Self-Defense...

Greetings good citizen,

Does anyone else find it curious that these clowns understand economics (some of the time) but do things they know will hurt (what’s left of) the economy anyway?

Let’s start with our top story from today’s NY Times:

Recovery in U.S. Is Lifting Profits, but Not Adding Jobs
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ

Experts estimate so-called budget sequestration could cost the country about 700,000 jobs, but Wall Street doesn’t expect the cuts to substantially alter corporate profits or threaten stock markets.

.7 percent of the much-modified workforce will lose their income source but this WON’T affect the ‘bottom line’ of US based corporations?

Which is to point out that 700k is in fact a much smaller percentage of ‘working aged citizens’ but the workforce isn’t measured ‘rationally’ considering the bizarre idea of if you don’t have a job you don’t count skews the whole picture…

Is Wall Street ‘right’ about this assessment?

Sadly yes. Your job was exported and you were made ‘redundant’ to the new global economy. The individual they gave your job to ‘replaced’ you as a customer as well…making you totally superfluous.

The only reason there hasn’t been blood in the streets is because our ‘globalization is good’ cheerleaders haven’t been telling YOU the whole story.

They concentrate on the ‘lower prices’ part of the story (won through lower wages/benefits) as a ‘win-win’ situation.

The part where you lose is the few hundred million competitors who (completely) took YOUR place via the heavily manipulated ‘funny money market’ (which is about to collapse!)

In this respect it is more than a little amazing to see the corporate owned media laying this fact out in a way that shows everyone what capitalism has done!

How else can the US workforce lose such a large percentage of its workforce and not affect profits an iota?

This is where the rubber meets the road good citizen, If you have never considered yourself as ‘surplus’ before…it’s time to LOOK AGAIN!

Did I not point out that the policies of the past three decades point directly towards an effort to kill off as much of the 'surplus population' as possible?

Headlines like today’s TOP STORY should leave you with NO DOUBT who the cannon is pointed at…

It points at YOU!

If you aren’t a bona-fide member of the >One Percent, you’re toast.

Like things weren’t desperate enough, it gets more interesting:

Chinese Stocks Fall on Steps to Curb Property Prices
By DAVID BARBOZA 5:13 AM ET

China’s cabinet, or State Council, said home sellers would soon pay a 20 percent capital gains tax.

You don’t suppose Chinese equity prices are being ‘propped up’ by a ‘real estate bubble’ do you?

What do you suppose is going to happen when that little episode plays itself out?

Can you say ‘cascading systemic collapse’?

I knew you could!

For our last installment of ‘belaboring the obvious’ (seems to be the day for it.):

As Hacking Against U.S. Rises, Experts Try to Pin Down Motive
By NICOLE PERLROTH, DAVID E. SANGER and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

Motives for a cyberattack, which could range from industrial spying to disabling the power grid, remain obscure.

Given what we have already discussed, especially the part where it becomes obvious that YOU are being played for a patsy however you slice it, are YOU ‘mystified’ as to why ‘the capitalists’ are under heavy attack from the cyber-warriors?

I’d say it was ‘self-defense’.

The curious part of this unforeseen development is just how far will they let it go?

You know they’ve been looking for an ‘escape hatch’ for quite some time…could this be it?

Get out of dodge under the cover of a crippling (and likely self-inflicted) cyber attack?

We all know today’s capitalist/opportunists are a little light in the honesty department so I’d opine that it wouldn’t ‘surprise’ me.

But the corporate owned media is repeatedly astonished by such mundane occurrences as sunrise.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Overdue

Greetings good citizen,

What does it say about our society when the headlines make more interesting reading than the BS stories that follow?

Which is to ask just how much ‘spin’ is too much?

You decide:

Fed Is Likely to Sustain Its Stimulus Program
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM

The Federal Reserve must still determine what to buy and how much to spend, and officials continue to debate the best way to describe when the agency is likely to stop buying.

Who do you suppose is ‘surprised’ to read that headline? Even a conservo-whacko would cluck their tongue and mutter ‘what did they expect?’ under their breath.

The disturbing part of this little ‘fluffball’ is what would happen to our badly broken economy if the Fed stopped pumping the banks full of free cash?

It’s almost as disturbing as what’s going to happen as a result of the Feds pumping the economy full of ‘funny money’…can you say ‘Zimbabwe’?

Not to mention that the fuckers have been at this for the past FIVE YEARS…yet it’s going to ‘sneak up on us’ overnight…that’s what ‘spin’ and failure to report the truth does to you!

But wait, there’s more!

Mortgage Crisis Presents a New Reckoning to Banks
By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG

A torrent of lawsuits could add significantly to billions of dollars of settlements in mortgage securities cases.

Um, geez…isn’t the real estate market making a 180 (according to the National board of Realtors?)

Oh, that’s right! Labor force participation is off 5% (which sort of spells doom for civilization itself, you can only carry so many unemployed before the wheels come flying off.)

More succinctly, who do we tell their ‘dreams’ (and any prospects for a better life) are ‘over’? We’ve been doing it to the ‘graying’ population (while enacting toothless anti-discrimination legislation…just try to get an attorney to take one of those cases!)

But now our kids are being told their race is already run and they’ve got no place to go…and no prospects either.

This most definitely won’t end well and is the result of piss poor management!

(Fortunately, A Simple Plan fixes this, providing that perfect ‘Happily Ever after ending’ we all come to expect.)

Um, there is nothing I can say that will mentally prepare you for this next piece of tripe so here goes…

Chinese Exports Slow, Even as Economy Recovers
By BETTINA WASSENER 1 minute ago

The 2.9 percent annual expansion in exports fell far short of the average of 9 percent that economists had expected, but analysts say that China avoided an economic hard landing.

Does anyone else suspect that these assholes wouldn’t recognize an ‘economic recovery’ if it were dancing naked in front of them?

Has the US press become so ‘jaded’ to economic bad news that they can no longer tell the difference…or is ‘down’ the new ‘up’?

We all know our corporate owned media has zero interest in the truth and (worse) those in public office are more interested in protecting their own backside than protecting the public from predation even THEY WILL SUFFER FROM!

Not that the media has treated ‘truth tellers’ with the respect and admiration they deserve…which brings us to the conservo-loonies and their version of the ‘truth’…which turns this whole argument on its ear!

Take a gander at the next article and tell me the global economy isn’t on life support…

Italian Political Turmoil Weighs on Markets
By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO and DAVID JOLLY 6:37 AM ET

European stocks fell and borrowing costs in Italy and Spain rose Monday on fears that Italy was headed for another period of instability.

Next Steps for Italy Uncertain After Departure of Monti
Greece Extends Buyback Offer to Reach 30 Billion Euro Target 8:44 AM ET

For reasons unknown, the typical US citizen thinks the US economy will keep humming along despite what happens in Europe…which speaks volumes regarding the depth of economic ignorance among the general population…

I’m not qualified to say what the average European thinks about the tightrope their nation is walking (again due to gross mismanagement and extremes in economic imbalances.) But if I were a European I’d be shitting Twinkies…if only because we keep getting hit with the evidence that our old commerce model is FUBAR…(and you know what FUBAR means don’t you? [Fucked Up Beyond All Repair…])

Like most newspapers, The Financial Times is struggling with an industry-wide decline in print advertising revenue.

Bloomberg Weighs Making Bid for The Financial Times
By AMY CHOZICK and MICHAEL BARBARO

Michael R. Bloomberg, who has an affinity for The Financial Times, is said to be weighing the wisdom of buying the newspaper if it is put up for sale by Pearson.

