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

Life during Wartime

Greetings good citizen,

One of my first posts centered on the issue of what constitutes a ‘fair day’s wages for an honest day’s work’.

Understand that this is the same as asking, ‘how high is up?’

More importantly, how do we achieve a ‘sustainable’ economy without being able to answer this question? The short answer is, ‘we can’t’.

Why doesn’t this important issue have an answer? In the end, all we are really searching for is what constitutes a living wage. What’s so dangerous about establishing a ‘living wage’?

It is dangerous because it is hard to justify paying anyone more than this basic number. How much better off would investors (never mind consumers) be if profits were restricted to a tiny percentage above what constitutes a living wage?

What’s the ‘justification’ for a company to earn North of $ 700,000 per employee? They sure as shit don’t pay their employees…(well, not all of them) that much!

Why aren’t these thieves prosecuted for price gouging? [Regulatory capture…but you knew that!]

No, the real problem with ‘income inequality’ is warped and twisted markets. The ‘overpaid’ don’t (actually can’t) spend their ill-gotten gains fast enough to keep the rest of the economy rolling, so the economy ‘chokes’ like it is doing today!

It is not possible to pay yourself handsomely at your employees expense because you’ll run out of customers! Let’s suppose you deal in a vital commodity that people HAVE TO buy…Screw your people and you screw yourself.

A society that doesn’t have robust cash-flow is a desperate, dangerous environment…and the money doesn’t do you any good if you’re dead.

So it really is a question of balance…

The Richest 1% Have Captured Americas Wealth -- What's It Going to Take to Get It Back?

The United States already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis -- and it's gotten even worse since.

"The war against working people should be understood to be a real war.... Specifically in the U.S., which happens to have a highly class-conscious business class.... And they have long seen themselves as fighting a bitter class war, except they don't want anybody else to know about it." -- Noam Chomsky

As a record amount of US citizens are struggling to get by, while many of the largest corporations are experiencing record-breaking profits, and CEO's are receiving record-breaking bonuses. How could this be happening, how did we get to this point? [All it takes for evil to succeed is for honest men to do nothing…good luck finding (much less electing) ‘honest men’…]

The Economic Elite have escalated their attack on US workers over the past few years, however, this attack began to build intensity in the 1970s. In 1970, CEOs made $25 for every $1 the average worker made. Due to currency manipulation/off-shoring technological advancements, production and profit levels exploded from 1970 - 2000. With the lion's share of increased profits going to the CEO's, this pay ratio dramatically rose to $90 for CEOs to $1 for the average worker. [So, is this a ‘fair day’s wages for an honest day’s work?]

As ridiculous as that seems, an in-depth study in 2004 on the explosion of CEO pay revealed that, including stock options and other benefits, CEO pay is more accurately $500 to $1.

Paul Buchheit, from DePaul University, revealed, "From 1980 to 2006 the richest 1% of America tripled their after-tax percentage of our nation's total income, while the bottom 90% have seen their share drop over 20%." Robert Freeman added, "Between 2002 and 2006, it was even worse: an astounding three-quarters of all the economy's growth was captured by the top 1%." [So you find yourself in the position we are in today, commerce has no customers, they are all too deep in debt to make additional purchases! Worse, the 1% doesn’t buy enough to keep the supply chain from shutting down, so all of this talk of recovery is just that, talk!]

Due to this, the United States already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis. Since the crisis, which has hit the average worker much harder than CEO's, the gap between the top one percent and the remaining 99% of the US population has grown to a record high. The economic top one percent of the population now owns over 70% of all financial assets, an all time record.

As mentioned before, just look at the first full year of the crisis when workers lost an average of 25 percent off their 401k. During the same time period, the wealth of the 400 richest Americans increased by $30 billion, bringing their total combined wealth to $1.57 trillion, which is more than the combined net worth of 50% of the US population. Just to make this point clear, 400 people have more wealth than 155 million people combined. [Bizarrely, few people ‘begrudge’ this kind of…let’s be honest, theft. Supposedly this is because we all harbor hopes that someday it will be us who are ripping the public off on a grand scale! The only thing this proves is people don’t have a good grasp on what constitutes outright evil. They don’t understand this is raises they never got and lower prices they never saw! But stupid is as stupid does, right?]

Meanwhile, 2009 was a record-breaking year for Wall Street bonuses, as firms issued $150 billion to their executives. 100% of these bonuses are a direct result of our tax dollars, so if we used this money to create jobs, instead of giving them to a handful of top executives, we could have paid an annual salary of $30,000 to 5 million people. [Worse, $30,000 is the ‘mid-point’ of what a working male earns in the US, which is why 400 people out-earn 155 million workers! Double-choke…total ‘official’ workforce is less than 155 million…]

So while US workers are now working more hours and have become dramatically more productive and profitable, our pay is actually declining and all the dramatic increases in wealth are going straight into the pockets of the Economic Elite. [I guess it’s easy to get carried away when you’re on a roll but it is mis-statements like this that cost you your credibility. The workweek continues to shrink (in the actual US, although the chiselers are not beyond passing off data from their off-shore divisions as domestic because it helps them maintain ‘appearances’.) But yes, our pay is indeed declining as the off-shoring and ‘churning’ continues.]

If our income had kept pace with compensation distribution rates established in the early 1970s, we would all be making at least three times as much as we are currently making. How different would your life be if you were making $120,000 a year, instead of $40,000? [Um, a vast majority of us would just as tickled to be getting the $40,000! But let’s not go too far off course. While wages have remained ‘stagnant’ for the most part, our ‘purchasing power’ has shrunk to almost nothing! This is what that $120,000 represents! You do the same amount of work but you’re getting paid less…and nobody is ‘protecting’ you from being ripped off like this! Confront your boss with this reality and he’ll tell you there’s nothing he can (read: is about to) do about it. Write your congressman!]

So it should come as no surprise to see that we now have the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world and the highest inequality of wealth in our nation's history. The backbone of America, a hard working middle class that has made our country a world leader, has been devastated. [Naturally, this was to be expected…how could the rich exploit the vastly larger markets of Asia and India without first giving them YOUR job? People without disposable income aren’t customers…it’s that ‘win-win’ thing…for them, you don’t even enter the picture, yo-yo.]

Now that we have a better understanding of how our income has been suppressed over the past forty years, let's take a look at how the economy has been designed to take the limited money we receive and put it into the hands of the Economic Elite as well. [Nothing like capitalism to make you work against your own self-interest! (Not that you have a choice.)]

Costs of Living

Other than in the workplace, in almost all our costs of living the system is now blatantly rigged against us. Let's take a look at it, starting out with our tax system.

