End Game....Economic/Political Crisis [Archive]

murmur

12-08-2011, 10:15 PM

So I did start a meltdown thread at OMF some years ago....actually I think it was 4 years this month.

I predicted this banking and economic crisis.

I worked in the mortgage business at the time, and I saw what was coming.....that the mortgage business was going to collapse.

What I did not realize was the bets made of the mortgages where thousands of times greater than the the value of the actual mortgages.

Anyway...I have continued to blog over the last 4 years in various forums about the meltdown.

Pretty early on it became clear that no one was going to jail, and that the govt has chosen to protect the banks at all costs.

Every program including those meant to stop foreclosure was about one thing...propping up the banks.

The Federal Reserve, treasury secretaries, Obama, Republicans and Wall st are working together on a fraud of an unprecedented size.

The more I looked into these things, the more it became apparent the our politicians are bought and paid for to a degree that defies imagination.

What started as an economic crisis has morphed into a political crisis. It's been a political crisis all along.

Now the end game is emerging....it's clear we are heading for one world currency, that's the Central Banksters plan.

Really we are very very close to that right now.

The Federal Reserve is bailing out Europe, and all this fake debt is being commingled for average folks to pay....as banksters even to this day take huge bonus.

The media is complicit in this as well...they take huge ad revenues for elections and that money comes straight from special interests.

Look...the size of the fraud is so large and so massive that I could never hope to explain all of the corruption in one or two posts.....but as I follow the news...I'll post them and some video's that hopefully makes the frauds apparent.

We are so screwed though.

Things are going to get worse that most will beg for this new world order

It's all part of the plan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZQQH79I_zI

murmur

12-08-2011, 10:33 PM

The thing that gets me ......gets my goat....is that so few can see whats happening, or that actually care.

It's a complicated fraud for sure.

But it is in plain view.

People are getting angry, but even the anger has been divided by the media.

The Tea Party and the OWS are not really all that different.

In my opinion....it all starts with the Federal Reserve.

That's why I support Ron Paul.

He is the only one I see that is standing up to this criminal conspiracy.

murmur

12-08-2011, 10:54 PM

Jon Stewart on Indefinite Detention of Americans
video at the link

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/%3F-older-posts-jon-stewart-indefinite-detention-americans

murmur

12-12-2011, 10:03 PM

Part one

BIS Calls for Hyperinflationary Depression?

The Bank for International Settlements (http://javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=1812');) Sunday issued an oblique endorsement of coordinated action by the world's largest central banks (http://javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=2958');) to ease funding conditions for banks. "A freezing of interbank markets in major funding currencies, as during the recent crisis, may require the ability to supply official liquidity in major currencies in an elastic manner," the BIS wrote in its regular quarterly report." – MarketWatch

Dominant Social Theme: Inflate! And everything will work out.

Free-Market Analysis: We've already indicated that we believe the Anglosphere (http://javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=956');) power elite (http://javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=610');) is attempting to create a kind of Great Depression (http://javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=2305');) in order to ease the path of world government. This squib of an article in MarketWatch (excerpted above) – unnoticed by most of the mainstream press (http://javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=1861');) – only reconfirms our impression.

It endorses recent "coordinated" central banking loosening. But it does more: "A freezing of interbank markets in major funding currencies, as during the recent crisis, may require the ability to supply official liquidity in major currencies in an elastic manner."

Think about that. The BIS, whatever it is, is all for printing lots of money. And the BIS is no small-time trade group. It is perhaps the most powerful (and least known) global business body in the world. Its mysteries are manifold. its workings are well-hidden.

Of course, somebody actually set up the Bank for International Settlements in the late 1930s. And since then someone has set up or helped set up about 200 central banks around the world, many of them reporting directly to the BIS.

But who? And how did it happen? Dunno.

Who speaks to the head of a state, asking him or her to set up a central bank? Dunno. Do you?

Why is that Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq have central banks when they didn't before, or not the kind they do now? Did you read about it?
Meh ... this ruinous financial system is not a plant or a tree. It did not grow spontaneously. It did not grow naturally. And we would submit to you that those who created it know what they're doing.

The key as always is to pretend that one does NOT know. The key is to create cognitive dissonance. Even today, if you asked the average person-on-the-street if the powers-that-be are trying to create a Depression (let alone a hyperinflationary one), you would get the ol' crazy look, as in ... "What is this fellow ... nuts?"

But, no, nothing nutty about it. The European Union (http://javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=1891');) and the euro are grinding a whole European generation into dust. China's burgeoning middle class is about to get walloped if China ends up in a proverbial hard landing, as well it might. The US has NEVER recovered from the disaster of the mid-2000s (first decade) nor shall it for the foreseeable future.

Into this morass steps the BIS, with its suggestion (above) that further monetary inflation (http://javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=1892');) is the only viable solution to the problem that central banking itself has created.

END PART ONE

murmur

12-12-2011, 10:03 PM

Begin Part two

Smile ... and nod! Don't acknowledge the reality that the ruin is a central banking ruin. The monetary decay is the result of a monopoly fiat. The great dollar expansion yet to come is also a direct outcome of the current system that was put in place after World War II.
No, it's not hard to discern what's going on if one simply disassociates oneself from the endless nattering of the mainstream media. Analyze what IS instead of what is SUGGESTED and the reality shall gradually become clear.

DB's manifestly accurate High Alert (published some four years ago now) was written because we were tracking what was actually happening to the world's economy instead of what was being reported ....

A financial hurricane is washing over America and, to a lesser extent, the entire West. To label it the "downstroke" of a super business cycle (http://javascript%3cstrong%3e%3c/strong%3E:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=634');) does not do it justice. These events occur in cycles, with the last one taking place in the 1970s — a mild storm compared to what is occurring today. ...
A strong inflation, even a soft hyperinflation, already has a grip on Western currencies, most notably in the United States — as anyone who buys groceries is aware. The dollar's plunge may be delayed by a kind of "race to the bottom" as other central banks adjust their currencies to reflect the weakness of the dollar. ...
In his "Great American Depression," free-market economist Murray Rothbard (http://javascript%3cstrong%3e%3c/strong%3E:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=957');) explains the ramifications of hyperinflation as follows: "Hyperinflation, on any count, is far worse than any depression: It destroys the currency — the lifeblood of the economy; it ruins and shatters the middle class and all fixed income groups; it wreaks havoc unbounded. And furthermore it leads finally to unemployment and lower living standards since there is little point in working when earned income depreciates by the hour."
(You can read the full book online here (http://www.theoutpostforum.com/Public/Files/High%20Alert%20-%203rd%20Edition(1).pdf).)

THIS is what the BIS seems to have in mind. This is the fate that has been decreed, apparently, by those who want to crush middle classes around the world in order to create a "new world order (http://javascript%3cstrong%3e%3c/strong%3E:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=2045');)." Out of chaos ... order. It is quite clear. Follow what IS rather than what you are being TOLD.
The BIS wants to inflate. it ENDORSES inflation. The proximate cause is the unraveling of the current financial system. But it is "their" system. They made it. They watched it rise and fall. It was obvious that it could not end in anything other than a massive contraction and perhaps hyperinflation.

The contraction – incipient Depression – has already taken place. Best case, the powers-that-be would stop trying to prop up failing markets and let the downturn have its way as quickly as possible. This they will not do. Instead, the next phase of an increasingly horrific scenario is about to unfold.
Rather than let the market alone, the elites are apparently readying massive central bank monetary inflation around the world. That's the real message of this innocent little squib of an article, so far as we can tell.

The BIS, in its inoffensive way, is signaling that the current level of disaster and despair is not good enough. The agony is not sufficient. The new world order is to be birthed on the graves of millions, and nothing but hyperinflation (and/or war) will produce the sufficient level of chaos. Here's some more from the article:

The U.S. Federal Reserve (http://javascript%3cstrong%3e%3c/strong%3E:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=1855');) 10 days ago agreed to expand, and reduce the cost of, multilateral swap lines with five other large central banks, notably the European Central Bank (http://javascript%3cstrong%3e%3c/strong%3E:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=1857');), in an effort to restore access to dollar funding for European banks. Euro-zone banks used the new facility to borrow $50.7 billion at a rate of 0.59% at the first operation after the announcement.
The BIS's essay was its latest in a series analyzing the concept of global liquidity, and focused again on the interplay between official liquidity, that is, created by central banks, and the far greater liquidity created by the private sector on the basis of central bank money--the so-called money multiplier.
The essay observed that much is still unknown on this topic, particularly on the degree to which the accumulation of foreign exchange reserves by central banks, and their subsequent reinvestment, can affect the creation of private liquidity.
The BIS noted that the priority of policymakers should be to mitigate surges in the overall level of global liquidity. It said the new "Basel III" rules on capital and liquidity should help this trend of "counter-cyclical" policymaking.

Do you appreciate what you have just read, dear reader? Do you understand the black maw of the vicious, velvet trap that is now being readied? Unlimited money printing is to be aimed at a grievously wounded world – and the antidote is to be MORE GLOBAL REGULATION.

Over and over we see this sort of generic dominant social theme (http://javascript%3cstrong%3e%3c/strong%3E:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=652');) in action. Having unleashed a fear-based promotion (a new Great Depression), the elite now suggests that only their international agencies can rectify it.

So let the central banks print away! The regulators have figured it out. They've put into place something called Basel III. This "solution" has been initiated by the same banking community that has hollowed out the life savings of hundreds of millions; it is supposed to ensure that hyperinflation is damped and the velocity of money (http://javascript%3cstrong%3e%3c/strong%3E:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=1894');) is damped.

Here at the Daily Bell we quantify the fear-based memes (http://javascript%3cstrong%3e%3c/strong%3E:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=654');) of the elite and their efficacy. We've kept track not only of the successes but of the failures as well. And in our view, the failures are mounting up.
Most recently we suggested that the current chaos in the Eurozone was yet another elite failure – that ideally, Britain wouldn't have had to pull away from the euro but would have drawn closer to the EU.
In fact, Britain's pullback itself may be not only an acknowledgement of the troubles the elites are having in creating their one-world order, it may also be a STRATEGY – one creating a favorite tool, the Hegelian Dialectic (http://javascript%3cstrong%3e%3c/strong%3E:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=619');).

That's how you move the socio-political discussion in the "right" direction. You need opposing sides to create first a thesis and an antithesis and then, finally ... a synthesis. In this case, the current economic chaos is the thesis, and the BIS's idea of money printing is to be the anti-thesis.
What is to be the synthesis? Well ... perhaps one prints (relatively) slowly, at least at first. Of course, speed is relative. What is "slow" can soon become "faster." The Hegelian Dialectic, in fact, is likely merely a trick designed to create a false sense of satisfaction in those who participate or follow but do not have an understanding of the grand design. No, from our point of view, the "controllers" are making it clear what is to be the next step of the "great game."
Conclusion: Can you hear the noise? It is not a train headed down the track. It is not Superman flying through the air faster than the speed of sound. It is a printing press, running hard toward ruin.

http://www.thedailybell.com/3339/BIS-Calls-for-Hyperinflationary-Depression

noot

12-12-2011, 10:17 PM

You're late to the game, Dumbistas. Easter 2008...

More Easter cheer from 2008 courtesy of the BENewsCorp™ archivist.
Originally Posted by GeneralStriker
From 2008

The Fed and the usual gang of 'experts' will always spend their meager energy on the analysis of the economic cogs and gears rather than the state of the deus ex machina itself. The fact is that the world is experiencing the greatest transfer of wealth since the beginning of recorded history. Pax Americana is in decline and fall. Nothing can slow the decent and the chaotic consequences for human continuance per se. Behold a pale horse. The ultimate discontinuity is at hand and the results will not be pretty- interesting, but not pretty.

The Empire won't go quietly- not with a whimper but a bang. Perhaps that is why the Johannine prophecies seem so apt. This movie played out before in a much smaller theatre. It doesn't require a prophet to see the future anymore- just a bit of tweaking on the fine tune knobs. The future has never had such a compelling immediacy.

The world is being strangled by the Malthusian garrote. Desperate populations are about to become engaged in a war for remaining resources. That is what the Iraq war is all about. Self preservation will finally wring out the last dampness of altruism. It has happened before to a lesser degree and the remedy that it spawned- Christianity- will find itself finally eclipsed by it's opposite principles. This is the larger picture. All that's left are the tedious details, the footnotes- the various methods of mayhem and the hydra-headed fools, the walk-ons of history, that permit their use.

So what sound and fury do we see in the immediate future? The crash of the markets, unlimited war, local transfers of wealth and property- evictions, repossessions, the calling of social margin. Families squatting in the dross of their own foreclosed homes- the new huddled masses, their utilities disconnected, while the successors of the failed banks are unable to force them out. Transportation at a stand-still. Empty grocery stores. Gunshots in the night. And the foreign wars of our addled emperor coming home. The attack on Iran will result in the sinking of aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. Saudi Arabia will be over-run by the gangs of it prodigal son. There will be no more oil shipped by those greedy sheiks. The ayatollahs will loose their missiles on Israel and taste the fruits of Samson's nukes. Persia will be no more. Israel will be no more. And then it all comes home. The scatterings of the Middle Eastern desperadoes will appear on our own streets, in our own buildings- and bring with them endless nine elevens. Of course there is more- much more- this is just a selective foretaste of the impending chaos. Let your imagination run wild to see the entire movie. Whatever disaster that you have the temerity to envision will come to pass. Shortly.

The billions that have gone before us, upon whose shoulders we stand, are here and now- new flesh on their bones- to witness the denouement of history. It could have been otherwise. The greatest fear shall now become- not death, but the inability to die. Perhaps John had it right after-all.

noot

12-12-2011, 10:22 PM

© General Striker News Service, 2009

Econ 101

The US has completed a de facto repudiation of debt. How was this possible and what does it matter? It's possible because capital is essentially amoral. Debt has no other reality than as a monetary instrument regardless of the importunate protests of the lender. Debt is no more than a matter of record keeping. It only becomes overbearing and consequential when it has become imbued with the quality of moral obligation- which is essentially nothing more than a refutation of reality. This is so because money is conjured out of thin air and depends for its value on nothing more substantial than faith. Faith in the value of currency is all that stands between wealth and penury. This is so for nations as well as individuals. It can be said that economic value is actually derived from the production of commodities and, as Marx and the rest of the civilized world would have us believe, the labor required for that very production. But this is not so and has never been so. Economic value is actually determined by the records of bookkeepers. And therefore both accumulation of wealth and the onerous bonds of debt are equally illusory figments. Freedom from economic shackles is simply a matter of tossing the books on the ash bin of history. It is the case that those who are imprisoned by monetary economy must be complicit in their own captivity in order for the bars of the gaol to remain secure. The worst nightmare for the rich is the waking of the people from the cloying hypnosis brought about by the political magicians in their employ. It is of such stuff that economic depressions are constructed. Economic depression is freedom in the last analysis.
POSTED BY GENERAL STRIKER

noot

12-12-2011, 10:26 PM

that those who are imprisoned by monetary economy must be complicit in their own captivity in order for the bars of the gaol to remain secure. The worst nightmare for the rich is the waking of the people from the cloying hypnosis brought about by the political magicians in their employ. It is of such stuff that economic depressions are constructed. Economic depression is freedom in the last analysisListen up Murnut.

murmur

12-12-2011, 10:48 PM

Just call me Andy already

neverwas

12-12-2011, 11:16 PM

hmm, really just do the math, the stock market is nothing but a long running ponzi scheme.
without inflation, interest and other fees, no money would be made for the stock market or the bankers.
all paper lies, nothing is being produced but paper shuffling and thievery.
I couldn't believe all the offerings of remortgaging your homes that every one was having to endure night and day back around 2002 on, I remember jumping on some of my friends and telling them not to do it.
They must have been desperate back then to hook more people in. It all was amazingly not illegal, hmmmm ?
About 2007 I was wondering when the house of glass cards was going to cave in.
Back then I never could put it all together, but now it's all too obviously done on purpose.

murmur

12-12-2011, 11:56 PM

A setup for sure by Central Bankers

southerncross

12-13-2011, 12:35 AM

2012 is going to be a wild roller coaster ride thanks to the European debt crisis pushing it over the edge finally. If Americans knew how much US money has been sent over there and the amount in credit swaps they'd riot. And it will not work. The market is down today and will trend down for a good while. Everyone is sitting in cash that can. The dollar is going to climb for a while, but don't get any crazy ideas. I expect to see the DOW in the 9000's next year.
The good news is just like the market did in the 1930's we will likely see it turn around and climb despite the economy as much as 300%.
It's all just nuts.

murmur

12-13-2011, 01:35 AM

The reason behind my idea is the rising uncertainty in the banking system. There no longer is any reason to be overly confident that you will have continuous access to the money in your bank account. So it would be good to have cash available for at least some period of time, a week, maybe even a month, when other means, debit cards, credit cards, may be of limited use.

For many, if not most, this may -still- sound like a far out or far away scenario. And I'm not saying it absolutely WILL happen. And I have no secret inside information. Nor do I have the intention of unnecessarily scaring people. But things being what they are and where they are, I do think it's appropriate for The Automatic Earth to encourage people to think beyond the idea that no such thing could ever happen.

In this excellent video, Kyle Bass argues a point (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V3kpKzd-Yw) that I think we should all be aware of. Namely, that governments don't forewarn of drastic measures, if only because they can't really do that. They will always insist that all is well until it is not, or they would risk causing a stampede. The take away from that insight at this point is that we can't feel safe because our governments - or the main media that move in lockstep with them- haven't warned us.

We will need to inform ourselves.
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2011/12/december-11-2011-cash-for-christmas.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V3kpKzd-Yw

murmur

12-17-2011, 01:25 PM

Where Is The Volcker Rule?
By Simon Johnson

Three years ago, a financial crisis threatened to bring down the United States economy – and to spread economic disaster around the world. How far have we come in preventing any kind of recurrence? And will the much-discussed Volcker Rule (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/v/volcker_rule/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) – attempting to limit the risks that big banks can take – play a positive role as we move forward?

Bad loans were the primary cause of the 2007-8 financial debacle. When the full extent of the problems with those loans became apparent, there was a sharp fall in the values of all securities that had been constructed based on the underlying mortgages – and a collapse in the value of related bets that had been made using derivatives.

The damage to the economy became huge because these losses were not dispersed throughout the economy or around the world. Rather, many of the so-called “toxic assets” were held by the country’s largest banks. Financial institutions that used to lend to consumers and businesses had instead become drawn into various forms of gambling on the booming mortgage market (as well as on commodities, equities and all kinds of derivatives). “Wall Street gets the upside, and society gets the downside” was the operating principle.

And what a downside that proved to be. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the Troubled Asset Relief Program (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/credit_crisis/bailout_plan/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), or TARP, was needed to buy those toxic assets from the banks. But this quickly proved unwieldy, so TARP pumped roughly half a trillion dollars into bank equity. The Federal Reserve backed this up with a massive amount of “liquidity” through more than 21,000 transactions.

The additional government debt as a direct result of this finance-induced deep recession (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/r/recession_and_depression/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) is estimated by the Congressional Budget Office (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/congressional_budget_office/index.html?inline=nyt-org) at around 50 percent of gross domestic product, roughly $7 trillion.
These are staggering numbers. And this system of big banks taking outsized risks, failing and imposing huge damage on the rest of us has to stop. This ball is now firmly in the regulators’ court.

Whatever your broader issues with the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, one point about legislative intent in this legislation is clear: the regulators have the authority to cut banks down to size and return them to their historical role of intermediating between savers and borrowers.

As for size, the regulators have long ignored the existing guidelines and allowed the biggest banks to get bigger. We need to go in the opposite direction, and that includes cutting the private mega-banks, as well as Fannie Mae (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/fannie_mae/index.html?inline=nyt-org) and Freddie Mac (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/freddie_mac/index.html?inline=nyt-org), down to size. It also means taking advantage of the resolution authority and all associated provisions that Sheila Bair, the former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/f/federal_deposit_insurance_corp/index.html?inline=nyt-org), worked so hard to put into the Dodd-Frank Act.

As Jon Huntsman is arguing on the Republican campaign trail, too-big-to-fail banks simply need to be forced to break themselves up.
But we also need to make the mega-banks less likely to fail. The easiest way to do that would be to require banks to have enough common equity to absorb losses.

But the bankers have pushed back hard, with Jamie Dimon (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/james_dimon/index.html?inline=nyt-per), head of JPMorgan Chase (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/morgan_j_p_chase_and_company/index.html?inline=nyt-org), leading the way with statements such as this (http://www.businessinsider.com/jamie-dimon-calls-bank-rules-are-anti-us-and-us-should-withdrawl-from-basel-2011-9#ixzz1gSPV7ttM) on capital requirements, which are known loosely as the Basel Accords: “I’m very close to thinking the United States shouldn’t be in Basel any more. I would not have agreed to rules that are blatantly anti-American.”