The music industry is scroomed, the telecom industry is fooked, even the damned post office is threatened with extinction…

YET none of our so-called ‘leaders’ sees the need to change how we do things…so we are faced with changing even that aspect of our society!

What do we get instead? More fucking ‘reality programming’…has even one of these idiotic shows produced a single ‘star’?

Short answer…NO!

Blake Shelton, left, Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green and Adam Levine judging a contestant on
NBC Rides ‘The Voice’ From Worst to First Place
By BILL CARTER

With its prime-time schedule in tatters, NBC bet on the singing competition show “The Voice” by adding a second weekly edition. The gamble paid off.

Yes good citizen and the next step is to proclaim a day of national mourning for our lost ‘entertainment industry’ (which seems to be going to Bollywood in case you haven’t noticed! Take a close look at the actors in the commercials.)

How fucking pathetic is it that ‘scarioke’ has become the primary source of new programming for the over-worked and underpaid housefrau?

(You see, she thinks she can sing too!)

More disturbingly we have this headline, which casts the future in a very dim light indeed…

Sundar Pichai of Google, which is hoping that its mobile Chrome browser can continue Chrome’s personal-computer success.
Browser Wars Flare Again, on Little Screens
By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

Shaping the browsers of the future has become a spirited struggle among the big tech companies that see the mobile world as a make-or-break business.

And that, good citizen, is news from the cutting edge of the manufacturing industry…whose browser will more people adopt (qualifying that system’s creator to receive lucrative contracts from the governments of the world to spy on its citizens?)

Is anyone STUPID enough see the millions of JOBS this relentless pursuit of, er, ‘technology’ (isn’t) going to create?

Why have you got your thumb up your ass? Because THIS is ‘state of the art’!

We went from building cars to ‘consuming’ electronics.

We are SO overdue to change operating systems but the keepers of the status quo don’t want to hear it…

So we’re going to have to ‘make them listen.’

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Thunk!

Greetings good citizen,

As should surprise no one, news of the train wreck that is the Eurozone remains sparse and guarded…while conditions on the ground deteriorate into chaos (not Anarchy!)

Um, the Stupidity Markets have traded sideways most of the week, unable to justify further upwards movement but unwilling to reflect the crumbling global economy.

Remember good citizen, stocks are what make rich people rich!

For what it’s worth, here’s Friday’s top business headlines:

U.S. Reliance on Saudi Oil Heads Back Up
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

Imports of oil from the kingdom have grown by more than 20 percent, leaving the United States vulnerable to tensions in the Persian Gulf.

Wait a minute Slim, don’t we get the ‘bulk’ of our fossil fuels from Canada and Venezuela? Mining the ‘Tar Sands’ has boosted, er, ‘domestic’ oil production by a half a million barrels per day.

So what’s this horse-pucky about? Is this another ‘red flag’ being waved by the war-mongers in the Pentagon?

Or are we simply expressing our ‘concern’ for the ‘well-being’ of our allies?

Give it a fucking rest, will ya?

Blood for oil is only a ‘good idea’ if it’s not your blood.

The next headline appears to be murkier than usual:

Treasury Changes Fannie and Freddie Bailout Deal
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 9:59 AM ET

The government is changing the terms of its bailout agreement with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a way that will shrink the holdings of the two mortgage giants more quickly and will require payment to the government of all quarterly profits the companies earn.

Hmmn, that last line is a puzzler, isn’t it? What kind of ‘quarterly profits’ are we talking about if the bailout is ‘ongoing’?

Left to our imaginations is how a hybrid-public/private corporation makes a profit by guaranteeing mortgages?

The whole process just doesn’t compute yet here we are.

How frigging sick is it good citizen that BOTH of these entities EXIST to SHIELD banks from the ‘liability’ of lending to the ‘less than creditworthy’ consumers? (a situation of their own making?)

And how many BILLIONS has the government forked over to keep these two ‘charitable organizations’ operating?

And there you have it, good citizen. The strength of the public, supposedly ‘backing up’ our (failed) banking system (at the public’s expense!)

Speaking of ‘failed banking systems’:

Euro Watch
Merkel Backs European Central Bank
By JACK EWING and DAVID JOLLY 8:58 AM ET

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, supported conditional support for Spain and Italy, but a Finnish official suggested that euro zone leaders were preparing for the worst.

Talk about ‘mixed signals’, what the hell are we supposed to make of those two conflicting messsages?

Um, does anyone give a fuck what Angie supports? And it also stands to reason that the other Euro-zone leaders are ‘preparing for the worst’…even when that means getting out of Dodge before the rush because there isn’t anything else they can do once the currency ‘collapses’.

By now it has been stated by hundreds of sources, mathematically, there is NO WAY OUT OF THIS CRISIS VIA CAPITALISM!

And if you don’t have A REPLACEMENT FOR CAPITALISM, IN PLACE, before they hit the reset button, they are only ‘postponing the inevitable’.

I get a kick out of these assholes who say there’s a way to ‘protect yourself’ from the coming collapse because you KNOW they’re full of shit!

Owning gold is inviting death or at the very least robbed AND swindled (if you’re EXTREMELY LUCKY.)

IF you want a chance at ‘protecting yourself’ you need a small stockpile of ‘trade goods’, common commodities that other people would be willing to swap you something you need for.

The more common, the safer.

Whiskey (nips of all kinds) beer and cigarettes will all be high value trade items.

Nips without seals will be considerably tougher to move due to the high levels of fraud that exist now…but later fraud will be punishable by death so it will become less prevalent.

Speaking of fraud:

Wall Street Opens Mostly Flat
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 41 minutes ago

It appeared in early trading that investors were still digesting a mixed bag of earnings from retailers.

Um, save those who cater to the >One Percent, NO Retailers are earning profits. The rise in ‘aggregate’ retail sales is due to the recent spike in energy prices…and DOES NOT signify a ‘resurgent consumer’.

NOBODY is MAKING more money so nobody is spending it…it really is that simple.

Which is a little misleading. The >One Percent CONTINUE to increase their share of the global economy as they consolidate their ownership of the global markets.

Which does YOU ‘the consumer’ ZERO good.

Having only one source makes you, by default, a ‘captive audience.’

Now the relentless pursuit of profits means the only way to increase shareowner value is to 'adulterate' the product.

So how long will it be before you’re being sold pet food that is mostly rat poison?

In a captive market NOTHING stands in between a capitalist and his profits, not even dead customers.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Bombshell!

Greetings good citizen,

Once again we see a major scandal being broken over the weekend so come Monday they can pretend it is ‘old news’.

This is one of those ‘why are they telling us this?’ kind of stories.

The implications here go deeper than just some ‘isolated criminal behavior’ at ‘some’ European banks. We’re talking the Fed here, that ‘private corporation’ that manages ALL of the United States money!

And those crooks were ‘wise’ to this criminal activity…and probably traded on the information as well!

You would imagine they would ‘dummy up’ and pretend the criminals were just ‘too slick’ for the remnants of the regulatory apparatus they have left…but no.

Instead we get a ‘confession’.

Yeah we knew and no we didn’t do anything about it.

You’d almost expect a statement like that to be followed with a gruff ‘not my job, man.’

Here’s the ‘reveal’:

The New York Fed learned about concerns over the integrity of Libor in summer 2007, when a Barclays employee e-mailed a New York Fed official, saying, “Draw your own conclusions about why people are going for unrealistically low” rates. Barclays wrote in a September report, “Our feeling is that Libors are again becoming rather unrealistic and do not reflect the true cost of borrowing.”

