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Have Geithner's Zombie Ideas Won? Paul Krugman on the "Cash for Trash" Program
Amy Goodman: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has
unveiled the Obama administration’s plan to finance the purchase of
up to $1 trillion in so-called toxic assets from banks and other
ailing financial institutions. The plan relies on private investors,
namely hedge funds and private equity firms, to team up with the
government to relieve banks of assets tied to loans and
mortgage-linked securities. There have been virtually no buyers of
these assets thus far because of their uncertain risk. As part of
the program, the government plans to offer subsidies in the form of
low-interest loans to coax private funds to form partnerships with
the government to buy troubled assets from banks. This is intended
to unclog the balance sheets of banks and allow them to resume
normal lending......more
Bailed Out JPMorgan to Blow Millions on Luxury Jets, Aircraft Hangar Number of the day: 138. The number, in millions, JPMorgan Chase, which has received $25 billion in bail-out funding, plans to spend "to buy two new luxury corporate jets and build 'the premiere corporate aircraft hangar on the eastern seaboard' to house them, ABC News has learned."
"Getting Tough" with Predator
Financial Institutions"
AIG, Larry Summers and the Politics
of Deflection
by F. William Engdahl
Finally the US authorities have gotten
‘tough’ with the predator financial institutions. The world has been
waiting for such decisive intervention since an unending series of
Government bailouts of financial institutions began early in 2008
amounting to now trillions of taxpayer dollars. Now, with the
world’s largest insurance giant, AIG, the White House Economic
Council chairman, Larry Summers has expressed ‘outrage.’ President
Obama himself has entered the fray to promise ‘justice.’ US Senators
have threatened a law to change the injustice. The only problem is
they are all exercising ‘politics of deflection,’ taking attention
away from the real problem, the fraudulent bailout. ......more
The Financial Crisis Pushes Europe to the Brink of Disaster KREMS, Austria -- Obsessed as we are about our
own crumbling economy, it's hard for most Americans to see and
appreciate the global nature of the crisis and how it is impacting,
and will impact, others throughout the world. We don't recognize how
many in other countries blame the fall of their own economies on a
kind of "financial AIDS" born in the USA......more
Civil Unrest in America?
by José Miguel Alonso Trabanco
Eurasia is currently experiencing serious problems derived from financial and economic difficulties such as unemployment, GDP negative growth, currency depreciation, overall economic slowdown and so on. Several members of both the European Union and NATO (Poland, Hungary, Iceland come to mind) are already dealing with a considerable deal of domestic discontent. Some States from the Former Soviet Union (notably Ukraine, Belarus and the Central Asian Republics) and even Russia itself are facing similar problems. Even Chinese government officials acknowledge protests in the Chinese mainland, as pointed out by Professor Michael Klare, which means that East Asia is by no means an exception. As we shall see, financial and economic conditions are equally grave in the American hemisphere, if not more so.
Zbigniew
Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor and early supporter of
Barack Obama's presidential campaign, has warned that civil unrest
on American soil is a possibility that should not be dismissed.
Brzezinski explains that "[the United States is] going to have
millions and millions of unemployed, people really facing dire
straits. And we’re going to be having that for some period of time
before things hopefully improve. And at the same time there is
public awareness of this extraordinary wealth that was transferred
to a few individuals at levels without historical precedent in
America..." Brzezinski concludes with this noteworthy remark
"...hell, there could be even riots". .........more
"Strong economic
medicine" with a "human face" At first sight, the budget
proposal has all the appearances of an expansionary program, a
demand oriented "Second New Deal" geared towards creating
employment, rebuilding shattered social programs and reviving the
real economy..........more
The Spectacular, Sudden Crash of the Global Economy The worldwide economic meltdown has sent the wheels spinning off the project of building a single, business-friendly global economy. Worldwide, industrial production has
ground to a halt. Goods are stacking up, but nobody's buying;
the Washington Post
reports that "the world is suddenly awash in almost everything:
flat-panel televisions, bulldozers, Barbie dolls, strip malls,
Burberry stores." A Hong Kong-based shipping broker told
The Telegraph that his firm had "seen trade activity fall
off a cliff. Asia-Europe is an unmitigated disaster." The
Economist
noted that one can now ship a container from China to Europe for
free -- you only need to pick up the fuel and handling costs -- but
half-empty freighters are the norm along the world's busiest
shipping routes.