Dan Tarullo, responsible for this issue on the Federal Reserve Board, seems to support (http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/tarullo20111109a.htm) the idea of requiring significantly more equity in big banks, perhaps moving in the direction recommended by Anat Admati and her colleagues (http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/Admati.etal.html). But Mr. Tarullo appears to have lost that battle for now.
If we are not breaking up banks and if we are not requiring them to have reasonable levels of capital (thus limiting how much they can borrow relative to their equity), we must use all other available tools to stop the too-big-to-fail banks from taking excessive and ill-conceived risks.

This is where the Volcker Rule becomes so important. Named for Paul A. Volcker (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/v/paul_a_volcker/index.html?inline=nyt-per), former chairman of the Federal Reserve, and adopted as part of Dodd-Frank at the insistence of Senators Jeff Merkley (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/jeff_merkley/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Democrat of Oregon, and Carl Levin (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/carl_levin/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Democrat of Michigan, the Volcker Rule directs the regulators (http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/the-volcker-rule-after-the-midterm-elections/) to get banks out of the business of betting on the markets.

END part 1

http://baselinescenario.com/2011/12/16/where-is-the-volcker-rule/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BaselineScenario+(The+Baselin e+Scenario)

murmur

12-17-2011, 01:26 PM

PART 2

The regulators are now determining how they plan to implement it. Draft proposals are currently open for comment.
But the latest news on this front is not encouraging, as key regulators seem stuck in a “bigger is better, and anything goes for the biggest” mindset.
The Volcker Rule has some good points (http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/details-emerge-on-draft-of-volcker-rule-proposal/), including a requirement that trader compensation not be tied to speculative risk-taking, and that firms collect and report some essential data to regulators. But the current draft does too little to actually stop the banks’ current risky practices.

The main problem is that the rule as drawn does not set out the clear, bright lines that banks and regulators need, nor does it provide for meaningful enforcement. Instead of drawing the lines, the proposed rule mandates that firms write many of the rules themselves.

There is some good news. At this point, it is only a proposed rule, and it is open for comment (submit a comment here (http://www.regulations.gov/#!submitComment;D=FRS-2011-0316-0001)). Organizations like Better Markets (http://www.bettermarkets.com/) that promote the public interest within the regulatory process will be in there fighting to strengthen the proposed rule and make the final rule better.
Everyone who cares about real financial reform should do the same, but the regulators’ draft rule has made it harder to uphold the public interest than should have been the case. For example, the regulators ignored the breadth of the Volcker statute and focused instead only a narrow slice of the bank’s balance sheet – just what the bank says is for “trading” purposes. Much else of what big banks do seems likely to escape scrutiny.

The regulators also have given very little guidance on conflicts of interest, on what should be considered high-risk assets or on what high-risk trading strategies should be permitted.

During a Senate hearing at which I testified last week, Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, focused on another important problem – the lack of any restrictions on trading in the enormous Treasury securities (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/t/treasury_department/treasury_securities/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) market. The regulators will create a lot more paperwork for the banks, but if the current draft is adopted, the too-big-to-fail banks are not likely to be forced to stop doing much.
Last year Senator Levin said:

“We hope that our regulators have learned with Congress that tearing down regulatory walls without erecting new ones undermines our financial stability and threatens our economic growth. We have legislated to the best of our ability. It is now up to our regulators to fully and faithfully implement these strong provisions.”

From what we’ve seen so far, our regulators have not yet understood this message. They seem instead more in tune with Mr. Dimon, who insisted earlier this year (http://www.businessinsider.com/jpmorgans-jamie-dimon-on-volcker-rule-2011-10#ixzz1gSPC0jNC) that regulators should back away from any effective implementation of the Volcker Rule:

“The United States has the best, deepest, widest, most transparent capital markets in the world which give you, the investor, the ability to buy and sell large amounts at very cheap prices. I wish Paul Volcker understood that.”

Mr. Dimon — who is on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/org_nydirectors.html) — seems to have forgotten the financial crisis, its impact on ordinary Americans and the utter fiscal disaster that ensued. Or perhaps he never noticed.

http://baselinescenario.com/2011/12/16/where-is-the-volcker-rule/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BaselineScenario+%28The+Basel ine+Scenario%29

murmur

12-20-2011, 01:07 AM

Video Explanation Of How The ESM Is Europe's Uber-TARP On Steroids

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/pictures/picture-5.jpg (http://www.theoutpostforum.com/users/tyler-durden)
Submitted by Tyler Durden (http://www.theoutpostforum.com/users/tyler-durden) on 12/19/2011 18:07 -0500
Three years ago, Congress balked at the mere thought of giving Hank Paulson's (so lovingly portrayed in Andrew Ross Sorkin's straight to HBO Too Big To Fail) proposed TARP, which came in an "exhaustive" 3 page term sheet with limited bailout powers however with virtually unlimited waivers and supervision, and voted it down leading to one of the biggest market collapses in history. Curiously, a more careful look through Europe's €500 billion (http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-13/merkel-reaffirms-esm-bailout-cap-at-eu500-billion-officials-say.html)(oddly enough almost the same size as America's $700 billion TARP) European Stability Mechanism or ESM, reveals that in preparing the terms and conditions of the ESM, Europe may have laid precisely the same Easter Egg that Paulson did with TARP, but failed. Because at its core, the ESM is like a TARP... on steroids.

It is a potentially unlimited liquidity conduit (only contingent on how much cash Germany wants to allocate to it - which in turn means how much cash Germany is willing to let the ECB print), with no supervisory checks and balances embedded, and even worse with no explicit or implicit liability clauses - in essence it is a carte blanche for its owners to do as they see fit without any form of regulation.

As the following brief but must watch video explains, the ESM "is an organization that can sue us, but is immune from any forms of prosecution and whose managers enjoy the same immunity; there are no independent reviewers and no existing laws apply; governments can not take action against it? Europe's national budgets in the hands of one single unelected intergovernmental organization? Is that the future of Europe? Is that the new EU? A Europe devoid of sovereign democracies?" Ironically even America's feeble and corrupt Congress stopped a version of TARP that demanded far less from the taxpaying citizens. Yet somehow, Europe has completely let this one slip by. Is it simply to continue the illusion of the insolvent Walfare State for a continent habituated by zombifying socialism, or is Europe by now just too afraid and too tired to say anything against its eurocrat class?

One thing is certain: when the people voluntarily give up on democracy, out of sheer laziness or any other reason, the historical outcomes are always all too tragic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPcWHBPYOSU

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/video-explanation-how-esm-europes-uber-tarp-steroids

murmur

12-20-2011, 02:12 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW-e7z7S6VI

rdunk

12-20-2011, 03:22 AM

Quote Murmur:"The Tea Party and the OWS are not really all that different".
.................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ...........

I totally disagree with your assertion!! The "Tea Party" and the OWS are as different as is the night to day!!! There is no real similar comparison, neither foundationaly, nor in intent, nor in action. NOTHING to compare, except both involves groups of people. The OWS is an embarrassment to most Americans, and a lot of them have landed in jail, through the many weeks of their terrorizing the various communities. Acorn has done a good job of keeping the Occupiers going, but in many many cases the OCS has devastated many many small to medium businesses in the various Occupy areas, to include their having to lay-off employees. Yes, that sounds just great, right?? One of the sad things, is, many of the OCS people don't work anyway, so what do they care if somebody gets laid off??

The laxness of the Mayor of New York is the only reason this Occupy crap was able to rise even to a false level of genuineness, that and the POTUS encouraging it, rather than condemning it for what it really is - a "get out and break the laws of our cities", with public defecation on car hoods, urinating everywhere, rapes, terrorizing small shop owners, making a mess or destroying public places, and on and on and on, and even to blocking various shipping processes.

I say, that from an American values standpoint, The Tea Party should be given the Medal Of Honor (civilian equivalent), and the OWS needs to be pretty much jailed for their crimes, as they are being committed!!! Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani said he would have shut down the OWS right away! Too bad Mayor Bloomberg didn't have the management ability to handle that! Obama does pretty much get the blame for starting the OWS anyway, and that will come back to haunt him!

murmur

12-20-2011, 03:44 AM

People have a right to protest, people have a right to assemble.

Both the tea party and OWS are angry and fed up with politics as usual.

Both are upset that politicians represent special interests which provides funding for their political campaigns.

The Elites and their media shills have successfully spilt the malcontents into left vs right.....dividing the malcontents along republocrat lines.
They aren't the same, but they aren't that different either.

They are both frustrated with politics in America.

murmur

12-20-2011, 03:56 AM

The Tea Party was born out of the opposition to Wall St Bailouts...Tarp to be exact.

OWS also has a problem with Wall st obviously.

Can you not see how the Republocrats have divided and split this anger for there own agenda's?

The real problem is the Federal Reserve....there would be no bailouts and Wall st would not have the power and influence over politics without the Federal Reserve backing them.

Don't fall for the misdirection.

Bush had Paulson...Obama has Geithner. Very little difference at all.

Republicans and Democrats are still pushing what the elites want....and through the media shills they try to paint a picture that they are very different.

But on the real issues....like the POLICE STATE America has and is becoming...they are no different.

Look at the votes.....Patriotic Act...the recent NDAA....and tell me what's different?

rdunk

12-20-2011, 05:22 AM

The Tea Party was born out of the opposition to Wall St Bailouts...Tarp to be exact.

OWS also has a problem with Wall st obviously.Quote Murmur:"The Tea Party and the OWS are not really all that different".
.................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ...........

I totally disagree with your assertion!! The "Tea Party" and the OWS are as different as is the night to day!!! There is no real similar comparison, neither foundationaly, nor in intent, nor in action. NOTHING to compare, except both involves groups of people. The OWS is an embarrassment to most Americans, and a lot of them have landed in jail, through the many weeks of their terrorizing the various communities. Acorn has done a good job of keeping the Occupiers going, but in many many cases the OCS has devastated many many small to medium businesses in the various Occupy areas, to include their having to lay-off employees. Yes, that sounds just great, right?? One of the sad things, is, many of the OCS people don't work anyway, so what do they care if somebody gets laid off??

The laxness of the Mayor of New York is the only reason this Occupy crap was able to rise even to a false level of genuineness, that and the POTUS encouraging it, rather than condemning it for what it really is - a "get out and break the laws of our cities", with public defecation on car hoods, urinating everywhere, rapes, terrorizing small shop owners, making a mess or destroying public places, and on and on and on, and even to blocking various shipping processes.

I say, that from an American values standpoint, The Tea Party should be given the Medal Of Honor (civilian equivalent), and the OWS needs to be pretty much jailed for their crimes, as they are being committed!!! Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani said he would have shut down the OWS right away!

Can you not see how the Republocrats have divided and split this anger for there own agenda's?

The real problem is the Federal Reserve....there would be no bailouts and Wall st would not have the power and influence over politics without the Federal Reserve backing them.

Don't fall for the misdirection.

Bush had Paulson...Obama has Geithner. Very little difference at all.

Republicans and Democrats are still pushing what the elites want....and through the media shills they try to paint a picture that they are very different.

But on the real issues....like the POLICE STATE America has and is becoming...they are no different.

Look at the votes.....Patriotic Act...the recent NDAA....and tell me what's different?
.................................................. .................................................. ..............
Murmur, I am not going to post tit for tat. There is nothing you can say that can change what I know is the truth relative to the Occupy "crowd". However, my larger concerns are about the next POTUS election, and as I said in other posts, Ron Paul absolutely will not be my man for POTUS, unless, sadly to say, he is the last man standing. And nothing Ron Paul can say, or do, since he has really been running for POTUS since 1988 (which is 23 years about now) will change my mind about him either.

Murmur, have you ever listened to Mark Levin, on talk radio? Don't know if you know him, but he does have a history with government, and really is a Constitutional lawyer. If you are interested his bio here: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Mark_Levin

And if you might be interested, here is his website, where one can listened to his archived daily broadcasts. http://marklevinshow.com/home.asp

If you are looking for a liberal, then don't even go there. He is really a sharp knowledgeable guy. He tells it just like it is, on the radio, and in his books.

Murmur, I do respect your opinions and thoughts., and we probably do agree on some things, but not on the lawlessness of OWS! :yes:

murmur

12-20-2011, 12:41 PM

I have listened to Levin....I used to be a Republican...but my eyes have been opened.

There is really very little difference on matter of substance.

Here is the irony.

The Tea Party and OWS are protesting the exact same thing.

But both groups hate each other because of old left right politics as usual......defined for them by the elites.

Maybe some day you'll understand what my point is here.

The rage against politicians was divided into two smaller groups instead of a larger ....third party group

Republocrats no longer represent actual people....they represent the money that owns them.

That's another thing the tea party and OWS agree on.

noot

12-20-2011, 12:42 PM

Andy...

When the spot lights finally focus on ol' Ron and he starts to yammer his nonsense about Ludwig Von Mises and the Austrian School he'll fall off the cliff in a heartbeat. The truth is that as good as he is with his anti-war schtick his economics are ludicrously reactionary. He can't seem to remember that this is the 21st century, not the 18th. No religious zealotry concerning magical metals is gonna save the Empire. Any abstract concerning the decline and fall of Leviathan is better served by a study of Pax Romana than by a critique ex nihilo currency. Just sayin.

Doc

12-20-2011, 12:47 PM

I have lived through five recessions. I began my working life at an investment bank on Wall Street. I've been to more than one rodeo, lived in New England for ten years and was married to a woman who didn't like me. In short, I could be a tour guide in Hell.

People predicted that the mortgage market would go bad as soon as Pres. Clinton began talking in the early 90's about how everyone should be able to buy a house. Some predicted it all in some detail. Even more remarkable to me, wiser heads predicted the course and trajectory of the European Union before it got off the ground and some of them even gave a pretty good timeline as to its demise.

What very few have mentioned and what I have found to be absolutely true is that in good times or bad, here and elsewhere, the purpose and goal of government is to make sure that rich people don't lose any significant amount of money. Every action government takes in times of economic crisis is designed to protect position, wealth and power of the elite. The corollary is that the same people always, always pay for it all.

noot

12-20-2011, 12:49 PM

I have lived through five recessions. I began my working life at an investment bank on Wall Street. I've been to more than one rodeo, lived in New England for ten years and was married to a woman who didn't like me. In short, I could be a tour guide in Hell.

People predicted that the mortgage market would go bad as soon as Pres. Clinton began talking in the early 90's about everyone should be able to buy a house. Some predicted it all in some detail. Even more remarkable to me, wiser heads predicted the course and trajectory of the European Union before it got off the ground and some of them even gave a pretty good timeline as to its demise.

What very few have mentioned and what I have found to be absolutely true is that in good times or bad, here and elsewhere, the purpose and goal of government is to make sure that rich people don't lose any significant amount of money. Every action government takes in times of economic crisis is designed to protect position, wealth and power of the elite. The corollary is the same people always, always pay for it all.
This ^^^

murmur

12-20-2011, 01:10 PM

I can't argue that.......

But what I can argue is that OWS and the tea party have a lot in common.

murmur

12-20-2011, 01:10 PM

noot

12-20-2011, 01:18 PM

It is now.

noot

12-20-2011, 01:22 PM

I can't argue that.......

But what I can argue is that OWS and the tea party have a lot in common.
There is a disturbing tenor of racism among the teabaggers. That in itself disqualifies them from serious consideration in my view. They're basically a reactionary, hateful bunch, think I.

murmur

12-20-2011, 01:26 PM

There is a disturbing tenor of racism among the teabaggers. That in itself disqualifies them from serious consideration in my view. They're basically a reactionary, hateful bunch, think I.

That's a marginal issue...one that the media has defined for most of folks not paying attention.

Fact is the Tea Party and OWS came into being because of outrage against politicians choosing to protect Wall st instead of average Americans.

noot

12-20-2011, 01:34 PM

It not a marginal issue, it defines and unites that crowd. The teabaggers don't really give a damn about anything else. Did we hear them whining when their guy, Dumbya, was spending the nation into penury with his unfunded, illegal wars and tax cuts for billionaires? Nah.

murmur

12-20-2011, 01:50 PM

In fact it is marginal....OWS experiences the same type of rhetoric against it.

The elites will do and say anything to keep the focus off the real issues.

Ron Paul is about to come under attack as racist and anti gay.

OWS are pot smoking drug addicts

Tea party racist.

Meanwhile the police state run by Wall st and the Federal Reserve become more powerful while you are distracted by pettiness propaganda

noot

12-20-2011, 02:01 PM

I'd just remind you that NAZI anti Semitism was seen by the western press as an unfortunate and inconvenient diversion in the '30s. The same is being said about the racist tenor of the teabaggers today. But in both cases it was defining and central. You can't tell me that any group who considers the President to be a Kenyan, illegal immigrant usurper should be taken seriously. As for the coming attacks on Ron Paul as racist and anti gay it is an exercise in broad brush character assassination. He is neither. He's a decent and kindly man.

murmur

12-20-2011, 02:06 PM

That's not the tea party's defining core issue....and more than the OWS's is legalizing pot.

The core issues are the same once you strip away the propaganda.

noot

12-20-2011, 02:13 PM

That's not the tea party's defining core issue....and more than the OWS's is legalizing pot.

The core issues are the same once you strip away the propaganda.While Racism may not be the teabaggers' core issue, certainly it is their core. I see the Occupiers as a revival of the best lefty sentiments of the hippy movement. Good on em.

Chris

12-20-2011, 03:16 PM

Propaganda was also at the core of the Nazi movement and it is how they demonized the Jews; blaming them for Germany's struggles despite the fact that they were the financial and economic backbone of the country.

Using propaganda to demonize the Tea Party Movement is eerily similar. Casting aspersions through unsupported supposed traits (racists), slurs (teabaggers) or through general demonization in the way they are referred to is propaganda at its worst.

In doing this you are blindly carrying on the work of the people who fear them and are trying to create a nonexistent divide as a way to create an enemy out of nothing. Congratulations.........

noot

12-20-2011, 03:26 PM

The divide between left and right will always persist. Teabaggery is a hateful movement regardless of how you choose to characterize it. At the quick of its very soul it is mean and trivial and anti-Christian. Yashki the rab blessed the poor and the meek and the makers of peace. You forgot?

murmur

12-20-2011, 03:50 PM

The other side also uses propaganda defining OWS.

Reject the rhetoric and focus on real issues....not made up ones meant to push buttons.

noot

12-20-2011, 04:28 PM

There's no furtherance of truth to be gained by your equivocation, Mista Murray. I defer to this posting by brother Redbone to illustrate the divide between the White Reptilican Teabaggers and the uncivilized Beatitude Lefties.

Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men,
we didn't have any kind of prison. Because of this, we had no delinquents.
Without a prison, there can be no delinquents.
We had no locks nor keys and therefore among us there were no thieves.
When someone was so poor that he couldn't afford a horse, a tent or a blanket,
he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift.
We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property.
We didn't know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being
was not determined by his wealth.
We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians,
therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another.
We were really in bad shape before the white men arrived and I don't know
how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things
that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society.

John (Fire) Lame Deer
Sioux Lakota - 1903-1976

Redbone

12-20-2011, 04:38 PM

rdunk

12-20-2011, 05:06 PM

Whether it's the OWS or the Tea Party, it is angry Americans!! Both the Republicans and Democrats are guilty of selling out our Country. The main problem is in DC not Wall Street. Government has created a 'Cradle to Grave' all participants get a trophy mentallity. Professional Politicans stuffing their Christmas Stockings with special interest gift cards and insider deals that would land you and me at Butner Federal Pen with Bernie Madoff. Everyone wants to have the nice house, two car garage, two kids and a dog.......but less face it, not everyone can afford it. Not a problem, just force the Banks and Financial Institutes to loan the money anyway. Can you say, "Subprime Loans!" Who freaking cares if it crashes the whole economy. It is only money, we can just print more. So, now we have this wonderful Utopian society where everyone is equal and no one wants for anything, cause Big Brother is watching out for you! Hope and Change! Isn't it wonderful? So while the Barney Franks of the world ride off into the sunset, the rest of us are left scooping up the horse manure. Happy trails to you!

Hey Redbone, the real "happy trails" guy (Roy Rogers) probably would have said it pretty much same as you! He might have put it to music!!! And I agree!

One other point, as someone else has said, the only "racist things I have seen of Tea Party actions, is what has been dreamed up by the Obama media, and his PR guys. And it wasn't "wall street" that was the starting initiative for the Tea Party, it was the actions of Obama and the leftist/liberal congress members that caused its formation and subsequent successes in the last elections. And you will see more of that in the coming elections too.

noot

12-20-2011, 05:14 PM

I used to live in Barney's district. He was a guest in my house and I voted for him many times. He's a good and kind man.

Redbone

12-20-2011, 05:27 PM

I used to live in Barney's district. He was a guest in my house and I voted for him many times. He's a good and kind man.

From 2007 to 2011, Frank served as Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee! Nuff said!!

A unknown Native American once said it as good as I ever could, "Inside of me there two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time." When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, "The one I feed the most."

noot

12-20-2011, 05:29 PM

Barney s good man.

Chris

12-20-2011, 05:44 PM

Barney is as directly (ir)responsible for the current economic mess as is anyone in this country. He conveniently announced that he would not run for reelection just a few days before they announced that they were going to seek indictments on the former heads of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Good job there, Barney!

southerncross

12-20-2011, 05:59 PM

Redbone

12-20-2011, 06:48 PM

I hope the investigation leads back to him. This guy did so much harm to so many and got away with it for years.
Damn political correctness, you can't heal a patient if the infection is still raging. Cut out the infection and let's heal the country!