But the New York Fed thought the reports amounted to market chatter and did not provide definitive proof of widespread manipulation. “In the context of our market monitoring following the onset of the financial crisis in late 2007, involving thousands of calls and e-mails with market participants over a period of many months, we received occasional anecdotal reports from Barclays of problems with Libor,” the New York Fed statement said.

The regulator started to identify real problems with the interest rates several months later. In April 2008, the Barclays employee mentioned to a New York Fed official, “where I would be able to borrow” in the Libor market, “without question it would be higher than the rate that I’m actually putting in.”

That same day, New York Fed officials wrote in a weekly internal memo that banks appeared to be understating the interest rates they would pay.

Okay, if we hop back into our playback machine we’d find that the wheels had already come flying off the banking system by the Spring of 2008, the ‘gimmicked’ libor was done to protect the bankers from having to write down their shakier assets to a more realistic level.

Not that they would have anyway, the libor only served as ‘eyewash’.

Which is to point out the obvious, a small draft, a tiny one in fact would be all it would take to blow down the ‘house of cards’ the bankers built.

The Great Recession and the ongoing economic hardship…all caused by the bankers, who were in fact ‘covering’ for the capitalists who are using the crisis to cement their monopolies!

Which is to again, belabor the obvious. We need some Law and Order now!

And we won’t get any justice from the SAME ASSHOLES who looked the other way when all of this was going down…nope. We have to kick things off by ‘purging’ them first!

Make no mistake about it good citizen, we will not see either Law or Order as long as either of the two ‘lapdogs of the >One Percent’ hold the reins of power. [Conservative or Liberal, take your pick.]

While the dreamers among us pretend all we have to do is ‘roar’ loud enough, the more practical take a more pragmatic view.

Those reins won’t get surrendered without our pointing a gun at their head.

Anything less will be a charade.

Again, the results will speak for themselves.

Which is to ask, what do YOU think should be the ‘penalty’ for betraying the public trust? (Technically called Treason.)

The longstanding punishment for this crime is death by hanging…but the criminals running this pop stand have re-written a lot of the rules.

Which only strengthens the case for returning to the ‘old way’ of doing things.

Now, the question to ask yourself is whether or not this ‘admission’ by the Fed constitutes a violation of the ‘public trust’…

They KNEW there was criminal activity and they took no action…so the crime, as it stands, is one of ‘omission’. They didn’t act when they should have.

Treason is a real slippery slope, those guilty of it would like to make it a crime to accuse anyone of committing treason…that pretzel logic problem of being a traitor for turning a traitor in.

Which is to arrive full circle at a large question, good citizen.

We have definitely arrived at a time when we desperately need to discuss the kind of society we want to have…and the operative word here is WE!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Red Flag

Greetings good citizen,

Markets soared this morning, tacking on almost 2 percent on news that the Euro-crisis has finally been solved…for the 18th time.

I mean fool me once, shame on you! (Try to) fool me eighteen times and you’re flirting with being committed to an insane asylum.

Which is to ask, how sad is it that these 'fools' are the ones in charge of the bankrupt global economy?

Europeans Agree to Use Bailout Fund to Aid Banks
By STEVEN ERLANGER and PAUL GEITNER 7:49 AM ET

The agreement, reached early Friday after all-night talks, cheered financial markets, but analysts warned that crucial details needed to be worked out.

Global Markets Soar on European Breakthrough
By CHRISTINE HAUSER 35 minutes ago

Stocks on Wall Street surged after European leaders agreed to use bailout funds to recapitalize struggling banks directly.

What’s changed here, good citizen? This sudden deal to print their way out of bankruptcy has disaster written all over it.

What these banksters need is to be wiped out and shut down!

Paying for their ‘mistakes’ is counter-productive on all fronts. Paying for it with ‘funny money’ is even worse!

Then we have the downright freakish ‘stock market’, tacking on trillions of dollars of, er, ‘alleged value’ because of some disastrous decision-making.

So what are we ‘seeing’ here and now?

We may find ourselves looking back on this turning point as the day ‘hyper-inflation’ got its start.

Thus is this post titled ‘Red Flag’.

Remember this day for the ‘consequences’ it will trigger.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Living 'Free'!

Greetings good citizen,

I love Elephants in the room and for the past four years there’s been a huge one that the Corporate owned media avoids like the plague!

Once the bonus addled bankers realized they were creating ghost-towns that THEY were ‘technically’ on the hook for…all of a sudden using their ‘strongest weapon’ became an all around ‘bad idea’.

Weirdly, there’s a reason why 25% of the population ‘can’t qualify’ for a mortgage just as there’s a reason why even during good times 25% of us can’t find work! (No irony should be lost on the serious amount of ‘overlap’ that exists between these two groups.)

Sorry about the shotgun blast full of concepts there but our fucked up social system produces a lot of these ‘conceptual overloads’ (and with it sentences like the one above.)

But anyhoo, back to the Elephant in the room of how some people are ‘living free’ and by extension, making the rest of the economy, er, ‘appear’ better than it actually is.

One of Ms. Fox’s clients is Nicholas Cline, 35, a construction worker who fell behind on his mortgage payments in 2009. (He thought he had modified his loan, but the company he was working with has since pleaded guilty to criminal fraud.) The bank that holds Mr. Cline’s mortgage has left him alone, he said. No letters, no calls, no hassles.

“But now that it’s going on three years, what do you do?” Mr. Cline said. “I am living in my house. But the stress of this, not knowing what’s going to happen or when, it’s an unbelievable burden on your mind.”

In New York, the time to complete a foreclosure has almost quadrupled, from 263 days in 2007 to 1,019 days in 2011. Abraham Kleinman, a lawyer in Uniondale who represents homeowners fighting foreclosure, said he counseled a client who felt guilty about remaining in his home so long after defaulting. “He says to himself, ‘I’m sitting here rent free, it can’t go on forever,’ ” Mr. Kleinman said. “But the plaintiff has not been aggressive. As near as I can tell, they’ve put this to the side.”

It is disturbing to note we still have ‘fraudulent’ mortgage originators but we also have the banks themselves, carrying most of these mortgages on their books at values they’ll NEVER see!

Does anyone else need a detective to deduce what this means for our supposedly ‘asset backed’ financial system?

Which is the OTHER elephant in the room…

Has it occurred to you that even (or especially) if you are renting, you’re getting FUCKED?

Just to swap mental gears for a moment, is it becoming clear to you just who is buying all of those new cars?

(Because, ironically, defaulting on their mortgage HAS NOT ruined these people’s credit rating!)

Or the Auto builders are too desperate to care (meaning they are extending credit to ‘poor risks‘ regardless)…chew that one over for a few minutes and see what you come up with…it will redefine the term ‘depression’.

Which is why I get such a big charge out of the show 'Doomsday Preppers' and how their so-called ‘experts’ keep giving these people really bad advice!

Rule number one of true preppers is DON’T HOARD! There’s no way you can keep visiting the site of your hoard without drawing attention to it!

Only ‘moles’ (people who plan to stay out of sight until it’s safe to come out…which may be never) can ‘hoard’.

But even that ‘strategy’ comes with the commitment requirement, you can NEVER leave the shelter or you risk revealing its existence, and revelation is both damnation and doom.

If people know there’s a hoard, they’ll be on it like stink on excrement…

Just the sight of you walking around looking healthy and well fed (long after you have no reason to be either) will be enough to betray you.

Which gives the wrong impression…roughly 60 days after the supply lines collapse there won’t be much of anything around population wise, the chaos and lack of modern conveniences will ‘kill-off’ most of the, er, ‘surplus population’.