Global airfreight dropped by almost a quarter in December alone;
Giovanni Bisignani, who heads a shipping industry trade group,
called the "free fall" in global cargo "unprecedented and
shocking."......more
European banks face an entirely new wave of losses in coming months not yet calculated in any government bank rescue aid to date. Unlike the losses of US banks which derive initially from their exposures to low-quality sub-prime real estate and other securitized lending, the problems of western European banks, most especially in Austria, Sweden and perhaps Switzerland arise from the massive volumes of loans they made during the 2002-2007 period of extreme low international interest rates to clients in eastern European countries. The problems in Eastern
Europe which are just now emerging with full force are, if you
will, an indirect consequence of the libertine monetary policies
of the Greenspan Fed from 2002 until 2006, the period where Wall
Street’s asset backed securitization Ponzi Scheme took
off.........more
U.S. Intel Chief's Shocking Warning: Wall Street's Disaster Has Spawned Our Greatest Terrorist Threat We have a remarkable ability to create our own monsters. A few
decades of meddling in the Middle East with our Israeli doppelgnger
and we get Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaida, the Iraqi resistance movement
and a resurgent Taliban. Now we trash the world economy and destroy
the ecosystem and sit back to watch our handiwork. Hints of our
brave new world seeped out Thursday when Washington's new director
of national intelligence, retired Adm. Dennis Blair, testified
before the Senate Intelligence Committee. He warned that the
deepening economic crisis posed perhaps our gravest threat to
stability and national security. It could trigger, he said, a return
to the "violent extremism" of the 1920s and 1930s..........more
How Wall Street's Scam Artists Turned Home Mortgages Into Economic WMD Conservative pundits and politicians have piled onto the excuse
like shipwreck victims clinging to a passing log: The real blame for
the current economic crisis, conservatives would have you believe,
lies not with anything they did, but rather with the 1977 Community
Reinvestment Act -- a successful Carter-era program designed to get
banks to stop covert discrimination, and encourage them to invest
their money in low-income neighborhoods.........more
Nationalizing the Banks Seems Inevitable: How Bad Does It Have to Get First? There is a bottom-line to the banking crisis which the Obama
administration appears intent on trying to avoid: some number of
financial giants are simply insolvent. A recent
analysis by NYU economist Nouriel Roubini -- known as "Doctor
Doom" for his dire predictions about the collapse of the financial
trading system, predictions that have since become painfully true --
estimated that the losses facing the American financial sector will
reach $3.6 trillion dollars...more
After
The Financial Crisis Is Driving Hordes of Americans to Suicide Pushed past their breaking points, people are robbing banks to pay the rent, setting homes on fire -- even taking their own lives. The body count is still rising. For months on end, marked by
bankruptcies, foreclosures, evictions, and layoffs, the economic
meltdown has taken a heavy toll on Americans. In response, a range
of extreme acts including suicide, self-inflicted injury, murder,
and arson have hit the local news. By October 2008, an
analysis of press reports nationwide indicated that an epidemic
of tragedies spurred by the financial crisis had already spread from
Pasadena, California, to Taunton, Massachusetts, from Roseville,
Minnesota, to Ocala, Florida.....more
The Conservative government has leaked the details of Tuesday's budget. They have announced a $64 billion deficit. The Harper government, which has consistently committed itself to a "balanced budget", now claims that deficit spending is required to boost the economy at the height of a major economic recession. Does this constitute a turnaround in federal government economic policy? Is the government really committed to running a budget deficit with a view to stimulating demand and reversing the tide of economic decline. Or is there a hidden agenda?......more
Across the land, an atmosphere of hope and optimism prevails. The Bush regime has gone. A new president is in the White House. While America had its eyes riveted on the live TV
broadcast of Barack Obama's presidential inauguration, financial
markets were sliding. Immediately following the inauguration, the Dow Jones plummeted, largely affecting the share prices of major financial institutions. The quoted stock values of major Wall Street
banks plummeted.
Citigroup fell by 20 percent,
Bank of America by 29 percent and JP Morgan Chase by 20
percent. The Royal Bank of Scotland fell by 69 percent in
New York trading.........more
How to Resolve the Credit
Crisis: Credit Where Credit is Due
by Ellen Brown
Economist John Kenneth Galbraith famously said, “The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.” If banks can create money, why are we suffering from a “credit crunch”? Why can’t banks create all the money they can find borrowers for? Last fall, Congress committed an unprecedented $700 billion in taxpayer money to reversing the credit crisis, and the Federal Reserve has already fanned that into $8.5 trillion in loans and commitments.1 But the bank bailout has proven to be no more than a boondoggle for a handful of lucky Wall Street banks, without getting credit flowing again.