The cancer is not only Barney but others just like him. The House and Senate are full of parasites sucking this Country dry. Maybe some of them go in with a clean bill of health, but it is not long before they too are infected. The tumor that is our current POTUS, can be surgically removed with a clean cut next November. May I suggest Chemothrapy in the way of term limits to remove the rest of the cancerous cells! The founding Fathers never intended for Politics to be a profession. Nor did they intend for the Federal Government to have chronic diarrhea.

norenrad

12-20-2011, 08:18 PM

I hear ya!

You know, Canada oil may go to China because of the asshat ideals brewing in the White House at this very moment.

murmur

12-20-2011, 08:29 PM

Whether it's the OWS or the Tea Party, it is angry Americans!! Both the Republicans and Democrats are guilty of selling out our Country. The main problem is in DC not Wall Street. Government has created a 'Cradle to Grave' all participants get a trophy mentallity. Professional Politicans stuffing their Christmas Stockings with special interest gift cards and insider deals that would land you and me at Butner Federal Pen with Bernie Madoff. Everyone wants to have the nice house, two car garage, two kids and a dog.......but less face it, not everyone can afford it. Not a problem, just force the Banks and Financial Institutes to loan the money anyway. Can you say, "Subprime Loans!" Who freaking cares if it crashes the whole economy. It is only money, we can just print more. So, now we have this wonderful Utopian society where everyone is equal and no one wants for anything, cause Big Brother is watching out for you! Hope and Change! Isn't it wonderful? So while the Barney Franks of the world ride off into the sunset, the rest of us are left scooping up the horse manure. Happy trails to you!

Actually the part in red isn't exactly the reality here. Wall St and the Federal Reserve were the one pulling the politicians strings with the Community Reinvestment Act.

Nobody forces the banks to do anything they don't want.....it's the other way around

Redbone

12-20-2011, 09:15 PM

rdunk

12-20-2011, 09:33 PM

Murmur,

We can agree to disagree, but I stand by my statement. From Bill Clinton to Janet Reno to Barney Franks, legislation and pressure were used to back the Banks into a no win situation. I work at a Credit Union, we were smart enough to stay out of the fray. We are not subject to the same Federal rules and regualtions that are placed upon a Bank. Governmental pressure whether direct or indirect was the force behind the housing collapse. Subprime loans for low income Americans that could not qualify to buy a home or buying way above their means while people like Rep. Franks happily sat by and patted themselves on the back. Then when it all blew up in their face, suddenly it became anybody elses fault but their own.
.................................................. .................................................. ..
Again Redbone, that is well said. One doesn't have to look very much to see that is the truth, except, the mainstream media just won't zero in on the reality of the facts, and shine a light for everyone, regarding WHO is responsible. We will still be hearing that "Wall Street and the Financial Community" caused it, until the Mayan calendar ends!! :yes:

Redbone

12-20-2011, 09:40 PM

I hear ya!

You know, Canada oil may go to China because of the asshat ideals brewing in the White House at this very moment.

Jimmy Carter must be smilling from ear to ear. He's just been bumped down a notch on the worst Presidents list.

rdunk

12-20-2011, 10:00 PM

Jimmy Carter must be smilling from ear to ear. He's just been bumped down a notch on the worst Presidents list.
.................................................. .................................................. ...........................................

I am a little surprised that Jimmy Carter hasn't thrown his hat into the ring, to run for POTUS again. Anyone should know it is really a sad situation, when even Jimmy Carter could probably beat out OBAMA in a run for the Democratic ticket. :thumbdown:

murmur

12-20-2011, 10:08 PM

Murmur,

We can agree to disagree, but I stand by my statement. From Bill Clinton to Janet Reno to Barney Franks, legislation and pressure were used to back the Banks into a no win situation. I work at a Credit Union, we were smart enough to stay out of the fray. We are not subject to the same Federal rules and regualtions that are placed upon a Bank. Governmental pressure whether direct or indirect was the force behind the housing collapse. Subprime loans for low income Americans that could not qualify to buy a home or buying way above their means while people like Rep. Franks happily sat by and patted themselves on the back. Then when it all blew up in their face, suddenly it became anybody elses fault but their own.

I worked in the mortgage biz for 13 years....3 on Wall st.

Banks called the shots...not politicians....but feel free to believe what ever you want.

The Federal Reerve is a private bank by the way

murmur

12-20-2011, 10:09 PM

.................................................. .................................................. ..
Again Redbone, that is well said. One doesn't have to look very much to see that is the truth, except, the mainstream media just won't zero in on the reality of the facts, and shine a light for everyone, regarding WHO is responsible. We will still be hearing that "Wall Street and the Financial Community" caused it, until the Mayan calendar ends!! :yes:

They are the ones that profitted after all

murmur

12-21-2011, 12:52 AM

AP Untruths?

The killing of Osama bin Laden during a raid by Navy SEALs on his hideout in Pakistan was the top news story of 2011, followed by Japan's earthquake/tsunami/meltdown disaster, according to The Associated Press' annual poll of U.S. editors and news directors. The death of bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader who masterminded the Sept. 11 terror attacks, received 128 first-place votes out of 247 ballots cast for the top 10 stories. The Japan disaster was next, with 60 first-place votes. Placing third were the Arab Spring uprisings that rocked North Africa and the Middle East (http://area45.ziphip.com/), while the European Union's financial turmoil was No. 4. – AP

Dominant Social Theme: These are the world's most important news stories.

Free-Market Analysis: The Killing of bin Laden was voted top news story of 2011 and from our point of view it goes downhill from there. Having observed in detail how elite dominant social themes work, we're well prepared to analyze this year's top news stories.
What we will do in this article is briefly debunk the ones that we believe are factually false. In doing so, we shall surely make the point that the level of promotional manipulation and propaganda is alive and well within the ranks of power elite media.

But we also intend to make the point that (thanks to what we call the Internet Reformation) even modest media websites such as ours can easily follow the REAL conversation taking place these days – and anticipate various power elite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_elite) promotions.

We think the results are shocking. Out of ten stories selected by the AP poll, six from our point of view are somewhat or palpably false. That is, they have been in some manner concocted to advance elite globalist goals. Here are the stories about which we have significant doubts.

1. OSAMA BIN LADEN'S DEATH: He'd been the world's most-wanted terrorist for nearly a decade, ever since a team of his al-Qaida followers carried out the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In May, the long and often-frustrating manhunt ended with a nighttime assault by a helicopter-borne special operations squad on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Bin Laden was shot dead by one of the raiders, and within hours his body was buried at sea.

We've written about this a good deal. It seems likely to us that Osama bin Laden, who was repeatedly reported to have been very ill, died years ago. We've covered the questions about the raid, the lies of the administration regarding the raid, the hurried "burial" – which must have proceeded without a body. There are eyewitnesses who claim that there was no raid, etc.

The reason to (apparently) fake bin Laden's death was probably because the phony war on terror narrative was getting too unwieldy. Also, there were apparently domestic reasons to "kill" bin Laden now, as Barack Obama's handlers wanted him to be perceived as a "victorious" president coming into next year's elections. Just do an Internet search on the terms "Daily Bell" and "Osama bin Laden" for more.

2. ARAB SPRING (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80%932011_Middle_East_and_North_Africa_pro tests): It began with demonstrations in Tunisia that rapidly toppled the longtime strongman. Spreading like a wildfire, the Arab Spring protests sparked a revolution in Egypt that ousted Hosni Mubarak, fueled a civil war in Libya that climaxed with Moammar Gadhafi's death, and fomented a bloody uprising in Syria against the Assad regime. Bahrain and Yemen also experienced major protests and unrest.
This is another meme we've written about a great deal. There is simply no doubt that the Obama administration and the US State Department have helped sponsor these Arab Spring (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80%932011_Middle_East_and_North_Africa_pro tests) demos, in concert with the tacit, apparent support of US corporate and intel resources. AYM in particular has been active in training "youth" on how to return to their countries to begin protests.

Additionally, we have many times pointed out that the apparent goal of these Anglosphere-sponsored revolutions is to create a kind of Muslim crescent arc because almost all the regimes being destabilized have been either Christian or non-sectarian.
The replacement authorities in Tunisia and Egypt are looking to be Muslim rather than secular, just as we predicted. More fodder for what seems to us a fairly suspect "war on terror." For more on our comments just search Daily Bell and "Arab Spring." Also try "Muslim Arab crescent" and "AYM."

3. EU FISCAL CRISIS: The European Union was wracked by relentless fiscal turmoil. In Greece, austerity measures triggered strikes, protests and riots, while Italy's economic woes toppled Premier Silvio Berlusconi. France and Germany led urgent efforts to ease the debt (http://www.debtreliefcenter.org/Debt_Settlement/) crisis; Britain balked at proposed changes.
The EU crisis is one of central banking – printing money from nothing and expecting the economy to flourish nonetheless. Many other fancy explanations have been proffered but the reality is that monetary stimulus always creates craziness.

Add euro-rigidity to the mix and you have a recipe for a steep financial bust and that's just what happened. The Anglosphere that is trying to build world government anticipated the downturn in some detail. Its enablers and associates are even now trying to parlay the crisis into an ever closer union, in our view.
To maintain, as the mainstream media does, that the current crises are merely an accident of the monetary system doesn't make sense, given what bankers know about the central banking initiated business cycle. For our take on these events just search for "Daily Bell" and "EU directed history."

End pt1

murmur

12-21-2011, 12:53 AM

begin pt2

------------------------

4. US ECONOMY: By some measures, the U.S. economy gained strength as the year progressed. Hiring picked up a bit, consumers were spending more, and the unemployment rate finally dipped below 9 percent. But millions of Americans remained buffeted by foreclosures, joblessness and benefit cutbacks, and investors were on edge monitoring the chain of fiscal crises in Europe.
What goes for the EU also goes for the US. The housing crash of 2008 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late-2000s_financial_crisis) was part of a larger central bank bubble caused by too-low interest rates. The results of such rates are entirely predictable and to pretend that the senior banking elites don't know what they are doing seems to us to be an increasingly useless pretense in the era of the Internet.

What is going on, in our view, is a kind of planned depression intended to force further global governance on the Western world in particular. China will be the last economy to founder, but it is already on its way for exactly the same reasons. Search the 'Net for "Daily Bell" and "planned depression" for more articles on this issue.

5. GADHAFI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_Gaddafi) TOPPLED IN LIBYA: After nearly 42 years of mercurial and often brutal rule, Moammar Gadhafi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_Gaddafi) was toppled by his own people. Anti-government protests escalated into an eight-month rebellion, backed by NATO bombing, that shattered his regime, and Gadhafi finally was tracked down and killed in the fishing village where he was born.
Gaddafi was hounded to his destruction by the same Western forces that organized the rest of the current Arab Spring revolutions. There was a twist, though. Apparently many of the rebels were part of the dread Al Qaeda forces that had fought in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and maybe Iraq.

That Western powers would work with these individuals and even arrogate power to them is startling and shows further that the war on terror that is so heavily promoted by the power elite is likely fungible propaganda rather than a deepening, threatening reality. Searching on "Daily Bell" and "Gaddafi" will offer more of our outlook on this tragic episode.

6. OCCUPY WALL STREET PROTESTS: It began Sept. 17 with a protest at a New York City (http://travelscream.com/) park near Wall Street, and within weeks spread to scores of communities across the U.S. and abroad. The movement depicted itself as leaderless and shied away from specific demands, but succeeded in airing its complaint that the richest 1 percent of Americans benefit at the expense of the rest. As winter approached, local police dismantled several of the protest encampments.
The OWS protests seem to have proven links to such power elite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_elite) names as George Soros and are the brainchild, supposedly, of a left-wing magazine known as Adbusters. In fact, one finds many of the same ingredients at play in the OWS protests as in the Arab Spring protests across the sea.

From our point of view, the elites are using the OWS protests as a way to generate, ultimately, a kind of French Revolution that will shift the blame from the power elite central banking families to their Wall Street enablers and associates. Under no circumstances must those directly involved with central banking be targeted. Search "Daily Bell," "OWS" and "French Revolution" for more on this perspective.

What remains shocking to us is the increasing brazenness of what seem to be lies about important events. However, in retrospect, those at the top of these thematic promotions don't have much choice in the matter. They need to continue to consolidate.

In order to manage their global consolidation they need to continue to manipulate the news. The problem is that their manipulations are increasingly evident and obvious. Which is why they are now beginning to pass legislation that will make it increasingly difficult for the alternative media to tell the truth about what's taking place.

Conclusion: On the other hand, in our view, no matter what the elites do, the truth is already circulating. Enough people in the West (and around the world) may understand that the 20th century was an unparalleled century of "directed history." And that knowledge may well guarantee that the 21st century shall be less so.
http://www.thedailybell.com/3385/AP-Untruths

southerncross

12-21-2011, 02:51 AM

Jimmy Carter must be smilling from ear to ear. He's just been bumped down a notch on the worst Presidents list.

I heard Pres. Clinton speak tonight to Bill O'Reilly. I figured he would be defending Obama stronger, yet he was really mincing his words.
Doesn't speak well when one Dem. Pres. can't or won't hit the stump for another. I was somewhat surprised.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-21-2011, 05:17 AM

The Federal Reerve is a private bank by the way

Exactly.

noot

12-21-2011, 04:34 PM

Banks called the shots...not politicians....but feel free to believe what ever you want.

You're fighting a losing battle, Andy. Fools will always remain complicit in their own captivity.

Redbone

12-21-2011, 04:55 PM

You're fighting a losing battle, Andy. Fools will always remain complicit in their own captivity.

Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority for any town? ...

Mark Twain

noot

12-21-2011, 06:28 PM

Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority for any town? ...

Mark Twain
Hahaha. That sums it up pretty well.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 07:46 AM

Communism was a red herring. The "end game" is to have everything privatized and owned by banks. They run the show. Religious institutions once ruled, then states, now the private sector. If there was any forethought behind all this, it seems to me that anyone who says anything against the corporate world or banking sector is now pegged a communist or socialist.

Any institution which can be used for good can be used for evil.

noot

12-22-2011, 12:07 PM

rdunk

12-22-2011, 05:06 PM

noot Quote: "Marxist repudiation of the power of capital reveals the capitalists for what they truly are: nothing more than non-productive and useless parasites on the ass of humanity".
.................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ..............................

noot, I am sorry to have to say again, "I absolutely disagree with your statement". Not sure what your definition of "capitalists" is, but this just seems to be another "off-the-wall" statement relative to "your opinion" on the basic business processes of the U.S.A., and some other countries. Is it perfect - No!. Is it better than any other system - absolutely! Does it provide opportunities for those "willing to work" toward making good lives for themselves and their families - absolutely. Can poor people become rich is this capitalistic society - absolutely, happens all of the time. Does it present a "good-life" for people that refuse to work - nope! Is everyone supposed to be "financial equal", which would be "everyone is poor" - no way! Are there opportunities for everyone - yes, yes, yes.

So noot, what do you mean by "nothing more than non-productive and useless parasites on the ass of humanity". I can think of several categories of people in the U.S. that would fit that comment, but none of them are "capitalists"! One big group of those would be the people, even when there are jobs, "refuse to work", and are "parasites" to all of us who do pay taxes, because of the government checks, food stamps, free medical, and rent supplements they receive.

I continue to say, all of those who want to live as a Socialist, Marxist, or Communist, please raise your hands, and many of us will donate to the processes of leaving this country. For the USA will not go there, without significant/damed significant discourse to prevent it. That would be in my opinion! :nono::nono:

noot

12-22-2011, 05:15 PM

noot, I am sorryI accept your apology. But you're still and ****. hahahahahaha

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 05:32 PM

If by 'red herring' you refer to the demonization associated with the word, I would agree. What is it that motivates the ruling class and their crumb-snatching household retainers to reject Marxist principles? Certainly it is the fear that Marxist repudiation of the power of capital reveals the capitalists for what they truly are: nothing more than non-productive and useless parasites on the ass of humanity.

That's exactly what I mean. Any person who states any grievance with the economic model we use is automatically dismissed as a communist and/or a socialist. It's usually automatic and quite often both labels are thrown at the person simultaneously. As they are not the same thing it just highlights how ignorant the name caller is.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 05:37 PM

norenrad

12-22-2011, 05:47 PM

I can think of several categories of people in the U.S. that would fit that comment, but none of them are "capitalists"! One big group of those would be the people, even when there are jobs, "refuse to work", and are "parasites" to all of us who do pay taxes, because of the government checks, food stamps, free medical, and rent supplements they receive.

Indeed.

Many fail to see that munching Ho-Hos in front of soap operas all day, everyday, isn't a living... it's leeching. If they could only really put their mind to it, they would discover that someone with a job made that television set, the couch they are sitting on, the electricity and the sugary num-nums they so enjoy. Now, if they really thought very hard (not so much as to have an aneurysm), they would figure out that the people that made all this stuff must be working for a company, a company that has the resources to produce those yummy sugary num-nums, electricity and TVs.

It might be nice if everyone could be in charge and make Ho-Hos and TVs and electricity, but I'm afraid that there would be just too many factories and not enough people to operate them.

norenrad

12-22-2011, 05:54 PM

Do you know that the "American Dream" is more alive in France than America? France which is far more socialist than America. When you say willing to work you understand that people had to work under the Communist Soviet system, right?

First, I can't believe you used France and the Soviet Union as examples of prosperity. Second, I don't believe that hard working Soviets are rewarded as well for their labors and that's the point, being fairly compensated. I think that's the point that's being (deliberately) missed here.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 05:55 PM

Indeed.

Many fail to see that munching Ho-Hos in front of soap operas all day, everyday, isn't a living... it's leeching. If they could only really put their mind to it, they would discover that someone with a job made that television set, the couch they are sitting on, the electricity and the sugary num-nums they so enjoy. Now, if they really thought very hard (not so much as to have an aneurysm), they would figure out that the people that made all this stuff must be working for a company, a company that has the resources to produce those yummy sugary num-nums, electricity and TVs.

It might be nice if everyone could be in charge and make Ho-Hos and TVs and electricity, but I'm afraid that there would be just too many factories and not enough people to operate them.

A company that has its manufacturing base in China or Taiwan or India.

But, seriously, how many people do you think leech of the system, any system?

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 05:58 PM

First, I can't believe you used France and the Soviet Union as examples of prosperity. Second, I don't believe that hard working Soviets are rewarded as well for their labors and that's the point, being fairly compensated. I think that's the point that's being (deliberately) missed here.

I didn't use the Soviet system as one for prosperity. I said people worked there. And it's entirely factual that the American Dream is more alive in France than America today. There is statistically more upward mobility.

AH! That's what I wanted to hear. So, we're rewarded better in America. We were, you mean. Do you know how cheap housing was in the Soviet Union? Don't get me wrong, I don't want to live there, I'm just tired of the bs rhetoric that is thrown out by people. Those days are over, capitalism has failed just as communism has.

Redbone

12-22-2011, 06:01 PM

I continue to say, all of those who want to live as a Socialist, Marxist, or Communist, please raise your hands, and many of us will donate to the processes of leaving this country. For the USA will not go there, without significant/damed significant discourse to prevent it. That would be in my opinion! :nono::nono:

rdunk,
Sadly it is a undeniable fact that a certain faction in this Country are pushing towards such a confrontation. It is their general consensus that if America does not reform to their vision....no matter how distasteful the majority may find it....they will force the issue until the USA that we know collapses. We are in dangerous territory with a current Administration that is fanning the flames through class warfare. If push comes to shove, Americans will take up arms against one another. It happened once before in our history and 600,000 died. It can happen again and those that read and practice the 'Rules of Radicals' by Saul D. Alinsky, know this and are counting on it. They cannot be reasoned with nor will they have a honest debate.

In the words of the Iron Lady herself, Margaret Thathcer,

"I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left."

She also said, "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money!"

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 06:03 PM

Class warfare? Yes, but it's not the administration that's fanning the flames. This guys about as much a communist as George Bush was.

norenrad

12-22-2011, 06:04 PM

A company that has its manufacturing base in China or Taiwan or India.

I agree, too many fat-cats with no morals or common sense. Paying those people in those countries low wages and hiking the price for the product back here in the states only lines the pockets of the fat-cats. What they don't understand is that while jobs are being shipped out, there's no one with enough cash to buy their low quality sweatshop products.

But, seriously, how many people do you think leech of the system, any system?

WAY too many.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 06:09 PM

I agree, too many fat-cats with no morals or common sense. Paying those people in those countries low wages and hiking the price for the product back here in the states only lines the pockets of the fat-cats. What they don't understand is that while jobs are being shipped out, there's no one with enough cash to buy their low quality sweatshop products.

Well, there is the problem with modern day capitalism - there is no loyalty. Corporatism has destroyed this country. Once upon a time, corporations were supposed to limit the harm they inflicted on the rest of society during the course of business. Since the SC decision in Dodge v Ford, corporate execs are guided by one principle alone - make as much money for the stockholders as possible.