In total, the average US citizen is forced to give up approximately 30% of our income in taxes. This tax system is now strategically designed to flow straight into the hands of the Economic Elite. A huge percentage of our tax dollars ultimately end up in their pockets. The past decade proves that -- whether it's the Republicans or the Democrats running the government -- our tax money is not going into our community, it is going into the pockets of the billionaires who have bought off both parties - it is obscene.

For an example of how this system flows to the Economic Elite, just look at the Wall Street "bailout." The real size of the bailout is estimated to be $14 trillion - and could end up costing trillions more than that. By now you are probably also sick of hearing about the bailout, but stop and think about this for a moment. Do you comprehend how much $14 trillion is? [Short answer, no, most don’t!]

What could be accomplished with this money is almost beyond common comprehension. [We’d have a different take on this if we were to end up like Zimbabwe, which is what is happening. These trillions of dollars DO NOT represent real wealth, it is literally ‘confetti’. This money does not and never will exist, but that won’t stop the thieving banks from having it printed up!]

And this is just the tip of the iceberg that has hit us. On top of the trillions given to the Wall Street elite, we already have a record $12.3 trillion in national debt - and we now have to pay $500 billion in interest to the Economic Elite on this debt every year, yet another way they are milking us dry. When you add in unfunded liabilities owed, like social security payments, we actually owe a stunning $74 trillion. That adds up to a debt of $242,000 for every man, woman and child in America. [What really sucks is more than 50 % of them will never find paid employment, which is part of ‘the new normal’]

Trillions more, 25% of taxpayer dollars allocated to military spending goes unaccounted for every year, not to mention the billions spent on overcharging and outright fraud. During the War on Terror, the Economic Elite have used our tax money to build a private army that has more soldiers deployed than the US military - a congressional study revealed that 69% of the "US" fighting forces deployed throughout the world in our name are in fact private mercenaries, 80% of them are foreign nationals. Private contractors regularly get paid three to five times more than our soldiers, and have been repeatedly caught overcharging and committing fraud on a massive scale. A congressional investigation revealed this and strongly recommended that we seize wasting tax dollars on these private military contractors. However, under Obama, there has actually been a drastic increase in total tax dollars spent on them. [How do you ‘read’ this, good citizen? Is this a move by the elite to, er, ‘hire’ soldiers (with taxpayer funds) willing to fire on US citizens? Is there another explanation?]

In 2009, just over $1 trillion tax dollars were spent on the military, it's safe to say that at least $350 billion of that was needlessly wasted. [Being ‘kind’ isn’t he?]

When you research our tax system you see an unprecedented level of waste and fraud rampant throughout most expenditures. Our tax system is a national disaster of epic proportions. It is literally an organized criminal operation that continues to rob us in broad daylight, with zero accountability.

Politicians and mainstream "news" outlets will not tell you this, but almost every serious economist [How do you tell?] knows that due to so much theft and debt created in the tax system, the only way to fix things (other than stopping the theft and seizing the trillions that have been stolen) will be for the government to cut important social funding and drastically raise our taxes. Other than the record national debt, many states are running record deficits and are barreling towards economic disaster, raising the likelihood of higher taxes, more government layoffs and deep cuts in services. Our nation's biggest state economies, like California and New York, are the ones in most trouble. [Criminal regimes of the past have dug a huge hole, leaving subsequent administrations without the means to repair the damage…save for tracking down as many of the original criminals as possible and jailing them, there is little that can be done.]

To merely say that things will not be improving economically is to be a delusional optimist. The truth that you will not hear: we have been hit by an economic deathblow and the United States lay in ruins. [Nothing short of a total reset will put our civilization back on track…but we can’t reset with the criminals still in charge!]

It's not just this criminal tax system; the theft is now built into all our costs of living.

Trillions more in our spending on food and fuel has been stolen due to fraudulent stock transactions and overcharging. Just ten years ago, in 2000, American families paid 7% of our income on food and fuel. We now pay 20%. This drastic increase is primarily driven by fraudulent market manipulation that drives up stock prices. Congress uncovered this in 2006, as part of the Enron investigation they found that companies manipulated the oil market to create major spikes in stock values, and then they didn't do anything about it - nothing to see here, just move on.

As mentioned before, we have the most expensive health care system in the world and we are forced to pay twice as much as other countries, and the overall care we get in return ranks 37th in the world. On average, US citizens are now paying a record high 8% of their income on medical care.

Part of the reason why foreclosure rates are so high is because the percentage of income Americans pay on their housing has risen to 34%. [This was a spike, housing costs are falling…and will continue to fall, pauperizing huge swaths of the population.]

So for these basic necessities - taxes, food, fuel, shelter and medical bills - we have already lost 92% of our limited income. Then factor in ever-increasing interest rates on credit cards, student loans, rising prices for cable, internet, phone, bank fees, etc., etc., etc. We are being robbed and gouged in all costs of living, in every aspect of our life. No wonder bankruptcies are skyrocketing and the amount of people suffering from psychological depression has reached an epidemic level. [Some theorize this over-medication of the middle-class is responsible for the widespread complacency the crisis has been met with.]

The American worker is screwed over every step of the way, and it all starts with the explosion in the cost of a college education. This is one of the Economic Elite's most devastating weapons. To have any chance of succeeding in this economy, it is commonly believed that you must attend the best college possible.[This is false, to succeed today you have to be ‘born into it’, the only thing a degree gets you is a better paid lackey position…and a whole lot of debt.] With the rising costs involved, today's students are graduating with record levels of debt from student loans. At the same time, the unemployment rate among recent college graduates has risen higher than the national average, and those that do find work are making significantly less than they expected to make. This combination of extreme debt and reduced pay has crippled an entire generation right from the start and has put them in a vicious cycle of spiraling debt that they will struggle with for the rest of their lives. The most recent college graduates are now known as a "lost generation."

The American dream has turned into a nightmare. The economic system is a sophisticated prison cell; the indentured servant is now an indebted wage slave; whips and chains have evolved into debts.

"There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by sword. The other is by debt." -- John Adams

Concealing National Wealth

"Liberty in the concrete signifies release from the impact of particular oppressive forces; emancipation from something once taken as a normal part of human life but now experienced as bondage... Today, it signifies liberation from material insecurity and from the coercions and repressions that prevent multitudes from participation in the vast cultural resources that are at hand."-- John Dewey

When you take the time to research and analyze the wealth that has gone to the economic top one percent, you begin to realize just how much we have been robbed. Trillions upon trillions of dollars that could make the lives of all hard working Americans much easier have been strategically funneled into the coffers of the Economic Elite. The denial of wealth is the key to the Economic Elite's power. An entire generation of massive wealth creation has been strategically withheld from 99% of the US population.