How sad is it that this will make the ‘true’ survivors no less adamant in seeking to ‘refresh’ their dwindling stores of ammo or (what will become) luxury items like toilet paper, tissues and candy/liquor.

Gold? Gold will be a ‘find’ (when these hoarders are eventually overrun) and some (morons) will still try to hoard it although most of the time it won’t do the hoarder any good.

Worse, the wrong word in the right ear and it will probably get you dead, there’s no accounting for morons.

But I digress, we have gone form one herd of elephants to another, entirely different herd and how the corporate owned media is spreading ‘dis-information’ on both.

How pathetic is it good citizen that we have an economy supported largely by people who are ‘living free’?

Worse, good citizen, given the defunct ‘real estate market’ how long will it be before there won’t be ANYBODY paying their mortgage?

What will become of our crumbling ‘financial system’ them?

I’d posit that our civilization doesn’t have that long so the question becomes a rhetorical one at best.

Um, under A Simple Plan the real estate market (along with the parasitic banking system) both ‘vanish’…a place to live (equipped with all of the modern conveniences of the time) are your RIGHT! Not a ‘roll of the dice’ investment that you may or may not recover…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Scary Stuff!

Greetings good citizen,

I’ve had an unusually busy day and am only now finishing up my morning reading, 10:00 at night.

Um, the markets have ‘reverted’ back to ‘bargain’ mode after yesterday’s massive sell-off.

Dunno what the US markets will have in store for us by tomorrow’s open but the Asian markets are currently bleeding from the eye-sockets (again) and that usually carries over.

Naturally, we are left to ask what does it all mean? Equity prices have no foundation in reality (yet the corporate owned media insists on equating market performance with economic well-being, regardless of how irrational such comparisons appear to be.

Taking this a step further we find this disturbing debate about the end of quantative easing and the ramifications it holds for the ‘real’ economy.

I believe Mr. Grant scores a major point when he opines that our current capital markets are suffering from a deficit of capitalism!

Or as other pundits have exclaimed, socialism for the rich and (fuck you, pay me) capitalism for the rest of us!

As you know, I think both 'expansionary austerity' and 'stimulative easing' are missing the point and ineffective, because the economic, financial, and global trade system is broken, corrupted, and badly in need of reform and structuring.

What the Fed is doing is keeping the zombie banks upright at the expense of the long suffering middle class and savers. The monied interests are gorging themselves on malinvestment, public policy failures, and a well financed campaign of economic propaganda such as that which led to the tragic lapses of regulation and the overturn of Glass-Steagall.

The effective tax rates of the super wealthy are less than 15 percent, because they draw a major portion of their annual increase in wealth from capital gains and dividends, and unrecognized entitlements. as well as a wide menu of tax avoiding schemes.

And while they moan about the nominal headline tax rates, paid only by the 'little people' even if they do not know they are little, corporations and the truly wealthy have not enjoyed just low effective tax rates in the post WW II era. And yet it is still not enough.

In light of the severe unemployment problems plaguing a large portion of families, austerity seems like a cruel joke, a coup de grâce delivered by the bankers to the income producing classes who depend on labor in the creation and delivery of real products, and not artificial arbitrage and gaming the system.

But on the other hand, stimulus seems just another excuse for the special interests to put on the feedbag once again to the detriment of the many of the next generation. There is no comparison between the Obama Administration and the New Deal in terms of real change and productive innovation.

There has been a very strong recovery in corporate profits in the non-financial sector, and the financiers barely missed a beat in distributing a healthy chunk of GDP to themselves in bonuses, while the ashes of the financial crises which they caused still glowing. And their behaviour in the mortgage and derivatives markets has been despicable. I am appalled that people put up with this sort of thing, much less defend it out of some mistaken belief in neoliberal 'free markets.'

The Automatic Earth is all over the pending Greek default, which highlights the fact that nothing has been done to correct the issues that caused the financial crisis in the first place.

I and others have asked repeatedly the question that is on everybody’s lips, “How much longer can we keep this up?” and the answer, good citizen, is not much longer.

Hard to say which is worse, knowing the system is FUBAR or waiting for it to collapse in a heap?

It’s only a matter of time.

I’m gonna cut this bad boy short cuz I don’t do myself any favors when I draw vivid images of the not too distant future.

Which is to point out that my normally grim outlook hasn’t improved.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

What were they thinking?

Greetings good citizen,

History doesn’t necessarily ‘repeat’ but it sure as shit ‘echoes’. Which is to point out that tonight’s offering echoes last night’s post in a rather creepy fashion as the GOP invokes ‘the center’ (that they’ve laid claim to) as the basis for what is ultimately ‘minority rule’.

Sure they’ve bankrupted most of the nation, which only proves they are ‘unfit’ to rule! Why would the citizens of the US want to pay attention to losers that have been played for chumps at every turn because the ‘smart money’ has stacked both the legislative and the media decks?

Judges, like journalists, work for paychecks…if they want to continue to receive those paychecks, they do as their told. If they don’t agree with what they’re told, too bad! If they don’t do what they’re told to do the overlords will simply find someone who will, and believe me what I tell ya, there’s no shortage of sellouts out there!

Um, before we dive in I want to note that I’ve taken a little ‘liberty’ with tonight’s offering. I copied and pasted a quote from the bottom of the article and moved it to the top. This sort of ‘negates’ the intended feeble play for irony, turning it back into the outrage it should be.

In a Message to Democrats, Wall St. Sends Cash to G.O.P. [Like this is somehow ‘new’ or ‘news’?]

Senator John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said he visited New York about twice a month to try to tap into Wall Street’s “buyers’ remorse.”

“I just don’t know how long you can expect people to contribute money to a political party whose main plank of their platform is to punish you,” Mr. Cornyn said. [How many of you are simply agog at this blatant declaration of the willingness of the GOP to prostrate themselves before the golden thrones of Wall Street just to obtain campaign financing?

This is supposed to be a ‘selling point’? If you want Wall Street to donate to your campaign you have to suck their balls? Understand good citizen the ‘monied interests’ on Wall Street are directly responsible for the ‘disassembly’ and subsequent destruction of our economy! Do you really want to elect politicians who are willing to sell you (and your future livelihood) out for a campaign contribution?

So what do you think good citizen, how ‘good’ do you feel about the Republican pukes now?]

[Beginning of original article]
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: February 7, 2010

WASHINGTON — If the Democratic Party has a stronghold on Wall Street, it is its chief executive, Jamie Dimon, is a friend of President Obama’s from Chicago, a frequent White House guest and a big Democratic donor. Its vice chairman, William M. Daley, a former Clinton administration cabinet official and Obama transition adviser, comes from Chicago’s Democratic dynasty. [Think the media did the administration a ‘favor’ by pointing out Jamie Dimon’s close connection to the President? I’m sure if you checked the visitor’s log you’d find Mr. Dimon was no stranger to the Bush White House…]

But this year Chase’s political action committee is sending the Democrats a pointed message. While it has contributed to some individual Democrats and state organizations, it has rebuffed solicitations from the national Democratic House and Senate campaign committees. Instead, it gave $30,000 to their Republican counterparts. [The Republicans have remained steadfast in their ‘opposition’ of any banking reform. The Massachusetts Senate race only proves that elections, even ‘special elections, continue to be ‘stolen’.]

The shift reflects the hard political edge to the industry’s campaign to thwart Mr. Obama’s proposals for tighter financial regulations. [Shift? What shift? After Bush screwed the pooch the bankers KNEW they had to put a Democrat in the White house…and they even succeeded in putting their two favored candidates on the short list. So what’s this ‘shift’ shit all about? Are they trying to assert that they’ve always donated to the Democrats more than to the Republicans? WTF!]