To understand the real cause of the credit crisis
and how it can be reversed, we first need to understand credit
itself – what it is, where it comes from, and what the real
tourniquet is that has limited its flow. Banks actually create
credit; and if private banks can do it, so could public banks or
public treasuries. The crisis is not one of “liquidity” but of
“solvency.” It has been caused, not by the banks’ inability to get
credit (something they can create with accounting entries), but by
their inability to meet the capital requirement imposed by the Bank
for International Settlements, the private foreign head of the
international banking system. That inability, in turn, has been
caused by the derivatives virus; and only a few big banks are
seriously infected with it. By bailing out these big banks, the
government is actually spreading the virus by furnishing the funds
for them to take over smaller regional banks.........more
Martial Law, the Financial Bailout,
and War
by Prof. Peter Dale Scott
Global Research,
January 8, 2009
Paulson’s Financial Bailout
It is becoming clear that the bailout measures of late 2008 may have consequences at least as grave for an open society as the response to 9/11 in 2001. Many members of Congress felt coerced into voting against their inclinations, and the normal procedures for orderly consideration of a bill were dispensed with.
The excuse for bypassing
normal legislative procedures was the existence of an emergency. But
one of the most reprehensible features of the legislation, that it
allowed Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to permit bailed-out
institutions to use public money for exorbitant salaries and
bonuses, was inserted by Paulson after the immediate crisis had
passed......more
Union Ramps Up Massive Campaign to Keep Obama's Feet to the Fire The SEIU says it's making a big push and committing huge resources to word for the passage of key progressive measures to aid working families. This week, SEIU, one of the most aggressive -- and progressive --
labor unions in the country, announced the launch of what Anna
Burger, the organization's international treasurer-secretary,
promised to be "the greatest grassroots accountability campaign that
had ever been seen in America." In a press call, Burger promised
that the organization would invest a massive 30 percent of its
annual budget for the "Change That Works" campaign, money she said
would be used to "[make] sure that elected officials live up to
their promises to working families.".....................more
This Looks Like the Start of a Second Great Depression Will we act swiftly and boldly enough to stop it from happening? “If we don’t act swiftly and boldly,” declared President-elect Barack Obama in his latest weekly address, “we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double-digit unemployment.” If you ask me, he was understating the case. The fact is that recent economic numbers have been terrifying,
not just in the United States but around the world. Manufacturing,
in particular, is plunging everywhere. Banks aren’t lending;
businesses and consumers aren’t spending. Let’s not mince words:
This looks an awful lot like the beginning of a second Great
Depression................more
Why Big Finance Is Laughing All the Way to the Bank Instead of making loans to help the economy, they're shoring up their own finances and buying up their competitors. The country's financial markets have collapsed, as they tend to do when left without adult supervision, and they're taking our economy with them. With the large banks refusing to make loans after losing billions on worthless subprime derivatives, the government stepped in and agreed to October's financial bailout package. The $700 billion legislation was meant to buy banks' "troubled
assets" for cash, and thus improve banks' balance sheets to the
point that they would lend again. This would mean credit for
struggling businesses and households and could encourage expansion
and hiring, thus pulling us out of recession............more
The Crisis of Common Sense: Is It
So Difficult To Understand The Financial Crisis?
by Matthias Chang
Thinking & Common Sense When we think naturally and use common sense to address problems we will be able to arrive at simple solutions. But our education system tortures us mentally and forces us to think in complicated ways. Our teachers, economists, politicians and so-called experts in God and religion make mountains out of mole-hills, turning simple truths to complex arguments and “scientific theories and equations”. These experts need to make things look difficult to survive and to make sure that we have to rely upon them for solutions. It is often said that, “in the land of the blind, the man with one eye is the King”. Thinking used to be a pleasure and so very invigorating. But now experts have ensured that thinking is difficult and tiring, so burdensome, that we don’t think at all. The result is that common sense is thrown out of
the window, and we have been conditioned to rely on our mental
crutch, the so-called experts to think for us.............more
Busting Paranoid Right-Wing Fantasies of Dissolving the Mexico-U.S.-Canada Borders It's time to call BS on the idea of a mythical North American Union. This month, President Bush will host the leaders of Canada and Mexico to advance the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), a project Lou Dobbs has predicted will "end the United States as we know it." Lou sounds downright blasé, though, compared to all the online
ranting and raving on this subject. And while there are plenty of
reasons for progressives to be up in arms over this effort to expand
the North American Free Trade Agreement, the xenophobes have clearly
cornered the market.....more
Was the 'Credit Crunch' a Myth Used to Sell a Trillion-Dollar Scam? Even as the media continue to repeat the claim that credit has frozen up, evidence has emerged suggesting the entire story is wrong.There is something approaching a consensus that the Paulson Plan -- also known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP -- was a boondoggle of an intervention that's flailed from one approach to the next, with little oversight and less effect on the financial meltdown. But perhaps even more troubling than the ad hoc nature of its
implementation is the suspicion that has recently emerged that TARP
-- hundreds of billions of dollars worth so far -- was sold to
Congress and the public based on a Big Lie............more
Let the Banks Fail: Why a Few of the Financial Giants Should Crash The finance industry still owns mountains of bad paper and must absorb these losses -- or else we'll face a very long recession. So far, much of Washington’s ad hoc, ham-fisted response to the economic crisis has been based on the dictum that the financial institutions must be prevented from taking their losses. That should come as no surprise. Big finance’s
lobbyists have been all over the "bailout" (it should be
bailouts, plural) from the very start, Wall Street pumped piles
of cash into the elections — AIG, recipient of tens of billions in
taxpayer largesse, ponied up $750,000 for both the Democratic and
Republican conventions — and the whole thing’s
been designed by "free-market" ideologues who came to Washington
directly from Wall Street..........more |
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Collapse of Pension Funds: The End of
Retirement?
