Do you 'Know it when you see it?'

Greetings good citizen,

As, er, ‘usual’, markets around the world are ‘tumbling’ as, er, ‘uncertainty’ grows over France’s ability to keep its economy from sinking…

Naturally, only the most paranoid of sycophants would actually ‘worry’ about the stability of the French economy as opposed to the rest of the globalized world that remains, er, ‘afloat’ solely by the graces of ‘creative accounting’.

But more disturbingly we have this insane situation residing at the heart of our legal system.

Which is to ask do ANY of these ASSHOLES know what CORRUPTION is?

Apparently not:

The parties' efforts to emulate Best Buy, in short, create true Legislative Leviathans. They turn Congress into a jungle where individual members compete frantically for donations. The system also produces top-heavy, cash-rich leadership structures within each party. It ensures that national party campaigns rest heavily on slogan-filled, fabulously expensive lowest-common-denominator appeals to collections of affluent special interests. The Congress of our New Gilded Age is far from the best Congress money can buy; it may well be the worst. It is a coin-operated stalemate machine that is now so dysfunctional that it threatens the good name of representative democracy itself.  [Ha!]

But democratic legitimacy is far from the only value at risk as the 2012 election approaches. Over the long run, the bonfire of inanities fueled by gridlock has encouraged more and more investors and interest groups on the right to keep raising the stakes. Groups like the Club for Growth, the Heritage Foundation, and the Cato Institute have become ever bolder in challenging Republicans whose conservative credentials they deem suspect. Establishment Republican leaders in Congress, even with all their advantages, have a harder and harder time containing these groups. The leadership only just prevailed in the battle over the debt ceiling this summer. In a globalized world that is increasingly nervous, however irrationally, about budget deficits and sovereign debt repayments, it would be a mistake to underestimate how much havoc a small group of zealots could wreak in the next few months, as taxes and the budget promise to redefine American politics.

The land of ‘many kings’ (that IS capitalism) has proven no improvement over the ’one king’ system, especially after the ’one king’ loses control over the clamoring nobles…

It serves no purpose to launch into another rant about the ‘scam’ we call ‘representative democracy’.

You already know it serves the singular purpose of stripping you of your vote!

NOW, our alleged ‘elected representatives’ are ‘auctioning off’ governmental seats of power!

THIS is done in ‘the best interests of the people‘? WTF!

Let me try one more time (and maybe some of you will get it this time!)

Those elected to public office who then sell that trust for their own personal benefit are guilty of what good citizen? Do any of you know?

There was a while there I’m sure some of you thought I would never shut up about this, er, legal technicality but like pointing out stupidity, I have refrained from screaming it every time it rears its ugly head as of late.

That word I’m searching for (naturally) is TREASON!

Why EVERY elected/appointed official in this nation ISN’T swinging by their necks from the end of a slip knotted rope remains a mystery, good citizen?

I will, once again, add that NOTHING will change ANYWHERE in the world until JUSTICE is restored!

Without justice, ‘hopes’ for better days/times will remain precisely that, hopes.

We need to recognize that corruption is OMNIPRESENT!

And until we root it out, all else will be futile!

Sure. That might makes sense, except it's hard to see with the naked eye. It's even harder to prove. Few would argue unregulated Wall St. greed and excess aren't a problem. But when was the last time you got mugged by banker or came home to find a stockbroker stealing your stuff ? How do we know we're not making Wall St. a convenient scapegoat for our problems?

Here's how. It was laid out in the 2010 Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job.
The film carefully revealed how the U.S. subprime-mortgage fiasco really was a criminal racket engineered by key players in the financial industry for which the regular people of the world paid, and paid dearly. Due to the abstract and confusing nature of the crime, the guilty were largely rewarded with bonuses and their institutions with bailouts. But eclipsed in the film was a more disturbing and perhaps profound fact. Only 60 years ago, the financial industry was a much smaller part of the North American economy. It has since exploded. While necessary for business, finance generally doesn't make anything except for bland glossy brochures. There's a revealing chart based on statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis that suggests a stunning transformation. The corporate profits of the financial industry ballooned from eight per cent of the U.S. economy in 1948 to 45 per cent in 2002. In short, the financial industry is suddenly dominating the North American economy.

If you have eyes to see then you know the ruthless few have corrupted the government so that they may enrich themselves.

The evidence is right before your eyes!

What is 45% of the, er, ‘shadow economy’ doing working in Finance?

Someone has to play the role of ‘customer’, without customers all commerce is pointless!

The REALLY ‘bad news’ is the longer this charade goes on the more the ‘phantom economy’ shrinks…

Because fewer goods are produced and prices rise as a result…

This is ‘the new normal’.

The economy keeps shrinking and the ‘casualties’ keep piling up on the sidelines…until civilization collapses.

Tick, tock good citizen, how much more time do you think YOU have (because local conditions will vary wildly!)

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Noise

Greetings good citizen,

Columbus Day being a ‘minor’ holiday, the stock markets are open…which is not particularly surprising. What raised my eyebrows this morning is how the markets managed to open up nearly 200 points FOR NO APPARENT REASON!

Understand good citizen, what passes for the global economy is ‘circling the drain’ and there isn’t anything capitalists can (or will) do about it.

Although, as a sidebar, I was reading about the occupy Wall Street phenomenon and they were pointing to one of my favorite hobby horses, the ‘fake’ nature of money.

Which is to say when it comes to bombing our detractors into the Stone Age, money isn’t a factor…but when it comes to a living wage all of a sudden there’s ‘no money’.

Worse, when it comes to profit centers, corporate America’s best turns out to be their own employees!

Recession Officially Over, U.S. Incomes Kept Falling
By ROBERT PEAR

Published: October 9, 2011

WASHINGTON — In a grim sign of the enduring nature of the economic slump, household income declined more in the two years after the recession ended than it did during the recession itself, new research has found.

Between June 2009, when the recession officially ended, and June 2011, inflation-adjusted median household income fell 6.7 percent, to $49,909, according to a study by two former Census Bureau officials. During the recession — from December 2007 to June 2009 — household income fell 3.2 percent.

The finding helps explain why Americans’ attitudes toward the economy, the country’s direction and its political leaders have continued to sour even as the economy has been growing. Unhappiness and anger have come to dominate the political scene, including the early stages of the 2012 presidential campaign.

How about that $50 K ‘median household income? When you consider that is based on two incomes it suddenly doesn’t look quite as impressive.

Worse, since this is the ‘mid-point’, half make more and half make LESS…although, according to this article, we’re ALL making less.

Which returns us to one of the core issues facing our civilization, how do we make decisions when the ‘official data’ is so heavily ‘manipulated’ as to have no relationship with reality?

Is unemployment REALLY 9% or is it closer to 50%? (Less than half of all working aged adults have full time jobs…)

And if you can’t survive on what you make its not society’s problem, it’s YOURS!

(All so ‘a few’ can be rich…what a system, eh?)

More ‘frightening’ is how mortgage interest rates have fallen below 3% and NOBODY is re-fi’ing…

Understand, people would LOVE to roll over some of their massive debt but, all of a sudden, NOBODY ‘qualifies’ for a new ‘cheap’ mortgage!

What’s the message again?

“It Sucks being YOU!”

If we were to hop back to the other message today’s offering sends it would be a re-enforcement of something I raged about back in 2008 and that would be ‘The New Normal’.

What sucks about the ‘new normal’ good citizen?

It has no room for YOU!

Now it’s time to put OWS back into perspective.

‘Protests’ DON’T WORK! (Regardless of how ‘high-minded’ they are!)

Ask yourself, are our former slaves REALLY better off than they were before the ‘civil rights’ movement?

Not really, considering it has become increasingly apparent that voting doesn’t do ANY of us any good. (Since we are consistently denied the opportunity to vote when it really matters…something A Simple Plan changes!)

So let us ask, point blank, what has at least crossed most rational people’s minds…

How ‘disappointed’ will you be when OWS vanishes down the memory hole with no apparent results?

Which is not to overlook the true significance of OWS, that we are NOT as DIVIDED as the corporate owned media would have us believe we are, (an important accomplishment all by itself.)

Again, the pragmatists among us know that nothing is going to ‘change’ until we force change to happen.

How unfortunate is it for the rest of us that the only the most ‘anti-social’ forces among us are prepared to act?

Worse, the ones that control the, er, ‘spotlight’ call the tune and right now there are some downright whacko people calling the tunes!

Which, on the flipside of this ‘unity’ coin that OWS represents, united over nothing isn’t exactly inspiring.

Dialog about change covers a lot of ground and it opens some dangerous doors…but if we don’t 'move' things will never improve…

Which brings us to the next harsh realization, ‘improvement’ is ‘relative’.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Gypsies Tramps and Thieves

Greetings good citizen,

Every time I read this guy I come away with the same reaction…I can’t believe this guy…is/was a Republican. What we don’t get to see is if he regrets the ‘disappearance’ of the political party he grew up with. This raises an even more disturbing issue, a throw back to a time when the division between parties was in fact, miniscule.

Neither side questioned the other’s patriotism, we were ALL Americans back then, hell, we were all on the same team back then.

Well, most of us were anyway.

Now there is no ‘Team America’. Today if you aren’t a ‘Liberty Lovin’ Capitalist Privateer, you’re a paycheck peasant!

Bizarre how removing the threat of being invaded by large ‘conventional armies’ transformed the ‘Masters of the Free World’ into a bunch of Corporate Raiders!

Did the fragile peace of MAD pave the way for merchants to play ‘above the law’?

If the Bankers go berserk in Bongo Congo, you can’t invade. They have a nuclear treaty with the other side! An attack on one is an attack on all! How fortunate was this little development for the destroyers of global economies?

Anyway, let’s proceed to tonight’s offering [Um, this particular article is located at the end of that post…]

America—A Country of Serfs Ruled By Oligarchs
by Paul Craig Roberts

The media has headlined good economic news: fourth quarter GDP growth of 5.7 percent ("the recession is over"), Jan. retail sales up, productivity up in 4th quarter, the dollar is gaining strength. Is any of it true? What does it mean? The 5.7 percent growth figure is a guesstimate made in advance of the release of the U.S. trade deficit statistic. It assumed that the U.S. trade deficit would show an improvement. When the trade deficit was released a few days later, it showed a deterioration, knocking the 5.7 percent growth figure down to 4.6 percent. Much of the remaining GDP growth consists of inventory accumulation.

More than a fourth of the reported gain in Jan. retail sales is due to higher gasoline and food prices. Questionable seasonal adjustments account for the rest. Productivity was up, because labor costs fell 4.4 percent in the fourth quarter, the fourth successive decline. [Big shock, eh?] Initial claims for jobless benefits rose. Productivity increases that do not translate into wage gains cannot drive the consumer economy. Housing is still under pressure, and commercial real estate is about to become a big problem. [Which begs the question: What are these dopes looking at when they say the economy is recovering? The so-called ‘recovery’ is still ‘invisible’ almost a year later!]

The dollar’s gains are not due to inherent strengths. The dollar is gaining because government deficits in Greece and other EU countries are causing the dollar carry trade to unwind. America’s low interest rates made it profitable for investors and speculators to borrow dollars and use them to buy overseas bonds paying higher interest, such as Greek, Spanish and Portuguese bonds denominated in euros. The deficit troubles in these countries have caused investors and speculators to sell the bonds and convert the euros back into dollars in order to pay off their dollar loans. This unwinding temporarily raises the demand for dollars and boosts the dollar’s exchange value.

The problems of the American economy are too great to be reached by traditional policies. Large numbers of middle class American jobs have been moved offshore: manufacturing, industrial and professional service jobs. When the jobs are moved offshore, consumer incomes and U.S. GDP go with them. So many jobs have been moved abroad that there has been no growth in U.S. real incomes in the 21st century, except for the incomes of the super rich who collect multi-million dollar bonuses for moving U.S. jobs offshore. [Before nuclear weapons, nations that didn’t keep their merchants in check would risk being invaded…all of that went out the window after WWII.]

Without growth in consumer incomes, the economy can go nowhere. Washington policymakers substituted debt growth for income growth. Instead of growing richer, consumers grew more indebted. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan accomplished this with his low interest rate policy, which drove up housing prices, producing home equity that consumers could tap and spend by refinancing their homes. Unable to maintain their accustomed living standards with income alone, Americans spent their equity in their homes and ran up credit card debts, maxing out credit cards in anticipation that rising asset prices would cover the debts. When the bubble burst, the debts strangled consumer demand, and the economy died. [How tragically wrong can you get? We’re about to find out…]

As I write about the economic hardships created for Americans by Wall Street and corporate greed and by indifferent and bribed political representatives, I get many letters from former middle class families who are being driven into penury. Here is one that recently arrived:

"Thank you for your continued truthful commentary on the 'New Economy.' My husband and I could be its poster children. Nine years ago when we married, we were both working good paying, secure jobs in the semiconductor manufacturing sector. Our combined income topped $100,000 a year. We were living the dream. Then the nightmare began. I lost my job in the great tech bubble of 2003, and decided to leave the labor force to care for our infant son. Fine, we tightened the belt. Then we started getting squeezed. Expenses rose, we downsized, yet my husband's job stagnated.

After several years of no pay raises, he finally lost his job a year and a half ago. But he didn't just lose a job, he lost a career. The semiconductor industry is virtually gone here in Arizona. Three months later, my husband, with a technical degree and 20-plus years of solid work experience, received one job offer for an entry level corrections officer. He had to take it, at an almost 40 percent reduction in pay. Bankruptcy followed when our savings were depleted.

We lost our house, a car, and any assets we had left. His salary last year, less than $40,000, to support a family of four. A year and a half later, we are still struggling to get by. I can't find a job that would cover the cost of daycare. We are stuck. Every jump in gas and food prices hits us hard. Without help from my family, we wouldn't have made it. So, I could tell you just how that 'New Economy' has worked for us, but I'd really rather not use that kind of language."


Policymakers who are banking on stimulus programs are thinking in terms of an economy that no longer exists. Post-war U.S. recessions and recoveries followed Federal Reserve policy. When the economy heated up and inflation became a problem, the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates and reduce the growth of money and credit. Sales would fall. Inventories would build up. Companies would lay off workers. Inflation cooled, and unemployment became the problem. Then the Federal Reserve would reverse course. Interest rates would fall, and money and credit would expand. As the jobs were still there, the work force would be called back, and the process would continue.

It is a different situation today. Layoffs result from the jobs being moved offshore and from corporations replacing their domestic work forces with foreigners brought in on H-1B, L-1 and other work visas. The U.S. labor force is being separated from the incomes associated with the goods and services that it consumes. With the rise of offshoring, layoffs are not only due to restrictive monetary policy and inventory buildup. They are also the result of the substitution of cheaper foreign labor for U.S. labor by American corporations. Americans cannot be called back to work to jobs that have been moved abroad. In the New Economy, layoffs can continue despite low interest rates and government stimulus programs.

To the extent that monetary and fiscal policy can stimulate U.S. consumer demand, much of the demand flows to the goods and services that are produced offshore for U.S. markets. China, for example, benefits from the stimulation of U.S. consumer demand. The rise in China’s GDP is financed by a rise in the U.S. public debt burden. Another barrier to the success of stimulus programs is the high debt levels of Americans. The banks are being criticized for a failure to lend, but much of the problem is that there are no consumers to whom to lend. Most Americans already have more debt than they can handle.

Hapless Americans, un-represented and betrayed, are in store for a greater crisis to come. President Bush’s war deficits were financed by America’s trade deficit. China, Japan, and OPEC, with whom the U.S. runs trade deficits, used their trade surpluses to purchase U.S. Treasury debt, thus financing the U.S. government budget deficit. The problem now is that the U.S. budget deficits have suddenly grown immensely from wars, bankster bailouts, jobs stimulus programs, and lower tax revenues as a result of the serious recession. Budget deficits are now three times the size of the trade deficit. Thus, the surpluses of China, Japan, and OPEC are insufficient to take the newly issued U.S. government debt off the market.

If the Treasury’s bonds can’t be sold to investors, pension funds, banks, and foreign governments, the Federal Reserve will have to purchase them by creating new money. When the rest of the world realizes the inflationary implications, the US dollar will lose its reserve currency role. When that happens Americans will experience a large economic shock as their living standards take another big hit. America is on its way to becoming a country of serfs ruled by oligarchs.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term.

I’m not the only one who sees no way out, others are singing the same song. That said, I have to nod to the ‘doomer’s lament’; why isn’t this dire set of circumstances being acknowledged by the MSM?

And you’ve all heard the answer…it surfaced many times while the stock market tumbled towards the basement. “It’s all about ‘attitude’.” If people BELIEVE things are going to be okay, then things will be okay!

Well, things aren’t going to be okay, the ‘New Normal’ is a waking nightmare and the ‘New Economy’ is gone for good.

The magical ‘Finance Economy’ is dead and buried…and there is nothing to take its place.

Sure, the ‘puppet masters’ still maintain the ‘fantasy’ but eventually they will pack up and leave before the fools who worshiped them discover they’ve been had…before things turn ugly.

That concludes today’s re-arrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic…see you again tomorrow,

Gegner