Just two years after Mr. Obama helped his party pull in record Wall Street contributions — $89 million from the securities and investment business, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics — some of his biggest supporters, like Mr. Dimon, have become the industry’s chief lobbyists against his regulatory agenda. [Excuse me? This says more about who ‘Uncle Tom’ belongs to and the longstanding lack of a substantive difference between our two political parties than his ‘savvy’ at fundraising’.]

Republicans are rushing to capitalize on what they call Wall Street’s “buyer’s remorse” with the Democrats. And industry executives and lobbyists are warning Democrats that if Mr. Obama keeps attacking Wall Street “fat cats,” they may fight back by withholding their cash. [How sad is it good citizen when an argument such as this runs in the nation’s ‘paper of record?’]

“If the president doesn’t become a little more balanced and centrist in his approach, then he will likely lose that support,” said Kelly S. King, the chairman and chief executive of BB&T. Mr. King is a board member of the Financial Services Roundtable, which lobbies for the biggest banks, and last month he helped represent the industry at a private dinner at the Treasury Department. [Perhaps more perplexing is how ‘flunkies’ for the rich and shameless rate being quoted in this ‘shamelessly liberal’ newspaper? Which is to ask, ‘how liberal is it?’…The answer, good citizen is ‘not at all!’]

“I understand the public outcry,” he continued. “We have a 17 percent real unemployment rate, people are hurting, they want to see punishment. But the political rhetoric just incites more animosity and gets people riled up.” [Does this mean Mr. King doesn’t agree with the idea of burning Wall Street to the ground? Funny, the rest of the nation thinks it’s a great idea! Which only proves how ‘out of step’ the Republican’s are.]

A spokesman for JPMorgan Chase declined to comment on its political action committee’s contributions or relations with the Democrats. But many Wall Street lobbyists and executives said they, too, were rethinking their giving. [Hmmn, odd, there’s that ‘unwillingness to go on the record’ again. Doesn’t it usually indicate somebody is lying through their teeth?]

“The expectation in Washington is that ‘We can kick you around, and you are still going to give us money,’ ” said a top official at a major Wall Street firm, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of alienating the White House. “We are not going to play that game anymore.” [Wait a minute Slim! Without taxpayer funding those Wall Street banks (technically are) would be broke/bankrupt…so WHOSE money are the bankers laying out for their (longstanding) political allies?]

Wall Street fund-raisers for the Democrats say they are feeling under attack from all sides. The president is lashing out at their “arrogance and greed.” Republican friends are saying “I told you so.” And contributors are wishing they had their money back. [Um, WHOSE money back? I’m sure John and Jane Q. Taxpayer wish the banks weren’t using THEIR money to scuttle banking reform…if you want to be honest about who is doing what here!]

“I am a big fan of the president,” said Thomas R. Nides, a prominent Democrat who is also a Morgan Stanley executive and chairman of a major Wall Street trade group, the Securities and Financial Markets Association.[Who?] “But even if you are a big fan, when you are the piñata at the party, it doesn’t really feel good.” [Talk about ‘disconnect’…are the Democrats supposed to defend these criminals like the G.O.P. does?]

Roger C. Altman, a former Clinton administration Treasury official who founded the Wall Street boutique Evercore Partners, called the Wall Street backlash against Mr. Obama “a constant topic of conversation.” Many bankers, he said, failed to appreciate the “white hot anger” at Wall Street for the financial crisis. (Mr. Altman said he personally supported “the substance” of the president’s recent proposals, though he questioned their feasibility and declined to comment at all on what he called “the rhetoric.”) [Do you suppose Mr. Altman just acknowledged what everyone fears, that Wall Street is simply pulling Obama’s strings?]

Mr. Obama’s fight with Wall Street began last year with his proposals for greater oversight of compensation and a consumer financial protection commission. It escalated with verbal attacks this year on what he called Wall Street’s “obscene bonuses.” And it reached a new level in his calls for policies Wall Street finds even more infuriating: a “financial crisis responsibility” tax aimed only at the biggest banks, and a restriction on “proprietary trading” that banks do with their own money for their own profit. [Which naturally assumes banks HAVE ‘their own money’ apart from what the government ‘gave’ them. Then there is the issue of whether or not banks ‘earn’ money rather than simply ‘creating’ it.]

“If the president wanted to turn every Democrat on Wall Street into a Republican,” one industry lobbyist said, “he is doing everything right.” [Now, think about that statement and tell me why he SHOULDN’T do exactly that? What’s to be gained from a ‘working relationship’ with criminals?]

Though Wall Street has long been a major source of Democratic campaign money (alongside Hollywood and Silicon Valley), Mr. Obama built unusually direct ties to his contributors there. He is the first president since Richard M. Nixon whose campaign relied solely on private donations, not public financing. [Oh ho! Now Mr. Kirkpatrick is trying to tar the Democrats with the same brush so often used to tar the Republicans. Wall Street curry’s favor with whatever party whose star is rising…and it’s a huge mistake to think the Republican’s will return from exile in a single four year term!]

Wall Street lobbyists say the financial industry’s big Democratic donors help ensure that their arguments reach the ears of the president and Congress. White House visitors’ logs show dozens of meetings with big Wall Street fund-raisers, including Gary D. Cohn, a president of Goldman Sachs; Mr. Dimon of JPMorgan Chase; and Robert Wolf, the chief of the American division of the Swiss bank UBS, who has also played golf, had lunch and watched July 4 fireworks with the president. [Jesus, must have been a real heavy-duty contributor to be granted that much ‘access’ to the first family! Makes you wonder if he’s on the list of people who baby-sit the Obama children when the first couple goes out for the evening?]

Lobbyists say they routinely brief top executives on policy talking points before they meet with the president or others in the administration. Mr. Wolf, in particular, also serves on the Presidential Economic Recovery Advisory Board led by the former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul A. Volcker.

Mr. Wolf was the only Wall Street executive on the panel and became the board’s leading opponent of what became known as the Volcker rule against so-called proprietary trading, according to participants. Such trading did nothing to cause the crisis, Mr. Wolf argued, as the industry lobbyists do now. (The panel concluded that the crisis established a precedent for government rescue that could enable big banks to speculate for their own gain while taxpayers took the biggest risks.) [Um. Left unsaid here is whether Mr. Wolf’s position on the advisory board was granted by virtue of his expertise or whether he ‘bought’ the spot…as Mr. Kirkpatrick is taking pains to imply…]

Mr. Wolf and Mr. Dimon, who was in Washington last week for meetings on Capitol Hill and lunch with the president, have both pressed the industry’s arguments against other proposed regulations and the bank tax as well — saying the rules could cramp needed lending and send business abroad, according to lobbyists. [Um, the banks aren’t lending period; so threatening not to do what they aren’t doing anyway rings mighty hollow…]

Both men are said to remain personally supportive of the president. But UBS’s political action committee has shifted its contributions, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. [Um, isn’t that the Republican watchdog group?] After dividing its money evenly between the parties for 2008, it has given about 56 percent to Republicans this cycle. [What lesson do you suppose the average reader will draw from that information? You don’t suppose they’d conclude that Republicans votes are ‘for sale’, would they?]

Most of its biggest contributions, of $10,000 each, went to five Republican opponents of Mr. Obama’s regulatory proposals, including Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the ranking minority member of the Banking Committee. [What does that say about the ‘honorable’ Mr. Shelby?]