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| by Shamus Cooke | |
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Global Research, December 13,
2008
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Unless things change fast, human history will show that
the phenomenon of “retirement” was limited to one generation. After World
War II, when European and Japanese economies stood in tatters, American
capitalism could fulfill “the American dream,” since there was little foreign
competition to speak of. For the first time ever, workers were promised that
— after working thirty or so years — they would be able to securely retire.
That was largely the case…for one generation...........more
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Global Research, December 15,
2008
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The Federal Reserve has bluntly refused a request by a major US financial news service to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from US taxpayers and to reveal the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral. Their lawyers resorted to the bizarre argument that they did so to protect 'trade secrets.' Is the secret that the US financial system is de facto bankrupt? The latest Fed move is further indication of the degree of panic and lack of clear strategy within the highest ranks of the US financial institutions. Unprecedented Federal Reserve expansion of the Monetary Base in recent weeks sets the stage for a future Weimar-style hyperinflation perhaps before 2010.
On November 7 Bloomberg filed suit under the US Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) requesting details about the terms of eleven new
Federal Reserve lending programs created during the deepening financial
crisis......more.
Let's Cut Out the Banks and Finance American Innovation
Then the U.S. government can be an investor instead of a reluctant donor.
Just this morning, I heard that my favorite union printing press had closed
its doors. Last night, I heard that Olsson's, the great book/music place in
Washington, D.C., closed all five of its stores last month. There are times
when I work at my Vox Pop café in Manhattan and wait one hour for a single
customer to walk in. Consumer spending is going steadily down. Unemployment is
around 6.5 percent, and that's just the "official" rate...........more
Even though the Federal Reserve is now
the biggest single participant in the financial system, the myth of a "free
market" still lingers on. It's mind boggling. The Fed has expanded its balance
sheet by $2 trillion, guaranteed $8.3 trillion of dodgy mortgage-backed paper,
provided a backstop for bank deposits, money markets, commercial paper, and
created 8 separate lending facilities to ensure that underwater financial
institutions can still appear to be solvent. The whole system is a state
subsidized operation buoyed on a taxpayer-provided flotation device which
bears no resemblance to an invisible hand. More astonishing, is the massive
power grab engineered by the Fed which has taken place without the slightest
protest from 535 shell-shocked congressmen and senators......more
While Some of Us Are Hoping for Change, Others Are Literally Starving for It
The swelling numbers waiting outside homeless shelters and food pantries around the country have grown by at least 30 percent since the summer.
Elba Figueroa worked as a nurse’s aide until she got Parkinson’s disease.
She lost her job. She lost her health care. She receives $703 a month in
government assistance. Her rent alone costs $750. And so she borrows money
from friends and neighbors every month to stay in her apartment. She
laboriously negotiates her wheelchair up and down steps and along the
frigid sidewalks of Trenton, N.J., to get to soup kitchens and food
pantries to eat...........more
This
Is Not A Normal Recession: Moving on to Plan
|
Global Research, November 21,
2008
|
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"The Winter of 2008-2009 will prove to be the winter
of global economic discontent that marks the rejection of the flawed ideology
that unregulated global financial markets promote financial innovation, market
efficiency, unhampered growth and endless prosperity while mitigating risk by
spreading it system wide." Economists Paul Davidson and Henry C.K. Liu
"Open Letter to World Leaders attending the November 15 White House Summit on
Financial Markets and the World Economy"
The global economy is being sucked into a black hole and most Americans have
no idea why. The whole problem can be narrowed down to two words; "structured
finance"............more
How the Rich Are Destroying the Earth
There is an emergency. In less than a decade we will have to change
course, but there are a few major obstacles blocking the way.
The following is reprinted from the new book How the Rich Are Destroying the Earth by Herve Kempf and published by Chelsea Green.
There is an emergency. In less than a decade we will have to change course -- assuming the collapse of the U.S. economy or the explosion of the Middle East does not impose a change through chaos. To confront the emergency, we must understand the objective: to achieve a sober society; to plot out the way there; to accomplish this transformation equitably, by first making those with the most carry the burden within and between societies; to take inspiration from collective values ascribed to here in France by our nation's motto: "Liberty, ecology, fraternity."
What are the main obstacles that block the way?...........more
Wall Street's Bailout is a Trillion-Dollar
Crime Scene -- Why Aren't the Dems Doing Something About It?
Washington's handling of the bailout is not merely incompetent. It may well be illegal.
The more details emerge, the clearer it becomes that Washington's handling of the Wall Street bailout is not merely incompetent. It is borderline criminal.
In a moment of high panic in late September, the U.S. Treasury unilaterally
pushed through a radical change in how bank mergers are taxed -- a change long
sought by the industry. Despite the fact that this move will deprive the
government of as much as $140 billion in tax revenue, lawmakers found out only
after the fact. According to the Washington Post, more than a dozen tax
attorneys agree that "Treasury had no authority to issue the [tax change]
notice."..............more
Global Economic Tremors
On October 28, the Financial Times' columnist Martin Wolf wrote: "Preventing a
global slump must be the priority." He cited Nouriel Roubini back in February
listing "twelve steps to financial disaster," all of which the US took and
dragged the whole world down with it......
more
College Loan Slavery: Student Debt Is Getting
Way Out of Hand
The quest for a college degree is dumping millions of young people deep into a pit of debt from which many will never recover.
Raya Golden thought she was handling college in a responsible way. She
didn't apply until she felt ready to dedicate herself to her studies. She
spread her schooling across five years so she could work part-time throughout.
She checked that her school, the Academy of Art University in San Francisco,
had a high post-graduate employment rate. But there were two things she hadn't
counted on. The first was the $75,000 in nonsubsidized federal student loans
she'd have to take out for tuition and those living expenses her part-time
jobs selling hotdogs and making lattes couldn't cover. The second was that
she'd graduate into a workforce teetering on the edge of the biggest financial
crisis since the Great Depression.......more
Why Won't the Federal Reserve Say Who They Gave
$2 Trillion To?
The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans.
Apparently Bernanke, that wonderful bipartisan soul who is so competent and
wonderful that everyone in the village thinks Obama should leave him in charge
is refusing to identify who got almost 2 trillion dollars of Fed cash.
Bloomberg News is suing to find out. Personally I really, really, really want
to know. What exactly is Bernanke hiding? Who got the money he doesn't want us
to know got the money?......more
The
Five Most Wanted Rip-off Artists from Wall Street and Washington
Our economy didn't melt down, it was taken down the unbridled greed of economic elites, enabled by their political courtesans in Washington.
What the hell's happening here? Why is my bank in the tank? And my house and job? And my retirement money? Even my state's teetering on the brink of broke! Who did this to us?
Fair questions, but we're not getting honest answers. Last year, at the first signs of the global financial slide toward the abyss, we were told that it's just a little hiccup caused by something called subprime mortgages. Not to worry, the Powers That Be declared confidently, for we have the damage contained. And rest assured that "the fundamentals of our economy are sound."
Goldman Sachs ready to hand out £7bn salary and bonus package... after its
£6bn bail-outBy
Simon Duke
Last updated at 8:55 AM on 30th October 2008
Goldman Sachs is on course to pay its top City bankers multimillion-pound bonuses - despite asking the U.S. government for an emergency bail-out.
The struggling Wall Street bank has set aside £7billion for salaries and 2008 year-end bonuses, it emerged yesterday.
Each of the firm's 443 partners is on course to pocket an average Christmas bonus of more than £3million.
The size of the pay pool comfortably dwarfs the £6.1billion lifeline which the U.S. government is throwing to Goldman as part of its £430billion bail-out.
As Washington pours money into the bank, the cash will immediately be channelled to Goldman's already well-heeled employees.
News of the firm's largesse will revive the anger over the 'rewards for failure' culture endemic in the world of high finance.
The same bankers who have brought the global economy to its knees seem to
pocketing the same kind of rewards they got during the boom years.......more
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 8, 2008
Economists' Open Letter Calls For Active Response to Economic Crisis
http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2008/10/07/open-letter/
Ottawa: Today, 85 economists released an
Open Letter criticizing the federal government for its inaction in light of
the deepening global financial crisis, the growing probability of a worldwide
recession, and structural weaknesses in the Canadian economy. The letter
challenges government claims that Canada¹s ³fundamentals² are strong, and
highlights the significant deterioration in Canada¹s economic performance over
the last two years. Despite recent government statements, there remains a wide
disconnect between the appropriate policy response to the looming downturn,
and the ³stay-the-course² approach still being enunciated by the Prime
Minister..........more
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SAVING THE UNHOLY BANK MESS WITH SIMPLE ACCOUNTANCY |
| by William Krehm | |
| October 31,2008 | |
T
he Governor of the Bank of England, Melvyn King, recently cited the worst bank crisis since World War I as reason for cutting interest rates.That, however, would cause price index to move upward. And in the vocabulary of those who run our economy, that is “inflation” - the worst thing that can happen. The main purpose of banks for the last half-century is to keep prices flat In the real world, the price level can, indeed, more upward because there is too much demand and not enough supply to satisfy it. That is real “ inflation”. But that does not mean that prices may have moved upward for quite other reasons. Nobody who moves from a town of 20 thousand to New York City is foolish enough to believe that his living costs will stay the same. How then can it stay the same when a growing portion of the world’s population has been making just such a move? The number of cities of 5 million has increased on all inhabited continents.
And then there is the detail that the higher
technologies that have taken over call for far more education. that used
to be norm. A century ago anybody who learned to read and write was
deemed educated. Today you need some university education to hold your
own against your computer. One could go on indefinitely enlarging the
list of such upward movements of the price level having nothing to do
with an excess of demand over supply.......more
Naomi Klein: Bailout = Bush's Final Pillage
The bailout has been designed to keep stealing from the Treasury for years to come.
In the final days of the election, many Republicans seem to have given up the fight for power. But that doesn't mean they are relaxing. If you want to see real Republican elbow grease, check out the energy going into chucking great chunks of the $700 billion bailout out the door. At a recent Senate Banking Committee hearing, Republican Senator Bob Corker was fixated on this task, and with a clear deadline in mind: inauguration. "How much of it do you think may be actually spent by January 20 or so?" Corker asked Neel Kashkari, the 35-year-old former banker in charge of the bailout.
When European colonialists realized that they had no choice but to hand
over power to the indigenous citizens, they would often turn their attention
to stripping the local treasury of its gold and grabbing valuable livestock.
If they were really nasty, like the Portuguese in Mozambique in the mid-1970s,
they poured concrete down the elevator shafts........more
Published on Wednesday, October 29, 2008 by Inter Press Service
BOSTON - Bank crashes in Iceland, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout of Ukraine and volatile stock markets the world over -- it all links back to the U.S. communities where hundreds of thousands of families are losing their homes with no let up in sight, those on the frontlines say.
'Foreclosure has been a huge issue, a ballooning, mushrooming issue for at
least two years. We've been inundated with phone calls for help,' said Tracy
Garrett, a housing advocate with Community Action House, a non-profit in
Michigan..........more
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They Did It On Purpose: The Housing Bubble & Its
Crash were Engineered by the US Government, the Fed & Wall Street
|
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| by Richard C. Cook | |
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Global Research, October
23, 2008
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During the Clinton administration, the government required the financial industry to start expanding the frequency of mortgage loans to consumers who might not have qualified in the past.
When George W. Bush was named president by the Supreme Court in December 2000, the stock market had begun to decline with the bursting of the dot.com bubble.
In 2001 the frequency of White House visits by Alan Greenspan increased.
Greenspan endorsed President Bush’s March 2001 tax cuts for the rich. More such cuts took place in May 2003.
Signs of recession had begun to show in early 2001. The
stock market crashed after 9/11. The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in October 2001
and Iraq in March 2003......more
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. (Thomas Jefferson, US President; 1743 - 1826)
America is dying. It is self-destructing and bringing the rest of the world down with it.
Often referred to as a sub-prime mortgage collapse, this obfuscates the real reason. By associating tangible useless failed mortgages, at least something 'real' can be blamed for the carnage. The problem is, this is myth. The magnitude of this fiscal collapse happened because it was all based on hot air.
The banking industry renamed insurance betting guarantees
as 'credit default swaps' and risky gambling wagers were called 'derivatives'.
Financial managers and banking executives were selling the ultimate con to the
entire world, akin to the snake-oil salesmen from the 18th century but this
time in suits and ties. And by October 2009 it was a quadrillion-dollar
(that's $1,000 trillion) industry that few could understand.............more
How the Banksters Made a Complete Killing off
the Bailout
It's going to take about 20 years to repair the damage from the huge rip off created under the guise of "free market" capitalism.
In 1897, when 8-year old Virginia O'Hanlon posed her Santa Claus query to the New York Sun, she received a heart-warming editorial response reassuring her that "He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist."
Today, we hand our 8 year olds a $13 trillion national debt while our
Congress hands Wall Street banksters the national purse without so much as a
hearing to determine the cause of the debt collapse. Worse still, the money is
doled out to the very same individuals who leveraged their institutions to
casino status................more
Max Fraad Wolff consulted on and Michelle Fawcett contributed to this article. Illustrations By Frank Reynoso and color by Irina Ivanova. This article relied on many sources, including "The Subprime Debacle" by Karl Beitel, Monthly Review, May 2008. This essay was printed in the Oct. 3, 2008, issue of The Indypendent, and the November 2008 issue of Z Magazine.........more►
"Despite the bailout, it's clear the economy is going into a deep recession," Robert E. Scott, senior international economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told IPS.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned Tuesday that the U.S. economy is headed downward, hours after The Fed unveiled a programme to buy short-term debt in an effort to stimulate lending among businesses.
The Fed's action followed a drop in the Dow Jones industrial average on Monday to below 10,000 for the first time since 2004, and reports of plunging markets around the world, with markets in Brazil and Russia especially hard hit. Developing nations are bracing for harder times to come. .......more►
"Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders."
– The Honorable Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee in the 1930s
The Federal Reserve (or Fed) has assumed sweeping new powers in the last year. In an unprecedented move in March 2008, the New York Fed advanced the funds for JPMorgan Chase Bank to buy investment bank Bear Stearns for pennies on the dollar. The deal was particularly controversial because Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, sits on the board of the New York Fed and participated in the secret weekend negotiations.1 In September 2008, the Federal Reserve did something even more unprecedented, when it bought the world’s largest insurance company. The Fed announced on September 16 that it was giving an $85 billion loan to American International Group (AIG) for a nearly 80% stake in the mega-insurer. The Associated Press called it a "government takeover," but this was no ordinary nationalization. Unlike the U.S. Treasury, which took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the week before, the Fed is not a government-owned agency. Also unprecedented was the way the deal was funded. The Associated Press reported:
"The Treasury Department, for the first time in its history, said it would begin selling bonds for the Federal Reserve in an effort to help the central bank deal with its unprecedented borrowing needs."2
This is extraordinary. Why is the Treasury issuing U.S. government bonds (or debt) to fund the Fed, which is itself supposedly "the lender of last resort" created to fund the banks and the federal government? Yahoo Finance reported on September 17:
"The Treasury is setting up a temporary financing program at the Fed’s request. The program will auction Treasury bills to raise cash for the Fed’s use. The initiative aims to help the Fed manage its balance sheet following its efforts to enhance its liquidity facilities over the previous few quarters." ........more►
The Really Hard-to-Swallow Truth About the Bailout
We somehow came to believe Wall Street's success was ours too, and that the bills we owed were never going to come due. Well, they are now.
Myriad cultural historians have noted the American belief that success is a sign of God's favor. Over the past couple of decades, He has had a downright lovefest with the already-rich -- so much so that the richest 400 Americans now have more money stashed away than the combined bottom 150 million Americans. Some $1.6 trillion.......more►
Betrayed by the Bailout: The Death of Democracy
By William Cox
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10433
Global Research, October 3, 2008
On this date, October 3, 2008, the American people were betrayed by those whom they had elected to represent them. The members of Congress who voted for the Wall Street "bailout" violated their oath of office to "support and defend the Constitution" ... "that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same" ... "and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: ..."
Without holding any meaningful hearings or public discussions and listening only to those most responsible for the economic disaster, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Congress abdicated its responsibility to the American people........more►
Bailout Passes Senate; 9 Reasons That's Bad News for You
This country faces many serious problems in the financial market, in the stock market, in our economy. We must act, but we must act in a way that improves the situation. We can do better than the legislation now before Congress...........more►
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“They Just Don’t Get It”—Political Leaders and Pundits
Are Clueless About Bailout Rejection
by Richard C. Cook
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| Global Research, September 30, 2008 |
Stephen-Pearlstein is the Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning business columnist. In print and as a TV talking head—like on Chris Matthews’ Hardball late last week—Pearlstein is one of the foremost media cheerleaders for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill........ more►
There Might Be a Financial Crisis, But the World's Arms
Dealers Are Doing Just Fine
The CEO of a weapons manufacturer has plenty of chances to rub elbows with deputy secretaries of defense, officials from Homeland Security, retired military personnel, and the best and brightest of the defense establishment almost any week of the year.....more►
Language from Section 8
Treasury Financial Bail-out Proposal
Breathtaking in its scope and staggering in its dollar amount, the Treasury Financial Bail-out Proposal to Congress is a parting power punch from the Bush Administration. Even as the American economy melts down, George W. Bush and his cronies are taking advantage of the emergency situation to turn over $700,000,000,000 of American tax payer's money to bail out the same greedy, corrupt corporations that got us into this mess; transfer most of the scant remaining congressional power into private hands and eviscerate judicial or administrative review of the process.
"The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this Act, including, without limitation," and so begins the Proposal that is perhaps the biggest peacetime (or anytime) transfers of power from Congress through the Administration to private corporations, in history........more►
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Global Financial Meltdown
by Michel Chossudovsky
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Global Research, September
18, 2008
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Bloody Monday September 15, 2008
Bloody Monday, September 15, 2008. The Dow Jones industrial average (DJIA) declined by 504 points (4.4%), its largest drop since Sept. 17, 2001, when trading resumed after the 9/11 attacks.
The financial slide proceeded unabated, leading to an 800 point decline of the Dow Jones in less than a week. The World's stock markets are interconnected "around the clock" through instant computer link-up. Volatile trading on Wall Street immediately "spills over" into the European and Asian stock markets thereby rapidly permeating the entire financial system...........more►
If Jack Layton is to deliver on his
promise "to protect Canadians with new banking regulations" (Sept. 17, Welland,
ON), he’ll need to pay close attention to what has happened and what is now
happening at the Bank of Canada.
When I say the Bank of Canada, I mean
OUR bank – the people’s bank, the only publicly-owned central bank in North
America. Nationalized in 1938 by the government of the newly-elected prime
minister, William Lyon MacKenzie King, this bank has served Canada well. It
funded a war effort, a seaway, a trans-Canada highway, old age pensions, and
universal health care. All of that without serious inflation and all
interest-free, because any profits were paid into our national treasury.
Wag the Dog
How To Conceal Massive Economic Collapse
By Ellen Brown
“I’m
in show business, why come to me?”
“War is show business, that’s why we’re here.”
– “Wag the Dog” (1997 film)
16/08/08 "ICH" --- Last week, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had just announced record losses, and so had most reporting corporations. Unemployment was mounting, the foreclosure crisis was deepening, state budgets were in shambles, and massive bailouts were everywhere. Investors had every reason to expect the dollar and the stock market to plummet, and gold and oil to shoot up. Strangely, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 300 points, the dollar strengthened, and gold and oil were crushed. What happened? ........more►
Subprime
Is Really SubCRIME: America's Deeper Financial Crisis
By Danny Schechter, AlterNet. Posted February 21, 2008.
Quoting Bank of America's chief market strategist, Joseph Quinlan, the crisis, which has spread beyond U.S. shores to banks and other sectors worldwide, is "one of the most vicious in financial history."
That number again: $7.7 TRILLION. That phrase again: "the most vicious," that is, worse than 1929 and all the financial crises since. more►
Chomsky: Poorer Countries Find a Way to Escape U.S. Dominance
The famous critic lays out the emerging alternatives to the U.S.-dominated international financial institutions of the last century.
Noam Chomsky is a noted linguist, author, and foreign policy expert. On January 15, Michael Shank interviewed him on the latest developments in U.S. policy toward regional challenges to U.S. power.
Michael Shank: In December 2007, seven South American countries officially launched the Bank of the South in response to growing opposition to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other International Financial Institutions. How important is this shift and will it spur other responses in the developing world? Will it at some point completely undermine the reach of the World Bank and the IMF?... more►
Dr. Michael Parenti: "Terrorism, Globalization, and Conspiracy"
Globalization is an attempt to extend corporate monopoly
control over the whole globe - over every national economy, over every local
economy, over every life."
St. Andrews Wesley Church, Vancouver, October 9, 2002.►WATCH
THE LECTURE..
Slavery, serfdom, and all forms of human bondage must disappear.
Unless a free people are educated -- taught to think intelligently and plan wisely -- freedom usually does more harm than good.
Liberty can be enjoyed only when the will and whims of human rulers are replaced by legislative enactments in accordance with accepted fundamental law.
Representative government is unthinkable without freedom of all forms of expression for human aspirations and opinions.
No government can long endure if it fails to provide for the right to enjoy personal property in some form. Man craves the right to use, control, bestow, sell, lease, and bequeath his personal property.
Representative government assumes the right of citizens to be heard. The privilege of petition is inherent in free citizenship.
It is not enough to be heard; the power of petition must progress to the
actual management of the government.
Representative government presupposes an intelligent, efficient, and universal electorate. The character of such a government will ever be determined by the character and caliber of those who compose it. As civilization progresses, suffrage, while remaining universal for both sexes, will be effectively modified, regrouped, and otherwise differentiated.
9. Control of public servants.
No civil government will be serviceable and effective unless the citizenry possess and use wise techniques of guiding and controlling officeholders and public servants.
10. Intelligent and trained representation.
The survival of democracy is dependent on successful representative government; and that is conditioned upon the practice of electing to public offices only those individuals who are technically trained, intellectually competent, socially loyal, and morally fit. Only by such provisions can government of the people, by the people, and for the people be preserved.
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