The US public doesn't have any understanding of how much wealth has been generated and concentrated into the hands of the Economic Elite over the past 40 years; there is no historical frame of reference. This withholding of wealth is truly the greatest crime against humanity in the history of civilization. [Hard to tell what’s more discouraging…the prospects that nobody will be prosecuted for this crime or the even more certain bloodbath that will ruin the lives of the innocent along with ending the lives of the guilty!]

What could be done with all the money that has been hoarded by the Economic Elite is extraordinary! [Rather than fantasize about spending it, we should consider restoring value to our currency!]

Let's consider what we could do with the money that has been stolen from us? On top of what should be our average six-figure yearly income, we could have:

* Free health care for every American,
* A free 4 bedroom home for every American family,
* 5% tax rate for 99% of Americans,
* Drastically improved public education and free college for all,
* Significantly improved public transportation and infrastructure,

The list goes on... [We could do all of the above and more without spending a nickel, just to give you an idea of how ‘abused’ money is.]

This is not some far-fetched fantasy. These are all things that Franklin D. Roosevelt talked about doing in the 1940's, long before the explosion of wealth creation in our technologically advanced global economy. The money for all this is already there, stashed into the claws of the Economic Elite. The denial of wealth to the masses is the key to the Economic Elite's power. Outside of outdated and obsolete economic models and theories -- and incredibly short-sighted greed -- there is no reason why all this money should be kept in the hands of a few, at the immense suffering and expense of the many.

If Americans could just understand how much wealth is being withheld from us, we would have a massive uprising and the Economic Elite would be swept away, into the history books alongside the evil despots of the past.

Articles such as this one highlight just how little people understand the nature of money. This makes the fact that most of us spend our entire lives held hostage to our ‘need’ for money…er, ‘astounding’ indeed.

Perhaps the most succinct realization any one of us could make is that money is a ‘tool’ and it’s sole purpose is to regulate access.

In this respect money can be every bit a deadly as that other common tool, the gun.

How unfortunate is it that we aren’t properly educated in the use of either of these tools.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

P.S. Some ‘additional reading’ for those who haven’t had enough… Eleven Principles of Financial Reform

What's wrong with you?

Greetings good citizen,

Tonight we encounter a question you really shouldn’t ask unless you’re ready to hear the answer. What’s debatable is whether or not a majority of us don’t already know the answer and this isn’t just another example of the MSM playing ‘coy’.

It’s a bit difficult to carry on this dialog without first letting you in on ‘the question: What’s Wrong With Us?

Naturally, at face value, the question is too broad for a simple answer that doesn’t come off as trite. Sure, ‘we-todd-did’ springs to mind, but there’s that ‘trite’ thing staring us right in the face. Which is to point out that the obvious answer isn’t always the correct one.

If we are to discover the answer we must first delve deeper into the context of the question.

What’s Wrong With Us?

By BOB HERBERT
Published: February 15, 2010

Gov. Ed Rendell likes to tell a story that goes back to his days as mayor of Philadelphia.

As he recalled, the city had a long cold snap with about a month and a half of below-freezing temperatures. Then, abruptly, the mercury rose into the 60s, he said, “and 58 of our water mains broke, causing all sorts of havoc.”

The pipes were old. Some were ancient. “My water people told me that some had been laid in the 19th century,” said Mr. Rendell, “and they were laid shallow, without much protection. So with any radical changes in temperature, they were susceptible to breaking. We had a real emergency on our hands.”

Infrastructure, that least sexy of issues, is not just a significant interest of Ed Rendell’s; it’s more like a consuming passion. He can talk about it energetically and enthusiastically for hours and days at a time. He has tried to stop the hemorrhaging of Pennsylvania’s infrastructure, and he travels the country explaining how crucially important it is for the United States to rebuild a national infrastructure landscape that has deteriorated so badly that it is threatening the nation’s economic viability.

Gegner here: Once again we are confronted with a question that has little to do with our decision-making process. The ‘us’ here doesn’t exist, just as that fictional group ‘We the People’ has no basis in reality.

Understand, ‘we’ don’t make these decisions, so it doesn’t matter what’s ‘wrong’ with us, the problem lies with those we elect to make decisions in our name without ever consulting us…that not being psychic thing just keeps biting us on the ass, doesn’t it?

Yet the media keeps on asking us why ‘we’ don’t ‘do’ anything about these glaring…deficiencies. It’s not up to us…what part of that don’t they get?

Understand, provisions were made for the ‘upkeep’ of all of this infrastructure projects…but the money keeps ‘disappearing’…and nobody is ever prosecuted for stealing from the State…we can only wonder why, just as we can only wonder why the media thinks this is our problem. Which is a mis-statement, it IS our problem BUT ‘we’ are powerless to do anything about it! (Because we arrive full circle at that ‘psychic’ problem, our representatives don’t comprehend normal thinking. Nor do they read newspapers…or watch TV, all of their information comes from their ‘aides/lobbyists’.)

Unfortunately, this leaves us without an answer to the original question ‘What is wrong with ‘us’?’

While ‘we-todd-did’ still springs to mind, I think the real answer is deeper than that.

Two years ago, a bridge inspector who had stopped for lunch in Philadelphia’s Port Richmond neighborhood happened to glance up at a viaduct that carries Interstate 95 over the neighborhood. He noticed a 6-foot crack in a 15-foot column that was supporting the highway. His sandwich was quickly forgotten. Two miles of the highway had to be closed for three days for emergency repairs to prevent a catastrophe from occurring.

These kinds of problems are not peculiar to Pennsylvania. New Orleans was lost for want of an adequate system of levees and floodwalls. Lawrence Summers, President Obama’s chief economic adviser, tells us that 75 percent of America’s public schools have structural deficiencies. The nation’s ports, inland waterways, drinking water and wastewater systems — you name it — are hurting to one degree or another.

Gegner here (again): How about that? Looks like the whole damn nation is going to hell in a hand basket, and this coincides with…Geez, you don’t suppose this massive lack of spending on infrastructure has anything to do with the corresponding lack of investment in domestic industry?

What have they built in this nation over the past twenty years besides restaurants and shopping malls? Oh, let’s not forget banks and real estate offices!

Understand good citizen, they haven’t built a single new oil refinery here in forty years…what does that tell you? Power plants? Roughly the same story.

Are you curious yet? Just what the hell IS wrong with us?