The Democratic campaign committees declined to comment on Wall Street money. But their Republican rivals are actively courting it. [Now let’s watch the media deny any knowledge of the Republicans being in the pay of Wall Street! And so we arrive at the statement I moved to the head of the article.]

Senator John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said he visited New York about twice a month to try to tap into Wall Street’s “buyers’ remorse.”

“I just don’t know how long you can expect people to contribute money to a political party whose main plank of their platform is to punish you,” Mr. Cornyn said.

Damn good citizen, you can only sit there in amazement wondering what part of ‘they don’t get this’ the media doesn’t understand.

The public is ready to start burning banks to the ground and Conservative ‘nitwits’ are crowing over being ‘favored’ by Wall Street bankers!

I guess it’s true, ‘stupid is as stupid does!’

But wait for it good citizen, we may see a piece in Alternet or some other web site but it is certain that no other MSM outlet will seize on this…dare I say it? Bonanza!

And you know that is just plain wrong!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

MSM vs. The Blogosphere

Greetings good citizen,

I have speculated rather extensively on the subject of whether or not ‘elected officialdom’ would feel obliged to tell us if the mooring for ‘life as we have come to know it’ were about to shatter into a jillion pieces…

I also believe that I have made it quite clear it is my opinion that our ‘public spirited’ representatives would, er, ‘decline’ to share (much less admit) that things were less than absolutely wonderful, a ‘phenomenon’ we are provided with ample evidence of whenever we are subjected to ‘government statistics’.

Um, naturally, the operative word here is ‘opinion’…although it does dovetail nicely with the huge and growing gap in what passes for reporting between the MSM and the Blogosphere.

One would seriously question if the reports are being submitted from the same planet, so widely do the two diverge from one another…

Tonight’s first offering is an example of reportage from the blogosphere, where it is easy to observe the level of detail and intellectual totally absent form most MSM reporting…

The topic (also rarely covered in the MSM) is our own monetary system… [Purloined from today’s Asia Times]

China in Treasuries cul-de-sac
By Henry CK Liu

[We join this offering ‘mid-stream’, please click the link for the entire article.]

Monetary economists view government-issued money as a sovereign debt instrument with zero maturity, historically derived from the bill of exchange in free banking. This view is valid only for specie money, which is a debt certificate that can claim on demand a prescribed amount of gold or other specie of intrinsic value. But fiat money issued by a sovereign government is not a sovereign debt but a sovereign credit instrument.

Sovereign government bonds are sovereign debt while local government bonds are agency debt but not sovereign debt, because local governments, while they possess limited power to tax, cannot print money, which is the exclusive authority of the Federal government or a central government. When money buys bonds, the transaction represents sovereign credit canceling public or corporate debt. This relationship is rather straightforward but is of fundamental importance.

Money issued by government fiat is now exclusive legal tender in all modern national economies. The State Theory of Money (Chartalism) holds that the general acceptance of government-issued fiat currency rests fundamentally on government's authority to tax. Government's willingness to accept the fiat currency it issues for payment of taxes gives such issuance currency within a national economy. That currency is sovereign credit for tax liabilities, which are dischargeable by credit instruments issued by government in the form of fiat money.

When issuing fiat money, the government owes no one anything except to make good a promise to accept its money for tax payment. A central banking regime operates on the notion of government-issued fiat money as sovereign credit. A central bank operates essentially as a lender of last resort to a nation's banking system, drawing on sovereign credit. A lender's position is a creditor position.

Thomas Jefferson famously prophesied: "If the American people allow the banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation, and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers occupied ... The issuing power of money should be taken from the banks and restored to Congress and the people to whom it belongs." This warning applies to all other peoples in the world as well.

Government levies taxes not to finance its operations, but to give value to its fiat money as sovereign credit instruments. If it chooses to, government can finance its operation entirely through user fees, as some fiscal conservatives suggest. A government does not need to be indebted to the public. It creates a government debt component to provide a benchmark interest rate to anchor the private debt market, not because it needs money. Technically, a sovereign government need never borrow. It can issue tax credit in the form of fiat money to meet all its liabilities. And only a sovereign government can issue fiat money as sovereign credit.

If fiat money is not sovereign debt, then the entire conceptual structure of finance capitalism is subject to reordering, just as physics was subject to reordering when man's worldview changed with the realization that the earth is not stationary nor is it the center of the universe. The need for capital formation to finance socially useful development will be exposed as a cruel hoax, as sovereign credit can finance all socially useful development without problem. Private savings are not necessary to finance public socio-economic development, since private savings are not required for the supply of sovereign credit. Thus the relationship between the national private savings rate and public finance is at best indirect.

Sovereign credit can finance an economy in which unemployment is unknown, with wages constantly rising to provide consumer buying power to prevent production overcapacity. A vibrant economy is one in which there is persistent labor shortages that push up wages to reduce overcapacity. Private savings are needed only for private investment that has no intrinsic social purpose or value. Savings without full employment are deflationary, as savings reduces current consumption to provide investment to increase future supply, which is not needed in an economy with overcapacity created by lack of demand, which in turn has been created by low wages and unemployment.

Um, ‘fair warning’, the rest of the article is just as ‘dense’ and assumes that you already have a firm grasp of basic monetary principles…which only makes it that much more mysterious as to why ‘economists’, supposed ‘experts’ in money and it’s management, get it so wrong, so frequently?

As further proof, we arrive at tonight’s second offering with the foreword of caution being that I howled when I first read this. Not because the situation is humorous in itself, but because it struck me as, er, ‘ludicrous’ the way it is so accurately presented.

[Purloined from: The Automatic Earth]

January 6 2010: Iceland, or Size matters

Ilargi: The case of Iceland and its financial shenanigans is, if nothing else, intriguing and amusing. Not for some of the people involved, I know, and I mean no disrespect. But it is in the way the situation is dealt with and in how various parties try to come out on top.

A short background: Iceland had 3 main banks who all, albeit to various degrees, made unrealistic profits for investors and depositors in early 21st century times, and then went bust. One bank, Icesave, which had many clients in England and Holland, owes these clients some $6 billion, a sum the Iceland government is held responsible for and initially seems to have agreed to pay. The people of Iceland, all 320,000 of them as it were, have started questioning why they should pay for foreign investors' losses with banks with whom they have no connection other than that they happen to be located in their country.

Britain's decision to put Iceland on some terror alert list because of the banking affair is likely a big factor in this, as well as in the decision by the president to let the people decide in a referendum on February 20 whether they want to pay back the losses of foreign investors who had accounts with Icesave only so they could get a few basis points more interest on their funds. It doesn't look like they will.

Which may put Iceland on some black list, with the IMF threatening to withdraw emergency funds and Scandinavian loans in peril. The Dutch threat to block Iceland's entry into the EU is seen in Reykjavik as similar to Britain's terror list boondoggle. The prevailing sentiment these days among the geysers can best be summarized like this: "We may be small, but we ain't your bitch". And that is a sentiment that may provoke a lot of sympathy, provided the Icelanders play their cards right.

In the next 6 weeks they will come under huge international pressure to pay up or else, for there's nothing the international community fears more than members who don’t play by the rules, no matter how inane and insane they are. Plus, of course, Iceland is not some small African nation full of poor black people, it’s a small European nation full of the kind of people that wealthy US and EU citizens can identify with: white and relatively affluent. They could be your neighbors. They could be your family. They could be you.

So how reasonable is it for Britain and the Netherlands to demand restitution of losses suffered? Interesting question. The answer is not that easy, since it begs the next question. Who is to blame for the losses? There's the bankers, who went megalomaniacal, and got much bigger than banks based in what is population-wise not more than a mid-size town ought to be. But Iceland is a member of the EEA, the European Economic Area, which gives its banks the right to expand to the rest of the EU.

So alright, let's see. First to blame: the bankers. Second: The Icelandic government, who should have regulated its banks much closer. Third, the governments of Holland and England, who should have done due diligence and demanded far more strict guarantees from the banks. Fourth, the Dutch and British investors, individuals, local governments and companies, who all should have read the fine print. Fifth, the people of Iceland, who were living it up with the cash floating in freely. [Um, naturally, not ALL Icelanders. It really pisses me off when people make blanket assertions like that…]

But we all know how blame moves. The investors point to their own governments, who didn't warn them. These governments point to the government of Iceland, which didn’t warn them. That government points to the bankers, who went nuts, but who they still have to cover for. And last, the people of Iceland point to all of the above and say they should all have been wiser, and the fact that they were not doesn’t mean Icelanders now have to fork over, no matter how certain parties like to interpret laws and regulations. Some things just don't feel right.

And what do we feel about this, who are not directly affected by any of it? Well, try this one on for size. If you allow me to numb and dumb down the numbers a bit, the US at 308 million citizens is about 1000 times bigger than Iceland (320,000). Which means that the US equivalent of what the British and Dutch are demanding from Icelanders would be, loosely, $6 trillion. Now what would you say the odds are that the American people would agree to pay that kind of money, if it were payment for what their banks have (mis-)done in the past, to a group of foreign investors? Let's say Chinese and Japanese? [Which, without putting too fine a point on things, is indeed the case…]

I may be wrong, of course, but I have the feeling that I know what Americans would think of that. They'd be marching in the streets, on their way to embassies and consulates, if not private businesses. They'd say: we have a hard enough time ourselves as it is, and we ain't paying no foreigners who weren't making sure they knew what they were doing.

The same reaction would come in London and Amsterdam as well, naturally. Funny thing is that the governments there were very quick to guarantee their citizens' losses, and only after that claimed them back from Reykjavik. There doesn't seem to be any legal obligation for them to do so, it looks more like an election-related issue. There are all sorts of depositor protection schemes in place, that's true enough, but everyone could have known that the established $30,000 guarantee from Iceland for every depositor account wasn't worth much, given that it’s backed only by the full faith and credit of 320,000 people. Britain is what, 200 times bigger than that?

But in the end, as I'm pondering all this, what is probably the most interesting part of it is that the American people ARE in fact in the same boat as the Icelanders. The main difference between them may well be that the latter stand up for themselves, where the former don’t understand what's going on. The US government has indeed already pledged $14 trillion in public funds (with a total risk of up to $24 trillion) for US bank losses. It's just that American banks are covered by the ability of the US to borrow enough money in international markets to cover their losses, something for which Iceland is simply too small. And also, the US gets to bleep around with accounting rules, so bank losses can remain hidden for a long time (though not forever).

So while it may look like the situations are entirely different, they’re not really. On the ground level, it's the citizens who are being forced to pay for institutional gambling debts, the old adage of keep profits private and make losses public. China doesn't go to Obama to demand payment guarantees tomorrow morning, but it's all just a matter of size. That size determines that the Icelandic situation is far more transparent, since smaller make simpler. But down the line, the Iceland banks weren't the greatest gamblers, it was Wall Street and the City of London. And the $20,000 that Icelanders "owe" per capita (in the eyes of others) isn't really the issue, it won’t kill them. They just take a stand against what they see as bullies.

The amount Americans "owe", though, is already more than twice as much per capita at $14 trillion. And there's no end in sight, since none of that money has been used to actively solve problems, it's all merely hiding them for a while longer.

In other words, here's waiting for the moment Americans become more like Icelanders, and stand up against bullies (I'm sure Oprah has advice to provide on the topic). But also, here's not holding any breath, and here's expecting that by the time any sizeable group stands up, the amounts owed will be a multiple of $20,000 and enough to generate debt and poverty for years, if not decades, to come.

And you know what the funniest thing about it all is? In America it wouldn't even take 320,000 people standing up, for real, to change policies and history in a heartbeat.

But they're not there. They’re in Iceland.

Size matters. But so does courage.

Um, Alternet ran a piece today mourning the ‘reluctance’ of the citizens of the US to ‘protest’ the crimes committed in their name by their alleged ‘elected officials’.

Um, we might even wonder ‘why’ the populace of ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave’ doesn’t stand up to the brazen criminals who have usurped our nation.

Why won’t we fight is exactly the wrong question, and the fact that it is being asked, both loudly and repeatedly says something else, it tells us that the perps are afraid. Afraid that they’ve pushed us too far…that when all hell finally does break loose, there won’t be any mercy…no mercy and no quarter.

The time for ‘gentile protest’ and political solutions has passed, it’s too late for that now. The giant has been awoken and it won’t slumber again until it is sure that it is safe to go back to sleep.

Understand that the giant isn’t a rational creature, it can’t be reasoned with. It’s head is filled with nonsense, it is unable to recognize right from wrong, the only thing it knows is what threatens it…and right now a very large and very poor giant sees a very small but very wealthy threat, that ‘class war’ thing I was babbling about yesterday…

Strange when push comes to shove, how money don’t count for a whole lot.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Forked tongues

Greetings good citizen,

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend, we experienced the first snowfall of the season (just a dusting) here North of Boston and it snowed a little more earlier this evening. I guess that’s the ugly reality of winter, once it starts snowing it doesn’t stop and if it rains on top of the snow it only makes things worse.

While many fret over ‘global warming’ we only had one ‘heat wave’ in Boston this summer and I was, er, restricted to my (hospital) bed (freezing my ass off) for the entire time. Add that to a spring that was so wet most crops rotted in the fields due to lack of sunshine and you’ve captured the general mood of the nation good citizen.

Things are grim and getting grimmer…except for the damn ‘Stupidity Index’ and I suspect that is frightening more people than it’s providing ‘cover’ for.

Anyway, tonight’s offering is yet another example of a corporate owned media spewing ‘happy talk’ that has zero basis in fact.

U.S. Forecasts Smaller Loss From Bailout of Banks

By JACKIE CALMES
Published: December 6, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department expects to recover all but $42 billion of the $370 billion it has lent to ailing companies since the financial crisis began last year, with the portion lent to banks actually showing a slight profit, according to a new Treasury report. [What $370 billion was this? The Tarp was $700 billion and the ‘total’ tally of funds either lent or guaranteed by the ‘Treasury/Taxpayer’ is roughly $24 Trillion, so what’s this psycho-babble about only losing $42 billion? This thing is only just getting started so it’s a little early to be estimating losses…]

[The caption beneath an accompanying photo of GW Bush said:]

The bank bailout has been unpopular since it was created in October 2008 by former President George W. Bush and (the, by that time, Democratically controlled) Congress. [WTF! Clarification: Gegner is neither a Republican nor a Democrat, Gegner is an Anarchist who believes in ‘rules without rulers!’ The elimination of the individual from the decision making process IS tyranny!]

Treasury officials said the government had lost roughly $30 billion to the insurance giant American International Group. The new assessment of the $700 billion bailout program, provided by two Treasury officials on Sunday ahead of a report to Congress on Monday, is vastly improved from the Obama administration’s estimates last summer of $341 billion in potential losses from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. That figure anticipated more financial troubles requiring intervention. [Um, wait a minute Slim, Obama didn’t take office until January of this year…yes Summer is over but it looks like they are talking about the year before the administration came to power…which would be pretty freaky.]