There is barely an American manufacturing base. People need to realize that corporate and banking organizations now rule the world. We do not vote for these people. I don't care what you label yourself - Dem, Repub, Lib, Conserv, Anarch-Syndicalist... this is just the truth.

WAY too many.

Well, one can be too many depending on perspective. Every single system is going to have "freeloaders". You have to work that into your plans.

norenrad

12-22-2011, 06:14 PM

AH! That's what I wanted to hear. So, we're rewarded better in America. We were, you mean. Do you know how cheap housing was in the Soviet Union? Don't get me wrong, I don't want to live there, I'm just tired of the bs rhetoric that is thrown out by people. Those days are over, capitalism has failed just as communism has.

Greed has a way of ruining the whole thing... kinda like that guy in that Scary Movie, with the deformed hand, stirring the potatoes with that hand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKrDm6VLv9g

norenrad

12-22-2011, 06:18 PM

Well, there is the problem with modern day capitalism - there is no loyalty. Corporatism has destroyed this country.

Globalism destroyed this country.

Someone along the line repackaged greed and sold it as globalism and Americans bought it hook, line and sinker.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 06:19 PM

Greed has a way of ruining the whole thing... kinda like that guy in that Scary Movie, with the deformed hand, stirring the potatoes with that hand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKrDm6VLv9g

That is exactly my point. The same reason touted for decades as to why Communism must fail is the very reason capitalism has failed. Greed.

There's also way more to life than making a buck. Or should be. I happen to know many people who lived and worked in the Soviet Union. They were all able to take at least 1, usually 2, vacations a year. Housing and food were very affordable and their children were educated far better than ours were. Yes, plenty of propaganda but we get the same crap here. I am not a communist as I want a choice of leaders. However, in the end, we only get one more choice than they did.

Certain things were meant to be private/others public. Have you stopped to think that the Federal Reserve is completely free market? We decided to stop printing our own money (a state function) and pay a private entity to do so. Failure.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 06:20 PM

Globalism destroyed this country.

Someone along the line repackaged greed and sold it as globalism and Americans bought it hook, line and sinker.

AH! But, then you're not for the free market but a regulated market. Do you understand that?

norenrad

12-22-2011, 06:28 PM

AH! But, then you're not for the free market but a regulated market. Do you understand that?

I understand that everyone is being taken for a ride and that this new age socialist movement has its head hanging out the window, sniffing the rushing air. When our jobs leave our lands, when do we stop calling it a "free market" and see it as it really is?

Redbone

12-22-2011, 06:36 PM

Class warfare? Yes, but it's not the administration that's fanning the flames. This guys about as much a communist as George Bush was.

Obama is a Socialist. His idea for America is European Socialism. Yeah what a wonderful model they are....
Obama's attack on the rich is not class warfare? Gimme a break!
Democrats claim the Rich are root of all our problems........where have I heard that before? Europe pre WWII maybe?
Definition of Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.
Definition of a Democrat: all of the above!

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 06:39 PM

I understand that everyone is being taken for a ride and that this new age socialist movement has its head hanging out the window, sniffing the rushing air. When our jobs leave our lands, when do we stop calling it a "free market" and see it as it really is?

You're missing my point. I see too many people who say they are proponents of a free market but are for immigration control, drug control, anti globalization, etc. Any regulation on the free market destroys the free market. This means you're for government regulation, thus a socialist by many people's definition.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 06:40 PM

Obama is a Socialist. His idea for America is European Socialism. Yeah what a wonderful model they are....
Obama's attack on the rich is not class warfare? Gimme a break!
Democrats claim the Rich are root of all our problems........where have I heard that before? Europe pre WWII maybe?
Definition of Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.
Definition of a Democrat: all of the above!

Considering a large number of them are rich, I think you're wrong.

norenrad

12-22-2011, 06:44 PM

You're missing my point. I see too many people who say they are proponents of a free market but are for immigration control, drug control, anti globalization, etc. Any regulation on the free market destroys the free market. This means you're for government regulation, thus a socialist by many people's definition.

No, you have that turned around. America can not be strong when its people have no work.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 06:46 PM

No, you have that turned around. America can not be strong when its people have no work.

No, you're making another argument. I'm defining terms. Too many people say they are for free market capitalism and are not. I am not disagreeing with you, I am saying you are not a free market capitalist.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 06:53 PM

Both Germany and France would be in decent places if it weren't for the EU. Plus, they both implement socialist policy. They'd be better of than the US. At the moment, China is better off than the US and it's some weird form of Communist/Capitalist state.

I'd say the military industrial complex and the banking system is more at fault for our ailing economy than probably anything else.

norenrad

12-22-2011, 06:54 PM

No, you're making another argument. I'm defining terms. Too many people say they are for free market capitalism and are not. I am not disagreeing with you, I am saying you are not a free market capitalist.

Free market doesn't have to mean freely empowering other nations with our livelihood. They are free to trade with us and we are free to trade with them; our goods for theirs. When we are no longer capable of producing and purchasing, then it is no longer a free market.

norenrad

12-22-2011, 06:56 PM

China is better off than the US and it's some weird form of Communist/Capitalist state.

You know why China is doing so well, don't you? We have given them our technology, our jobs and our money and they are laughing all the way to the bank.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 06:59 PM

Free market doesn't have to mean freely empowering other nations with our livelihood. They are free to trade with us and we are free to trade with them; our goods for theirs. When we are no longer capable of producing and purchasing, then it is no longer a free market.
You're missing the point completely. Any regulation that affects the market system destroys free market capitalism. In free market capitalism a corporation or a regular person should be able to look for the cheapest labor available - thus, allowing immigrants to come to America to work for pennies (Mexicans) or send out our production to countries such as India or China because they'll work 14 hours a day for $30 a piece is free market capitalism. The term is thrown around far too much in this country with little understanding. I think you and I agree on certain things but you are not a free market capitalist.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 06:59 PM

You know why China is doing so well, don't you? We have given them our technology, our jobs and our money and they are laughing all the way to the bank.

No, they have bought those things. That's the problem with the free market right there.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 07:01 PM

And, let's clarify something - when an "American" corporation sends its labor to an overseas labor force, that is government NOT INTERVENING. That is free market.

norenrad

12-22-2011, 07:15 PM

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 07:40 PM

Well, whatever you want to call giving away our jobs, it still falls under greed and unemployment. So, whichever side you're on, whether it be communism, capitalism or socialism, when your national product is farmed out, expect discontent.

I don't disagree with that but your problem is with a form of capitalism or corporatism. In fact, government could regulate these problems away but then conservatives would argue that the government is interfering with the market.

I do think there is some class warfare - the rich are the ones who profit from sending our jobs away. It's rich executives making those decisions and making it harder on the middle class. Think about it.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 07:42 PM

Plus, it's lobbying interests who are at fault for many of our problems - lobbyists are employed by the rich and by powerful corporations. The poor and middle class have very few lobbyists. Class warfare, indeed.

Redbone

12-22-2011, 07:56 PM

Considering a large number of them are rich, I think you're wrong.

Yes the majority of them are rich....you don't see anything wrong with this picture? It is deflecting the blame. If you repeat something enough, whether true or not, eventually the uneducated masses will start believing it. This gets the masses mad at certain segment of society while the real culprits escape responsiblity. Smoke and Mirrors right out of 'Rules for Radicals!'

White guilt and false Black pride, assisted by Liberal mainstream media failed to properly vet a inexperienced Community Organizer and bumrushed him into the Whitehouse. He is now drowning in discontent so he has to deflect the blame.

It is Bush's fault, it is the Republicans fault, it is Wall Street and Big Business and those evil Rich people's fault. What ever happen to the buck stops here? We need a winner not a whiner.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 08:01 PM

Yes the majority of them are rich....you don't see anything wrong with this picture? It is deflecting the blame. If you repeat something enough, whether true or not, eventually the uneducated masses will start believing it. This gets the masses mad at certain segment of society while the real culprits escape responsiblity. Smoke and Mirrors right out of 'Rules for Radicals!'

White guilt and false Black pride, assisted by Liberal mainstream media failed to properly vet a inexperienced Community Organizer and bumrushed him into the Whitehouse. He is now drowning in discontent so he has to deflect the blame.

It is Bush's fault, it is the Republicans fault, it is Wall Street and Big Business and those evil Rich people's fault. What ever happen to the buck stops here? We need a winner not a whiner.

Bush and Wall Street do indeed have a lot of fault with the current state of affairs. You disagree?

I could care less about any racial or religious group's pride. Why should I? I think if a group wants to take pride in what individuals of that group have accomplished they should accept fault for what that group has done as well, don't you?

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 08:02 PM

Can you tell me specifically what you mean about deflecting the blame?

Redbone

12-22-2011, 08:33 PM

Can you tell me specifically what you mean about deflecting the blame?

Since Obama took office, policies pushed by him and the Democrats have made things worse. The Stimulus package in my opinion was a terrible idea. Obamacare is a big uncertainty that the majority did not want. Business is not making a move becasue they are not exactly sure how it will affect their bottom line. There are others but you get the jest of what I am saying. Three years into his term and he is still blaming Bush. Republicans are not void of responsiblity but they are not currently in charge. Washington in general is FUBAR. Obama is not a leader, he doesn't know how to bring people togther, he only knows how to pass the blame.

Therefore he is deflecting the blame away from himself to others. The Democrats would be better served if he decided to not run for a second term. That way he would he herald as a hero by falling on the sword, allowing the Democrats to save face.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 08:43 PM

Since Obama took office, policies pushed by him and the Democrats have made things worse. The Stimulus package in my opinion was a terrible idea. Obamacare is a big uncertainty that the majority did not want. Business is not making a move becasue they are not exactly sure how it will affect their bottom line. There are others but you get the jest of what I am saying. Three years into his term and he is still blaming Bush. Republicans are not void of responsiblity but they are not currently in charge. Washington in general is FUBAR. Obama is not a leader, he doesn't know how to bring people togther, he only knows how to pass the blame.

Therefore he is deflecting the blame away from himself to others. The Democrats would be better served if he decided to not run for a second term. That way he would he herald as a hero by falling on the sword, allowing the Democrats to save face.

I agree with part of that and disagree with part of that. I haven't seen Obama pass much of the blame at all. I've seen republicans say he has. I do not like what Obama has done by and large, so please don't say I'm one of his followers. I'm not.

Your problem with the bail out can be traced back to the banks. They're in charge, murmur is correct. It would have been the same with any of these guys. Obama is such a huge disappointment because he is like the rest of them. I do agree he should decide not to run for a second term.

Obama tried more than any other president in recent history to bring people together. He's a huge disappointment as he gave republicans almost everything they asked for. I find it funny that so many republicans want to raise payroll taxes yet they signed that piece of paper promising to not raise taxes. They are the people engaging in class warfare.

I think Obamacare stinks in most ways. However, if you do your research you'll see that Obamacare was a republican concept for health care from the 90s. The fact that it forces people to pay private companies for healthcare should show that. Even if it doesn't, that's the truth.

Obama is not a socialist, he's a corporatist - at least in action. That's why he fails.

southerncross

12-22-2011, 09:26 PM

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 09:34 PM

Having built and operated a plant in a highly regulated field, I can testify to the fact that regulations cost companies a great deal of money and regs have gone up by over 100% since Obama took office. Cut back on these monsters that feed off of cash flow. We spent a minor fortune on paperwork to satisfy these hungry demons and it cost time, man power, and fees. US companies are hobbled and expected to run with the rest of the horses. It's a race we can't win till they clean up this mess, which includes Obamacare. Next we need to realize that China keeps 2 sets of books, one for the international press to consume, and 1 for themselves. They are not as secure as one might think. But US jobs will remain overseas till the playing field is leveled.
I have no problem with the argument that we are over regulated. However, I do have a problem with people saying that when they usually want some form of regulation. I just like clarifying things.

As for China, I'm with you. A decade tops and they'll fail. They also have so many social issues that they're a powder keg ready to explode. As for the 2 sets of books - LOL :D - We have 14 sets of books. Shoot - the MTA in NYC was found to have 2-3 sets of books a few years back, and they just deal with the bus/subway system in one city in the country.

Every system is corrupt. Humanity is facing difficult times.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 09:36 PM

US jobs will remain overseas because labor will always be cheaper there. Or, we can hope it will be. Once our laborers are working for $1-$20 a day we're really screwed.

rdunk

12-22-2011, 09:39 PM

"Obama is not a socialist, he's a corporatist - at least in action. That's why he fails."
.................................................. .................................................. ............

Not!! In most every way, Obama is moving toward Socialism, by what he says, and by his actions. He probably put a lot of that on paper, during college, and that would be why everything of his is locked up there. If we could just get to those papers................................!!!

A corporatist.......................don't know how anyone can even think that, in view of his multitude of anti-corporate, anti-capitalist actions. He is a "dyed in the wool" pretty much anti anything typical American, from religion to business. It is yet to be proven, but I suspicion that we'll not no the truth about Obama, until a while after he has been elected out of office - unless he finds a way to take, over as Chavez did - for which I suspect the "occupy" crap just may be another "planned step" toward preparing everything for Obama to do just that! :mad3: :nono: :nono:

Poopie McGillicutty

12-22-2011, 09:43 PM

murmur

12-22-2011, 10:23 PM

129 <<<<<<CLICK IMAGE

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered...I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies." - Thomas Jefferson (http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/private-banks-quotation)

rdunk

12-22-2011, 11:45 PM

HAHAHA!! He gives bail outs to corporations and lets them remain private and you don't see that he's a corporatist.
.................................................. .................................................. .....................................

First off, the president of this country has no business being involved with such actions - interested, but not involved. With Obama, many, if not most of these actions were purely political, with the results being obvious to his favor, as were the "shovel ready TARP monies". With General Motors, it was the Unions, whose backing Obama needs/had a debt to pay, which came out owning a significant part of the company, and smelling like a rose. Any high schooler should know that GM would have come out of a normal bankruptcy much stronger than it did through "GM Obama Care", and likely would also the investors, which "GM Obama Care" threw to the wolves.

Right now, look at American Airlines! They are in bankruptcy right now, and have they even missed a flight, because of it?? You just watch!!!!! AA will come out of this bankruptcy as a much better company, with a much better capability to deal with the strong competition of their product markets. And that would have been the case for GM also. But, the GM unions would not have faired so well, and that is the very reason it went the way it did. The U.S. has bankruptcy laws in place, and they should have been followed, in every case.

And what do you mean, " He (Obama) lets them remain private??!!! This is not Venezuela, yet. The POTUS, nor anyone else in this country, has any such authority to make any private company publicly owned. Making public money handouts certainly doesn't make any case for "public ownership, nor do we want it to.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-23-2011, 01:48 AM

What do I mean? I mean that was on the table. He's the POTUS, not you or more.

What you're arguing is that what he did wasn't a good idea, you're not arguing whether or not he did it. He did it and helped them out. He's a corporatist.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-23-2011, 01:48 AM

noot

12-23-2011, 01:09 PM

murmur

12-23-2011, 10:36 PM

The Economic Solutions Of Vampires

The vampire bat is a horrifying pig-nosed wart of a creature which feasts in a manner that, believe it or not, is a rather familiar scene to those of us who closely study alternative economics. After erratically flittering about in the sinking evening sky, it targets the warmth of a sleeping farm animal and latches onto it with its claws. Carefully, it inserts a fang into a vein dense region of the creature’s body, and laps away at the blood. Normally, the oblivious livestock are completely unaware and helpless to the attack. The tiny parasite does not inflict an immediately mortal blow to its host, but over time, disease and physical debilitation result. The vampire has destroyed the animal, and, pathetically, the animal has no idea.

Just as in nature, the economic world has its own bloodsucking vermin in the form of banking elites which are a wretched drain on the whole of the human race. Without their vicious and predatory presence, I envision a world so rapturously above and beyond what we wallow in today that it is impossible to describe. The disgust many feel when considering the virulent feeding habits of the common mosquito or the slithering leech does nothing to compare to the utter gut churning revulsion I feel when studying the financial habits of banks like the Federal Reserve and the “too big to fails”. They are without a doubt the most malignant form of social cancer imaginable.

And yet, after nearly four years of ongoing fiscal exsanguination, a sizable portion of the American populace is still looking to these pests for economic comfort and reassurance, just like farm animals consistently grazing near the entrance of a vampire bat cave, as if it is a shelter from harm. Worst of all is the willingness by which investors still, to this day, commit their savings and their livelihoods to the stock market (http://www.localdouble.com/) meat grinder. Let’s be honest; the typical American daytrading investor is a complete moron. They have absolutely no sense of the fundamentals of our financial structure nor the eccentric rules by which it operates.

They only have the faintest inkling of the functions of the highly manipulated stock market. They foolishly believe that what little money they make today riding the wave of an illegitimate liquidity driven rally they will actually get to keep. For them, stock investment is no different from buying a scratch-off lotto ticket at a hillbilly gas station; it is a cheap and tawdry game rife with failure but exciting to play, if only for a fleeting guilt addled thrill.

To be fair, they play because the game is indeed “rewarding”, at least, initially. The first taste is so sweet that it soils the plasma; the very skin of the cellular membrane of the financial mind becomes saturated. It swells within the weakening heart of a culture, and overrides its sense of logic. It makes us do terrible and stupid things, and we clasp our hands together and pray that it will never end. But, of course, an ending is painfully inevitable. The more we indulge, the more it takes down the road to satisfy us. We become an addict nation, riding the chemical wave of a pharmaceutical roller coaster fed by the opiates of fiat and fantasy.

The bottom line; we are being drained of our lifeblood as a country. However, the mainstream media is rife with talk of “recovery”, and one might ask how this could be possible. An overwhelming spectrum of solutions has been presented over the past 3-4 years, and each one has given the stock market (http://www.localdouble.com/) a little push towards the green, so what’s the problem?

The problem is, the actions taken by our government and banking elites have built the connecting strands of a spider’s web, instead of a safety net.

Let’s examine some the most common solutions presented to the increasingly desperate American public and why these delusions have lulled us into the role of victim in the most elaborate monster movie of all time…

Centralization As a Solution To…Centralization…?
Europe’s current disintegration is a perfect example of this strange and ultimately destructive policy. The EU as an experiment is an utter disaster. Once the jewel of the open border dynamic and a bastion of the “merits” of globalization, the economic union has been exposed as a kind of waxwork museum; a tourist trap curiosity filled with illusions of life, but rather hollow upon closer inspection.

Half of the countries committed to the EU are burdened with liabilities well beyond the 60% debt to GDP ratio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt-to-GDP_ratio) outlined in the ‘Growth and Stability Pact’. Some countries, including Greece, met few if any of the presented criteria for membership and were allowed to join anyway. The only reason the system was able to function at all was due to the imaginary wealth of the toxic derivative framework which now no longer exists.

The problem with globalization is that it requires assimilation; it demands that sovereign nations adopt the fiscal character of their neighbors in order to present the face of a single entity. Of course, when these countries are unable to do this because of their cultural differences, or their incongruent economies, something has to be slapped together instead. Artificially tying together societies by forcing them to financially harmonize is, in my view, a criminal act of collectivism. Now that this crime is being unveiled for all the world to see, though, the corrupt governments and banking puppeteers of Europe have suggested even MORE of the same! That’s right…their solution to the collapse of the EU is a harmonization not just of finance, but of politics and law. A single governing body which would dictate every nuance of the union.
END PART 1

murmur

12-23-2011, 10:36 PM

BEGIN PART 2

The claim that Europe was not centralized enough, and that this is what caused the breakdown, is absolutely preposterous. Globalization makes a system inflexible and weak. If any portion of that system fails, it sends shockwaves through the rest. This is because centralization removes the protections of independently insulated structures and allows corrupt policy to spread like a plague. As the economic situation grows more dire, the end result will always be a reduction in the common citizen’s standard of living. In harmonization, It is far easier to make everyone equally poor than it is to make them equally rich. With a single, narrow minded leadership, especially one that is completely unaccountable to the people, the EU will become the most fragile makeshift empire in history, and a model for a global government that hopefully will never exist.

Print To Avoid The Pain…
I can’t tell you how truly exhausted I am with the constant rehashing of bailout bills and cheap lending windows as if they have ever or will ever change anything. Let’s make this clear; Keynesian stimulus measures are useless. They will always be useless. Governments do NOT create jobs, they destroy them. Central banks do NOT create wealth, they dilute it. Quantitative easing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing) and zero interest lending does NOT diminish debt, it displaces it; removing it from the shoulders of private corporate banking institutions where it belongs and dumping it in the laps of taxpayers. I’ll say it again; the debts created by major banks have not been paid. They have been handed to you, and your children. Forget the December Santa Rally and the temporary holiday job boost. Nothing has changed since 2008.

The process of transferring private debt into public obligation is a tool of economic vampires. The utility in this is obvious. A program of wealth transference has the ability to prolong full collapse while at the same time giving the impression of stability. The dollar itself characterizes this conflict. The currency has been overprinted since the credit crisis began by some estimates in the ten’s of trillions. Not only has it been devalued to temporarily stave off a purging in the U.S., but now also in Europe. And yet, the dollar index, which supposedly measures the Greenback’s global value, has spiked. We are lulled into a sense of safety by such arbitrary measurements, but our buying power is being subversively annihilated. In less than a year’s time, those who dove into the dollar as a safe haven will discover their bones picked clean by predatory banks and hidden flesh eating inflation. Count on it…

Create A New Currency…
Globalists love currencies, as long as they aren’t tied down by a commodity. For central bankers, each fiat currency is a stepping stone to something more sinister. They are disposable. They are expendable. Like toothbrushes. Yes…even the dollar. And in this rests the key to economic control. A currency is a symbol of trade and labor; if you can create and destroy that symbol at will, then you can dominate trade and labor. Through a mere piece of paper, you manipulate the very breath of social life. No one should be given that kind of power without uncompromising transparency and constant public governance, but the Federal Reserve is free from both.

The suggestion that we can solve our current financial despair with the formation of a whole new currency, or a global currency (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_currency), is like suggesting to a slave that he would be much more free with a shinier set of chains. Any solution that purports to undo the crisis by doing more of the same was probably devised by an economic vampire.

This includes digital currencies like the failed “Bitcoin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin)”, which swagger about in the classy looking threads of technology and diversity while flashing us impromptu peace signs. Digital currencies are a Star Trek theme park distraction, and just like any paper fiat currency, they make promises they cannot keep. Any trade system that depends upon good faith in ones and zeros traveling across a network of machines that can be hacked or rendered useless by collapse is doomed. We have already tasted the danger of digital through the debauchery of credit cards. Why tempt fate even further?

More Regulation And Control…
Regulation is not the problem in America’s economy; the REGULATORS are the problem with America’s economy. The SEC is given thousands of potential investigations a year to pursue, but rarely do they ever follow through, and when they do, it’s to throw the angry masses a Bernie Madoff or two; an act of insincere appeasement in light of much greater fraud.
Being that true free markets have not existed for at least a century, the insinuation that free markets are the root of the collapse is a bit absurd. The guidelines for government oversight of business in the U.S. already exist; government has just refused to implement them. Adding new restrictions to an already restricted market will change nothing. Therefore, the only solution that makes any sense whatsoever as far as regulation is to wipe the slate clean entirely. Remove the Federal Reserve, replace the SEC, and replace the current establishment leadership.

I have heard it said that the philosophy of our economic system is the problem. This is an ignorant cop-out. The principals of free markets are not the issue; the men who abuse them and diminish them, on the other hand, are. Anyone who suggests that we as a country focus our anger on the idea of the system rather than the men behind the misuse of that system is, without a doubt, an economic vampire.

Lurking in the Shadows...
The question of solutions is difficult, not because there aren’t any, but because those that will actually succeed require pain, sacrifice, and incredible hard work. Most people don’t like to think about that sort of thing. This is why global banks and their proponents have been able to maintain the recovery magic act for the past few years (just barely), and it is why the useless concepts they put forward are still given public consideration. We WANT to be sold on the proposal of an easy way out.

One rule to never forget when considering any solution is to take into account who benefits most from its implementation, and who has to labor for its success. If average people are forced to exert all the effort, and an elite few reap all the substantial benefits, this contradiction outweighs any assertion of practicality. It is not worth our time, nor our energy, to shadowbox reality. Unfortunately, this is all we have been doing as a nation since 2008.

The creeping terror that lay ahead is not the economic collapse, but the men who would use it to their favor. The stakes are high. With the NDAA and similar bills in place, fiscal distress is no longer just a matter of economics, but a matter of personal liberty. Without a doubt, a collapse will be used as a rationalization for totalitarianism. If we do not make the hard decisions now, and take it upon ourselves to construct our own localized economies separate and insulated from the mainstream, we will, indeed, find ourselves one day cowering in the dark of a long drawn night infested with fiends, and desperate enough to actually ask them for help. They will be happy to give it, at a very bloody price…

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-economic-solutions-vampires

Poopie McGillicutty

12-24-2011, 09:56 PM

Good article except for this

I have heard it said that the philosophy of our economic system is the problem. This is an ignorant cop-out. The principals of free markets are not the issue; the men who abuse them and diminish them, on the other hand, are. Anyone who suggests that we as a country focus our anger on the idea of the system rather than the men behind the misuse of that system is, without a doubt, an economic vampire.

That's a load of crap. If you don't like the current economic model you're an economic vampire? I don't think so. It's not sent down from the heaven by the gods.

noot

12-24-2011, 10:51 PM

It's not sent down from the heaven by the gods. The true believers in capital are in fact a new religion. They've overturned the tables once again. 'Blessed are the rich and strong' has replaced 'blessed are the poor and the meek' for them. The peacemakers are now eclipsed by the war makers. In fact, one might truthfully observe that the teachings of Christ have been turned by them upside down. I'd say that's the faith of the anti-Christ, wouldn't you?

Poopie McGillicutty

12-25-2011, 07:07 PM

The true believers in capital are in fact a new religion. They've overturned the tables once again. 'Blessed are the rich and strong' has replaced 'blessed are the poor and the meek' for them. The peacemakers are now eclipsed by the war makers. In fact, one might truthfully observe that the teachings of Christ have been turned by them upside down. I'd say that's the faith of the anti-Christ, wouldn't you?
I agree. They say it offers you freedom - that it offers those who work hard for it freedom. Sounds like we're a bunch of sharecroppers or indentured servants and not the free people we were born as. And, it does, indeed, seem exactly like the faith of the antichrist. :D

noot

12-26-2011, 01:27 PM

You pretty well defined the concept of wage slavery right there. Excellent. Toon in and drop out as my friend, Tim, was always wont to say. Otherwise you're pissing up a rope...

murmur

12-27-2011, 10:07 PM

Not your grandfather’s Republican Party; President Obama and Mitt Romney are Nearly One and the Same! (http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/11/not-your-grandfathers-republican-party.html)Click the link^^^^^^^

noot

12-28-2011, 04:17 AM

Ron Paul is exactly grampa's Reptilican Party come back from the dead. His positions are not substantially different from those of Cal Coolidge. The problem is that world has changed while he's remained frozen in time. And that makes him extraordinarily reactionary. So reactionary, in fact, that he's got his Titor Sedan tuned in to the 18th century. What a guy!

murmur

12-28-2011, 03:49 PM

excerpt......please note...the Federal Reserve has no authority to bail out Europe......but that is exactly what this un-elected private bank is doing at the expense of American taxpayers who are unrepresented in this matter. And besides that....Bernanke has openly lied to Congress

================================================== ===============================
The Fed's covert bailout of Europe

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204464404577118682763082876.html

No matter the legalistic interpretation, the Fed is, working through the ECB, bailing out European banks and, indirectly, spendthrift European governments. It is difficult to count the number of things wrong with this arrangement.

First, the Fed has no authority for a bailout of Europe. My source for that judgment? Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke met with Republican senators on Dec. 14 to brief them on the European situation. After the meeting, Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters that Mr. Bernanke himself said the Fed did not have "the intention or the authority" to bail out Europe. The week Mr. Bernanke promised no bailout, however, the size of the swap lines to the ECB ballooned by around $52 billion.

Second, these Federal Reserve swap arrangements foster the moral hazards and distortions that government credit allocation entails. Allowing the ECB to do the initial credit allocation -- to favored banks and then, some hope, through further lending to spendthrift EU governments -- does not make the problem better.

Third, the nontransparency of the swap arrangements is troublesome in a democracy. To his credit, Mr. Bernanke has promised more openness and better communication of the Fed's monetary policy goals. The swap arrangements are at odds with his promise. It is time for the Fed chairman to provide an honest accounting to Congress of what is going on.

================================================== ==

noot

12-28-2011, 06:00 PM

please note...the Federal Reserve has no authority to bail out EuropeComing to the aid of Europe was also a big issue in 1940. And I'm sure Ron woulda been against it. Andy- just face it.. the guy is a complete putz. I know you're frustrated but this douchebag ain't the answer.

murmur

12-28-2011, 06:47 PM

Coming to the aid of Europe was also a big issue in 1940.

Actually Congress declared war so the military aid was legitimate then.

The Federal Reserve has no such authority now to bail foreign banks or nations

noot

12-28-2011, 07:00 PM

Actually Congress declared war so the military aid was legitimate then.

And I'm sure Ron woulda been against it.As I said...

noot

12-28-2011, 07:04 PM

The Federal Reserve has no such authority now to bail foreign banks or nations It's only a matter of pocketed chits and notations on a ledger. Repudiation will come eventually. It starts with you and me.

murmur

12-28-2011, 07:21 PM

As I said...

.....about something you are speculating about....that happen 70 years ago?

murmur

12-28-2011, 07:22 PM

It's only a matter of pocketed chits and notations on a ledger. Repudiation will come eventually. It starts with you and me.

Actually....the Federal Reserve has no authority to pick winners and losers....foreign or domestic

noot

12-28-2011, 07:28 PM

They do what banks do. Boycott banks and be free.

noot

12-28-2011, 07:29 PM

.....about something you are speculating about....that happen 70 years ago?

Ask him. He's not shy about his answer.

murmur

12-28-2011, 07:36 PM

Ask him. He's not shy about his answer.

Congress has the authority to make war....not the president

noot

12-28-2011, 07:40 PM

"I asked Congressman Paul: If he were president of the United States during World War II would he have sent American troops to Nazi Germany to save the Jews? And the Congressman answered: No, I wouldn't."

פול. "אם מישהו היה רוצה לעשות את זה בעצמו, זה בסדר" (צילום: AFP)
http://www.ynetnews.com/PicServer2/13062011/3644341/Untitled-2_wa.jpg
An extreme isolationist? Paul (Photo: Reuters)

"I wouldn't risk American lives to do that. If someone wants to do that on their own because they want to do that, well, that’s fine, but I wouldn't do that," Shapiro wrote.
From Ynet (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4167841,00.html)

murmur

12-28-2011, 08:04 PM

He wouldn't because that is Congress job to declare war....the president does not have that authority

Poopie McGillicutty

12-28-2011, 08:40 PM

He wouldn't because that is Congress job to declare war....the president does not have that authority

No, he wouldn't have voted for American troops to go to Europe during WWII because he's a true isolationist. In his eyes, other people's problems are other people's problems completely. That's his stance on health care, too. I admit, Ron Paul as President seems very appealing sometimes but that's because the country is so completely screwed up and he seems so very different from the other losers we get to pick from.

murmur

12-28-2011, 08:56 PM

And....this isn't the Ron Paul thread anyway

SolFlickan

12-28-2011, 09:07 PM

And....this isn't the Ron Paul thread anyway

This is a thread about politics. And last time I checked, Ron Paul was still a politician...

murmur

12-28-2011, 09:29 PM

Poopie McGillicutty

12-28-2011, 09:39 PM

Actually it's about an economic/political crisis that was designed to leave Central Banks with more control than they have right now.

It's working

Ron Paul seems to be the only politician running for President that recognizes what caused the economic/political crisis, and is willing to talk about it.

The others sweep these real issues under the rug.....and resort to propaganda and fear tactics.

The establishments Republ-ocrats and their banker cohorts will do or say anything to stop Ron Paul....because he is the only one addressing the real issues

I'll agree with that. I often wonder what would happen if someone did away with the Fed. I mean, what would it look like exactly? Would we still owe them the money they stole? The gave out 26 trillion without telling anyone. ANYONE. Would we owe them that? Because we, apparently, do now.

murmur

12-28-2011, 10:12 PM

I'll agree with that. I often wonder what would happen if someone did away with the Fed. I mean, what would it look like exactly? Would we still owe them the money they stole? The gave out 26 trillion without telling anyone. ANYONE. Would we owe them that? Because we, apparently, do now.

The Federal Reserve holds about 1 trillion dollars in Treasury debt.

Step one is to default on that debt and order the treasury not to pay them

Poopie McGillicutty

12-28-2011, 10:29 PM

The Federal Reserve holds about 1 trillion dollars in Treasury debt.

Step one is to default on that debt and order the treasury not to pay them

So we don't pay them back? I like it.

Here's what I meant about the 26 trillion

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=federal+reserve+loans+26+trillion+without+congre ssional+approval&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

The grand total, that we know of, is 26 trillion in loans WITHOUT Congressional approval.

murmur

12-28-2011, 11:40 PM

So we don't pay them back? I like it.

Here's what I meant about the 26 trillion

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=federal+reserve+loans+26+trillion+without+congre ssional+approval&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

The grand total, that we know of, is 26 trillion in loans WITHOUT Congressional approval.

That 26 trillion is largely based on backstopping derivatives...basically bets based on the performance of other assets.

The derivatives themselves have no value.

Example.....

Back in the day...someone could buy a home with as little as 1000 out of pocket.

Average home price let's just say is 200k

Bundle those types of loans together......5 for easy math equals 1 million.

Bank takes out insurance or bets....derivatives totalling one million dollars

But the actual money involved from customer down payments is just $5000.

So $995,000 worth of bets are created from just 5k.

Get it?

Poopie McGillicutty

12-29-2011, 07:11 AM

That 26 trillion is largely based on backstopping derivatives...basically bets based on the performance of other assets.

The derivatives themselves have no value.

Example.....

Back in the day...someone could buy a home with as little as 1000 out of pocket.

Average home price let's just say is 200k

Bundle those types of loans together......5 for easy math equals 1 million.

Bank takes out insurance or bets....derivatives totalling one million dollars

But the actual money involved from customer down payments is just $5000.

So $995,000 worth of bets are created from just 5k.

Get it?

I get that. What disturbs me is that they "loaned" out this money without Congressional approval. It's not their money, it's our money. We'll pay for it. Even if all the money is paid back, they leant out the money without approval. If I worked at a bank and made unauthorized loans I'd be fired.

Doc

12-29-2011, 12:25 PM

noot

12-29-2011, 01:51 PM

The acceptance of ex nihilo money is the glue that binds society as a cohesive unit. It is also a prison. The consequences of breaking faith with this economic charade are more dire than we dare to imagine. It is nothing less than the ass over teakettle tumbling of all polity, all security and all commodities. Are you prepared for that? Prepared for chaos, scarcity and battles in the streets? And if so, why so? Andy seems to think that the transition to some ill-conceived Libertarian regime will be orderly and benign under the guiding hand of his hero, Squeeky Ron Paul. But that cannot be so. Revolutions are never benign.

Just sayin...

Doc

12-29-2011, 01:54 PM

I think Europe is about to show us just how benign the approach to change is going to be.

noot

12-29-2011, 02:08 PM

Yes indeed. Pull up a chair and enjoy the sound and fury of the passion. Coming soon to a neighborhood near you.

Doc

12-29-2011, 02:13 PM

I think the rioting and burning cars phase is pretty predictable, Then the national strikes. But when it becomes obvious that no more bail outs or paper hanging is coming, then what? Hoarding? Sure. Food aid from us. But then what?

noot

12-29-2011, 02:31 PM

...and then it spreads here. We're in for interesting times. I call it the 'denouement of history'- the zeitgeist of all zeitgeists, passion of all passions. And considering the multitudes that checked out during the intermission I'm just happy to be here for the final act. Let the curtain raise!

Poopie McGillicutty

12-29-2011, 05:51 PM

As soon as Kings found out that banks could create imaginary money for them to fight wars with when they were broke, this process was pretty much set in stone. The Templars were destroyed in large part so the King could default on his loans. This system is rotten and fundamentally dishonest but two classes of people love it, the rich and the powerful. The powerless lost their fortunes in this latest mess when their retirement money or their home value disappeared. When the very rich are similarly threatened, they do whatever it takes to protect their interests. Anyone who threatens that had better have good deicing equipment on his plane and a very paranoid security chief.

Kings have been taking out large loans from money lenders and killing them before fiat currency. As the man said "It's good to be the king."

But, yeah, without the fractional reserve system there would have been no colonization of Africa, Asia and the New World.

I wonder if they'll let it all go to **** just to trim back on the number of people in the world today. Just over 7 billion is quiet a lot.

murmur

12-29-2011, 10:29 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRxv3_rpKLU

murmur

12-29-2011, 10:40 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u8tFqOIarc

murmur

12-30-2011, 02:52 AM

Another must read...... The year's top story is not getting coverage
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/12/201112258031251868.html

excerpts below

Lack of investigative oversight

This is not a call for revenge, but for justice. The reason: the barely exposed chain of criminality that started in some salon of securitisation and then rippled across the world, bringing down countries and economies. It has its origins in Wall Street, where three industries colluded as a cabal to sell fraudulent subprime loans and then transfer fees and foreclosures from poor and middle class Americans to themselves.

Where is the examination of the pillars of our "FIRE" economy - Finance, Insurance and Real Estate. They became the interconnected cogs in a leverage machine to enrich themselves while plundering the rest of us.

So far, this story affecting so many millions has not really crashed through in the 1 per cent media machine with a few exceptions here and there.

If you want to find out about this story of the year and years past, in all of its disgusting detail, you can't just trust major media. You have to read Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone, a music magazine, or blogs like Mandelman on Ml-implode.com, Naked Capitalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Capitalism), Credit Writedowns, ZeroHedge, ProPublica (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProPublica), or Amped Status.com, to cite a few.

TV show host Dylan Ratigan has been a lonely voice on MSNBC while academics like former bank regulator William Black and former Bank economist Michael Hudson speak out frequently on the criminal environment that Wall Street has wrought in alternative outlets.

Journalists like Robert Scheer (http://www.nndb.com/people/098/000049948/), Greg Palast and Chris Hedges write regularly on issues that from time to time make it into the columns of New York writers like Paul Krugman, Getrchen Morgensen, Frank Norris and James Stewart. All these opinion pieces rarely lead to follow-ups in the news section.

'Too big to question'

Just as many outlets did not warn us about the coming market meltdown, most are not warning us today about what will happen if the depression we are already sinking into deepens.
The military is making contingency plans as things get worse; reports the Telegraph, "The military planning work has come to light after The Daily Telegraph disclosed last month that British embassies in the eurozone have been told to prepare emergency plans for the demise of the euro and the possible civil disorder that could follow."

This could be one reason for the passage of the new NDAA defence authorisation bill that provides for rounding up dissidents branded as terrorists while suspending legal protections.

Already, a European economic think-tank called LEAP, with a history of credible projections, warns soberly, "Already insolvent (the US) will become ungovernable bringing about, for Americans and those who depend on the United States, violent and destructive economic, financial, monetary, geopolitical and social shocks."

Does anyone really believe that our political leaders in both parties know what to do? Along with the Fed, they have been pumping trillions into the economy to mostly no avail. The promised recovery has yet to show its head.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-30-2011, 08:46 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u8tFqOIarc

This is part of that 26 trillion I was talking about earlier.

noot

12-30-2011, 01:26 PM

We need to see the forest beyond the trees. Details can make the best of us very stupid.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-30-2011, 01:29 PM

We need to see the forest beyond the trees. Details can make the best of us very stupid.

How's about this? The world economic system is so entirely corrupt that trying to truly fix it will only show the people of the world that it's riddled with cancer and should be put out of its misery for everybody's good. However, that will probably just bring us all complete and utter chaos.

noot

12-30-2011, 01:30 PM

Perfect. The conundrum in a nutshell.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-30-2011, 01:32 PM

Well, I've got that going for me then. :D

noot

12-30-2011, 01:36 PM

Here's a slightly longer version that makes the same point.

THE FORCE THAT THROUGH THE GREEN FUSE DRIVES THE FLOWER

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.
From Dylan with love.

Poopie McGillicutty

12-30-2011, 01:51 PM

If

by e.e. cummings

If freckles were lovely, and day was night,
And measles were nice and a lie warn't a lie,
Life would be delight,--
But things couldn't go right
For in such a sad plight
I wouldn't be I.

If earth was heaven and now was hence,
And past was present, and false was true,
There might be some sense
But I'd be in suspense
For on such a pretense
You wouldn't be you.

If fear was plucky, and globes were square,
And dirt was cleanly and tears were glee
Things would seem fair,--
Yet they'd all despair,
For if here was there
We wouldn't be we.

noot

12-30-2011, 02:04 PM

Bottom line? The Murnut needs to read less propaganda and more poetry...

murmur

12-30-2011, 09:26 PM

Here is the kind of poetry I'm interested in

http://www.thedailybell.com/3417/Ron-Paul-Has-Already-Won

noot

12-30-2011, 10:05 PM

The Daily Bellend? Gimme a break.

tomi01uk

12-31-2011, 12:43 PM

murmur

12-31-2011, 01:23 PM

That money never really existed....they were bets....bets that were never intended to payoff.

The bailouts to AIG...was to insure that a few that the Federal Reserve picked, actually did get paid off....like Goldman and others.

Besides that...no one really regulates the derivatives market.

Bets were made against Greece...that did not pay off....because it was some how decided that no default took place....even though major haircuts were taken.

So it's hard to know for sure what's going on in the derivatives market because it's unregulated.

Banks can also mark to fantasy their assets right now.

So it's hard to determeine what's real and what isn't.

But without the cdo and cds as hedges(insurance against default), and without mark to market accounting....all the too big to fail banks are insolvent.

murmur

12-31-2011, 01:25 PM

Just joined so I could ask a few questions in this thread.

It's been a while and I'm glad we get a chance to converse

murmur

12-31-2011, 02:35 PM

Just joined so I could ask a few questions in this thread. Things I've been wondering about to ask others for their opinions about. So here is my first question... and it's not a naive question or statement, I have spent almost 2 years now reading and learning as much as possible.

CDO's and CDS's were at the root of this meltdown and the instruments were even further compounded in London, where the players escaped regulatory rule of the SEC in the states. All of this was pre-ordained by the visions of the Regan/Thatcher alliance. Bankers and "services" would be the engine driving the UK economy and London especially became the financial center of the world because of this being put in place about the time John Major left and Early Blair came in.

Now.. at the point of 2007 when all came crashing down, there was over 72 Trillion ramped up in those CDO's and CDS's. That is 72 Trillion and much of that went "poof", disappeared.. when the spiral had collapsed and the banks were bailed out along with AIG. Over 46 Trillion in dollar value was wiped off the world's ledgers into thin air when the debacle was exposed for being virtually worthless.. Hence almost 50 trillion dollars in the worlds economy was lost.

Now, in view of all this, how in hell can inflation or printing more money be a problem? What we are exposed to is rhetoric and yet again more rhetoric about inflation, but that is not the problem. Or is it? And if so how? When you have over 40 trillion in the world go "poof", how can printing more money risk inflation?

I'm not favoring a free for all money printing scheme, but to ask this question that many people are not asking as far as I can tell.

Now, incuring debt to pay off debt that the banksters ran up and giving them a free ride in all of this isn't the answer either. Nor is allowing the government to print money and distribute it, without debt attached, I'm afraid.

When that is done, you have too much government control over who gets the money and that harkens towards what China is at this time. I don't have answers but I have questions. And I question most the policies we see here in the UK, if any leader was ever bought sold and way over his head right now it is Cameron.

=======================
Below from http://www.zerohedge.com
=======================

By now everyone has heard the parable explaining how the entire European bailout, courtesy of near-infinite fractional reserve banking, can be taken care of using one €100 bill. Or so the yet again flawed economist thinking went. Unfortunately, this was just a parable, and a massively flawed one at that. As the below interaction between a ZH reader and his broker elucidates, here is what this idealized story would look like in the real world, that as we explained before, is drowning in about $21.2 trillion (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/muddle-through-has-failed-bcg-says-there-may-be-only-painful-ways-out-crisis) in excess debt.

BROKER'S EMAIL:
It is a slow day in a little Greek village. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit. On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the village, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night. The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the €100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer takes the €100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel. The guy at the Farmers' Co-op takes the €100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the taverna. The publican slips the money along to the local prostitute drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him "services" on credit. The hooker then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the €100 note. The hotel proprietor then places the €100 note back on the counter so the rich traveler will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, picks up the €100 note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole village is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism. And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how the bailout package works.

MY REPLY:
XXXX I edited your bailout email a little to help make it more effective to clients, please see below.

It is a slow day in a little Greek village, planet earth. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit. On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the village, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night. The owner thinks about maybe beating the tourist to death, but decides to give him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and shoves it in his pocket.

He owes Piraeus Bank down the street €100,000 but has little intention of repaying it as his business has been contracting for several years. That bank also has claims of €10,000 on a butcher's business, €50,000 on a pig farmer, €75,000 to a supplier of feed and fuel, but in turn owes €100,000 to EFG Bank which itself has fractionally reserved claims on a pub owner and a prostitute who bought two homes on 105% LTV among many others.

At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, and asks for his €100 note back. The Greek innkeeper asks "what €100 note?" The German threatens to call the police. The innkeeper says "go ahead, ask for my brother who's a Lieutenant down at the precinct, he'll help you out." The German storms out back into the night, €100 poorer. No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole village is still buried in debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism at the thought that maybe the Germans really are that gullible.

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how the bailout package works.

================================================== =======

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/friday-humor-unspinning-%E2%82%AC100-bill-or-how-european-bailout-really-works

tomi01uk

12-31-2011, 05:11 PM

Yes, exactly. I agree with that analogy. And fractional reserve limits are necessary but also fractional reserve is a way of increasing the money supply as long as it is built on hypothecation. When someone creates something, it becomes value and that requires an increase of money supply. But in terms of inflation, I don't see that happening when more money needs to be made up for what was lost. A lot to take in and assess, discus if you want. But one can not dismiss the need for fiat money flatly or accept that inflation is a threat without a lot of analysis. That's why these questions keep me thinking and reading, it just doesn't make sense the way it is, but nothing else as an alternative seems to either.

murmur

12-31-2011, 05:33 PM

The money lost never existed.

It was debt based on bets

Fiat money can exist without being based on debt

tomi01uk

12-31-2011, 11:51 PM

They were hedge funds, which are not bets, they were traded with triple A+ ratings at the time. Yes, it may seem like betting but it is not betting. Right now most of the worlds wealth is put into instruments of hedge funds of one type or another along with other investment vehicles.

From Wikipedia:
Fiat money is money that derives its value from government regulation or law. The term derives from the Latin fiat, meaning "let it be done" or "it shall be [money]", as such money is established by government decree. Where fiat money is used as currency, the term fiat currency is used.

Fiat money originated in 11th century China,[1] and its use became widespread during the Yuan and Ming dynasties.[2] The Nixon Shock of 1971 ended the direct convertibility of the United States dollar to gold. Since then all reserve currencies have been fiat currencies, including the dollar and the euro.[3]

I'm thinking Mur that in order to navigate a problem, understanding it to the degree we can is the first order. This is an example of the media falling down on its job. Here and over in the states, we need more education and analysis of what the money supply is all about. Of course that will not happen when they are lying to us to begin with about needing austerity from the common people in order to further the contracts and interests of the elites.

The "Green Energy" and Energy interests is an oncoming bubble as well as freight train in a tunnel for us the public, over here especially. Over in the states, you have already been ransacked and raided to the extreme degree in your bills for utilities which should be a matter of custodial trust towards the benefit of the public instead of bleeding them dry.

tomi01uk

01-01-2012, 12:33 AM

I just want to add that I'm in an advantageous situation right now regarding insight into the energy industry. One of my flatmates is an engineer who works in the industry in planning and he brings a lot of insight to me in his discussions, my comments above are based on his words. Some of the dumbest schemes and worthless crazy projects are already on the table for the future with public funding of course and everyone inside the industry knows its a bubble to play for all they can. Sickening when we think of how much of the public purse and blood has been given to this and that doesn't even take in this global carbon tax credit (market in billions) they want to create..

murmur

01-01-2012, 12:37 AM

Hedge funds have not lost the kind of money your talking about.

The losses are hidden off balance sheet at the TBTF's.

Assets are not currently marked to market

Hedge funds have lost money, and had a bad year in general, but the real losses haven't yet been realized.

I don't pretend to have the answers to solve the problems....but I do know the giant banks are all insolvent, except for a previously illegal accounting trick.

Politicians are enabling the banksters.

Nothing changes until those politicians are gone.

murmur

01-01-2012, 12:54 AM

Fractional Reserve Lending has created a monetary system based on debt.....but the debt has been oversold and is now worthless because it can't be paid back.

The only way out are massive defaults...and the current system crumbles.

But the real question is what rises out of the ashes.

My guess is that the new system has something to do with a world central bank

tomi01uk

01-01-2012, 01:51 AM

There is the Austrian school of economics against the more standard model. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_School)
It's not simple rhetoric out there, it's even tough for the experts. But our economic situation is being dealt with better over in the states (dispite the crushing effect on the middle class) than it is being dealt with here.

There is just no way Mur that there will be a world currency except if a spin-off situation like buying "carbon credit dollars" or any other scheme meant to milk the world's taxpayers.

Cripes, you can't even get a Euro over here to last a decade without it falling apart and these dummies didn't build a prophylatic safty net for it except give the European Cental Bank discretion over being a lender of last resort.

What were they thinking? Talk about having rosecolored glasses on and a big fail in judgement. So, I don't think a global currency is of immediate concern. I think the way that the middle class is being bled to death in costs it can't possibly meet under extreme recession is the problem here and over there.

murmur

01-01-2012, 06:37 PM

This might be helpful

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhdNmHONY-E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS49-RmZAxk

murmur

01-02-2012, 02:31 PM

Obama Signs Legislation Killing Bill of Rights; Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Rachel Maddow Skewer Obama; Road to Tyranny; Complete List of Senatorial Cowards Backing the Bill (http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/01/obama-signs-legislation-killing-bill-of.html)
^^^^
Click link

tomi01uk

01-02-2012, 03:43 PM

Thanks Mur, I'm listening to them and there are others I've seen that look good as well.

I listen to Max Kaiser on the Kaiser Report, I don't always take what he says without a skeptical edge, because he doesn't have any answers and sometimes he can be a bit extremist, but he is very sharp not to let anything get past his radar.

Another thing I was going to mention about global currency being part of some grand scheme that is being cooked up.. no that would never be possible I think as long as the FOREX is being played globally and the big institutions are racking it up all the time playing the FOREX. 24/7 as well.

murmur

01-02-2012, 03:58 PM

Love Max!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSwWy4E6I04

murmur

01-02-2012, 04:00 PM

Another thing I was going to mention about global currency being part of some grand scheme that is being cooked up.. no that would never be possible I think as long as the FOREX is being played globally and the big institutions are racking it up all the time playing the FOREX. 24/7 as well.

For all effective purpose....we have a global currency already.

Global currency is a symptom of the disease....but not the disease itself.

The disease is Central Banking

tomi01uk

01-02-2012, 04:25 PM

tomi01uk

01-02-2012, 05:56 PM

Mostly, I guess, I'm looking forward to hearing your view but I know from that you will extract some of Ron Paul's views and I haven't put the time into how he figures all of this that you have. :)

murmur

01-02-2012, 06:58 PM

But the European Central Bank of the Euro for instance would be a good thing if it actually was equipped sufficiently to prop up the Euro;

What is it that you have against central banks? I know that there are problems with sovereign debt being used by central banks to pay off sovereign debt and the interest of that money used to pay off debt increases the cost of the existence of money, so there is never enough money to pay off the debt incurred in creating money.....
aside from that little hiccup... what don't you like about the central banks. My instinct tells me you have other bones to pick about them and I might find material there to agree with or argue with :) Cheers!

What I have against central banking is a long list.....but Jeferson summed it up the best.....

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.

I also like this political cartoon from 1912....100 years ago

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SZpHHdm2jaQ/TrKc61T-N7I/AAAAAAAAAFQ/n0piqf5OoS0/s1600/quist-coming-money-trust-lr.bmp

murmur

01-02-2012, 07:04 PM

Mostly, I guess, I'm looking forward to hearing your view but I know from that you will extract some of Ron Paul's views and I haven't put the time into how he figures all of this that you have. :)

End the Fed.....central banking isn't needed and in fact it created the mess we are in right now.

tomi01uk

01-02-2012, 08:38 PM

Poopie McGillicutty

01-02-2012, 09:26 PM

If you end the Federal Reserve what means would there be to distribute money? To insure banks against default and depositors money? If your answer is from the government directly, I used to think that was a good idea until I read up on what happens in China from that. Government control over who and what gets the money.. then in theory we have a totalitarian government just like "communist" China, which isn't really communist anymore, it's totalitarian and capitalistism with none of the safety nets built in like medical care and social services for the commons the way there is in the UK and other captialist countries that are wrongly called socialistic because they managed to wrestle these needs out of the coffers of the government.

I agree that a civilized country should offer its people health care. I'm an American, no health care.

As for money, all countries used to print their own money. Why would you hire an outside business/bank to print, manage and maintain your country's currency? It makes no sense. You're paying them money to print up money. Why? More importantly, if a country has to go to an outside source for its money, is that country sovereign? I don't think so. As for insuring the banks, that's what insurance companies are for.

He who has the gold makes the rules.

tomi01uk

01-02-2012, 09:46 PM

As Mur knows, I'm American but living in the UK, so I'm talking from a US POV as well as being a Yank experiencing the UK system from American eyes. A lot I've learned, like the biggest suprise, I find myself knowing now the meaning of "Don't Feed the Beast". With regard to any government authority or system. But yet it's a delicate balance. The people must be served. Isn't that what taxes are supposed to be used for? It becomes a beast, a nanny state, a bunch of tinpot authoratarians and big butted mamas with foul moods talking down to you in Caribbean accents...
So... this is the tame description of what governement can become and do.. and I think it is very dangerous to give total control over who and what gets the money to the state. JMO

murmur

01-02-2012, 09:46 PM

If you end the Federal Reserve what means would there be to distribute money?

How was money distributed before the Fed was created in 1913?

We got along just fine

To insure banks against default and depositors money?

FDIC already exists for that function

tomi01uk

01-02-2012, 09:54 PM

But the FDIC is insured through the Fed I think.. Also, how was money distributed..before 1913? I don't know, but I think that government distribution of money ended with Lincoln. It was the system put in place when the colonists set up in the US as well. England didn't like being out of the game and it was a major factor in the revolution. The control of money being in colonies and not in the UK. But.. this doesn't address the issue that is already in place as an example today, taking control of money out of the state or government authority and giving it to a market mechenism for distribution assures we will not end up in the totalitarian situation we are already heading but not head on the way we would if tinpot bureaucrats and special interests actually controlled who got the money. Do not feed the beast, starve the beast...

tomi01uk

01-02-2012, 10:01 PM

In fact, the more I think about it, it would be the difference between state controlled media ... as you have in China, and the faulty version in the states, a conglomorate of corporate controlled media. At least in the situation of corporate control there is not a collusive base of control and competition assures some individuality amonst media providers.

But if you let the state control who gets the media and what and how.... that is what you have in China, along with the money supply given to a framework of those decided upon by those in power and control.

Poopie McGillicutty

01-02-2012, 10:13 PM

China does have a central bank, tom. As for a totalitarian system, what's the difference if our government rules with an iron fist or the bankers rule the people through the government with an iron first. We have more control over government (it's not much, I'll admit) than a private institution. Central banking is at fault for what's been going on economically in this world.

Do you think the bankers are kinder and more moral than politicians? Because, that's the only way putting the power to print money in their hands would end up bringing the people more stability and safety.

tomi01uk

01-02-2012, 10:28 PM

China has a central bank probably as you say, but China distributes its own money supply to control it and it is fraught with authority and though that authority China creates its culture and capitalist system, all designed and under authority through the money supply by the power elite that the people do not vote in.

The Fed creates a separation between the state control of money and its distribution. It assures that there is market driven forces not a government authority steering the distribution.

I'm not sticking up for the Fed, but I would be amiss not to point this out as a necessity. The problem in my analysis at this time, your arguments might change my perspective, but the problems come not from the Fed, but from a corruption of power as a whole in the government system being taken over almost completely by special interests and campaign funding requirements. If we could create a way of electing officials and holding them to their mandates that wasn't the dog and pony show we have now, but something of substance, the values in the USA would change right away.

murmur

01-02-2012, 10:28 PM

But the FDIC is insured through the Fed I think..

This is incorrect...although the Fed has it's tenacles everywhere.
Banks pay for FDIC insurance

Also, how was money distributed..before 1913? I don't know, but I think that government distribution of money ended with Lincoln.

I believe you have some of your facts confused.

The US Treasury via Congress has the power to coin.

The Federal Reserve is actually unconstitutional. It is a private bank. Look up who owns it sometime.

The US colonies did create their own money...but there was no central bank involved at that time.

murmur

01-02-2012, 10:42 PM

The Fed creates a separation between the state control of money and its distribution. It assures that there is market driven forces not a government authority steering the distribution.

Quoting Jefferson again.....

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.

tomi01uk

01-02-2012, 10:55 PM

There is an insurer under the banks insurance though and that comes out of the Fed or treasury. The government insures the banks although they may pay for this FDIC insurance, it has to have a resource to protect the investments of depositors and that has to come from somewhere.

Yes the Federal Reserve is made up of a group of banks, central banks. Those who work at this level get all the insight there is into how money is flowing and who and what for, they use this information to make investment strategies that also benefit themselves and their beneficiary banks. I've watched enough CSPAN to know that.

But it is still a far cry better system than not having profiteers running the Fed and instead having puppet masters from a centralised power and authority as you have in China and as you would have if you got rid of the Fed.

Really, alternative solutions I would love to hear, I'm just stating the devils adovate stuff here because I've been doing the same thinking about all this too.

murmur

01-02-2012, 11:40 PM

nibs

01-02-2012, 11:42 PM

I find this thread utterly depressing.

murmur

01-02-2012, 11:54 PM

I find this thread utterly depressing.

Would you prefer uplifting lies......

Like Juan Castillo (Eagles Defensive coordinator) is getting better?

nibs

01-03-2012, 12:58 AM

Would you prefer uplifting lies......

Like Juan Castillo (Eagles Defensive coordinator) is getting better?

na na na na, had enough of that. This thread is the cancer that savages our world. There must me a treatment and yet I think we all know there is not. It will run it's course until it dominates the (body) world and is a one world currency... I appreciate your passion about it Andy but personally one Doctor isn't going to find a miracle cure for this currency cancer problem. But I'll keep reading . Remember the lil fella in Texas who flew his little tiny plane into an irs bldg? I applaud his effort to shine a light on the corruption but the truth is- they had every single thing he tried to reveal shut down in a matter of hours.......... recall?

murmur

01-03-2012, 01:02 AM

All is not lost yet

nibs

01-03-2012, 01:05 AM

All is not lost yet

Haa yea I know, next season should be better.. lol

murmur

01-03-2012, 01:08 AM

Lurie press conference 230pm tomorrow.

Andy Reid....outta here?

nibs

01-03-2012, 01:15 AM

no way. castillo out of here...

Reid's a Lurielapper and embedded for at least another year. I'd be shocked if Lurie went that way. Then again his wife looked a lil unhappy all year and that could lead to an interesting revelation for Jeffry ol boy. But who's he gonna get... Ok for a different thread anyway..

As you all were- back to the worthless imaginary dollar all these football players get paid..

murmur

01-03-2012, 01:22 AM

I think Reid is going to be fired........

Article about Ron Paul....but it ties in to what we are talking about here

http://www.thedailybell.com/3424/Post-Slams-Ron-Paul-With-Fading-Elite-Promotions

Excerpt

These fear-based promotions are seemingly the product of an Anglosphere (javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=956');) power elite (javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=610');) that seeks to run the world – formally as opposed to informally. The power of this intergenerational familial elite comes from the central banks (javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=2958');) they apparently control and the ability to print trillions of dollars of money-from-nothing.

murmur

01-04-2012, 08:47 PM

Silliness at the Fed: 'Love Us, Love Our Transparency'Wednesday, January 04, 2012 – by Staff Report

Fed (javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=1855');)to Make Benchmark Rate Forecasts ... Federal Reserve officials will for the first time make public their own forecasts for the federal funds rate at their Jan. 24-25 meeting, according to minutes from last month's Federal Open Market Committee released today. FOMC "participants decided to incorporate information about their projections of appropriate monetary policy" into their Summary of Economic Projections starting with their next meeting, the minutes said. The move marks another stride toward greater transparency under the chairmanship of Ben S. Bernanke (javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=2008');). – Bloomberg

Dominant Social Theme: If you understand us better, you'll start to like us!

Free-Market Analysis: The Federal Reserve is at it again. This increasingly despised institution's leaders seem to believe that by making the Fed's unconstitutional behavior more "transparent" – clearer – they will somehow make it more palatable as well.

This article by Bloomberg is a "doozie" with an important dominant social theme (javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=652');) on display. The idea is fear-based, of course. The underlying, unspoken statement is that the world NEEDS central bankers and that, in this case, people are upset with the Fed simply because they don't understand the deliberations of its wise men.

The entire impetus is immensely patronizing. People fear what they don't understand, the Fed's honchos seem to be reasoning. Thus, let us give the hoi polloi a bit more information and they will start to understand the worthiness of our deliberations and the reasons for our dispensations. Here's some more from the article:

By releasing their forecasts, central bankers are likely to alter expectations for the timing of the first increase in their benchmark rate, which has been kept near zero since December 2008. Last month, Fed officials repeated their view that economic conditions would warrant "exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate at least through mid-2013."
"A number of members indicated that current and prospective economic conditions could well warrant additional policy accommodation," the minutes said. Those members also decided that "any additional actions would be more effective if accompanied by enhanced communication" about the FOMC's longer- run economic goals and policy framework.
Fed officials will show investors their forecast for the federal funds rate in the fourth quarter of 2012 and the next few calendar years, and over the longer run, the minutes said. The summary of forecasts "also will report participants' current projections of the likely timing of the first increase in the target rate given their projections of future economic conditions."

These excerpts really bring the fantasy-land of modern finance into focus. One of the things that makes Austrian economics (javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=1918');) (the economics that the Daily Bell subscribes to) so subversive, from the establishment's point of view, is its emphasis on human action. Its foremost scholar, Ludwig von Mises (javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=637');), even wrote a book called Human Action (javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=2405');).

The idea behind human action is that no matter what actions government takes and no matter what laws are passed, the results will always be different than what is expected. That's because people will REACT to the actions of a higher authority with their OWN actions.

You push, and people pull. You pull, and people push. This is also why regulations don't work. People are always going to react by attempting to do what is in their own self-interest (javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=2590');). The more the economy is distorted by command-and-control dictates, the more people will try to observe their own priorities, legally or not. This is how first gray and then black markets are created.

Another issue to consider is one of plain, old financial literacy. In fact, every law and regulation is a price fix, distorting the marketplace and transferring wealth from those who create wealth to those who didn't create it and often don't know how to use it productively.

Price fixing is inherently unworkable and distortive. But central banks (javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=2958');) are price fixing machines! The good, gray men meeting to determine monetary policy are deciding on the price and volume of money. They are FIXING these values. Why?

Well ... because control over the source and fount of money provides those men with enormous influence and power. And the Anglosphere (javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=956');) power elite (javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=610');) that apparently has built up a network of central banks around the world derives literally trillions of dollars in power and influence from their participation.
Central banks are the funding stream of one-world government (javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=2045');). Without central banking and the ability to print money-from-nothing, the one-world conspiracy itself would begin to founder. Leviathan itself would begin to starve.

The impossibly expensive prison-industrial complex would begin to wither; far-flung military forces would gradually return home; the entire bought-and-paid-for media complex would begin to fracture. Truth would begin to leak out ...

The Anglosphere power elite simply cannot afford to let the central banking meme (javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=654');) die. At the same time, the meme IS dying. We have charted the progress of its death via these pages for some two years now.

It is the nature of the 'Net and the Internet Reformation (javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=2195');): What central banks do these days they often do in the full glare of the public spotlight. What might have turned up in a polite and elaborate article on the front page of the New York Times is instead dissected in a thousand blogs with a good deal of temerity and boldness.

Because of this, the impossible figures that modern Western banks issue out to favored businesses have become well known. They cannot be justified. The issuance of tens of trillions to failing banks and corporations is simply not palatable to the millions, and even billions, losing their homes and jobs and families.

There is no answer to this essential immorality. There is no response to the idea that a handful of people control the wealth of the world. What answer there is, we see, has to do with making central banks – and the Fed in particular – more "open" and "transparent."

This is, to put it bluntly, idiocy. One does not cure a problem by making its inner workings more evident. The difficulty with central banking is that it is an economically illiterate activity. How does providing a schematic of this illiteracy in any way ameliorate its presence?

This Bloomberg article makes abundantly clear what is going on. Fed honchos meet with each other and use unreliable, government-collected data to try to determine how much money to issue out at what price.

Of course, this is actually a simplification of what occurs. There are indeed other players and actors. But it all comes down to the same thing. PEOPLE are deciding how much money to print. And people CANNOT KNOW.

The result is ruin and devastation. And those running these systems understand full well what their results are. The constant centralizing and debasement of currency that comes from central banking suits them, however. They apparently aim to use it to implement one-world government.
The more miserable people get, the more dysfunctional the larger economy is, the more people will welcome, in desperation, yet more centralizing, including a nascent, central money.

This is the method behind the insanity. Central banks are likely a deliberately destabilizing mechanism. And yet ... providing clarity to lunacy is not an apt anodyne. What makes the honchos at the Fed believe that by illustrating their incompetence with more clarity they will win over their critics?
Do the elites that were so successful in the 20th century have a clue of how to deal with their relentless exposure in the 21st? Do they? The response seems to be a sudden expansion of authoritarianism (javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=2606');) and war. Not a very satisfactory answer in our view.

More and more it seems to us that "they" are playing a desperate game, trying to keep the proverbial balls in the air as they attempt to progress with alacrity toward their New World Order. But we wonder if they will be able to accomplish this great, if malevolent, task.

Conclusion: Perhaps they will end up taking a step back, as they have before.

http://www.thedailybell.com/3430/Silliness-at-the-Fed-Love-Us-Love-Our-Transparency

murmur

01-06-2012, 04:00 AM

ok....this might be a difficult read in the beginning....but stick with it and keep reading.

I think the danger of central banking will become a little clearer.

This Conspiracy is right out in the open folks

link
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/top-three-central-banks-account-25-developed-world-gdp

================================================== ===================

Top Three Central Banks Account For Up To 25% Of Developed World GDP

For anyone who still hasn't grasped the magnitude of the central planning intervention over the past four years, the following two charts should explain it all rather effectively.

As the bottom chart shows, currently the central banks of the top three developed world entities: the Eurozone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurozone), the US and Japan have balance sheets that amount to roughly $8 trillion.

This is more than double the combined total notional in 2007. More importantly, these banks assets (and by implication liabilities, as virtually none of them have any notable capital or equity) combined represent a whopping 25% of their host GDP, which just so happen are virtually all the countries that form the Developed world (with the exception of the UK). Which allows us to conclude several things.

First, the rapid expansion in balance sheets was conducted primarily to monetize various assets, in the process lifting stock markets, but just as importantly, to find a natural buyer of sovereign paper (in the case of the Fed) and/or guarantee and backstop the existence of banks which could then in turn purchase sovereign debt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_debt) on their own balance sheet (monetization once removed coupled with outright sterilized asset purchases as is the case of the ECB). And in this day and age of failed economic experiments when a dollar of debt buys just less than a dollar of GDP (there is a reason why the 100% debt/GDP barrier is so informative), it also means that central banks now implicitly account for up to 25% of developed world GDP!

What does this mean? It means that nearly $8 trillion in world economic growth is artificial and exists only courtesy of central bank intervention - if one is looking for the reason why there is no mean reversion to a more stable period of time, there's your answer.

It also means that central banks will never unwind their "assets", either actively, or passively, by letting them mature, as doing so would effectively mean an accelerated return to a non pro forma status quo, one in which global GDP suddenly finds itself $8 trillion less. It also means that in this age of ongoing consumer and corporate deleveraging, central banks will have no choice but to continue monetizing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetization) not to generate incremental growth, but to offset debt destruction elsewhere. And of course, in order to sustain global GDP growth of ~3%, they will have to print even more, in other words, accrue more liabilities (excess reserves) which of course would be funded by monetizing even more paper issuance (which Congress would be delighted to oblige with).

Which is why we find the announcement by the Fed that it will notify in advance what the Fed Funds rate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_funds_rate) will be, to be beyond humorous: after all in an environment of active monetization, the only possible interest rate is zero (although the ECB tried a brief experiment otherwise, when it held higher rates than 1% to combat inflation even as it tried, unsuccessfully, to create a debt monetizing off balance sheet vehicle- the EFSF (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Financial_Stability_Facility) and the ESM).

Unfortunately, the worst news is that for everyone who feels that the global economy is fake - you are right: up to 25% of all economic growth is what in a different day and age would have been called "one-time and non-recurring" - unfortunately, since now this is the trump card on which the entire western model depends, "one-time and non-recurring" is better known as "constant and endless."

Our advice to anyone in the trading and investing business who has just had enough of central planning, and its ridiculous impact on capital markets which involves but is not limited to reacting to various disjointed headlines constantly, instead of trading based on a proactive, fundamentally-driven strategy is: find a new job. The new normal may be the "new paranormal (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/bill-gross-exposes-new-paranormal-which-financial-markets-and-global-economies-are-great-risk)", but more than anything it is the new centranormal.

Because from now until the inevitable collapse of the financial system in its current form, nothing will change.

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2011/12/CB%20of%20GDP.png (http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2011/12/CB%20of%20GDP.png)
chart courtesy of John Lohman

murmur

01-06-2012, 04:14 AM

Remember the war drums?

They are going to beat louder.

Here is a possible reason why..............but first you need to try to understand what Quantitative Easing is

Quantitative easing (QE) is an unconventional[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing#cite_note-0)[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing#cite_note-1) monetary policy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_policy#Unconventional_monetary_policy_at_ the_zero_bound) used by central banks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_banks) to stimulate the national economy when conventional monetary policy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_policy) has become ineffective. A central bank (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank) buys financial assets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_asset) to inject a pre-determined quantity of money into the economy. This is distinguished from the more usual policy of buying or selling government bonds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_bond) to keep market interest rates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interest_rate) at a specified target value.

A central bank (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank) implements quantitative easing by purchasing financial assets from banks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banks) and other private sector businesses with new electronically created money (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_creation).[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing#cite_note-BOE_QE_Explained_.28pdf.29-2)[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing#cite_note-3)[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing#cite_note-bbcnews-4)[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing#cite_note-BOE_QE_Explained_.28web.29-5) This action increases the excess reserves (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_reserves) of the banks, and also raises the prices of the financial assets bought, which lowers their yield (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yield_%28finance%29).[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing#cite_note-guardiannews-6)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing

===============================================

Fed and/or ECB intervention is coming: whether it is called LSAP, QE x, Nominal GDP targetting, selling Treasury puts, or what have you. A regime that now exists only by central planning intervention, by definition requires ever more central planning intervention to sustain itself, let alone grow further.

Furthermore, the banks not only want QE, they need QE. And since central banks serve other banks, not the people it is only a matter of time. Don't believe us? Read anything written by Bill Gross in the past year. So what to do ahead of QE3? Luckily, SocGen has released a complete cheat sheet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheat_sheet) of not only the dates of the next steps, but what to buy and what to sell ahead of the announcement. In short - one should buy Mortgage Backed Securities, in order to "simply buy MBS before the Fed" - something Bill Gross knows too well and has been hoarding MBS relentlessly as a result, as reported here (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/gross-has-record-60-billion-short-cash-bet-fed-proceed-mbs-monetization). More importantly - one should buy gold (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_as_an_investment). Lots of it as "USD debasement restarts." You didn't think the Fed will allow US corporate earnings - the only thing keeping the market alive - to be crushed with a EURUSD that will soon go under 1.20, now did you? And as for crude going to $250 - yes, it may cause huge headaches for regular folks but for banks it means record bonuses, and as a reminder, the Fed works for the banks, not the people, pardon neo-feudal debt slaves...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/complete-cheatsheet-what-buy-ahead-qe3

================================================== ========================

More war.....higher oil prices.....back door bank bail out?

WIN WIN WIN for elite 1%

murmur

01-07-2012, 02:52 AM

Take a look at this......when you examine what's actually going on...you come to find out the these programs to fix housing are for the benefit of lenders....not the actual homeowners.

Why?

Because all TBTF banks are insolvent based on their exposure to assets (homes) that people owe more on than they are worth.

So the govt is propping up the housing market....for years now.

They should have let the prices fall....painful yes but when the prices fall far enough...it marks a recovery because people start buying again.

But that is not what this is about....it's about protecting banks.

================================================== =

Thanks, but No Thanks

Washington’s disjointed efforts to “fix” the housing market do more harm than good.

by Stacy Kaper (http://www.nationaljournal.com/reporters/bio/124)
Updated:
January 5, 2012 | 3:00 p.m.

Imagine this scenario: The Justice Department is pushing states to resolve their potential lawsuits against the five biggest mortgage lenders, whose automated systems robo-signed foreclosure documents. A settlement would at least avert a legal battle that could take years, cost a fortune, and thwart a recovery of the housing market. Yet at the same time, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Housing_Finance_Agency), the top housing regulator, is suing 17 lenders for similar misdeeds.

================================================== ===================
http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/making-the-housing-crisis-worse--20120105?print=true

tomi01uk

01-07-2012, 03:08 AM

Fed officials push more help for housing

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/06/us-usa-fed-idUSTRE8051BX20120106

murmur

01-07-2012, 03:30 AM

Here is how it will play out........

The Fed Reserve....and federal govt will shift the losses from the banks due to over value mortgage assets to the already 170 billion dollar in the negative Fannie and Freddie.

This will make the bank much more whole than they are now.

Fannie and Freddie are already black holes.......the public does not seem to care about paying off 170 billion for the GSE's.....will they care about 500 billion?

noot

01-07-2012, 02:29 PM

*Re: Mur's Wall of Whine
Your attention please.

This broadcast is coming to you from the Murnut's cave in a secret location in central Pennsylvania.

Quote: This is the Murnut. I have retreated to the cave with my boys- the one that I secretly prepared in the event of the final meltdown at the hands of the Evil Barack, Nubian Prince of Darkness. Now that it has occurred I can only say that I warned you as you scramble around for rotten food and rags at the local landfill. I warned you and St Paul (PBUH) warned you that the satanic Federal Bank would reduce you to penury.. and worse. I will continue to broadcast until my batteries run out and then I will emerge in sack cloth and ashes to visit with the downtrodden personally, armed with yootoobs and walls o' type from the Master. Until that time I wish you godspeed and implore you to please try to avoid canabolism no matter how hungry are your children.

End transmission

_________________
"If you don't think to good, don't think too much." Yogi

Doc

01-07-2012, 07:40 PM

"Help Homeowners" roughly translates to "Help Banks".

murmur

01-07-2012, 08:34 PM

"Help Homeowners" roughly translates to "Help Banks".

If you examine what has been done, that is exactly what the evidence shows.

There should be consequences for banks......just like every day blokes have consequences.

But banks are getting propped up.....and every day blokes have been kicked to the curb.

The game is called "extend and pretend"

Kick the can down the road...keep the central bank ponzi going.

Not really all that hard when you can print as much money as you want.

murmur

01-07-2012, 08:47 PM

There are stories like the below almost everyday.

The media really doesn't care...maybe they are paid not to care?

excerpt

================================================== ===========================
SEC Fine vs. Citigroup Gain

Please consider SEC Tired of Fighting Big Banks-Calls Federal Judge Rakoff Refusal to Approve Citigroup Settlement-Shortsighted (http://whistlewatch.org/2011/11/sec-tired-of-fighting-big-banks-calls-federal-judge-rakoff-refusal-to-approve-citigroup-settlement-shortsighted/).

Estimates are that Citigroup made a $3.8 billion profit from the bogus investment portfolio. The investors lost over $700 million. The $285 million offer to settle is a joke. The Judge made clear he would not allow corporations to continue to buy their way out of fraud from “a cost of doing business” fund. The Judge demands the truth to be revealed and the public protected.

Public service is a public trust. Federal employees have a duty to protect the public interest. Apparently, the SEC forgot their duties and the fact that the Court is the final arbiter. The legal team at the SEC that crafted the Citigroup deal need to remember they are federal service not bank employees. It’s refreshing to see Judge Rakoff remind government workers who employs them. show.php?db=special&id=138

Rakoff’s words to the SEC and big banks has been globally hailed as public policy genius. Thank you Judge Rakoff.

The trial is scheduled for July 16, 2012.
While essentially ignoring billions of dollars in repeated fraud allegations against Citigroup, the SEC brought full weight down on Martha Stewart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Stewart) over (drum roll please) ... $45,673.

Martha Stewart (http://www.nndb.com/people/495/000023426/) went to prison and was fined $30,000. Since then, no one has gone to prison or even been criminally indicted in $trillions of dollars of fraud in the global financial crisis. And unless someone does admit criminal action, the SEC reserves the right to do more whitewashing without seeking admission of guilt.

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

================================================== ===========================

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/01/fed-to-announce-monetary-penalties-for.html

murmur

01-07-2012, 09:01 PM

So who do you think is setting the tone at the SEC?

SEC Biography:
Chairman Mary L. Schapiro

http://www.sec.gov/images/schapiro140.jpg (http://www.sec.gov/images/schapiro-hires.jpg)

Mary L. Schapiro is the 29th Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Chairman Schapiro was appointed by President Barack Obama (http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Barack_Obama) on January 20, 2009, unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate, and sworn in on January 27, 2009.

So...I mean if Obama really wanted to set the tone at the SEC...he could.

But Obama has gotten more money from Wall st banks than all other candidates combined....this election cycle and the last......not including Hillary.

Obama's almost first act was to appoint the NY FED chief Geithner.....a real man of the people....a man who cheated on his taxes....a man who was instrumental in Wall st bailout....AIG, Lehman, Bear Stearns, Merrill to BoA....etc.

So it's pretty clear to see past the words and straight to the deeds.

1% control everything....money, politicians, media.

And they are going to do everything they can to keep control for as long as they can.

That's why at some point......a third party is going to have to arise....a true peoples party.

Not democrats or republicans.....just the best ideas from both and some new ones.

Ron Paul is a good start to get that conversation going.

murmur

01-08-2012, 02:01 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opjkm2om80w

tomi01uk

01-08-2012, 03:03 AM

Watching this debate now in New Hampshire. What a load of bs Rick S. is... Geeze, I never thought I could dislike anyone almost as much as Newt, but he comes close.

oh.. btw... Ron's doing ok :)

murmur

01-08-2012, 03:06 AM

I am watching as well....what a joke these questions are....and the answer are just as silly.

There are no real issues being discussed.

Ron Paul is kicking ass

tomi01uk

01-08-2012, 03:46 AM

Yes, if this is educating and applying logic, reason and discourse to serious issues that will be part of the "mandate" they take... well... another typical dog and pony show.

noot

01-08-2012, 05:34 AM

Disgraceful pile of horse pooky. Ron did well. The rest of these morons should be mowing lawns.

tomi01uk

01-08-2012, 12:29 PM

Watching Romney speaking in New Hampshire just now on the Parliment channel here in the UK where they show programs recorded by C-Span. I'm listening to Romney saying Obama wants a "European style" economy, where money is taken from citizens who "have" and given to others who "don't have"..

There is so much wrong just in this statement alone! And this is the second time I've heard him say that, he said the same phrase during the debate. The problem is there is no venue or means of challenging such stupid statements like this. It just gets pounded into the heads of people listening without any question of its validity.

What about the amount of money taken from the people and given to the banks and the corporations, counties including Israel (a country with a more socialistic dist system than any in Europe..).

Now he is saying corporations are collections of people?? If you psychologically profiled corporations as people they would be classified as sociopaths if not psychopaths.

It's just insane... that is the problem with the states. You have politicians saying rhetoric on tv all the time totally unchallenged by reality and the people digest this crap, live and breathe it. They believe it, because it is never called out as the ridiculous baloney it is!

Always now ... they are calling things "European this and European that..." It's nuts! This is why you have Americans (where even the middle-class are too poor & insular to travel abroad the way Europeans do regularly) believing that working 3 jobs and losing your home to hospital costs is preferable to having a medical plan that includes everyone..

Too much! This is the whole problem over there. Loads of BS... not opinions.. but absolute puerile crap is spoken by those in authority or contending for leadership positions and it is even beyond the measure and means that Cameron or slick Blair could hope to get away with saying.. What can be done? But this is what is so scary about the states.

edit to add: Now there is this Chinese woman challenging Romney about his words about China and Reagans "trickle down".. And he is arguing back that the USA has greater income than anywhere in Europe, but that is not true, it is a disproportionate distribution of income in the US, where many people can not keep up with the costs bearing down on them for the necessities of life. And the dollar is lower than the pound and the euro..
They play the people over there for being stupid and in doing so make it so. IMO
Just the same as here with Cameron (a toff who's party is in bed with the US republicans) I should add.

tomi01uk

01-08-2012, 01:19 PM

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=toff

murmur

01-09-2012, 03:15 AM

LOL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXTe3K7BllM

Pam

01-09-2012, 03:19 AM

:lol:
http://laughtoutloud.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/animated-laughing.gif

murmur

01-09-2012, 03:47 AM

No one reads this thread.....

if we are really quiet....i bet we can gossip about the untimely passing of "the old room" right here....

But be very quiet....and use code 47 Bravo

Pam

01-09-2012, 03:51 AM

Roger that and 86 Tango ;)

nibs

01-09-2012, 04:27 AM

Alpha one! Alpha one! On two- center ---Omaha Omaha ....set....

TEBOW TEBOW!! 321 Ron Paul, Ron Paul..

OMEGA!!

Oh .... My.... Fiddlesticks!!!! WT.......

LOOKS like that party is over. hmm.

murmur

01-09-2012, 04:58 AM

Nice code work

The below is not in code!

I can't help but like Tebow....many have to him he doesn't have what it takes...but he just goes out and wins.

murmur

01-09-2012, 11:45 PM

off topic
==========================================

Hmmmmm.....apparently I wasn't clear enough,

No you weren't and I wasn't demanding anything....or even implying that you or anyone owes me or anyone else any answers.

But some posts by former admins and mods were vague at best.....and then when folks speculated...they were talked down to...at least that is the way it appeared.

Now I'm sure that was not the intention....but DF laid it out just now better than anyone else.

Realistically speaking....folks are entitled to the best explanation for things you guys know about as possible.

Now I realize that many or most of you don't want to talk about it...and you might have excellent reasons for feeling that way.

But respect these folks in your replies.

They feel like victims and don't deserved to be talked down to.

Locking threads and stifling discussion about a place that many loved at one time a day after it was shuttered is shameful

==========================================

SolFlickan

01-09-2012, 11:58 PM

Locking threads and stifling discussion about a place that many loved at one time a day after it was shuttered is shameful

It is also ludicrous that it happens at a forum where people seek the truth and want "disclosure", hahaha.

nibs

01-10-2012, 12:00 AM

Man I was just trying to post to it when it got locked. All I had to add is this. It could have something to do with zombies! yea zombies. Definitely zombies! Lots of thing happening out there that I suspect has to do with zombies! Don't rule out Zombies!! Steve Quayle was recently talking about Zombies on C2C. Got me to thinking! Could be Zombies.. lol

Carry on...................... Forward as they say! Forget the past - it's the future you can now have an effect on.. And watch out for the zombies.

murmur

01-10-2012, 12:15 AM

http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2011/08/26/moon-rezurrection_s620x412.jpg?aecb43af2f344abeaabfd617 f0e08911761c3414

Zombies on the Moon....Lear is correct again!

LOL

SolFlickan

01-10-2012, 12:25 AM

Zombies on the Moon and skeletons in the closet that needs to be locked in. It's like Halloween in here, hahaha.

murmur

01-10-2012, 12:44 AM

Anyone catch this by the way..................this is excerpt....read the whole thing

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/business/global/swiss-central-bank-chief-tenders-surprise-resignation.html?_r=1

Swiss Central Bank Chief Resigns After Uproar
FRANKFURT — The head of the Swiss central bank unexpectedly resigned Monday, saying that doubts about currency trades he and his wife made last year threatened to undermine his ability to focus on steering the bank through a global financial crisis.

The departure of the bank chief, Philipp M. Hildebrand, 48, cut short the public career of a major international advocate of stricter banking regulation. He quit as the Swiss National Bank fought to keep the country’s currency from becoming so strong that Swiss companies could not sell products abroad.
=====================
The resignation was a surprise. Just last week, Mr. Hildebrand offered a detailed defense of his conduct, releasing personal financial statements related to currency trades made last year. He appeared to have the support of the council that oversees the Swiss National Bank.

++++++++++++++++++++

Something going on behind closed doors here

nibs

01-10-2012, 01:27 AM

Nice pic Mur lol.. Uhhhmmm not sure if you follow Gerald Celente http://www.trendsresearch.com/gerald.php much but man he was tearing the bankers and ptb up on c2c http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2012/01/05 recently. If he's correct about this year- we might as well be zombies...

murmur

01-10-2012, 01:55 AM

Yeah....I know who he is....he makes some good points.....

Back to Zombies on the moon

Don't watch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBGgBsx-vy0

6EQUJ5

01-10-2012, 02:36 AM

murmur

01-10-2012, 05:12 AM

Compared to what happened to DSK, it was a rather gentle ousting. No surprise that the anyone involved with the IMF is under copious scrutiny.

Maybe....but I really thought he had managed to survive.

Someone quick check out Bernanke's wife!

Good read below.....

excerpt.....

Guest Post: Why Bernanke Has Failed, And Will Continue To Fail (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-why-bernanke-has-failed-and-will-continue-fail)

Submitted by Tyler Durden (http://www.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden) on 01/09/2012 - 13:00 [/URL]

Ben [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Bernanke"]Bernanke (http://www.zerohedge.com/category/tags/ben-bernanke)'s zero-interest rate policy (ZIRP) and command-economy efforts to maintain mispricing of risk, debt and assets are destroying capital and capitalism. No wonder his policies have failed so miserably. Bernanke's policy is to punish capital accumulation and reward leveraged debt expansion.

Rather than enforce the market's discipline and transparent pricing of risk, debt and assets, Bernanke has explicitly set out to re-inflate a destructive, massively unproductive credit bubble (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_bubble). This is why Bernanke has failed so completely, and why he will continue to fail. He is not engaged in capitalism, he is engaged in the destruction of capital, investment discipline and the open pricing of risk, debt and assets.

murmur

01-14-2012, 10:01 PM

This is a very good blog related to the mortgage fraud.

Lotsa common sense

See if you agree with the simple premise of the article......

Can We All at Least Agree on This?

(http://mandelman.ml-implode.com/2012/01/can-we-all-at-least-agree-on-this/)

The ANSWER to the problems we’re debating related to foreclosures CANNOT and WILL NOT be allowed to be forging signatures on fraudulent documents presented in courts and recorded in our public records. Can we all please agree that there is NO CHANCE THOSE ARE THE ANSWERS… and I don’t give a rat’s petute how you want to frame the questions… the solution cannot be forgery and fraud, right?

http://mandelman.ml-implode.com/2012/01/can-we-all-at-least-agree-on-this/

murmur

01-14-2012, 10:13 PM

From the same blog....different article.

Funny to look back now.

I remember posting some of this stuff at the old room

excerpt

March 28th, 2007 – Ben Bernanke: “At this juncture . . . the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime markets seems likely to be contained.”

April 20th, 2007 – Paulson: “I don’t see subprime mortgage market troubles imposing a serious problem. I think it’s going to be largely contained. All the signs I look at show the housing market is at or near the bottom.”

June 20th, 2007 – Bernanke: (the subprime fallout) “will not affect the economy overall.”

July 12th, 2007 – Paulson: “This is far and away the strongest global economy I’ve seen in my business lifetime.”

October 15th, 2007 – Bernanke: “It is not the responsibility of the Federal Reserve – nor would it be appropriate – to protect lenders and investors from the consequences of their financial decisions.” (That was the last time we heard from Bernanke on this subject until February of 2008.)

February 29th, 2008 – Bernanke: “I expect there will be some failures. I don’t anticipate any serious problems of that sort among the large internationally active banks that make up a very substantial part of our banking system.”

February 28th, 2008 – Paulson: “I’m seeing a series of ideas suggested involving major government intervention in the housing market, and these things are usually presented or sold as a way of helping homeowners stay in their homes. Then when you look at them more carefully what they really amount to is a bailout for financial institutions or Wall Street.”

March 16th, 2008 – Paulson: “We’ve got strong financial institutions . . . Our markets are the envy of the world. They’re resilient, they’re…innovative, they’re flexible. I think we move very quickly to address situations in this country, and, as I said, our financial institutions are strong.”

March 18th, 2008 – Bear Stearns Bailout Announced

May 7, 2008 – Paulson: ‘The worst is likely to be behind us,”

May 16th, 2008 – Paulson: “In my judgment, we are closer to the end of the market turmoil than the beginning.”

June 9th, 2008 – Bernanke: Despite a recent spike in the nation’s unemployment rate, the danger that the economy has fallen into a “substantial downturn” appears to have waned,

July 16th, 2008 – Bernanke: (Freddie and Fannie) “…will make it through the storm,” “… in no danger of failing. … they are adequately capitalized.”

July 20th, 2008 – Paulson: “It’s a safe banking system, a sound banking system. Our regulators are on top of it. This is a very manageable situation.”

August 10th, 2008 – Paulson: “We have no plans to insert money into either of those two institutions.” (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac)

[/COLOR]September 8th, 2008 – Fannie and Freddie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_takeover_of_Fannie_Mae_and_Freddie_Mac) nationalized. The taxpayer is on the hook for an estimated $1-1.5 trillion dollars. Over $5 trillion is added to the nation’s balance sheet.[COLOR=#d3d3d3]

September 19th, 2008 – Bernanke: “… most severe financial crisis” in the post-World War II era. Investment banks are seeing “tremendous runs on their cash. Without action, they will fail soon.”

September 21st, 2008 – Paulson: “The credit markets are still very fragile right now and frozen. We need to deal with this and deal with it quickly. The financial security of all Americans … depends on our ability to restore our financial institutions to a sound footing.”

September 23rd, 2008 – Paulson: “We must [enact a program quickly] in order to avoid a continuing series of financial institution failures and frozen credit markets that threaten American families’ financial well-being, the viability of businesses, both small and large, and the very health of our economy.”

http://mandelman.ml-implode.com/2012/01/are-they-lying-or-are-they-stupid/

Doc

01-15-2012, 12:33 AM

The material in the middle is barely visible because the color is so light. You might want to change the color. It looks interesting.

CasperParks

01-15-2012, 02:01 AM

Smoke and mirrors. Create or allow problems simplyt to move society toward a One World Currency and Goverment.

murmur

01-15-2012, 02:32 PM

The material in the middle is barely visible because the color is so light. You might want to change the color. It looks interesting.

Sorry....it seems I can't edit

Garuda

01-15-2012, 02:39 PM

Sorry....it seems I can't edit

OK, I just removed the color references in the text.

murmur

01-17-2012, 02:15 PM

It's important to post the whole thing I think....but I did snip it as much as possible

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-the-united-states-still-the-land-of-the-free/2012/01/04/gIQAvcD1wP_print.html

=============================================

10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the freeBy Jonathan Turley, Published: January 13snip
Assassination of U.S. citizens
President Obama has claimed, as President George W. Bush did before him, the right to order (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/26/AR2010012604239_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010012700394) the killing of any citizen considered a terrorist or an abettor of terrorism. Last year, he approved the killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaqi (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/aulaqi-killing-reignites-debate-on-limits-of-executive-power/2011/09/30/gIQAx1bUAL_story.html) and another citizen under this claimed inherent authority. Last month, administration officials affirmed that power, stating that the president can order the assassination (http://news.yahoo.com/obama-lawyers-citizens-targeted-war-us-154313473.html) of any citizen whom he considers allied with terrorists. (Nations such as Nigeria, Iran and Syria have been routinely criticized for extrajudicial killings of enemies of the state.)

Indefinite detention
Under the law signed last month, terrorism suspects are to be held by the military; the president also has the authority to indefinitely detain citizens accused of terrorism. While the administration claims that this provision only codified existing law, experts widely contest this view, and the administration has opposed efforts to challenge such authority in federal courts. The government continues to claim the right to strip citizens of legal protections based on its sole discretion. (China recently codified a more limited detention law for its citizens, while countries such as Cambodia have been singled out by the United States for “prolonged detention.”)

Arbitrary justice
The president now decides whether a person will receive a trial in the federal courts or in a military tribunal, a system that has been ridiculed around the world for lacking basic due process protections. Bush claimed this authority in 2001, and Obama has continued the practice. (Egypt and China have been denounced for maintaining separate military justice systems for selected defendants, including civilians.)

Warrantless searches
The president may now order warrantless surveillance, including a new capability to force companies and organizations to turn over information on citizens’ finances, communications and associations. Bush acquired this sweeping power under the Patriot Act in 2001, and in 2011, Obama extended the power, (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/patriot-act-extension-signed-into-law-despite-bipartisan-resistance-in-congress/2011/05/27/AGbVlsCH_story.html) including searches of everything from business documents to library records. The government can use “national security letters” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/13/AR2008031302277.html) to demand, without probable cause, that organizations turn over information on citizens — and order them not to reveal the disclosure to the affected party. (Saudi Arabia and Pakistan operate under laws that allow the government to engage in widespread discretionary surveillance.)

Secret evidence
The government now routinely uses secret evidence to detain individuals and employs secret evidence in federal and military courts. It also forces the dismissal of cases against the United States by simply filing declarations that the cases would make the government reveal classified information that would harm national security — a claim made in a variety of privacy lawsuits and largely accepted by federal judges without question. Even legal opinions, cited as the basis for the government’s actions under the Bush and Obama administrations, have been classified. This allows the government to claim secret legal arguments to support secret proceedings using secret evidence. In addition, some cases never make it to court at all. The federal courts routinely deny constitutional challenges to policies and programs under a narrow definition of standing to bring a case.

War crimes
The world clamored for prosecutions of those responsible for waterboarding terrorism suspects during the Bush administration, but the Obama administration said in 2009 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/16/AR2009041602768.html?hpid=topnews) that it would not allow CIA employees to be investigated or prosecuted for such actions. This gutted not just treaty obligations but the Nuremberg principles of international law. When courts in countries such as Spain moved to investigate Bush officials for war crimes, the Obama administration reportedly urged foreign officials not to allow such cases to proceed, despite the fact that the United States has long claimed the same authority with regard to alleged war criminals in other countries. (Various nations have resisted investigations of officials accused of war crimes and torture. Some, such as Serbia and Chile, eventually relented to comply with international law; countries that have denied independent investigations include Iran, Syria and China.)

Secret court
The government has increased its use of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has expanded its secret warrants to include individuals deemed to be aiding or abetting hostile foreign governments or organizations. In 2011, Obama renewed these powers, including allowing secret searches of individuals who are not part of an identifiable terrorist group. The administration has asserted the right to ignore congressional limits on such surveillance. (Pakistan places national security surveillance under the unchecked powers of the military or intelligence services.)

Immunity from judicial review
Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has successfully pushed for immunity for companies that assist in warrantless surveillance of citizens, blocking the ability of citizens to challenge the violation of privacy. (Similarly, China has maintained sweeping immunity claims both inside and outside the country and routinely blocks lawsuits against private companies.)

Continual monitoring of citizens
The Obama administration has successfully defended its claim that it can use GPS devices (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/supreme-courts-gps-case-asks-how-much-privacy-do-we-expect/2011/11/10/gIQAN0RzCN_story.html)to monitor every move of targeted citizens without securing any court order or review. (Saudi Arabia has installed massive public surveillance systems, while Cuba is notorious for active monitoring of selected citizens.)

Extraordinary renditions
The government now has the ability to transfer both citizens and noncitizens to another country under a system known as extraordinary rendition, which has been denounced as using other countries, such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, to torture suspects. The Obama administration says it is not continuing the abuses of this practice under Bush, but it insists on the unfettered right to order such transfers — including the possible transfer of U.S. citizens.
snip
================================================== =======

ProblemChild

01-17-2012, 02:47 PM

OMG the Swiss Banks in trouble? Has anybody told Bill Ryan!

Why O Why didn't I buy that Nuclear Bunker when I could have got a 110% mortgage on it. I'll have to settle for my Grannie's Anderson Shelter and a Fisher Price hydroponics kit.

Joking aside it is getting very obvious and worrying.

murmur

01-21-2012, 06:27 PM

Yes, The War for the Internet Has Begun

http://www.thedailybell.com/3529/The-War-for-the-Internet-Has-Begun

excerpt.....

In fact, the vast Gulags built throughout the world in the 20th century would have been thought insane by many societies of the past. But then, these societies did not have the advantage of central banking and the ability to print money-from-nothing, which has fueled most current Western absurdities and genocidal wars of late.

As central banking subsides, as it will, the modern police state will deflate as well. It seems inevitable to us. The current system, in addition to being inhuman, is unsustainable. Without fanfare (perhaps for good reason) the US's FBI alone operates in something like 100 jurisdictions around the world now. These days, almost every country has elaborate agreements in place guaranteeing that it will turn over other countries' citizens for arrest.

What this has done, in point of fact, is put Western law enforcement agencies into bed with some of the most loathsome dictators and regimes in the world. If, say, China wants the return of a "criminal" (a dissident), the host country is almost duty-bound to comply.
This just happened in Canada a few months ago, where Canadian authorities shipped a freedom activist back to China because the treaties called for the cooperation.

These treaties are no accident in my view. They've been worked out painstakingly over the past 50 years or so at the insistence, most probably, of the Anglosphere-driven West. It is apparently the Anglosphere that wants this seamless web of treaties in force so that it can pursue a one-world government without the inconvenience of activists who might offer alternative points of view.
This is one reason, I would think, why Kim Dotcom was arrested by 70 agents in New Zealand the other day over a copyright infringement and how Western law enforcement had the wherewithal to confiscate and otherwise destroy a world-spanning company in a single 24-hour period.

It's not right, of course. As we pointed out yesterday, the US Justice Department virtually destroyed a company based on a judicial theory that may prove untenable in court. The idea that a vendor – Megaupload (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload) – is responsible for its users is inherently questionable. Are car companies responsible for their drivers? Are lawnmower builders responsible for the state of their clients front yards?

Nonetheless, Kim Dotcom sits in prison (unless he has already been bailed out) and Western media has been gleefully listing the expensive cars that were confiscated from him and how he was removed – by force – from his "panic room" in his large, rented mansion.

This was the question we asked yesterday:

Where is it written that Hollywood has the right to utilize the full force of the US Justice Dept. to destroy someone's corporation and personal life in ADVANCE of any sort of trial, or even a HEARING.

murmur

01-21-2012, 06:29 PM

Seems that you are now guilty....and must prove yourself innocent

Very dangerous step

murmur

01-22-2012, 01:03 AM

Megaupload Takedown: The Real Meaning (http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/megaupload-takedown-real-meaning)
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/megaupload-takedown-real-meaning
excerpts.....

As the Atlantic’s Dashiell Bennett correctly notes (http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/01/anonymous-megaupload-revenge-shows-copyright-compromise-isnt-possible/47640/#.Txlo9rhinHU.reddit):

The shutdown inadvertently proved that the U.S. government already has all the power it needs to take down its copyright villains, even those that aren’t based in the United States. No SOPA or PIPA required.

Every day, criminals use storage lockers to stash drugs, stolen jewelry, etc. When the Feds raid, they seize the ill-gotten loot, and throw the criminals in jail … as they should.

They don’t shut down the entire storage company, or the train station where the locker is located. We can all agree that that would be absurd.

But the Feds say that Megaupload was basically a criminal enterprise, focused on illegal conduct. In other words, their response to the storage company analogy will be that the storage company gave money to people who stored dope or stolen property there, and that the whole thing was a criminal enterprise.

Even if the criminal company analogy is accurate, the honest customers of a storage company would normally get their property back. They wouldn’t say “60 percent of the customers are crooks, Mrs. Jones, so we threw away your priceless family heirlooms, too.”

Indeed, if it were easy for the Feds to arrest the criminal owners of the company and to give people notice that they could pick up their property, they would probably do so, and give a specific timeframe to pick it up.

The Feds would not shut down the storage company and throw out all of the property stored there by honest people.

============================

What if it was Youtube that was taken down?

Really what is the difference?

Are you going to tell me that there are no copyright violations there?

Google owns youtube....don't they?

Hmmmm

murmur

01-22-2012, 01:10 AM

Did the Feds Just Kill the Cloud Storage Model?

Posted on January 21, 2012 (http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/01/did-the-feds-just-kill-the-cloud-storage-model.html) by WashingtonsBlog (http://www.washingtonsblog.com/author/washingtonsblog)

Megaupload Type Shutdowns and Patriot Act Are Killing Cloud Storage

The government’s takedown of the 800 pound gorilla online storage site Megaupload (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload) may have killed the cloud storage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_storage) model.
Many innocent users have had their data taken away from them (http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/01/the-real-meaning-of-the-take-down-of-megaupload.html).
As PC World notes (http://www.pcworld.com/article/248461/what_megauploads_demise_teaches_about_cloud_storag e.html):
The MegaUpload seizure shows how personal files hosted on remote servers operated by a third party can easily be caught up in a government raid targeted at digital pirates.

more here
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/01/did-the-feds-just-kill-the-cloud-storage-model.html

murmur

01-31-2012, 08:09 PM

Failed Fed Policies Prolong the Agony

Tuesday, January 31, 2012 – by Ron Paul

Dr. Ron Paul

The Federal Reserve (http://javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=1855');)'s interest rate price-setting board, the FOMC, met last week. They will continue to set the federal funds rate at well below 1%, and plan to keep it low until the end of 2014. That's a year and a half longer than they planned when they met just last month. Chairman Bernanke (http://javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=2008');) says they are keeping interest rates so low for so long because the economic outlook warrants it.

The fallacies in their reasoning would be amusing if they weren't so dangerous. The Fed wants to keep the price of money at essentially zero – in other words "free" – to boost the economy. But the boost they are attempting won't get here for another three years. That's not a recovery. And we've already tried this tactic. That's how we got into this mess in the first place: with interest rates artificially low for a very long time. Free money doesn't stimulate growth, as Japan's two lost decades clearly show. Artificially low interest rates only serve to punish saving, distort market signals and cause further malinvestment. They also do nothing to address the only real solution to our economic woes: liquidation of the bad debt that hangs around the neck of the world's economy, preventing recovery. Artificially low interest rates merely ensure that we remain a debt-financed consumer economy guaranteed to end up with a weaker economy and higher prices.

What baffles me even more is that two decades after the collapse of Soviet planning and decades more since the US and economists purportedly rejected the idea of price setting, we find nothing wrong with the Fed setting the price of money. We all agree it is a bad idea to have a board saying the price of wheat should be $250 a ton today, or carpenters' wages should be $25 an hour until the end of 2014. But we are perfectly comfortable with having a board set the price of one half of every transaction in our economy. And our markets are supposedly free.

The Fed policies of low interest rates, Operation Twist and rounds of quantitative easing are all attempts to keep the economy alive artificially. But the 12 FOMC participants cannot manage the economy any better than the bureaucrats of the Soviet Union. The policies haven't worked. They won't work. Real economic recovery cannot come until we liquidate the bad debt, until we eradicate the poor decisions we made over the last decade and start with a sound foundation. It is time we acknowledge the truth of the Fed's activities: They are merely using fancy words for price setting.

Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon was correct in the 1920s when he said "liquidate everything." That's what we did in the severe depression of 1920-21, and we recovered so quickly it is never even talked about. We didn't take his advice after the 1929 crash and ended up with the Great Depression (http://javascript:showWindow(500,800,'/floatWindow.cfm?id=2305');). We are committing the same mistakes, destined to live in this Great Recession for a decade or more – it has already been four years; now the Fed says it will be at least three more! It's time we start rethinking what the Fed's policies are really doing to our economy because obviously, by their own admission, they haven't helped.

=================

http://www.thedailybell.com/3559/Ron-Paul-Failed-Fed-Policies-Prolong-the-Agony