits, the nation will ultimately have to choose among higher taxes, modifications to entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, less spending on everything else from education to defense, or some combination of the above,”. [Source]
Obama’s economic adviser Paul Volcker has promoted an economy killing tax called the ‘Value-Added Tax’ (VAT), on Tuesday he urged the U.S. should raise taxes to help bring deficits under control and add a new European-style VAT tax along with a carbon or other energy-related tax and raise existing taxes, here’s what he said; “If at the end of the day we need to raise taxes, we should raise taxes,”. [Source]
Prisonplanet.com
April 9, 2010
This year’s confab will focus around prolonging the global financial recession and creating more economic woe in order to provide the pretext for more regulation in pursuit of world economic governance, according to Jim Tucker’s sources.
“Bilderberg hopes to keep the global recession going for at least a year, according to an international financial consultant who deals personally with many of them. This is because, among several reasons, Bilderberg still hopes to create a global “treasury department” under the United Nations. Bilderberg first undertook this mission at its meeting last spring in Greece, but the effort was blocked by nationalists in Europe and the United States. “Nationalists” (a dirty word in Bilderberg) objected to surrendering sovereignty to the UN,” writes Tucker.
Tucker’s source highlighted a recent speech by French President Nicolas Sarkozy in which he called for a “new global monetary order.” As we have highlighted, such rhetoric has been abundant over the past year, with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and EU President Herman Van Rompuy repeatedly echoing similar ideas.
As Bilderberg investigator Daniel Estulin revealed during last year’s Bilderberg meeting in Greece, elitists were planning to paint a false picture of economic recovery in order to sucker investors into ploughing their money back into the stock market, which is exactly what has happened with the Dow soaring back to just below the 11,000 level.
Estulin correctly predicted the housing crash and the 2008 financial meltdown as a result of what his sources inside Bilderberg told him the elite were planning based on what was said at their 2006 meeting in Canada and the 2007 conference in Turkey.
“Bilderberg’s ultimate goal remains unchanged,” writes Tucker. “Turn the UN into a world government with “nation-states” becoming merely geographic references. The European Union is to become a single political entity, followed by the “American Union” and, finally, the “Asian-Pacific Union.” The “American Union” is to include the entire Western Hemisphere, including Cuba and other offshore islands.”
Filed under: Big Banks, DEBT, deindustrialization, despotism, detroit, devaluation, Dictatorship, Economic Collapse, economic crisis, economic depression, Economy, Empire, Fascism, ghost town, global warming cult, Great Depression, Greenback, housing market, Inflation, middle class, real estate, US Economy | Tags: collapse of detroit, death of detroit, detriot extinction
Detroit family homes sell for just $10
London Telegraph
March 12, 2010
Family homes in Detroit are selling for as little as $10 (£6) in the wake of America’s financial meltdown.
The once thriving industrial city has suffered a dramatic decline following the global economic crisis.
According to Tim Prophit, a real estate agent, the crisis has led to a unprecedented portfolio of homes, but they are failing to sell.
He said there were homes on the market for $100 (£61), but an offer of just $10 (£6) would be likely to be accepted.
Speaking on a BBC 2 documentary, Requiem for Detroit, to be screened on Saturday, Mr Prophit said: “The property is listed by the city of Detroit as being worth $35,000 (£22,000), but the bank know that is impossible to ask.
The Death of Detroit (Pictures of an Economic Disaster)
Filed under: aristocrats, bailout, bank bailout, Bank of England, bankruptcy, bernanke, Big Banks, Carbon Tax, Co2, co2 tax, Credit Crisis, DEBT, depopulation, depression, despotism, devaluation, Dictatorship, Dollar, dollar drop, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic crisis, economic depression, Economy, Empire, environmental taxation, Eugenics, Fascism, Federal Reserve, GDP, global currency, global economy, global elite, global government, Global Warming, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, imf, Inflation, internationalist, main street, malthusian, malthusian catastrophe, middle class, New World Order, NWO, obama deception, oligarchy, One World Government, Population Control, Propaganda, ruling class, SDRs, single currency, slavery, Stock Market, Taxpayers, third world, US Economy, Wall Street, webster tarpley, World Bank, world currency, world government
America’s Impending Master Class Dictatorship
cryptogon.com
January 23, 2010
Holy shit, this one will scorch your eyeballs!
Forget my excerpts. Click through and read the whole thing. Highly recommended.
Via: Kitco:
Thanks to the endless barrage of feel-good propaganda that daily assaults the American mind, best epitomized a few months ago by the “green shoots,” everything’s-coming-up-roses propaganda touted by Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, the citizens have no idea how disastrous the country’s fiscal, monetary and economic problems truly are. Nor do they perceive the rapidly increasing risk of a totalitarian nightmare descending upon the American Republic.
One stark and sobering way to frame the crisis is this: if the United States government were to nationalize (in other words, steal) every penny of private wealth accumulated by America’s citizens since the nation’s founding 235 years ago, the government would remain totally bankrupt.
According to the Federal Reserve’s most recent report on wealth, America’s private net worth was $53.4 trillion as of September, 2009. But at the same time, America’s debt and unfunded liabilities totaled at least $120,000,000,000,000.00 ($120 trillion), or 225% of the citizens’ net worth. Even if the government expropriated every dollar of private wealth in the nation, it would still have a deficit of $66,600,000,000,000.00 ($66.6 trillion), equal to $214,286.00 for every man, woman and child in America and roughly 500% of GDP. If the government does not directly seize the nation’s private wealth, then it will require $389,610 from each and every citizen to balance the country’s books. State, county and municipal debts and deficits are additional, already elephantine in many states (e.g., California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York) and growing at an alarming rate nationwide. In addition to the federal government, dozens of states are already bankrupt and sinking deeper into the morass every day.
…
It is estimated that the top 1% of Americans control roughly 40% of the nation’s wealth. In other words, 3 million people own $21,400,000,000,000.00 ($21.4 trillion) in net private assets, while the other 305 million own the remaining $32,000,000,000,000.00 ($32 trillion). 77,000,000 (77 million) Americans (the lowest 25%) have mean net assets of minus $2,300 ($-2,300.00) per person; they live from paycheck to paycheck, or on public assistance. The lower 50% of Americans own mean net assets of $27,800 each, about enough to purchase a modest car. Obviously, it would be impossible to retire on such an amount without significant government or other assistance. Meanwhile, the richest 10% of Americans possess mean net assets of $3,976,000.00 each, or 143 times those of the bottom 50%; the top 2% control assets worth more than 1,500 times those in the bottom 50%. When you combine these facts with Wall Street’s typical multi-million dollar annual bonuses, you get an idea of wealth inequality in America. Historically, such extreme inequality has been a well-documented breeding ground for totalitarianism.
If the government decides to expropriate (steal) or commandeer (e.g., force into Treasuries) America’s private wealth in order to buy survival time, such a measure will be designed to destroy the common citizens, not the elite. Insiders will be given advance warning about any such plan, and will be able to transfer their money offshore or into financial vehicles immune from harm. Assuming that the elite moves its money to safety, there would then be $120,000,000,000,000.00 ($120 trillion) in American debt and liabilities supported by only $32,000,000,000,000.00 ($32 trillion) in private net worth, for a deficit of $88,000,000,000,000.00 ($88 trillion). In that case, each American would owe $285,714.29 to balance the country’s books. (Remember to multiply this amount by every person in your household, including any infant children.)
If the common people suspect that something diabolical was in the works, a portion of the $32 trillion in non-elite wealth could be evacuated as well prior to a government expropriation and/or currency devaluation, resulting in less money for the government to steal. What these statistics mean is that it is absolutely impossible for the government to fund its debt and deficits, even if it steals all of the nation’s private wealth. Therefore, the government’s only solutions are either formal bankruptcy (outright debt repudiation and the dismantling of bankrupt government programs) or unprecedented American monetary inflation and debt monetization. If the government chooses to inflate its way out of this fiscal catastrophe, the United States dollar will essentially become worthless. You can be absolutely certain that a PhD. in economics, such as Dr. Bernanke, is well aware of these realities, despite what he might say in speeches. For that matter, so are Chinese schoolchildren, who, when patronized by Treasury Secretary Geithner about America’s “strong dollar,” laughed in his face. One day, perhaps America’s school children will receive a real education so that they, too, will know when to laugh at absurd propaganda.
…
These deficits and debts are now so gargantuan that they have become surreal abstractions impossible even for sophisticated financiers to begin to comprehend. The common citizen has absolutely no idea what these numbers mean, or imply for his or her future. The people have been deluded into thinking that America’s arrogant, egomaniacal, always-wrong-but-never-in-doubt fiscal witch doctors and charlatans, including Greenspan, Rubin, Summers, Geithner and Ponce de Bernanke, have discovered a Monetary Fountain of Youth that endlessly spits up free money from the center of earth, in a geyser of good will toward the United States. Unfortunately, this delusion is false: there is no Monetary Fountain of Youth, and contrary to the apparent beliefs of the self-deified man-gods in Washington, D.C., the debt and deficits are real, completely out of control, and 100% guaranteed to create catastrophic consequences for the nation and its people.
When government “representatives” deliberately sell into slavery the citizens of a so-called free Republic, they have committed treason against those people. This is exactly what has happened in the United States: the citizens have been sold into debt slavery that they and their descendants can never escape, because the debts piled onto their backs can never, ever be paid. Despite expensive and sophisticated brainwashing campaigns emanating from Washington, claiming that America can “grow” out of its deficits and debt, it is arithmetically impossible for the country to do so. The government’s statements that it can dig the nation out of its fiscal hole by digging an even deeper chasm have become parodies and perversions of even totally discredited and morally disgusting Keynesianism.
The people no longer have elected representatives; they have elected traitors.
The enslavement of the American people has been orchestrated by a pernicious Master Class that has taken the United States by the throat. This Master Class is now choking the nation to death as it accelerates its master plan to plunder the people’s dwindling remaining assets. The Master Class comprises politicians, the Wall Street money elite, the Federal Reserve, high-end government (including military) officials, government lobbyists and their paymasters, military suppliers and media oligarchs. The interests and mindset of the Master Class are so totally divorced from those of the average American citizen that it is utterly tone deaf and blind to the justifiable rage sweeping the nation. Its guiding ethics of greed, plunder, power, control and violence are so alien to mainstream American culture and thought that the Master Class might as well be an enemy invader from Mars. But the Master Class here, it is real and it is laying waste to America. To the members of the Master Class, the people are not fellow-citizens; they are instruments of labor, servitude and profit. At first, the Master Class viewed the citizens as serfs; now that they have raped and destroyed the national economy, while in the process amassing unprecedented wealth and power for themselves, they see the people as nothing more than slaves.
Know Your Enemy-The Oligarchs
Filed under: 2-party system, Barack Obama, bush, bush = obama, catastrophic event, civil unrest, Continuity of Government, DEBT, devaluation, DHS, Dictatorship, Dissent, DoD, domestic extremism, domestic terror, domestic terrorism, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Empire, Executive Order, FEMA, Fema Camps, George Bush, Great Depression, Homeland Security, HR 1585, hyperinflation, Inflation, Insurrection Act, katrina, left right paradigm, Martial Law, militarized police, national emergency, national guard, non compliance, North American Union, NORTHCOM, obama, obama = bush, obama deception, Pentagon, Police State, political dissent, Posse Comitatus, Protest, Troops, u.s. constitution, urban warfare, US Economy, War On Terror, White House | Tags: 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, BCT, Brigade Combat Team, Cable Splicer, civil disturbance, Council of Governors, EO 12656, EO 13528, Garden Plot, HSPD 20, HSPD-8, NSPD 51, Vigilant Shield 09
Obama Signed Plans For Martial Law Apparatus
Blacklisted News
January 16, 2010
 U.S. government is ratcheting up the militarized police state as they anticipate massive resistance to the economic collapse. |
In the wake of the Flight 253 provocation, over-hyped terrorism panics, and last year’s Big Pharma and media-engineered hysteria over the H1N1 flu pandemic, President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13528 on January 11.
Among other things, the Executive Order (EO) established a Council of Governors, an “advisory panel” chosen by the President that will rubber-stamp long-sought-after Pentagon contingency plans to seize control of state National Guard forces in the event of a “national emergency.”
According to the White House press release, the ten member, bipartisan Council was created “to strengthen further the partnership between the Federal Government and State Governments to protect our Nation against all types of hazards.”
“When appointed” the announcement continues, “the Council will be reviewing such matters as involving the National Guard of the various States; homeland defense; civil support; synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States; and other matters of mutual interest pertaining to National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities.”
Clearly designed to weaken the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 which bars the use of the military for civilian law enforcement, EO 13528 is the latest in a series of maneuvers by previous administrations to wrest control of armed forces historically under the democratic control of elected state officials, and a modicum of public accountability.
One consequence of moves to “synchronize and integrate” state National Guard units with those of the Armed Forces would be to place them under the effective control of United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), created in 2002 by Bushist legislators in both capitalist parties under the pretext of imperialism’s endless “War on Terror.” At the time, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called USNORTHCOM’s launch “the most sweeping set of changes since the unified command system was set up in 1946.”
The real-world consequences of those changes weren’t long in coming.
Following their criminal inaction during 2005’s Hurricane Katrina catastrophe, the Bush regime sought, but failed, to seize control of depleted Gulf Coast National Guard units, the bulk of which had been sent to Iraq along with equipment that might have aided the recovery. Bush demanded that then Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco sign over control of the Guard as well as state and local police units as the blood price for federal assistance.
At the height of the crisis, Bush cited presidential prerogatives for doing so under the Insurrection Act, a repressive statute which authorizes the President to federalize National Guard units when state governments fail to “suppress rebellion.” How the plight of citizens engulfed by Katrina’s flood waters could be twisted into an act of “rebellion” was achieved when Orwellian spin doctors, aided and abetted by a compliant media, invented a new criminal category to cover traumatized New Orleans residents: “Drowning while Black.”
Fast forward five years. Given the serious implications such proposals would have for a functioning democracy, the media’s deafening silence on Obama’s Executive Order is hardly surprising. Like their role as cheerleaders in the escalating wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, media self-censorship tell us much about the state of affairs in “new normal” America.
Like his predecessors in the Oval Office, stretching back to the 1960s with Pentagon “civil disturbance” plans such as Cable Splicer and Garden Plot, both of which are continuously updated, our “change” President will forge ahead and invest the permanent National Security bureaucracy with unprecedented power.
Under color of the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, an unsavory piece of Bushist legislative detritus, “The President shall establish a bipartisan Council of Governors to advise the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the White House Homeland Security Council on matters related to the National Guard and civil support missions.”
The toothless Council, whose Executive Director will be designated by the Secretary of Defense no less, “shall meet at the call of the Secretary of Defense or the Co-Chairs of the Council.”
Will such a Council have veto power over administration deliberations? Hardly. They are relegated “to exchange views, information, or advice with the Secretary of Defense; the Secretary of Homeland Security” and “the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.”
Additional entities covered by the EO with whom the Governors Council will “exchange views” include, “the Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement; the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas’ Security Affairs; the Commander, United States Northern Command; the Chief, National Guard Bureau; the Commandant of the Coast Guard; and other appropriate officials of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, and appropriate officials of other executive departments or agencies as may be designated by the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of Homeland Security.”
In other words, right from the get-go, the Council will serve as civilian cover for political decisions made by the Executive Branch and the security apparat. EO 13528 continues, “Such views, information, or advice shall concern: (a) matters involving the National Guard of the various States; (b) homeland defense; (c) civil support; (d) synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States; and (e) other matters of mutual interest pertaining to National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities.”
When news first broke last summer of Obama’s proposal to expand the military’s authority to respond to domestic disasters, it was opposed by the National Governors Association (NGA).
Congressional Quarterly reported that a letter sent on behalf of the NGA opposed creation of the Council on grounds that it “would invite confusion on critical command and control issues, complicate interagency planning, establish stove-piped response efforts, and interfere with governors’ constitutional responsibilities to ensure the safety and security of their citizens,” Govs. Jim Douglas, R-Vt., and Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., wrote.
According to their August letter to Paul N. Stockton, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas’ Security Affairs, Douglas and Manchin III argued that “without assigning a governor tactical control” of military forces during a natural disaster such as a flood or earthquake, or an unnatural disaster such as a terrorist attack or other mass casualty event, the “strong potential exists for confusion in mission, execution and the dilution of governors’ control over situations with which they are more familiar and better capable of handling than a federal military commander.”
With slim prospects of congressional authorization for the scheme, in fact the 2008 language was removed from subsequent Defense spending legislation, other means were required. Playing bureaucratic hardball with the governors, this has now been accomplished by presidential fiat, further eroding clear constitutional limits on Executive Branch power.
These maneuvers as I have previously written, have very little to do with responding to a catastrophic emergency. Indeed, EO 13528 is only the latest iteration of plans to expand the National Security State’s writ and as such, have everything to do with decades-old Continuity of Government (COG) programs kept secret from Congress and the American people.
Derided by neocons, neoliberals and other corporatists as a quaint backwater for “conspiracy theorists” railing against “FEMA concentration camps,” Continuity of Government, and the nexus of “civil support” programs that have proliferated like noxious weeds are no laughing matter.
Indeed, even members of Congress are considered “unauthorized parties” denied access “to information on COG plans, procedures, capabilities and facilities,” according to a Pentagon document published by the whistleblowing web site Wikileaks, as are the classified annexes of National Security Presidential Directive 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20 (NSPD 51/HSPD 20). In a new twist on administration promises of transparency and open government, even the redacted version of these documents have been removed from the White House web site.
As Antifascist Calling previously reported (see: “Vigilant Shield 09: A Cover for Illegal Domestic Operations?“), the Congressional Research Service issued a 46-pagereport in 2008 that provided details on the COG-related National Exercise Program, a “civil support” operation that war games various disaster scenarios.
Among other things, the document outlines the serious domestic implications of military participation in national emergency preparedness drills. CRS researchers pointed to the Reagan-era Executive Order 12656 (EO 12656) that “directs FEMA to coordinate the planning, conduct, and evaluation of national security emergency exercises.” EO 12656 defines a national security emergency as “as any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States.”
Such programs, greatly expanded by the Bush-era Homeland Security Presidential Directive 8 (HSPD-8), also removed from the White House web site, established “a national program and a multi-year planning system to conduct homeland security preparedness-related exercises.” CRS avers, “The program is to be carried out in collaboration with state and local governments and private sector entities.”
The Defense Department’s role during such emergencies were intended to focus “principally on domestic incident management, either for terrorism or non terrorist catastrophic events.” DoD would play a “significant role” in the overall response. Such murky definitions cover a lot of ground and are ripe with a potential for abuse by unscrupulous securocrats and their corporate partners.
The primary DoD entity responsible for “civil support,” a focus of Obama’s EO is USNORTHCOM and its active combat component, U.S. Army North. However, as with almost everything relating to COG and current plans under EO 13528 that propose to “synchronize and integrate State and Federal military activities,” USNORTHCOM’s role is shrouded in secrecy.
As researcher Peter Dale Scott revealed in 2008, when Congressman Peter DeFazio, Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Christopher Carney sought access to classified COG annexes, their request was denied by the White House. Scott wrote: “DeFazio’s inability to get access to the NSPD Annexes is less than reassuring. If members of the Homeland Security Committee cannot enforce their right to read secret plans of the Executive Branch, then the systems of checks and balances established by the U.S. Constitution would seem to be failing.”
One hammer blow followed another. In 2008, Army Times reported, that the “3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team [BCT] has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys. Now they’re training for the same mission–with a twist–at home.”
Analyst Michel Chossudovsky commented, “What is significant in this redeployment of a US infantry unit is the presumption that North America could, in the case of a national emergency, constitute a ‘war theater’ thereby justifying the deployment of combat units.” According to Chossudovsky, “The new skills to be imparted consist in training 1st BCT in repressing civil unrest, a task normally assumed by civilian law enforcement.”
“It is noteworthy, the World Socialist Web Site commented, “that the deployment of US combat troops ‘as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters’ … coincides with the eruption of the greatest economic emergency and financial disaster since the Great Depression of the 1930s.”
“Justified as a response to terrorist threats,” socialist critic Bill Van Auken averred, “the real source of the growing preparations for the use of US military force within America’s borders lies not in the events of September 11, 2001 or the danger that they will be repeated. Rather, the domestic mobilization of the armed forces is a response by the US ruling establishment to the growing threat to political stability.”
Since USNORTHCOM’s deployment of a combat brigade on U.S. soil, the capitalist crisis has deepened and intensified. With unemployment at a post-war high and the perilous economic and social conditions of the working class growing grimmer by the day, EO 13258 is a practical demonstration of ruling class consensus when it comes to undermining the democratic rights of the American people.
After all, where the defense of wealth and privileges are concerned corporate thugs and war criminals have no friends, only interests…
Filed under: commodities, Credit Crisis, DEBT, devaluation, Dollar, dollar bubble, dollar collapse, Economic Collapse, economic crisis, economic depression, Economy, Federal Reserve, forecast, global economy, gold, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, predictions, Robert McEwen, Stock Market, US Economy, Wall Street
Gold May Reach $5,000 an Ounce By 2012
Filed under: AIG, bailout, bank bailout, bankergate, Big Banks, central bank, corruption, Credit Crisis, DEBT, deception, despotism, Deutsche Bank, devaluation, Dictatorship, Dollar, dollar collapse, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Empire, end the fed, Federal Reserve, geithner, Goldman Sachs, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, main street, Merrill Lynch, middle class, obama bailout, obama deception, scandal, SEC, Société Générale, Taxpayers, Tim Geithner, Wall Street
SEC Orders AIG Info Sealed Until November… 2018!
Business Insider
January 12, 2010
Good news. It looks as though we’ll be getting access to secret data on the bailout of AIG and its counterparties.
The bad news: We’re going to have to wait until November of 2018, according to Matthew Goldstein at Reuters.
- In May, the SEC approved a request by AIG to keep secret an exhibit to a year-old regulatory filing that includes some of the details on the most controversial aspect of the AIG bailout: the funneling of tens of billions of dollars to big banks like Societe Generale, Goldman Sachs (GS.N), Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) and Merrill Lynch.
The SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, in granting AIG’s request for confidential treatment, said the “excluded information” will not be made public until Nov. 25, 2018, according to a copy of the agency’s May 22 order.
The SEC said the insurer had demonstrated the information in the exhibit, called Schedule A, “qualifies as confidential commercial or financial information.” More
By then, Wall Street will have significantly recycled many people (and probably some more firms) and perhaps the American public just won’t care about how Tim Geithner helped bail out a gigantic black hole of a firm, upon which so many ostensibly rock solid firms had their foundation.
Filed under: Credit Crisis, DEBT, devaluation, Dollar, dollar collapse, dollar drop, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Federal Reserve, forecast, global economy, gold, Great Depression, Greenback, housing market, hyperinflation, Inflation, peter schiff, predictions, Stock Market, unemployment, US Economy, Wall Street
Schiff: No Economic Recovery in 2010
Filed under: agriculture, blizzard, Britain, climate change, climategate, Credit Crisis, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Europe, european union, food crisis, food market, food shortage, global cooling, global economy, Global Warming, gordon brown, Great Depression, ice age, ireland, london, malthusian, malthusian catastrophe, Oil, Petrol, uk crops, United Kingdom
Food costs to soar as big freeze deepens
London Guardian
January 9, 2010
 Satellite image of the UK covered in white |
Britons have been warned to brace themselves for an increase in food prices as plunging temperatures leave farmers unable to harvest vegetables and hauliers struggle to distribute fresh produce.
Gordon Brown, who will chair a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee early this week to discuss the freeze, was today forced to reassure the country that it would not run out of gas or grit for its roads during the coldest weather in 30 years.
Police confirmed today that the weather-related death toll had risen to 26. A 90-year-old woman froze to death in her garden near Barnsley after falling in the snow. Widow Mary Priestland was discovered when her neighbour called round to make her tea. A 42-year-old Newcastle woman died after being found lying in the snow this morning. She had told her family she was going for a walk at 7pm on Friday.
Concerns have now switched to food supply. Sub-zero temperatures have made it impossible to extract some vegetables from the ground. Producers of brussels sprouts and cabbages are all reporting problems with harvesting. Cauliflowers are said to have turned to “mush” in the sustained frost, with the result that only imported ones are available – at more than £2 each.
“Food is selling fast and there is a problem with replenishing it,” said Stephen Alambritis of the Federation of Small Businesses. “One business I spoke to said it was like Christmas Eve, with people rushing to buy up food. This will inevitably have an impact on food prices.”
Food prices had already started to edge up after a sustained period of low inflation. Food inflation increased by 3.7% in December, up from 2.8% in November, said the British Retail Consortium.
In Ireland, 6,000 acres of potatoes remains unharvested and there are claims that up to three-quarters of the crop may be ruined. Potato growers in Northern Ireland say they are facing some of the biggest losses in recent history because of frost damage.
Meanwhile, greengrocers in some of the worst-hit areas are reporting shortages, with the price of carrots and parsnips reportedly rising by 30% in some small shops. A spokesman for the National Farmers’ Union said: “There are isolated examples of farms struggling to get milk supplies out, but so far the majority of farmers, although finding it difficult, are getting on with the job.” Milk suppliers in Somerset said they feared they may have to dump 100,000 litres of organic milk because tankers could not get through.
In a move that underscores the severity of the situation, on Monday the government will permit an emergency relaxation of European laws regulating the driving hours for hauliers involved in the distribution of animal feed. Under the temporary rules, the hauliers will be allowed to drive for 10 hours rather than the EU maximum of nine. There will also be a reduction in their mandatory daily rest requirements, from 11 to nine hours.
Today, the prime minister insisted gas supplies were not running out, despite record levels of demand. In a podcast from Downing Street, Brown said: “I can assure you: supplies are not running out. We’ve got plenty of gas in our own backyard – the North Sea – and we also have access to the large reserves in Norway and Netherlands.”
Last week, nearly 100 large businesses were forced to stop using gas in an attempt to conserve supplies.
Filed under: agriculture, Credit Crisis, DEBT, depression, devaluation, Dollar, dollar bubble, dollar collapse, dollar drop, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Federal Reserve, food crisis, food inflation, food market, food shortage, global economy, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, liquidation, malthusian, malthusian catastrohe, u.s. economy, USDA
Food shortages THIS year! Want to know why the media is not covering this?
Filed under: Big Banks, bob chapman, DEBT, depression, devaluation, Dictatorship, Dollar, dollar bubble, dollar drop, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic crisis, economic depression, economic disaster, Economy, Empire, Federal Reserve, global economy, global government, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, market manipulation, New World Order, NWO, One World Government, Stock Market, US Economy, US Treasury, world government
Bob Chapman: A New U.S. Dollar is Underway
Filed under: Big Banks, central bank, Credit Crisis, DEBT, depression, despotism, Dictatorship, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Empire, Great Depression, housing bubble, housing market, hyperinflation, Inflation, job market, main street, middle class, mortgage crisis, Stock Market, unemployment, US Economy, Wall Street
No Jobs for The Next Ten Years?
Daily Bell
December 30, 2009
The decade ahead could be a brutal one for America’s unemployed – and for people with jobs hoping for pay raises. At best, it could take until the middle of the decade for the nation to generate enough jobs to drive down the unemployment rate to a normal 5 or 6 percent and keep it there. At worst, that won’t happen until much later – perhaps not until the next decade. The deepest and most enduring recession since the 1930s has battered America’s work force. The unemployed number 15.4 million. The jobless rate is 10 percent. More than 7 million jobs have vanished. People out of work at least six months number a record 5.9 million. And household income, adjusted for inflation, has shrunk in the past decade. Most economists say it could take until at least until 2015 for the unemployment rate to drop down to a historically more normal 5.5 percent. And with the job market likely to stay weak, some also foresee another decade of wage stagnation. Even though the economy will likely keep growing, the pace is expected to be plodding. That will make employers reluctant to hire. Further contributing to high unemployment is the likelihood of more people competing for jobs, baby boomers delaying retirement and interest rates edging higher. All this would come after a decade that created relatively few jobs: a net total of just 464,000. By contrast, 21.7 million new jobs were generated between 1989 and 1999. – Huffington Post
Dominant Social Theme: It’s looking grim?
Free-Market Analysis: There are a lot of statistics cited in this article but like many articles with a mainstream tone, most of them are besides-the-point or shed little illumination about what is going on. First of all the jobless rate in America is closer to 20-30 percent, we figure, when you throw in everyone who wants to work but can’t find work, even part-time work. And second, we distrust the other unemployment figures cited in this article. Finally, we look in vain for a reason as to why all this is happening. Can we find it somewhere else in the body of the article? Here’s some more:
That’s mainly because the economy’s recovery, sluggish by historical standards, isn’t expected to regain its vigor over the next few years. As a result, companies will be in no rush to ramp up hiring. Other analysts think the economy will recover the jobs wiped out by the recession by 2013 or 2014 but that the unemployment rate will stay high. They note that the healing economy will cause more people to stream back into the labor force, vying for too-few jobs.
In addition, baby boomers whose retirement accounts have shrunk could put off retiring and stay in the work force longer. That would leave fewer positions available for the unemployed. Other contributing forces – businesses squeezing more work from employees they still have and relying more on part-time and overseas help – have intensified. And record-high federal budget deficits and the threat of inflation could drive up interest rates, which could hobble growth and restrict job creation. All those factors could combine to keep unemployment high.
“It will be the mother of all jobless recoveries,” predicts economic historian John Steel Gordon. On the other hand, it’s possible some technological innovation not yet envisioned could generate a wave of jobs. Yet at the moment, most economists aren’t betting that any such breakthroughs will rescue the labor market.
The last time the jobless rate reached double digits, in the early 1980s, it took six years to bring it down to normal levels.
Unemployment hit a post-World War II high of 10.8 percent at the end of 1982 as the country was emerging from a severe recession. The rate fell to around 5 percent in 1988. It took less than two years for the number of jobs to return to its pre-recession level. In this recovery, the economy is far more fragile. Hard-to-get credit is exerting a drag. Wounds from the banking system’s worst crisis since the Great Depression will take years to fully heal. People and companies, scarred by the crisis, are likely to restrain borrowing, spending and investing.
From our perspective this article does what all such articles do, it describes what’s going on without explaining anything. You can read the whole article, and you’ll never come up with a reason why 20 percent or more of America is unemployed. Is it because people are lazy? They don’t want jobs even though they pretend they do?
We would write the article differently. We would start by explaining that for the past 100 years America’s manufacturing might has been disintegrating even though the country has looked relatively healthy. But the combination of the income tax and central banking, introduced in the ‘teens, has robbed the country of its industrial muscle. Many big companies have moved away rather than be subject to the income tax. And employees have given up productive trade and agricultural jobs to chase after the latest Fed-stimulated bubble. The tech sector looked attractive in the 1990s, and the mortgage business was great during the 2000s. But neither business lasted because they weren’t real. They were the chaff of central bank monetary stimulation.
The income tax and central banking have hollowed out American industrial capacity. This is the reason that jobs will not return to America – and the world – for a long time. It wasn’t enough by the way that all this happened over a period of nearly 100 years now, but every time there’s a cyclical bust, the West stimulates – throws good money after bad that only prolongs the agony by confusing the market signals that the economy would otherwise present to rational investors.
Conclusion: Deprived of market signals, investors have a hard time determining what’s an efficient business and what is not. They’ve decided, with considerable reason, that too-big-too-fail banks are probably a good investment. Well, this may be so, but it does nothing for the larger economy. Putting good money after bad into these large fiat-money sinkholes only retards real innovation and sets the economy up for another bout of inflationary bleeding and boom-bust madness. What’s needed is a return to a private market gold-and-silver standard that will provide real feedback to those who want to purchase equity in winning entrepreneurial companies. See, it’s not hard to explain, but for some reason, the story just doesn’t get told, certainly not in the mainstream press.
Filed under: bailout, bank bailout, Barney Frank, Big Banks, Congress, corruption, DEBT, deception, Dollar, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Great Depression, Greenback, H.R. 4173, House, hypocrisy, main street, middle class, Senate, Taxpayers, Too Big to Fail, US Economy, Wall Street | Tags: Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act
Bankers Get $4 Trillion Gift From Barney Frank
Cryptogon
December 30, 2009
Via: Bloomberg:
I quickly discovered why members of Congress rarely read legislation like this. At 1,279 pages, the “Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act” is a real slog. And yes, I plowed through all those pages. (Memo to Chairman Frank: “ystem” at line 14, page 258 is missing the first “s”.)
The reading was especially painful since this reform sausage is stuffed with more gristle than meat. At least, that is, if you are a taxpayer hoping the bailout train is coming to a halt.
If you’re a banker, the bill is tastier. While banks opposed the legislation, they should cheer for its passage by the full Congress in the New Year: There are huge giveaways insuring the government will again rescue banks and Wall Street if the need arises.
Nuggets Gleaned
Here are some of the nuggets I gleaned from days spent reading Frank’s handiwork:
– For all its heft, the bill doesn’t once mention the words “too-big-to-fail,” the main issue confronting the financial system. Admitting you have a problem, as any 12- stepper knows, is the crucial first step toward recovery.
– Instead, it supports the biggest banks. It authorizes Federal Reserve banks to provide as much as $4 trillion in emergency funding the next time Wall Street crashes. So much for “no-more-bailouts” talk. That is more than twice what the Fed pumped into markets this time around. The size of the fund makes the bribes in the Senate’s health-care bill look minuscule.
Filed under: Afghanistan, Africa, civil unrest, DEBT, depression, despotism, Dictatorship, Dissent, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Empire, famine, global economy, Great Depression, hyperinflation, Inflation, Iran, malthusian, malthusian catastrophe, middle east, Ordo Ab Chao, Pakistan, Protest, recession, riot, third world, US Economy | Tags: 2010 forecast, 2010 predictions
2010 could be a year that sparks unrest
Economist.com
December 31, 2009
IF THE world appears to have escaped relatively unscathed by social unrest in 2009, despite suffering the worst recession since the 1930s, it might just prove the lull before the storm. Despite a tentative global recovery, for many people around the world economic and social conditions will continue to deteriorate in 2010. An estimated 60m people worldwide will lose their jobs. Poverty rates will continue to rise, with 200m people at risk of joining the ranks of those living on less than $2 a day. But poverty alone does not spark unrest—exaggerated income inequalities, poor governance, lack of social provision and ethnic tensions are all elements of the brew that foments unrest.
Filed under: Credit Crisis, DEBT, depression, Dictatorship, Dollar, dollar collapse, ecnomy, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Empire, Federal Reserve, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, Naomi Wolf, national debt, New World Order, NWO, truth movement, US Economy, Wall Street
America At Empires End
Filed under: bankruptcy, California, Credit Crisis, DEBT, depression, Dollar, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, small business, US Economy
Small-business bankruptcies rise 81% in California
LA Times
December 28, 2009
The Obama administration’s new plan to give a boost to small businesses reflects continued trouble in that sector, which is facing new failures even as much of the nation’s economy is stabilizing.
As credit lines have shrunk and consumers have cut back on spending, thousands of small businesses have closed their doors over the last year. The plight of struggling firms has been aggravated by the reluctance of banks to lend money, said Brian Headd, an economist at the Small Business Administration’s office of advocacy.
“While bankruptcies are up, overall, small-business closures are up even more,” Headd said.
California has been particularly hard hit. The latest data show small-business bankruptcies up 81% in the state for the 12 months ended Sept. 30, compared with the previous year. Filings nationwide were up 44%, according to the credit analysis firm Equifax Inc.
The actual number of small businesses in trouble is probably higher, experts said, because many owners file for personal bankruptcy rather than seek
protection for the business.
Filed under: DEBT, depression, despotism, devaluation, Dictatorship, Dollar, dollar collapse, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Empire, GDP, Great Depression, Greenback, health care reform, hyperinflation, Inflation, john williams, middle class, obama care, obamacare, riot, unemployment, Weimar, Zimbabwe
U.S. Halfway to Depression Level
ShadowStats.com founder John Williams explains the risk of hyperinflation. Worst-case scenario? Rioting in the streets and devolution to a bartering system.
Fairfield Weekly
December 31, 2009
Do you believe everything the government tells you? Economist and statistician John Williams sure doesn’t. Williams, who has consulted for individuals and Fortune 500 companies, now uncovers the truth behind the U.S. government’s economic numbers on his Web site at ShadowStats.com. Williams says, over the last several decades, the feds have been infusing their data with optimistic biases to make the economy seem far rosier than it really is. His site reruns the numbers using the original methodology. What he found was not good.
Maymin: So we are technically bankrupt?
Williams: Yes, and when countries are in that state, what they usually do is rev up the printing presses and print the money they need to meet their obligations. And that creates inflation, hyperinflation, and makes the currency worthless.
Obama says America will go bankrupt if Congress doesn’t pass the health care bill.
Well, it’s going to go bankrupt if they do pass the health care bill, too, but at least he’s thinking about it. He talks about it publicly, which is one thing prior administrations refused to do. Give him credit for that. But what he’s setting up with this health care system will just accelerate the process.
Where are we right now?
In terms of the GDP, we are about halfway to depression level. If you look at retail sales, industrial production, we are already well into depressionary. If you look at things such as the housing industry, the new orders for durable goods we are in Great Depression territory. If we have hyperinflation, which I see coming not too far down the road, that would be so disruptive to our system that it would result in the cessation of many levels of normal economic commerce, and that would throw us into a great depression, and one worse than was seen in the 1930s.
What kind of hyperinflation are we talking about?
I am talking something like you saw with the Weimar Republic of the 1930s. There the currency became worthless enough that people used it actually as toilet paper or wallpaper. You could go to a fine restaurant and have an expensive dinner and order an expensive bottle of wine. The next morning that empty bottle of wine is worth more as scrap glass than it had been the night before filled with expensive wine.
We just saw an extreme example in Zimbabwe. … Probably the most extreme hyperinflation that anyone has ever seen. At the same time, you still had a functioning, albeit troubled, Zimbabwe economy. How could that be? They had a workable backup system of a black market in U.S. dollars. We don’t have a backup system of anything. Our system, with its heavy dependence on electronic currency, in a hyperinflation would not do well. It would probably cease to function very quickly. You could have disruptions in supply chains to food stores. The economy would devolve into something like a barter system until they came up with a replacement global currency.
Filed under: 2-party system, bailout, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, bush, Credit Crisis, DEBT, debt clock, deficit, devaluation, Dictatorship, Dollar, dollar collapse, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Empire, GDP, George Bush, Great Depression, Greenback, health care reform, hyperinflation, Inflation, John McCain, left right paradigm, main street, middle class, national debt, obama, obama spending, obama stimulus, obamacare, stimulus, Stock Market, Taxpayers, US Economy, US Treasury, Wall Street, White House
U.S. Debt Hits $12 Trillion, Will Double By 2019
Outside the Beltway
November 18, 2009
Barack Obama has been president for just under 10 months but he’s added two trillion to the national debt and will double it by the end of the decade. CBS’ Mark Knoller:
- This latest milestone in the ever-rising journey of the National Debt comes less than eight months after it hit $11 trillion for the first time. The latest high-point is not unexpected, considering the federal deficit for the just-ended 2009 fiscal year hit an all-time high at $1.42-trillion – more than triple the previous year’s record high.
Much of the increase in the deficit and debt is attributed to government spending outpacing revenue – both exacerbated by the recession and the government response to it – including hundreds of billions in bailouts and stimulus spending and tax cuts along with decreased tax revenues due to rising unemployment.
[…]
The National Debt has increased about $1.6 trillion on Mr. Obama’s watch, though less than $4.9 trillion run up during the presidency of George W. Bush.
But the White House budget review issued in August projects that by the end of the current fiscal year on Sept 30th, the National Debt could top $14 trillion. It gets worse. The same document projects that by the end of the decade, the National Debt will hit $24.5 trillion — exceeding the Gross Domestic Product projected for 2019 of $22.8 trillion.
According to the Treasury Department, the debt stood at $5.727 trillion on January 19, 2001, Bill Clinton’s last day in office, and $10.627 trillion when Bush left office eight years later. That’s $612.5 billion (or $0.6125 trillion) a year, during which we fought two major wars, had the 9/11 attacks, and at least two major bailouts to deal with a global financial crisis.
We’re thus far averaging $1.92 trillion a year under Obama, or a factor of 3.146 more. And the government is projecting that we’ll continue spending at this crisis rate for the next decade, more than doubling the current record level?
That ain’t good.
Presumably, we’d have had another major bailout had Bush stayed in office for a third term (were that Constitutionally or politically possible) or had John McCain been elected. So spending and thus the debt would have escalated substantially regardless. But we likely wouldn’t be talking about adding a massive health care payment on top of the pile.
Obama: We must spend our way out of recession (and into deeper debt)
No End in Sight to Govt. Spending Spree: $12.1T Debt Ceiling Set to Be Raised
Filed under: audit the fed, Credit Crisis, DEBT, devaluation, Dollar, dollar collapse, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic depression, end the fed, Federal Reserve, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, Joe Scarborough, morning joe, MSNBC, private bank, Ron Paul, TIME, US Economy, Wall Street
Financial Crisis Perpetrator Bernanke Hailed As World’s Saviour By TIME
The real person of the year, Ron Paul, puts the record straight
Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
December 16, 2009
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has been named TIME person of the year for 2009 and hailed as a saviour when in the real world he has overseen the worsening of the financial crisis, the looting of the American economy by foreign offshore banks and the destruction of the Dollar.
In a world where those vastly escalating war are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, it makes perfect sense to award the Federal Reserve chairman with person of the year.
“His creative leadership helped ensure that 2009 was a period of weak recovery rather than catastrophic depression, and he still wields unrivaled power over our money, our jobs, our savings and our national future.” writes TIME.
The magazine also bizarrely states that Bernanke launched “a groundbreaking public relations campaign to demystify the Fed”, despite the fact that the chairman has consistently lobbied Congress for protection of the Fed’s “independence” (read secrecy), while categorically refusing to answer questions regarding the Fed’s decision making.
Bernanke has overseen the handing over of trillions of dollars to foreign banks and has defied lawsuits to keep secret the destination of the money from the American people.
The timing of the announcement couldn’t be more perfect. As NBC’s Matt Laur pointed out, Bernanke can go to Capitol Hill tomorrow, hold up TIME magazine and ask to be reappointed as Fed chairman.
Of course, if TIME’s person of the year award was really judged on toil in the best interests of the American people, the clear winner would be Congressman Ron Paul, who has railed against the Fed and Bernanke with great success this year.
Paul’s tireless effort to wrestle power away from the Federal Reserve and put it back into the hands of the American people has seen a major victory with the progression of legislation slated to audit the Fed and put it’s activities under public scrutiny.
Paul has consistently exposed how the Fed has delivered the financial crisis to America and the world via excessive spending, debt expansion and monetary inflation.
Instead TIME’s article on Bernanke refers to Ron Paul in the context of “Bleeding-heart liberals and tea-party reactionaries”.
Paul gave his opinion on the announcement regarding Bernanke on MSNBC’s Morning Joe earlier today, commenting:
“He is the most powerful man in the world, I believe a case can be made for that.”
“Because he controls the supply of money, the Dollar which is the reserve currency of the world. He can create a trillion dollars in secret without any monitoring of the Congress. So there is no transparency and I think he is more powerful than the president.” the Congressman added.
“The big question is, has he used that power for good or for evil? And of course, my side of the argument is that the system is evil, and the chairman, whether it’s Greenspan or Bernanke, they can do no good.”
“They cause our troubles, they cause inflation, they cause the bubbles, and therefore the bust, the correction is always their fault.” Paul stated.
Watch the full interview below:
Filed under: 60 minutes, austan goolsbee, bailout, bank bailout, Barack Obama, bernanke, Big Banks, bob rubin, CBS, citigroup, Congress, Credit Crisis, DEBT, deregulation, devaluation, Dictatorship, Dollar, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Empire, Fascism, Federal Reserve, free market, gangsters, geithner, Goldman Sachs, Great Depression, Greenback, House, hyperinflation, hypocrisy, Inflation, Jamie Rubin, larry summers, mafia, main street, middle class, obama, obama bailout, obama deception, oligarchy, Paul Volcker, Propaganda, Robert Rubin, Senate, socialism, Stock Market, Taxpayers, Timothy Geithner, Too Big to Fail, unemployment, US Economy, Wall Street, White House | Tags: Matt Taibbi
Obama’s Bullshit-Meter Off The Charts:
“I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street”
Zero Hedge
December 13, 2009
Obama goes back to his Wall Street-bashing rhetoric in today’s 60 Minutes on CBS, after he has already doomed this country to tens of trillions in excess debt to make sure that Wall Street not only thrives, but prospers, courtesy of Bernanke’s vertical bond curve and the daily destruction of the dollar. With statements such as “I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street” which the WSJ disclosed will be uttered by Obama shortly, only the most clueless viewers will find empathy with Obama’s latest message of banker “anti-hope.”
White House economic adviser Larry Summers also voiced aggravation with Wall Street on Sunday. “Here is what I think they don’t get…It was their irresponsible risk-taking in many cases that brought the economy to collapse,” Mr. Summers, who chairs the National Economic Council, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“And they don’t get in some cases that they wouldn’t be where they are today, and they certainly would not be paying the bonuses they are paying today, if their government hadn’t taken extraordinary actions.”
“For them to be complaining about serious regulation directed at making sure this never happens again is wrong. For $300 million to be spent on lobbyists trying to gut serious efforts at financial reform is not how this country should be operating,” Mr. Summers said. “For firms that have benefited from taxpayer support to be complaining about the government burdening them is, frankly, a bit rich.”
And it is not only Obama, but Wall Street protege Larry Summer himself who continues the banker bashing:
- White House economic adviser Larry Summers also voiced aggravation with Wall Street on Sunday. “Here is what I think they don’t get…It was their irresponsible risk-taking in many cases that brought the economy to collapse,” Mr. Summers, who chairs the National Economic Council, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“And they don’t get in some cases that they wouldn’t be where they are today, and they certainly would not be paying the bonuses they are paying today, if their government hadn’t taken extraordinary actions.”
“For them to be complaining about serious regulation directed at making sure this never happens again is wrong. For $300 million to be spent on lobbyists trying to gut serious efforts at financial reform is not how this country should be operating,” Mr. Summers said. “For firms that have benefited from taxpayer support to be complaining about the government burdening them is, frankly, a bit rich.”
First you bail them out, and now you bash them? It is one thing to dash criticism upon rhetoric but at least be consistent. If people can not read between the lines of this administration’s endless hypocrisy, they deserve all they get. And if Matt Taibbi’s latest controversial piece in Rolling Stone “Obama’s Big Sellout” needed any final validation, you just provided it Mr. President. Because while your Wall Street-centric policies can be explained by your lack of financial comprehension and private-sector experience (thereby justifying your desire to be “advised” by those who are an integral part of the banker syndicate), your complete disdain for the average American’s intellectual level exemplified by your most recent, upcoming 7 pm TV appearance is what is truly insulting. Maybe you can put Mr. Geithner up there next to you on the TV screen, and he can justify his reasoning for why incremental “fat cat” bonuses are such a bad idea. Come to think of it, why not make it into a round table, and include Larry Summer and Robert Rubin: we are confident they will have no problem distancing themselves from the very bankers they talk to 10 hours a day, telling them (and thus you) how to run national policy.
You say “Some people on Wall Street still don’t get it”… The problem, Mr. President, is that more and more people on Main Street, do get it. They now realize just whose agenda you have at heart. And said Main Street expects nothing but merely more theatrics during your upcoming meeting with Wall Street “fat cats” tomorrow.
Obama’s sellout to Wall Street creates ‘permanent bailout’
Obama turns to Big Bankers for campaign cash
WSWS
October 21, 2009
Under conditions of growing unemployment and deepening social misery for working people throughout the US, President Barack Obama flew into New York City Tuesday to raise millions of dollars in campaign donations from America’s financial elite.
He was expected to clear at least $3 million, largely from a Manhattan bash with an entry fee of $30,400 per couple—the maximum contribution allowed by law.
According to the Los Angeles Times, four of the seven co-chairs of the event and about a third of the guests come from the big banks and Wall Street.
Behind all the rhetoric about “change,” this is Obama’s most important constituency. In his run for the presidency in 2008, he captured the lion’s share of donations from Wall Street, taking in $15 million from securities and investment firms, $3 million from commercial banks, and $6 million from other financial institutions.
Under conditions of growing unemployment and deepening social misery for working people throughout the US, President Barack Obama flew into New York City Tuesday to raise millions of dollars in campaign donations from America’s financial elite.
He was expected to clear at least $3 million, largely from a Manhattan bash with an entry fee of $30,400 per couple—the maximum contribution allowed by law.
According to the Los Angeles Times, four of the seven co-chairs of the event and about a third of the guests come from the big banks and Wall Street.
Behind all the rhetoric about “change,” this is Obama’s most important constituency. In his run for the presidency in 2008, he captured the lion’s share of donations from Wall Street, taking in $15 million from securities and investment firms, $3 million from commercial banks, and $6 million from other financial institutions.
Top contributors to Obama and McCain are big banks
noworldsystem.com 