The [unidentified] officials said the government could ultimately lose $100 billion more from the bailout program in new loans to banks, aid to troubled homeowners and credit to small businesses. [Which is really bad news considering ‘the government’ when framed this way, means you and me…not Biff & Buffy Fatcat.]

Still, the new estimates would lower the administration’s deficit forecast for this fiscal year, which began in October, to about $1.3 trillion, from $1.5 trillion. [The ‘qualifier’ here is ‘optimistically speaking’…a lot of things have to go exceedingly well to achieve that $200 billion dollar savings…and it looks a lot tougher to hit when phrased that way, doesn’t it?]

The report could tamp down some of the public anger directed against both parties over the bailouts. [More unwarranted optimism] Congressional leaders are already planning to use some of the program’s money for economic stimulus and job creation. [Although not one of them has a clue how to go about it.]

Of course, the government’s potential losses extend beyond the Treasury program. The Federal Reserve, for example, still holds a trillion-dollar portfolio of mortgage-backed securities whose market value is unknown.

The improved picture of the Treasury program is the result of higher-than-expected returns on the loans and the fact that, as the financial sector has recovered from its free fall last year, the government has not had to use much more of its $700 billion in lending authority this year, according to the Treasury officials, who declined to be identified as discussing the report before it was presented to Congress. [I don’t know about you but the whole damn thing looks like a ‘strategic leak’ (read ‘intentional misdirection’) to me.]

Last week, Bank of America became the latest big bank to say that it was raising private capital and would soon repay its $45 billion bailout loan. Once that payment is made, Citigroup will be the last big bank tethered to the state. [Um, notice how there is zero mention of the ‘shellac’ing’ the taxpayer took on these so-call ‘preferred stocks’ the got in exchange for ‘interest free’ loans from John & Jane Q Public…]

The estimated $42 billion in losses is a net figure that accounts for some profits to offset the losses. The Treasury officials said the government had lost about $60 billion, roughly half to Chrysler and General Motors and the other half to the insurance giant American International Group. [Some of you will remember how AIG was going to sell itself to a private equity firm for $40 billion…right before the government (Hank Paulson) stepped in with $80 Billion from you and me…and now they’re into us for what…$120 billion? Probably more…]

But the government is projecting a $19 billion profit and perhaps more on the $245 billion lent to banks, through interest, dividends and the sale of warrants the government received as collateral. [Wait a minute Slim…here they go again, we, the taxpayers, are on the hook for $24 Trillion dollars…so a $19 billion ‘profit’ is actually ‘chickenfeed’ and more like chicken shit.]

Aside from the rare good news for the federal deficit, the latest bailout accounting could have political and legislative ramifications.

Politically, the Treasury program has been unpopular ever since it was created in October 2008 by former President George W. Bush and a Congress controlled by Democrats. It has grown only more reviled over time as a symbol for many Americans of the government’s perceived favoritism toward Wall Street, which is making money, over Main Street, which continues to struggle and shed jobs. [Only ‘perceived’ good citizen? You don’t suppose Mr. Calmes’ job is hanging in the balance here, do you?]

An anti-Washington anger is disturbing both parties as they approach a midterm election year, and some Republican lawmakers have drawn primary opponents largely because of their votes last year in favor of the bailout program. [Wouldn’t possibly have anything to do with their persistent obstructionism and their complete failure to act in the public’s interest, would it?]

It was unclear how that climate might be altered as taxpayers realize they did not actually lose $700 billion to help big banks. At most, the Treasury officials said, the ultimate losses will be one-fifth of that amount and probably less. [This is ‘moving the goal posts’ big time! The public got screwed on both sides of the bailout and now they’re back to using ‘creative accounting’ in a feeble attempt to turn a pig’s ear into a silk purse! Again, good citizen, I remind you that this is nowhere near being over…if anything, it’s only getting started!]

Democrats in Congress have already decided to divert about $70 billion from what is left in the bailout fund to the cost of additional road-building and other construction projects, credit to small businesses and further aid to state and local governments. [A much larger problem than this exercise in wishful thinking acknowledges…]

The administration had wanted to dedicate unspent bailout money to the deficit but signaled to Congressional leaders late last week that it would not oppose their plans. President Obama is expected to touch on those ideas and others in an economic speech on Tuesday. [Just one more ‘dangerous’ (and reckless) ‘about face’ for the Obama Administration.]

The bailout program is due to expire at the end of the year, but the Treasury has indicated it will use the authority it was granted by Congress to extend it into 2010. [Um, is anyone else wondering why we bother to elect a ‘president’?]

The Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, testified last week to a Senate committee that “nothing would make me happier than to end this as quickly as possible,” but he added, “we’re not quite there yet.” [What Timmy is really waiting for is the day he steps out of the limelight and into the Shadows known as Goldman Sachs, never to be heard from again.]

Mr. Geithner, who has become the administration’s lightning rod for anger among both liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans, said “there are parts of the system that are still very damaged” — in banking, housing, commercial real estate and credit-starved small businesses. [So why aren’t you and Ben doing anything to help these crucial sectors of the economy? Is it because the only place where the US remains ‘competitive’ is in ‘financial products’…even if they do blow up?]

He said the administration would propose within weeks when and how to end the program safely. [You know and I know that HE KNOWS this isn’t over, they aren’t ‘ending’ anything, they’ve simply run out the clock, the crap is about to hit the rotational device and the only thing left to do is stand clear!]

At that hearing, he hinted at the Treasury’s improved forecast for the program, saying “we’re going to be able to return very, very substantial amounts of money to address the critical economic needs, long-term fiscal needs, of this country.” [What is this retard babbling about? Isn’t he supposed to say ‘Hocus Pocus’ either before or after making these wildass claims?]

That prediction contrasts with the administration’s planning soon after Mr. Obama took office in January. Fearing that additional bank failures could exhaust the entire $700 billion fund, they proposed up to $500 billion more in federal lending authority in the administration’s first budget in February.

Instead, just $7 billion more in bailout money has gone out to banks since Mr. Obama became president, making a second loan authorization unnecessary. Meanwhile, banks have raised 16 times as much, $114 billion, in private capital, according to the Treasury. {Um, again, I didn’t see no ‘hocus pocus’…nor should there be as there was no magic involved…the gun and the mask have even become optional in case you’re wondering where that $114 billion came from.]

Since the Treasury subjected big banks to “stress tests” last winter to determine how much private capital they must raise to withstand future financial shocks, the financial institutions have been eager to do so, in order to repay the government and thereby exit the Treasury’s rescue program — not least to escape the restrictions on executive compensation that come with it.

Mr. Geithner now says that banks will repay $175 billion by the end of next year. To date, counting Bank of America’s promised payment, banks have repaid $116 billion, according to the Treasury. Also, in coming weeks the Treasury will sell more of the government’s bank warrants to investors.

At last look the Dow was up but the S&P and the Nasdaq were down…and that was a couple of hours before the close. All three European exchanges closed in negative territory…I could go look but it wouldn’t matter. Market performance tells as much as the ‘happy talk’ in this article does, would that it were!

Perhaps more disturbing is the growing reliance on ‘happy talk’ and ‘positive thinking’ while both fly in the face of actual conditions.

In fact, if you want to see some grim realities you can visit this link over at Financial Armageddon or this story over at Jesse’s Crossroads Café.

Me…this crisis is still very ‘fixable’ but the first step towards putting our species back on the right track is to wrest control of our nations from the self-interested bootlickers who have sold us out for their own enrichment…a la ‘Adam Smith’.

Personal greed seldom ends well for anyone, especially the society that fails to stop it.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner