¡Ya Basta!

For one brief, shining moment Congress had a spine. Fiscal conservative Republicans and social justice Democrats actually legislated in the interests of the American public. Then, Wall Street dropped 700 pts and everyone cowered in terror. Slather the bill in 400 pages of pork, and bingo bango you’ve got a bailout bill, bigger than ever. God help us all.

via: NYT

WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives gave final approval on Friday to the $700 billion bailout for the financial system, reversing course to authorize what may be the most expensive government intervention in history.

At 1:21 p.m., applause and cheers echoed through the House chamber as the number of “aye” votes crossed the threshold needed for passage with just seconds remaining in the official 15-minute voting period. The vote was 263 to 171.

…

After the House rejected the plan, the Senate stepped in, and attached a $150.5 billion package of popular provisions, including tax breaks for the production and use of renewable energy and protection for millions of American families from paying the alternative minimum tax, which was initially aimed at the wealthy.

The Senate and the House had been fighting all year over the energy tax provisions, called “extenders” because they perpetuate current law. The energy package provided a ready bundle of goodies that the Senate had been dangling to win over fiscal conservatives who had opposed the Senate version because it did not fully offset the tax breaks with spending cuts or other tax increases.

SEE VIDEO HERE Kurt Nimmo Infowars October 3, 2008

In House debate on the banker “rescue” bill, Rep. Brad Sherman told his fellow Congress critters the government will declare martial law and the stock market will drop 3,000 points if the bill is not passed. “The panic-mongers were to the point of telling people the market would drop 3,000 points and there would be martial law,” said Sherman.

Sherman’s comment was not in the same context as a comment issued by Rep. Michael Burgess earlier in the week. Burgess, who appeared on the Alex Jones Show, said Pelosi threatened to invoke House rule XIII(6)(a), described as “martial law,” intended to suspend normal procedures and safeguards and thus allowing the House leadership to operate in a more authoritarian fashion. Sherman, however, said martial law would be declared on Wall Street, not in the House. Continue Reading »

Martin Masse National Post September 30, 2008

In his Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, Karl Marx proposed 10 measures to be implemented after the proletariat takes power, with the aim of centralizing all instruments of production in the hands of the state. Proposal Number Five was to bring about the “centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.”

If he were to rise from the dead today, Marx might be delighted to discover that most economists and financial commentators, including many who claim to favour the free market, agree with him.

Indeed, analysts at the Heritage and Cato Institute, and commentators in The Wall Street Journal and on this very page, have made declarations in favour of the massive “injection of liquidities” engineered by central banks in recent months, the government takeover of giant financial institutions, as well as the still stalled US$700-billion bailout package.

Some of the same voices were calling for similar interventions following the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2001.

“Whatever happened to the modern followers of my free-market opponents?” Marx would likely wonder.

At first glance, anyone who understands economics can see that there is something wrong with this picture. The taxes that will need to be levied to finance this package may keep some firms alive, but they will siphon off capital, kill jobs and make businesses less productive elsewhere. Increasing the money supply is no different. It is an invisible tax that redistributes resources to debtors and those who made unwise investments.

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via: American Free Press Issue #39 September 2008

Not satisfied with 200 A-bombs, now Israel has asked the U.S. for tons of deadly munitions

By the American Free Press Staff

The Defense Department plans to provide 1,000 bunker-busting bombs to Israel at a cost of $77 million according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Congress has 30 days to object or the sale goes through.

The smart bomb, the GBU-28, is a laser-guided weapon whose warhead can burrow through more than 20 feet of concrete and up to 100 feet of dirt, according to AFP.

If the sale goes through, Israel will get other weapons as well. A Pentagon news release states that “Israel has requested a possible sale of 1,000 GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs (SDB1), 150 BRU-61/A SDB1 Mounting Carriages, 30 Guided Test Vehicles, two BRU-61/A SDB Instrumented Carriages, seven Jettison Test Vehicles, one Separation Test Vehicle, two Reliability and Assessment Vehicles, 12 Common Munitions BIT and Reprogramming Equipment with Test Equipment and Adapters, three SDB1 Weapons Simulators, and two Load Crew Trainers. Also includes containers, flight test integration, spare and repair parts, support equipment, personnel training and equipment, publications and technical data, U.S. government and contractor engineering and logistics personnel services, and other related elements of logistics support.”

This is effectively a taxpayer gift to Israel. Debts for such sales are routinely “forgiven” each year, though this is ignored by the mainstream media. The $3.5 billion in outright aid is paid in a lump some up front, unlike other beneficiaries who receive quarterly installments.

Counting interest paid on money borrowed to give Israel, feeding its war machine costs Americans more than $10 billion a year.

Financing Israel’s brutal and bloody wars of expansion and occupation accounts for so much hatred for this country, not only in the Mideast, but also in Europe.

The sale comes despite concerns that the U.S. had been reluctant to sell the advanced weaponry out of fears that Israel would attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran is locked in a confrontation with Israel over its nuclear program, which it claims is for civilian use only.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Israel would keep all options open regarding its stance toward Iran’s nuclear capability.

Yitzhak Benhorin Ynet News September 23, 2008

The two United States presidential hopefuls, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain, firmly addressed the Iranian nuclear threat in two different interviews aired Sunday night on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”

Democratic candidate Obama promised to examine every option, “including military, to prevent them from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” while his Republican rival McCain spoke about the possibility of a preemptive war against Iran.

Obama was asked whether a nuclear-armed Iran was a direct threat to the US. His answer was direct and clear: “Yes. I think that a nuclear armed Iran is not just a threat to us, it’s a threat to Israel. And it is a game changer in the region. It’s unacceptable. And that’s why I’ve said that I won’t take any options off the table, including military, to prevent them from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

He went on to criticize the Bush administration for wasting eight years instead of handling the Iranian issues.

“I do think that it is important for us to use all the arrows in our quiver. And we have not applied the kind of tough diplomacy over the last eight years that I think could have made a difference,” he said.

Read article

Seriously, we’re finally reaching a point in the national collapse that liberals are starting to realize there’s an actual coup taking place. Granted, they’re still calling the country a democracy (it’s a Republic!) and they don’t understand that it’s a bipartisan coup that’s at least a century old, but still, we’re seeing progress. Now they just need to stop thinking that Obama (the candidate who’s received the most money from Wall Street) is not going to save us. We’re getting there, though.

via: Huffington Post

In 2000, the long fought for and long admired democracy of the United States of America began a slow and steady decline toward fascism - a Bush family tradition - with the installment of a president - a man the citizens overwhelmingly rejected (although the funny math told a still believed myth) - by a few corrupt judges on the US Supreme Court. That coup is now nearly complete and checkmate is all but unavoidable.

Let me first point you to the Bush administration’s so-called Wall Street bailout bill, here, so that you can see for yourself that this treachery is being conducted in the light of day. Fascism is finally and formally out of the right-wing closet even if the F word is not yet openly being used (although it should be, and often).

Now, if you do not yet understand that the Wall Street crisis is a man-made disaster done through intentional deregulation and corruption, I have a bridge in Alaska to sell to you (or Sara Palin does anyway). This manufactured crisis is now to be remedied, if the fiscal fascists get their way, with the total transfer of Congressional powers (the few that still remain) to the Executive Branch and the total transfer of public funds into corporate (via government as intermediary) hands.

The ending is the best part. A liberal talking about patriotism and breaking down the political dialectic? Wha? Why she sounds like one of them crazy 9/11 Truthers.

The other option, the one I have long prayed we would never need to even consider, is a total revolution. But, If Congress won’t act in its own self-defense, in the defense of democracy, in defense of us - the people who have elected them to protect us from this very danger - then what is left for us to do? I don’t want to see it come down to this, but I fear that it will. Put your party politics aside right now. We are in a crisis so dangerous that should these people succeed in their coup, your party affiliation will no longer matter, your American flag will be a nice collectible item of something that once was, and your version of God will be worshiped in secrecy because your freedoms will be owned by the few.

You are no longer Republicans, Democrats, or any shade of voter. You do not live in a swing state or a solid colored state. You are simply this: an American. That is the only side that matters. So call your members of Congress and demand, no, declare that unless they do their duty to the Constitution and to us, we will move to the streets - not because we want to, but because our founding fathers demanded this duty of each and every citizen in the face of such a domestic enemy. Demand - as is your right - that this bill be voted against and demand - as is your right - that the people plotting this treachery be held to account. We are either a nation of laws or we are no longer a democracy. Pick a side, because there won’t be another time, another moment, another chance to be a patriot.

Here’s a succinct version of the problem with the bailout. I just don’t think Bernake and Paulson et al are actually stupid enough to think this will work. Now, maybe they’re not the architects of all this and this is just a stop gap measure to buy time until they can scuttle away in January. Or maybe they’re acting under orders, and this is not at all meant to be a solution at all. It follows the same pattern we’ve been seeing for 8 (100?) years now: consolidate power in the unconstitutional corners of the government most insulated from public control. Strengthen the CIA, the NSA, the Fed, the Treasury Secretary, Executive Orders, etc. But it’s not a conspiracy. This is all totally unexpected and everything is being donefor the public’s benefit. Nothing to worry about. Go back to watching the idiot box.

via: Information Clearing House

The problems cannot be resolved by shifting the debts of the banks onto the taxpayer. That’s an illusion. By adding another $1 or $2 trillion dollars to the National Debt, Paulson is just ensuring that interest rates will go up, real estate will crash, unemployment will soar, and foreign central banks will abandon the dollar. In truth, there is no fix for a deleveraging market anymore than there is a fix for gravity. The belief that massive debts and insolvency can be erased by increasing liquidity just shows a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. That’s why Henry Paulson is the worst possible person to be orchestrating the so called rescue project. Paulson comes from a business culture which rewards deception, personal acquisitiveness, and extreme risk-taking. Paulson is to finance capitalism what Rumsfeld is to military strategy. His leadership, and the congress’ pathetic abdication of responsibility, assures disaster. Besides, why should the taxpayers be happy that the stocks of Morgan Stanley, Washington Mutual and Goldman Sachs surged on the news that there would be a government bailout yesterday? These banks are essentially bankrupt and their business models are broken. Keeping insolvent banks on life support is not a rescue plan; it’s insanity.

No one has any idea of the magnitude of the deleveraging ahead or the size of the debts that will have to be written down. That’s because 30 years of deregulation has allowed a parallel financial system to arise in which over $500 trillion dollars in derivatives are traded without any government supervision or accounting. These counterparty transactions are interwoven throughout the entire “regulated” system in a way that poses a clear and present danger to the broader economy. It’s a mess. For example, there are an estimated $62 trillion of Credit Default Swaps (CDS) alone, which are basically insurance policies for defaulting bonds. AIG was as heavily involved in CDS as they were in regulated insurance products. So why would AIG sell CDS rather than conventional insurance?

Because, just like the banks, AIG could maximize its profits by minimizing its capital cushion. In other words, it didn’t really have the capital to pay off claims when its CDS contracts began to blow up. If it had been properly regulated, then government regulators would have made sure that it was sufficiently capitalized with adequate reserves to pay off claims in a down-market. Now taxpayers will pay for the lawless system which men like “industry rep” Henry Paulson put in place. That’s deregulation in a nutshell; a system that allows Wall Street banksters to create credit out of thin air and then run weeping to Congress when their swindles backfire.

Inflating the currency, printing more money, and increasing the deficits won’t help. The bad debts have to be accounted for and liquidated. The Paulson strategy is to create another ocean of red ink while refusing to face the underlying problem head-on. This just further exacerbates the consumer-led recession which economists know is already setting in everywhere across the country. Demand is down and consumer spending is off due to falling home equity, job losses, and tighter lending standards at the banks. The broader economy does not need the added downward pressure from higher taxes, bigger deficits, or inflation. Paulson’s plan is a band-aid approach to a sucking chest wound. The debts are enormous and the pain will be substantial, but the problem cannot be resolved by crushing the middle class or destroying the currency.

This is an interesting article on the computerized trading that has infiltrated and now dominated Wall Street. I disagree with it on some major points though. We do not live in a democracy or with free market capitalism. The Founders created a Republic-rule by law-not a democracy-rule by majority, with good reason. I’m so sick of hearing people talk about democracy in America when we’re a Republic. It’s a damn good system “if you can keep it” as Benjamin Franklin said, but of course eternal vigilance is required to hold on to it. The people stopped paying attention, and by the mid-1800s everything was slipping into oligarchy.

Ask Ludwig von Mises. This country hasn’t had anything resembling a free market in over a century. The Federal Reserve put the economy securely in the hands of the banking elite, who created the conditions for the Great Depression, and then FDR was able to use that catastrophe (and WWII) as the excuse to create the corporatist government-industrial complex we know today. Far from saving us from the greedy capitalist, FDR only intensified the process whereby public wealth is transfered to private hands. Despite what radical socialists and confused liberals may think, neither Milton Friedman and the Chicago School nor any of the neo-cons (or are they neo-liberals?) have worked to create anything resembling an unfettered market. They have promoted a system of government regulation and spending to support particular interests at the expense of others. Every “de-regulation” we saw under Reagan, or Bush, or Clinton, or W. was in fact a carefully tailored re-regulation to help some at the expense of others. Also, let’s be clear, Wall Street is supporting Obama more than McCain, so this isn’t an evil Republican/noble Democrat issue.

The collapse we’re seeing now is not a failure of free markets. It’s an orchestrated attack designed to further consolidate financial and political control in the hands of the oligarchy. This is not about money, it is about power. Reserve notes are just distractions, the magic wand waved to distract the audience while slight of hand does the real work. A trillion dollars, a bazillion dollars, it doesn’t matter, all that money only exists in the public’s imagination. Check out the Gangster Capitalism section of this blog to learn more about the financial farce that keeps the world in chains. Real wealth is edible, potable, smokable, malleable, wearable, etc. Not green paper, not zeros on a computer screen, not signatures on a contract.
Continue Reading »

via: Housing Panic

The Patriot Act of Finance, otherwise known as Paulson’s $700 billion bailout bill, if passed in its present form will be the nail in the coffin for an America by, for and of the people.

Just like the Patriot Act appeared to be written before 9/11, so does this Patriot Act of Finance appear to be written before the housing crash. And yes, both were rushed through a panicked Congress and complacent media in the middle of the night.

A nation founded by the people, for the people will be given to a very select group of bankers. Legally. Without a shot fired. Because Americans were too distracted and too dumb to know what was going on.

Brilliant.

Here’s how it will be done:

1) The key line in the proposed bill is this one:

“The Secretary’s authority to purchase mortgage-related assets under this Act shall be limited to 700,000,000,000 dollars outstanding at any one time”

What this does is give Hank Paulson, acting as an emperor with unchecked control over the nation’s treasury, a $700 billion line of credit in which he can buy up toxic debt for whatever price he’d like to pay, $700 billion at a time.

In other words - he could buy trillions. Trillions and trillions and trillions. Buying and selling, buying and selling.

He can sell the junk he buys from his banker friends for whatever price he wants, saddling the taxpayers with the loss. He keeps this process going, using his $700 billion credit card. Buy for 60 cents on the dollar, sell for 30 cents on the dollar. Buy for 80 cents on the dollar, sell for 5 cents on the dollar. He’s in charge.

$700 billion folks IS JUST THE LINE OF CREDIT. He can purchase trillions and trillions of bad debt with this credit card, as long as only $700 billion is OUTSTANDING at any one time.

2) Hank Paulson, CEO of Goldman Sachs on leave, has complete and total control over the nation’s treasure. He would be unchecked by Congress, unchecked by the President. He will be king. Here’s the text:

“The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this Act, including, without limitation”

Using this power, Hank Paulson of Goldman Sachs could pay Goldman Sachs anything he wanted for their mortgage assets. Let’s say the market value was 20 cents on the dollar. Hank Paulson could pay them 100 cents on the dollar. Its his decision and his alone. No oversight. No limitations. Hank Paulson could simply give the nation’s treasure to Goldman Sachs.

Get it now?

3) Deputizing the banks and investment banks as “agents of the government”. Seriously. Here’s the text:

“Designating financial institutions as financial agents of the Government, and they shall perform all such reasonable duties related to this Act as financial agents of the Government as may be required of them”

4) Have no outside control over the firesale of assets and loss to the taxpayer. Again, Hank Paulson and Hank Paulson alone shall be in control. No auditors. No oversight. No multiple bids. No nothing. Hank Paulson and Hank Paulson alone. Here you go:

“Sale of Mortgage-Related Assets. The Secretary may, at any time, upon terms and conditions and at prices determined by the Secretary, sell, or enter into securities loans, repurchase transactions or other financial transactions in regard to, any mortgage-related asset purchased under this Act.”

5) Hank Paulson has final say. Hank Paulson knows what’s best. Hank Paulson cannot be reversed. Hank Paulson cannot be sued. Hank Paulson is king.

“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency”

So, what can you do? Normally here I’d say contact your corrupt Congressman or Senator. Contact the media. But folks, Congress has been bought. The media have been bought.

The American people have lost.

Deal with it.

So unless there’s rage in the street, which there won’t be - the new Fall TV season is starting - it’s over. They win. In eight short years, they took everything they wanted. And nobody could stop them.

The only hope, for the hopeful? That we can run out the clock, and this bill doesn’t pass until Bush and Paulson are gone. But if that’s the case, and the bill does pass after January 2009, then the question is - who do you trust more - the outsider or the insider. And with this much on the line, will the outsider be allowed to win?

If this bill does pass ASAP, well, then watch Paulson get busy with his new credit card as fast as he can. He only has four more months. He’ll be buying up crap as fast as he can in a desperate and reckless orgy of greed.

Regardless of how this plays out, prepare the best you can. Know what is happening in your former country, and do what is best for you and your family to survive.

I’m off to go find my tin foil hat now. I’m not usually one for conspiracy theories.

Until now.