Ignoring these problems imperils public safety, diminishes our economic competitiveness, is penny-wise and pound-foolish, and results in tremendous missed opportunities to create new jobs on a vast scale. [Um, you know and I know there aren’t going to be ANY new jobs created here until the wage scale sinks to the level found in most Banana Republics, pretending otherwise is…’we-todd-did’]

Competitors are leaving us behind when it comes to infrastructure investment. China is building a network of 42 high-speed rail lines, while the U.S. has yet to build its first. Other nations are well ahead of us in the deployment of broadband service and green energy technology. We spend scandalous amounts of time sitting in traffic jams or enduring the endless horrors of airline travel. Low-cost, high-speed Internet access is a science-fiction fantasy in many parts of the United States.

What’s wrong with us?

We’re so far behind in some areas that Governor Rendell has said that getting our infrastructure act together can feel like “sledding uphill.” [Uh, why not blame the ‘REAL culprits’, the investors, led by the Wall Street crowd! The people directly responsible for creating the ‘expensive American worker’ via currency manipulation!]

“When I took over as governor,” he said, “I was told that Pennsylvania led the nation in the number of structurally deficient or functionally obsolete bridges. We had more than 5,600 of them. So I put a ton of money into bridge repair. We more than tripled the amount in the capital budget, from $200 million a year to $700 million a year. And I got a special appropriation from the Legislature to do $200 million a year extra for the next four years.”

The result? “Well, the good news is that we repaired a lot of bridges,” said Mr. Rendell. “The bad news is that by the end of my sixth year, the end of 2008, the number of deficient or structurally obsolete bridges had gone from 5,600 to more than 6,000. [You don’t suppose this says something about the practice/preference of awarding public contracts to the ‘politically connected’ does it?]

“The reason is that we lead the nation in bridges 75 years or older, and the recommended life-span for a bridge is 40 years. So every time we fixed two, three would bump onto the list.”

He said he hopes that by the end of this year the list will be pared to 4,300 bridges, which he described as “still way too high.” [Worse, the funds allocated to ‘maintain’ those bridges dwindles as inflation shreds the value of our money…thanks to our shrinking productivity…US companies are profitable, the US…not so much.]

It’s easy, especially in tough economic times, to push aside infrastructure initiatives, including basic maintenance and repair, in favor of issues that seem more pressing or more appealing. But this misses the point that infrastructure spending that is thoughtful and wise is an investment, a crucial investment in the nation’s future — and it’s a world-class source of high-value jobs. [Once again Mr. Herbert absolutely nails the problem…but is tragically wide of the mark regarding both the cause and the ultimate resolution of the problem!]

The great danger right now is that we will do exactly the wrong thing, that we’ll turn away from our screaming infrastructure needs and let the deterioration continue. With infrastructure costs so high (the needs are enormous and enormously expensive) and with the eyes in Washington increasingly focused on deficit reduction, the absolutely essential modernizing of the American infrastructure may not take place. That would be worse than foolish. It would be tragic.

Um, did we arrive at an answer to the ‘what’s wrong with us question?’

This is like the villain in a bad movie asking the bound and gagged hero ‘what’s wrong with you?’ How is the hero supposed to answer with a sock stuffed into his yap?

Short answer…he isn’t. Unfortunately that’s where the similarity ends. The hero will either break his poorly tied bonds or otherwise escape, thwarting the bad guy’s plans…

If we don’t get our fingers out of our collective backsides, we won’t survive to escape the fate that awaits us.

Let’s examine the problem a bit more rationally. We have politicians who don’t listen and contractors who don’t care (Governor Rendell being an obvious exception…if only to stave off a disaster on his watch!)

Worse, we are powerless to alter this web of deceit. Politicians may come and go but corrupt networks are permanent! At least until they are deposed by a more powerful syndicate, which does nothing to correct the problem.

It is not possible to stop corruption without first abolishing the system that supports it. Um, and the only way to keep corruption at bay is to replace the corrupt system with a system that can’t be corrupted.

This can only be done by changing the laws of money…there is no other way, our patriot forefathers tried the ‘men both honest and true’ route and that hasn’t worked out so well.

Society doesn’t need money to operate, only individuals need money and then only for access to scarce/perishable commodities.

Turning EVERYTHING into an ‘income stream’ has lead to unspeakable corruption that threatens to result in the collapse of society itself! The trouble with the ‘more for me’ game is it’s never enough! The only way to end the madness is to cut it off before it begins.

Again, I have the utmost respect for Mr. Herbert and recognize his voice wouldn’t be heard at all if he were to advocate for ‘sensible’ solutions that lie outside the ‘conventional tool box.’

You have no idea how frustrating it is to offer these practical solutions and have nobody listen.

Maybe ‘we-todd-did’ IS the answer after all…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

How did it come to this?

Greetings good citizen,

One of the more stringently avoided ‘lines in the sand’ we’ve been encountering with increasing frequency over the past two decades is ‘overkill’ when it comes to dealing with ‘undesirables’.

There has been some recent ripples in the alternative press regarding the, er, ‘extrajudicial execution’ of US citizens by agents of the US government. At what point/circumstances is it permissible (never mind desirable) for our government to assassinate ‘enemies of the state’, especially now that there is no longer a ‘sharp distinction’ between who is and is not an ‘enemy combatant.

The only thing protecting you from defacto ‘summary execution’ is the arbitrary judgement of some unspecified individual…acting in their capacity as agent/proxy for the chief executive.

Not only has this practice never seen the ‘sunshine’ of the ballot box, it hasn’t even been decided by our so-called ‘elected representatives’.

How far removed is this from agents of the King executing colonists suspected of treason without any ‘proof’?

Um, there is one major difference between then and now…back then your accuser/executioner looked you in the eye before they dispatched you…today the coward my look you in the eye but you can’t do likewise because your executioner is thousands of miles away, pushing buttons.

Worse, resistance is futile.

So we arrive at tonight’s first offering

America’s Deadly Robots Rewrite the Rules
February 15th, 2010


Via: Sydney Morning Herald:

The kohl-eyed Hakimullah Mehsud probably is dead. He was the target for a missile fired last month from an unmanned aircraft hovering over the Afghan-Pakistani border – but launched by an operator in the US.

Mehsud was the ruthless mastermind of multiple suicide bomb attacks in Pakistan. He was part of a suicide mission on December 30 at Khost, just across the border in Afghanistan, which killed seven CIA agents who were working on the covert operation that now appears to have ended Mehsud’s brief and brutal leadership of the Taliban in Pakistan.

In the artistry of war, the insertion of a Jordanian double-agent who detonated his explosive vest inside this super-sensitive CIA bunker was flawless. But, in their payback, the enraged Americans confirmed the breadth of a new horizon in modern warfare – launching 15 clinical drone attacks in which more than 100 people died along the border, as Washington’s electronic eyes and guns sought out Mehsud and his Taliban and al-Qaeda allies.

War does not get more radical than this – technically, politically and, perhaps, ethically.

Consider: for the first time ever, a civilian intelligence agency is manipulating robots from halfway around the world in a program of extrajudicial executions in a country with which Washington is not at war. [Worse good citizen, this is an agency that didn’t even exist before WWII!]

Consider, too: the drone wars were initiated under the presidency of George Bush. But it is the Democrat Barack Obama who has given them flight and stumped up sufficient funding to spark serious debate on the end of the ”Top Gun” era of the fighter-pilot.


And there is this: despite decades of American disquiet about assassinations abroad and a shrill Republican critique of him as a security wuss, the professorial Obama is the new killer on the block, authorising more drone attacks in the first year of his term in office than Bush did in his entire presidency.

Hold on a second, before you dismiss this as more ‘Obama-bashing’ check the source again. Last time I looked there weren’t any Republicans in Sidney Australia…

While it is tempting to call the Obama administration ‘Bush’s third term’, it is a bit more disturbing to consider that the D or the R after a politicians’ name has become absolutely meaningless.

As I asked last night, what happened to the ‘good guys?’ Who do we elect to save us when they both suck?

More importantly is just how far ‘off course’ our government has, um, ‘strayed’, although I hardly believe that matters have gotten this far afield totally by ‘accident’.

Which is to ask at what point do we determine that this is no longer a government, by, of and for the people? When did we lose control of those elected to protect us…when did their job switch from protecting us to protecting themselves?

This ‘extrajudicial’ murder is the first sign that things are farther gone than they appear. If we don’t rein in the renegades, they won’t be reined in.

Which leaves another disturbing question…how can we trust those who fail to execute their oath of office faithfully?

Short answer…we can’t.

How bad is it? Let’s have a look at tonight’s second offering for a clue…

Simon Johnson: Goldman Faces Special Audit and Possible Ban in Europe

"The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government - a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF's staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation; recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform." ~ The Atlantic Monthly, May 2009, by Simon Johnson


Regular readers will be aware of our thesis that the American Wall Street banks have become dominated by a culture of compulsive sociopaths who are incapable of reforming or restraining their greed. Like all addicts, they push the envelope looking for a new high, emboldened by each successful scam, the weakness of regulators, and the craven support of politicians, going further and further until at long last they go one step too far, with spectacularly destructive results.

Goldman Sachs may have reached that point. And as also suggested here, the rebuke may be coming from European and Asian nations who [have] become weary of the extra-legal antics of the rogue American banks.

In the interests of harmony, the Europeans may once again bow to US pressure and continue to permit the Money Center privateers to roam through the interational financial system wreaking havoc, as they have been doing through the domestic US economy. It will be too bad if they do.

If it ever comes to the light of day, the complicity of a few central banks and governments in the actions of one or two of the money center banks in manipulating several global markets may ignite a firestorm of a political scandal.

At the very least, it remains a practical imperative that the banks be restrained, the financial system reformed, and the economy brought back into balance, before there can be any sustainable recovery and stability.

And it is now apparent that Obama and the US Congress, for whatever reasons, are incapable of doing this. And yet, hope remains.

Few tell it straighter than Jesse.

The criminals that nobody is willing to subdue are wreaking havoc around the globe and we, the victims, have no leverage to make those we elected to enforce the laws to do their job…

Which won’t end well…for all parties concerned.

I won’t kid you good citizen, all civilizations rely on trust. If you can’t trust the people in charge you can’t trust anyone…and once you get to that point there’s no turning back.

Um, where do you think we are now? Can we turn back? Is it possible to re-trench and make things right once more?

…Um, yeah, it can be done, but the price is going to be heavy, real heavy.

We HAVE TO throw the entire judicial system in the trash and start from scratch (because nobody ‘in their right mind’ has any faith in the current system!)

Then we HAVE TO scrap the entire electoral process, 230 years of non-performance is proof enough that you can’t ‘elect’ competence (much less buy it!)

And finally we HAVE TO scrap our entire financial system, money is a great idea that has been abused far too long! Luckily, this can be easily fixed.

Thank you for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Yo-yo

Greetings good citizen,

Sometimes it's tough to figure out if the guy who writes weekly editorials for the national ‘Paper of Record’ is busting your chops or if he, indeed, has a point?

Me, I think Frank Rich is a national treasure, right up there with Molly Ivins (may she rest in peace) but others, naturally, may not agree with me.

Ironically, this brings us full circle with those three things that people hate; cameras, mirrors and the truth.

Being granted a national stage, (such as it is) Mr. Rich has to be careful about the things he says and the way he expresses himself.

What I admire the most about Mr. Rich’s craftsmanship is his gift for making you think without his telling what it is that you should think (as the party of ‘no’ is wont to do.)

So we proceed with tonight’s first offering

Palin’s Cunning Sleight of Hand

By FRANK RICH
Published: February 13, 2010

Liberals had a blast mocking Sarah Palin last weekend when she was caught addressing the Tea Party Convention with a cheat sheet scrawled on her hand. Even the president’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, couldn’t resist getting into the act and treated a White House briefing to a Palin hand gag of his own.

Yet the laughter rang hollow. You had to wonder if Palin, who is nothing if not cunning, had sprung a trap. She knows all too well that the more the so-called elites lampoon her, the more she cements her cred with the third of the country that is her base. Her hand hieroglyphics may not have been speaking aids but bait. [Here, naturally, Mr. Rich challenges us to wonder just how ‘stupid’ you have to be to support/believe the accusations of ‘the republican base’.]

If so, mission accomplished. Her sleight of hand gave the anti-Palin chorus another prod to deride her as an empty-headed, sub-literate clown, and her fans another cue to rally. The only problem is that the serious import of Palin’s overriding political message got lost in this distracting sideshow. That message has the power to upend the Obama presidency — even if Palin, with her record-low approval ratings, never gets anywhere near the White House. [Here we have to wonder if the Obama Presidency needs any help being ‘de-railed’, looks like they’re doing just dandy all by themselves (but Mr. Rich eventually gets here too.)]

The Palin shtick has now become the Republican catechism, parroted by every party leader in Washington. Their constant refrain, delivered with cynicism but not irony, is this: Republicans are the anti-big-government, anti-stimulus, anti-Wall Street, pro-Tea Party tribunes of the common folk. “This is about the people,” as Palin repeatedly put it last weekend while pocketing $100,000 of the Tea Partiers’ money. [What kind of people do you suppose she (and her conservative counterparts) are talking about? Could they possibly be talking about the stupid ‘common’ people?]

Incredibly enough, this message is gaining traction. Though Obama remains more personally popular than the G.O.P., Republicans pulled ahead of the Democrats in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, among others, in a matchup for the 2010 midterms. [This blows one’s mind considering our economy has been ruined by 30 years of virtually uninterrupted conservative rule…can you say ‘prepare yourself for another stolen election?’]

This G.O.P. populism is all bunk, of course. Republicans in office now, as well as Palin during her furtive public service in Alaska, have feasted on federal pork, catered to special interests, and pursued policies indifferent to recession-battered Americans. And yet they’re getting away with their populist masquerade — not just with a considerable swath of voters but even with certain elements in the “liberal media.” The Dean of the Beltway press corps, the columnist David Broder, cited Palin’s “pitch-perfect populism” in hailing her as “a public figure at the top of her game” in Thursday’s Washington Post. [Well, I guess Broder gets to keep his job for another week…]

That Republican leaders can pass off deceptive faux-populism as “pitch-perfect populism” is in part a testament to the blinding intensity of the economic anger and anxiety roiling the country. It also shows the power of an incessant bumper-sticker fiction to take root when ineffectually challenged — and, most crucially, the inability of Democrats to make a persuasive case that they offer anything better.

The Obama White House remains its own worst enemy. [And we can only wonder why?] No sooner did Palin’s Tea Party speech end than we learned of the president’s tone-deaf interview expressing admiration for “very savvy businessmen” like Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs. With that single remark, Obama ingeniously identified himself with the most despised aspects of both Washington and Wall Street — the bailout and the bonuses. He still doesn’t understand that to most Americans, Blankfein is a savvy businessman only in the outrageous sense that he managed to grab his bonus some 17 months after the taxpayers had the good grace to save him from going out of business altogether.

Instead of praising bailed-out bankers, the president might have more profitably instructed his press secretary to drop the lame Palin jokes and dismantle the disinformation campaign her speech delivered to a national audience. Palin, unlike Obama, put herself on the side of the angels, railing against Wall Street’s bonuses and bailout, even though she and John McCain had supported TARP during the campaign. Palin also bragged that she had “joined with other conservative governors” in “rejecting some” stimulus dollars when in reality she rejected only a symbolic 3 percent of those dollars — soon to be overruled by the Alaskan Legislature, which took every last buck.

This disingenuousness is old hat for Palin, who hired lobbyists to pursue $27 million in earmarks while serving as mayor of the town of Wasilla (pop. 6,700) and loudly defended her state’s “bridge to nowhere” until her politically opportunistic flip-flop. What’s new is the extent to which her test-marketed dishonesty has now become the template for her peers in the G.O.P. “populist” putsch. Adopting her example — while unencumbered by her political baggage — the party is exploiting the Tea Party movement to rebrand itself as un-Washington while quietly conducting business as usual in the capital.

There’s “no difference” between G.O.P. and Tea Party beliefs, claims the House Republican leader, John Boehner. Not exactly. The three senators named “porkers of the month” for December by the nonpartisan Citizens Against Government Waste were all Republicans: Richard Shelby of Alabama, Susan Collins of Maine and Thad Cochran of Mississippi. Shelby is so unashamedly addicted to earmarks that he used a senatorial “hold” to halt confirmation votes on 70 Obama administration appointees until his costly shopping list of Alabama pork projects was granted. Or so he did until his over-the-top theatrics earned him unwelcome attention and threatened to derail his party’s pious anti-spending posturing. [Funny how you never hear ‘El Rushbo’ taking these guys out to the woodshed, which he surely would have done if they had been Democrats.]

While more brazen than his peers, Shelby is otherwise typical of them. Jonathan Karl of ABC News last week unearthed photographs of various G.O.P. congressmen posing in their districts with stimulus checks that they had publicly opposed. The Washington Times uncovered more than a dozen other Republican lawmakers who privately solicited stimulus money from the Department of Agriculture while denouncing the stimulus to their constituents and the news media, often angrily.

Even the G.O.P./Tea Party heartthrob of the hour, Scott Brown, is not the barn-coat-wearing populist he purports to be. In her speech, Palin saluted him as “just a guy with a truck” who was doing “his part to put our government back on the side of the people.” In reality Brown’s Massachusetts Senate campaign benefited from a last-minute flood of contributions from financial industry donors — with 80 percent of the haul coming from outside the state. It says all you need to know about our politics that his Democratic opponent, Martha Coakley, matched him by holding a fund-raiser largely sponsored by lobbyists for the health care and pharmaceutical industries.

Now that he’s in the Senate, Brown is likely to junk the truck and side full time with Wall Street against Main Street. To do otherwise would be to buck his party’s entire establishment. Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, has already signaled that he’ll fight the Obama administration’s push for a “Volcker rule” to rein in too-big-to-fail financial behemoths. The conservative message guru Frank Luntz has drafted a memo instructing G.O.P. legislators on how to defeat a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency while camouflaging themselves as populist foes of the very banks and credit card companies that that agency would regulate. That’s a neat trick — Luntz’s nonpolitical clients include Merrill Lynch and American Express — and it helps explain why Wall Street is now tilting its contributions to Congressional Republicans for 2010. [Which begs the question of where is the line between ‘fooling’ the people and openly screwing them?]

Yet it’s the Democrats who are now most linked to corporate interests, thanks to all the backroom deals over health care. More Americans have heard of the Medicaid money shoveled to the Democratic senators Ben Nelson (the January “porker of the month”) and Mary Landrieu in exchange for their health care votes than of Thad Cochran’s $8.75 million earmark for the “Exchange With Historic Whaling and Trading Partners Program” (a proposed cut in the Obama budget). The Republicans are so disciplined at claiming the fiscal-hawk high road that even Jenny Sanford, the wronged first lady of South Carolina, is still defending her husband, Mark, as an uncompromising defender of “hard-earned tax dollars” in her new tell-all memoir, “Staying True.” [WTF!] Though she gives us the skinny on her husband’s philandering, she never mentions the subsequent revelations that expenses for his trysts and other personal travel were billed to taxpayers.

Before he was done in by his Argentine firecracker — and before the emergence of Palin — Sanford was floated by The Wall Street Journal editorial page and others on the right as an ideal ticket mate for John McCain in 2008. As a congressman he had slept on a futon in his office and voted against a breast cancer postage stamp as wasteful “feel-good legislation.” As governor, he refused to take stimulus money despite the fact that South Carolina had the nation’s fastest-growing unemployment rate. When an unemployed man from Charleston caring for a seriously ill mother and sister called in to C-Span last February begging Sanford for help, he didn’t budge. But he did volunteer to pray for the caller and his family. [typical conservative! If you need a hand don’t ask me, ask the spirit in the sky!]

So it went with Palin last weekend. Her only concrete program for dealing with America’s pressing problems came in the question-and-answer session. “It would be wise of us to start seeking some divine intervention again in this country,” she said, “so that we can be safe and secure and prosperous again.” [Do you suppose God would respond if we prayed for him to strike the conservatives dead?] That pretty much sums up her party’s economic program, at least: divine intervention will achieve what government intervention cannot. That the G.O.P. may actually be winning this argument is less an indictment of Palin than of Washington Democrats too busy reading the writing on her hand to see or respond to the ominous political writing on the wall.

You see, he does get there in the end! He strikes as forcefully as he could, considering the watchful eye of his conservative overlords is upon him.

He’s also given a tad more leeway considering it is an ‘opinion’ piece.

If you don’t like what Mr. Rich has to say, it’s just an ‘opinion’, nothing to get worked up about. Which is where the craftsmanship comes in.

Does Mr. Rich really care about Sarah Palin’s showmanship? No, it’s all ‘theater’ and he tells us so! He is advising us to look beyond the theater because it is evident the media isn’t keeping us informed about the conservatives talking out of both sides of their mouth…which is ‘business as usual’.

Of course, he refuses to let those other ‘faux populists’ the Democrats slide either…which is a rare acknowledgement of a more pressing issue, if neither party is looking out for the little guy, then who are the ‘good guys’ these days?

And sadly, there is no good answer to that one good citizen…

Looks like they weren’t kidding when they called us ‘yo-yo’s…have we ever been more ‘on our own?

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Almost forgot…okay I admit it, I did forget…for those of you who didn’t think tonight’s offering was long enough, here’s more

More than I can say...

Greetings good citizen,

For all of the red ink spilled this week, markets around the globe finished the week in positive territory!

As you know, this isn’t particularly remarkable news…although it should be. We all know they haven’t done a single thing to put more money in the pocket of the consumer yet share prices are still rising, despite the massive shrinkage of the overall payroll.

Perhaps more alarming is the ‘value’ of money is falling so rapidly that stock prices are rising not because of increased economic activity but because the dollar value of equities is rising because the value of dollars is falling!

This is a bizarre FU that the owners of stocks perpetrate on the non-owners…the value of money falls but share prices remain constant (or appreciate) because assets become ‘more valuable’ when the value of money is diluted.

So the rich get richer for doing nothing while you are paid the same number of less valuable dollars for working just as hard as you always do.

Talk about ‘stick ‘em up! What we have here is another reason our education system is woefully lacking in what they teach you about money! If you knew you were going to get screwed like this you’d never agree to work for anybody longer than a single day!

You simply couldn’t afford to wait for an ‘annual’ pay raise while chiseler beats you to death ten months out of twelve! (And then withholds your raise saying ‘times are tough, be happy you’ve still got a job!’ Until you end up running up your credit cards so you can keep your job that doesn’t pay you enough…what a fuck job!)

In the meantime, do you really think the ‘smarter than you’ crowd doesn’t know the score?

[Purloined from: Financial Armageddon ]

Corporate America Is More Pessimistic Than You Know

Looking for an explanation for the deep freeze in merger & acquisition activity and the jittery stock market? Just ask the boards overseeing U.S. companies.

A whopping 66% of 1,200 corporate board members surveyed recently said U.S. companies wouldn’t return to “business as usual” until at least 2013, [That’s three years from now for the counting challenged among you…] and will operate till then in an environment of sluggish sales and growth. Roughly 45% said the economy wouldn’t return to pre-crisis levels in terms of investment, employment and productivity before 2013, according to the survey, conducted by KPMG LLP, while 22% said it would come beyond 2014. [Honestly good citizen, the economy will NEVER return to the level of activity that existed until late 2007, never.]

“Not withstanding what economists are saying about the recovery, we are hearing from board members that they just don’t see it,’’ says Mary Pat McCarthy, a KPMG vice chairwoman who oversaw the survey of directors at publicly traded companies of varying sizes across the U.S. [Not particularly surprising now, is it? The devaluation of our currency is not ‘economic activity’ any more than shuffling funds from one account to another creates any wealth…never did, never will.]

McCarthy spoke to Deal Journal this morning from Miami where KPMG was hosting a conference of primarily audit committee members of corporate boards. “We are hearing a steady drumbeat down here that a recovery is a way’s off,” she said.

Another concern among board members: That the cost-cutting and layoffs that have helped boost corporate profits are going to hurt companies in the long term. The survey found that 67% of the respondents said were most concerned that cost-cutting would drain a company’s employee talent. [Funny that the people who cost the most and would be missed the least are the only ones not in danger of losing their job!]

Other concerns: 36% said they worried cost-cutting would weaken internal controls, 25% said it could raise the risk of fraud and 22% said they thought the integrity of financial reporting could suffer in the hands of leaner staffs. [‘Creative accounting’ is already the principle reason why 90 % of US businesses haven’t filed Chapter 7, the banks aren’t the only ones being allowed to ‘cook the books’.]

Bankers, perpetual optimists by nature, have been saying recently that companies seem willing to contemplate deals and they expect M&A to bounce back this year. In light of the bleak portrait contained in the KPMG survey, the question is, just who are these bankers talking to?

Um, what do you suppose is driving the ‘wishful thinking’ coming from the banking sector? Understand that we already have a financial sector that is far too large for the amount of business that needs to be serviced. Flipping that rock over, the financial sector is too small to ‘shrug-off’ the losses that are still waiting for recognition (never mind resolution) off of their balance sheets.

Um, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (because what else do I do if not repeat the same thing, over an over again…right?) There is no way out. They will be forced to hit the reset button…something the chiselers will do so only they see relief…their debts will be forgiven while the average citizen sees their obligations eased only slightly.

Understand it is completely logical as well as practical to simply wipe out all of the outstanding debt…but that might provide a few smart guys with more freedom than the chiselers are comfortable with…

Better to stick all of us than to let some of us off the hook. It’s all about ‘appearances’.

But I digress…

There is a second offering for your reading pleasure AND, if you click through, you will get your funny bone tickled too!

The Approaching US Dollar Reserve Currency Crisis

"US government debt is a safe haven the way Pearl Harbor was a safe haven in 1941."

No matter how they wrap it, spin it, try to hide it, we have seen an epic expansion in the US monetary base not seen since 1932.

This monetary expansion has not yet reached into the broader money supply figures because it is not reaching the public, despite the chant from the "Yes We Can" Kid. Bernanke has most of that liquidity bottled up in a few big banks collecting an easy riskless spread, with some of it chasing beta in the speculative markets.

Ben can talk a tough game, and jawbone rates with his plans to someday return to normalcy. But at the end of the day, the US is playing out a well-worn script that is highly predictable.

There are three choices the Sith Lords at the Fed and their western central bank apprentices have at this point: inflation, inflation, and inflation.

The only question is how and when it will become obvious even to the most stubborn believers in the Dollar Über Alles. Ben will seek to control it, to unleash it from its cage very slowly, spread the pain to the US trading partners overseas.

The US dollar reserve currency status is faltering, but not yet under a serious assault. The monied elite will try to eliminate any serious competition, such as the euro or precious metals, by any and all means possible.

Greece is roughly 2.6% of the Eurozone GDP. California is 13% of the US. [Naturally, you can see the problem, can’t you good citizen?]

How long they can continue this is anyone's guess. These things tend to play out slowly, over years. I do not expect the US dollar to fail precipitously in the manner of the Zimbabwe dollar or with Weimar Reichsmark, but rather to be devalued in a step-staggered manner, over time, until it stabilizes and the debts are liquidated. [Worse, the longer this takes, the more we will suffer.]

When the US starts closing the greater portion of its 700+ overseas military bases, we will know that it has become serious about financial reform and balancing its books. Until then, all is posturing, self-interest, demagoguery, and deception.

Either Jesse is a pretty deft hand at photoshop or he knows somebody who is!

Er, back to the subject at hand…

The ‘non-recovery’ and the inevitable slow motion destruction of both our economy and our currency.

Many are of the opinion that there won’t be any, er, unmanageable ‘blowback’ from the persistent suffocation of our lower classes, the ‘surplus’ population.

Um, would I be wrong to point out that we have yet to ‘eradicate’ the Vietnamese, the Sunni Arabs or the Palestinians…

Okay, humans aren’t as ‘resilient’ as insects--or plants for that matter, and the list of species we’ve driven to extinction is pretty impressive, even if it is sans weeds and insects.

We have, given sufficient time, successfully ‘assimilated’ many once hostile cultures, but since the goal is to reduce the number of end-users of our increasingly precious resources, assimilation isn’t going to produce the desired results.

Which is to point out that it is highly doubtful the ‘target population’ here in the US will peacefully accept being murdered for the continued well-being of the well-off.

Would I be urging said target population to get up off of its dead ass?

Oh yeah!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Stratigic Non-Foreclosure...

Greetings good citizen,

While the MSM would like to keep our attention focused on the global arena, like that ‘tempest in a teapot, Greece while reports keep surfacing about incidents of reckless chicanery being perpetrated by the money powers closely connected to our own government.

For example, that ‘gift’ on Christmas Eve of lifting the ‘cap’ on the balance sheets of both Fannie and Freddie. Now it appears the two GSE’s are going to ‘re-purchase’ the non-performing mortgages in the MBS they issued (at, no doubt, 100 cents on the dollar) in an effort to raise the value of assets that remain.

This is very nice for investors but it sucks huge for taxpayers (even though you already know they are going to default on the debt!) What’s REALLY going to suck is the same asshole we bail out at 100 cents on the dollar will be the same one who demands twenty-percent interest on his treasury bonds!

No good deed goes unpunished…

Why does it seem as though you’re always getting fucked? Because we can never do enough for the already wealthy!

We SHOULD keelhaul the lot of ‘em…under a powerboat! But that’s just me…

Anyway…onward with tonight’s offering:

Strategic Non-Foreclosure Becomes Official Policy
by Barry Ritholtz [Purloined from The Automatic Earth]

One of my favorite bizarre twists on the credit crisis and housing collapse has been the concept of Strategic Non-Foreclosures. I usually mention this when speaking to groups to see the reactions people have — they tend to be stunned at the banking opposite of Walkaways (Strategic Defaults.) [Worse, nobody is holding the bank’s feet to the fire for committing this injustice! Don’t get it wrong here, the ‘foreclosure’ proceeds normally right up to the eviction; then the chiseling bank stops short of taking possession. Leaving the former owner ‘on the hook’ for a property they have been denied the use of…]

But now, under the guise of new bank experiments, the Strategic Non-Foreclosure is becoming official policy. First, we get friendlier terms such as “Soft foreclosure” or “Deed for Lease.” And, it appears to offer numerous benefits for both parties (though more for the banks then the borrower:)

• Delinquent Borrowers get to stay in their homes for longer periods of time;

• Lenders get to avoid paying utilities, homeowner association fees, and providing maintenance costs such as snow shoveling and lawn cutting;

• RE Tax obligations remain in the name of the borrower;

• Banks do not have to take an immediate right down of a bad loan;

• Other properties in the same neighborhood where the lender may have exposure delay suffering the negative price impact of a foreclosure; [Which is to say prices remain artificially higher than a foreclosure auction would reveal…]


Here’s the Washington Post:

Seeking alternatives to the nation’s struggling foreclosure prevention efforts, federal and mortgage industry officials increasingly are looking for ways to get distressed borrowers to leave their homes voluntarily, without going through the expensive foreclosure process or a messy eviction.

Citigroup, for instance, plans to announce a pilot program on Thursday that would allow delinquent borrowers who don’t qualify for or decline mortgage relief the opportunity to stay in their homes without making payments for up to six months before turning over the keys, in return for keeping the property in good condition. The bank estimates that up to 20,000 borrowers in Texas, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey and Ohio could be eligible. [Um, understand this is just one mortgage lender and we’re talking millions of foreclosures.]

The program is just the latest amid a growing acknowledgment that foreclosure prevention efforts will fail to reach millions of borrowers over the next few years.”


As you can see by the Credit Suisse chart below, the policies might have become official recently, but the gap between delinquencies and foreclosures has been expanding for quite some time.

There have already been millions of foreclosures…and maybe a million properties sold at auction…a vast majority don’t receive bids the banks can live with so they hold on to them…waiting for the day when the market returns…

Sadly, many of the homes sold at auction were purchased with ‘creative financing’ by idiots who thought housing was ready to ‘turn around’. Which is to say they still paid too much but didn’t care because they bought the properties ‘on spec’, planning to let the renter or the next buyer take the loss.

Ironically, this is how we landed in this mess in the first place. Part of the endless search for the ‘Greater Fool’ is never realizing that the greater fool is you.

Our pal ‘Flipper’ has fulfilled the vital social role of village idiot. Sadly, we can’t build a sustainable society if it means satisfying the delusions of the village idiots.

Not only must we put a stop to these endless attempts to fleece our way to the top but we must shut down the avenues the criminals use to take the rest of us hostage.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner