Dennis Kucinich on The Rachel Maddow Show

Dandelion Salad

VOTERSTHINKdotORG

http://cspanjunkie.org/
September 30, 2008 MSNBC Rachel Maddow Show

more about “Dennis Kucinich on The Rachel Maddow …“, posted with vodpod

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Rep. Dennis Kucinich Rejects $700 Billion Bailout + Plan being rushed with no alternatives

Dennis Kucinich: Is this the U.S. Congress or the Board of Directors at Goldman Sachs! + Sounds Like Insider Trading To Me!

Stampeded by Fear, Scammed by Lies: Why the Bailout Failed by Walter Brasch

Exclusive: Wall Street wants us to panic… by The Other Katherine Harris

“They Just Don’t Get It” By Richard C. Cook

Rep Kaptur Responds to Bush’s Statement on Bailout Bill Fail

Personal Finance Meltdown Makeover: Take the Long View by Susan Boskey

Bailout by Stealth by James Corbett + Ron Paul: Inflation is an unfair tax

Kucinich-Dennis J.

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse

Exercise readies first units for NORTHCOM assignment

Dandelion Salad

By Patti Bielling
http://www.army.mil/
Sep 29, 2008

Soldiers at Great Lakes Naval Station, Ill., practice skills they will use when their units assume a consequence management response mission Oct. 1. Photo by U.S. Army North

FORT STEWART, Ga. (Army News Service, Sept. 29, 2008) – The exercise scenario was a sobering one: a 10-kiloton nuclear device detonated in America’s heartland, quickly overwhelming civilian responders.

Military leaders who recently trained for this response say they are now thinking differently about how to move equipment, extract the injured and take care of people following this type of attack.

[...]

Exercise readies first units for NORTHCOM assignment.

h/t: CLG

see

Pre-election Militarization of the North American Homeland. US Combat Troops in Iraq repatriated to “help with civil unrest”

Army Unit to Deploy in October for Domestic Operations

Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1

Why is a U.S. Army brigade being assigned to the “Homeland”?

Fed Pumps Further $630 Billion Into Financial System + Stocks plunge

Dandelion Salad

By Scott Lanman and Craig Torres
Bloomberg.com

(Update3)

Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve will pump an additional $630 billion into the global financial system, flooding banks with cash to alleviate the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression.

The Fed increased its existing currency swaps with foreign central banks by $330 billion to $620 billion to make more dollars available worldwide. The Term Auction Facility, the Fed’s emergency loan program, will expand by $300 billion to $450 billion. The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are among the participating authorities.

[...]

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide.

h/t: CLG

***

Stocks plunge on Wall Street as bailout fails in Congress

By Bill Van Auken, Socialist Equality Party vice presidential candidate
http://www.wsws.org
30 September 2008

Wall Street suffered its biggest one-day point fall in history amid panic selling, as the proposed government bailout of the major banks and finance houses went down to defeat Monday in the US House of Representatives.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 777 points, or 7 percent. The other major indexes fell even further, in percentage terms, with the Nasdaq Composite Index plunging more than 9 percent and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index falling 8.8 percent. A total of $1.2 trillion, or 9 percent, of total market value was wiped out.

[...]

After the bill was voted down, Obama delayed making a statement until he could consult with Paulson. Then he insisted that the proposal was “required for us to stabilize the markets.” He continued: “Democrats and Republicans in Washington have a responsibility to make sure an emergency rescue package is put forward that can at least stop the immediate problems that we have.”

For his part, McCain issued no immediate statement, while a campaign aide echoed the ludicrous claim of the Republican House leadership that the measure’s defeat was a response to a partisan attack in the remarks of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi before the vote was taken.

[...]

In the end, the program of these opponents of the bailout is one of even more tax cuts for the rich and the destruction of what little remains of a social safety net in America, transferring all public monies to big business, albeit by a different route.

If these imbecilic demagogues are able to exploit the popular opposition that exists to the bailout, it is only because the leadership of the Democratic Party is so solidly unified behind the interests of finance capital and so indifferent to the concerns of the masses of working people. They are utterly incapable of offering the slightest substantive alternative to the demands of Wall Street.

A way out of the crisis—the deepest to confront American and world capitalism since the Great Depression of the 1930s—requires a rejection not only of the bailout, but of the entire framework in which the debate in Washington is being conducted.

The capitalist system has failed, and there is no reason to doubt the warnings from Bush, Paulson, Obama and others that it is preparing a social catastrophe.

[...]

Stocks plunge on Wall Street as bailout fails in Congress.

see

Stampeded by Fear, Scammed by Lies: Why the Bailout Failed by Walter Brasch

Exclusive: Wall Street wants us to panic… by The Other Katherine Harris

“They Just Don’t Get It” By Richard C. Cook

Rep Kaptur Responds to Bush’s Statement on Bailout Bill Fail

Personal Finance Meltdown Makeover: Take the Long View by Susan Boskey

Bailout by Stealth by James Corbett + Ron Paul: Inflation is an unfair tax

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse

Mosaic News – 9/29/08: World News from the Middle East

Dandelion Salad

Warning

.

This video may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

linktv

Mosaic needs your help! Donate here: http://linktv.org/contribute

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Stampeded by Fear, Scammed by Lies: Why the Bailout Failed by Walter Brasch

by Walter Brasch
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
www.walterbrasch.com
Sept 30, 2008

The Republican leaders of the House of Representatives grabbed a half dozen bags of sincerity, looked directly into every TV camera they could find, and lied.

The House had just defeated, 228–205, a bipartisan $700 billion bailout bill. But it was the Democrats who were the subject of vicious rhetoric.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) “poisoned our conference,” screeched Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), the Republican minority leader. He said the House would have voted for the bill “had it not been for the partisan speech the Speaker gave on the floor of the House.” Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) specifically said that Pelosi’s speech changed the minds of about a dozen Republicans who voted against the bill. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), waving a copy of Pelosi’s speech, screamed out, “Here is the reason I believe why this vote failed!” The speech, he said, “frankly struck the tone of partisanship that frankly was inappropriate in this discussion.” Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a senior advisor to Sen. John McCain, was equally blunt—and equally wrong. The bailout failed, he said, because “Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country.”

But it wasn’t the Democrats who brought about the bill’s defeat. The Democrats voted 140–95 for the bill; the Republicans voted 133–65 against the bill. Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain reluctantly supported the bill. Nevertheless, the viciously partisan Republican leadership, eager to paint anything Democratic as vicious partisanship, couldn’t even get a majority of their own members to agree to the bailout, one that now had added protections for the taxpayer.

What infuriated the Republican leaders was Pelosi’s accurate portrayal of the Bush–Cheney Administration’s economic policies as “built on recklessness, on an anything-goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision and no disciple in the system.” While driving America into the deepest deficit in its history, the Administration had usurped its own campaign lies that breathlessly panted the fear that the enemies of American consumers are “tax-and-spend liberals,” as if it was one word.

There are several reasons why this version of the bailout failed. Every member of the House is facing re-election in less than six weeks, and their constituents are angry. They’re angry at the government’s lack of oversight and regulation, supported and encouraged by Bush and McCain, that helped bring about the crisis. They’re angry at the failing mega-mammoth financial institutions that sacrificed the middle class to a horde of unbridled greed and incompetence. They’re angry at corporate executives who make millions while their companies are failing, and then get multi-million dollar “golden parachutes” that let them float into retirement, while the average taxpayer’s 401(k), with only a few thousand dollars may now be worth only half what it once was. They’re angry at “house flippers,” aided by easy-to-get mortgages and some unscrupulous real estate brokers, who made minor fortunes and helped raise housing prices to the point where middle-class families could no longer afford to own a home in an economy that was being held up by toothpicks.

But, most of all, consumers and members of Congress are furious at President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, and their Neocon gaggle who no longer have credibility. For seven years, the Bush–Cheney Administration has used fear as a bargaining weapon.

Six weeks after 9/11, the U.S. had the PATRIOT Act, a 342-page law, which few members of Congress read before voting for it, that pretending to stop terrorists essentially stripped much of our constitutional protections. And the people and their elected leaders agreed to it.

Using the tactics of fear, the Bush–Cheney Administration lied to the people, almost abandoned the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, and invaded Iraq, which had no connection to 9/11. And the people and their elected leaders agreed to it.

For the morally bankrupt Bush Corp., dissent is unpatriotic, un-American, and maybe even treasonous. “You’re either with us or against us,” President Bush told Americans. Because the people didn’t want to be seen as opposed to America, they and their leaders agreed to being bullied. “Support the troops,” Bush told Americans, but meant “Support me and my policies.” And Americans didn’t want to be seen as not supporting America’s soldiers, even if the Bush–Cheney Administration, didn’t give the troops pay raises, adequate body armor or medical care.

The Bush–Cheney Administration said they were “compassionate conservatives.” But, Katrina put an end to that lie.

This is an Administration that believes the environment is important only if it doesn’t interfere with private business. For years, Bush said he believed global warming doesn’t exist, and if it does it wasn’t caused by mankind. Only under the crushing weight of scientific evidence did Bush reluctantly have to modify his beliefs.

Almost eight years of incompetence and lies, with the President’s credibility lower than that of Three-Card Monty dealers in New York City, led Americans to finally realize they have been scammed. Bush had cried out “fear” once too often.

But, it wasn’t the PATRIOT Act, the Iraq War, or the destruction of the environment that brought about the people’s anger. It was their self-interest. In Bush’s Wild West economy, Americans have seen inflation, increased unemployment, foreclosures, and bankruptcies; they have seen their retirement plans dwindle in the vapors of economic chaos. The vote against the bailout was simply political reality by members of Congress who no longer were about to be stampeded by fear, scammed by lies, and whose own self-interest is to be re-elected.

[Dr. Walter M. Brasch is an award-winning social issues columnist, former newspaper and magazine reporter and editor, and professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University. He is president of the Pennsylvania Press Club, and former president of the Keystone state chapter of the Society of Professional Journalist. He is also the author of 17 books, including America' s Unpatriotic Acts: The Federal Giovernment's Violation of Constitutional and Civil Rights (January 2005) and Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush (November 2007), available through amazon.com and other bookstores. He frequently writes about the media, social and political issues. You may contact Brasch at brasch@bloomu.edu or through his website at: www.walterbrasch.com.]

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Exclusive: Wall Street wants us to panic… by The Other Katherine Harris

“They Just Don’t Get It” – Political Leaders and Pundits Are Clueless About Bailout Rejection By Richard C. Cook

Rep Kaptur Responds to Bush’s Statement on Bailout Bill Fail

Personal Finance Meltdown Makeover: Take the Long View by Susan Boskey

Bailout by Stealth by James Corbett + Ron Paul: Inflation is an unfair tax

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse

Exclusive: Wall Street wants us to panic… by The Other Katherine Harris

The Other Katherine Harris

by The Other Katherine Harris
Featured writer
Dandelion Salad

Sept 30, 2008

Wall Street wants us to panic, but stocks are just way overpriced.

If you’re hyperventilating about the stock market this morning, please calm down.  What’s underway is simple Market Justice.  Artificially inflated prices can’t be sustained forever — not for $700 billion or any amount of cash.

For years and years, the housing bubble fed the stock bubble and vice versa.  Far too much money poured into both asset classes, so this isn’t a problem more money will solve.

In every speculative market, there comes a time when those who bought too high get rebuked by reality.  Wall Street doesn’t like reality any more than homeowners who paid too much do, but the fall has to happen.  It’s healthy.

Just as the housing market will recover when the median price of a home regains its logical relationship with the median household income, stock prices will stabilize at a level that reflects their fundamental value.  Trying to keep these prices unreasonably elevated by any sort of heroics is destined to fail.

Housing will find a realistic bottom less painfully than many stocks will, because 1) buildings and land are useful things and 2) the prices weren’t juiced as much.  A total fall of 40 percent in the most overheated markets is right, which is why banks are now selling off mortages in bulk at 60 cents on the dollar and finding plenty of buyers. (They should be offering that price to the residents, of course, but this is a topic for another day.)

Stock prices often veered much farther from sanity, particularly in the zany shadow realm of derivatives (secondary bets derived from the presumed value of debt and other underlying assets).  More than a QUADRILLION DOLLARS’ worth of them are currently outstanding.  This is nuts, considering that the entire world’s annual GDP was only $60-65 trillion in 2007, the domestic capitalization of every stock exchange on the planet comes to barely over $60 trillion and combined personal wealth around the globe was measured last year at $109.5 trillion. To make a quad takes 1,000 trillion: more money than even exists!

Such craziness is possible because, in the surreal alternate universe of derivative securities, leverage goes as high as 100-200 percent.  Their hyperinflated “notional” value acquires a hyperinflated real-world price tag when one party to a bet is proved right and the other wrong.  Styled as hedging devices, most derivatives are pairs representing opinion and counter-opinion — but they go far beyond normal risk management, in that you can buy the same coverage over and over and it can involve matters that don’t otherwise concern you. (Imagine taking out 200 insurance policies on somebody else’s $25,000 car and expecting $5 million, if it’s wrecked.)  Complicating things still further, the paper migrates among owners, when someone is willing to take it as payment or collateral.  Eventually contracts expire, due to a specified timeframe — usually five years, so tons will keep ticking well into the next decade — but up to half of the total face value of active derivatives COULD turn terrifyingly actual at any moment, requiring the loser or insurer of his bet (e.g., the defunct AIG) to pay the other.

The whole world couldn’t come up with even half of a quad, at gunpoint, yet that’s what today’s “financial innovators” have stupidly obligated themselves to pay on derivative contracts, if each ends up with a winner and a loser.

Can’t be done and the players know it, but they’re still trying to squeeze some profit out of these dog bets by selling the worst of them to us:  those marked Level III, which are based on subprime debt.  In the real market, they’re going for six cents on the dollar, but Hank Paulson kindly hopes to overpay.

If the banks really wanted to get back to ordinary business, they could start immediately, simply by agreeing to nullify these contracts and refund whatever sums were paid up-front.  Some firms might need taxpayers’ help to pay the refunds, but it would be a manageable figure, a tiny fraction of what they’re trying to get out of us for frighteningly overleveraged garbage.

Nobody’s ever happy about losing paper wealth, but that doesn’t mean it can or should be sustained forever.

UPDATE (3 PM Mountain Time) – See, the sky didn’t fall because the banksters weren’t able to railroad Congress into a wrongheaded $700 billion bailout.  Wall Street just closed its best day in six years, as buyers picked over the merchandise that sellers kicked over yesterday.  Stocks that are still hurting deserve to be!

As for the credit markets, their remaining tight isn’t for want of money.  If cash were the issue, they’d be in puppydog heaven, based on Bernanke’s plans to pump another $630 billion into the system.  He announced this yesterday BEFORE the House vote, while nobody was looking in the Fed’s direction.  (See the Bloomberg story quoted HERE and weep. Then don’t miss the rest of what Karl Denninger has to say. I just read his no-cost plan for financial recovery and it’s much in line with what I’ve been thinking, although it doesn’t call for outright nullification of derivative bets.)

see

Want to stop the banksters’ bailout? by The Other Katherine Harris

“They Just Don’t Get It” – Political Leaders and Pundits Are Clueless About Bailout Rejection By Richard C. Cook

Personal Finance Meltdown Makeover: Take the Long View by Susan Boskey

Bailout by Stealth by James Corbett + Ron Paul: Inflation is an unfair tax

Catherine Austin Fitts: Financial Coup d’etat

Stuff the Bankers by Dale Allen Pfeiffer

Exclusive: Resolving the Wall Street Financial Crisis: Monetary Reform

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse

The Other Katherine Harris

“They Just Don’t Get It” By Richard C. Cook

by Richard C. Cook
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
richardccook.com
Sept. 30, 2008

Political Leaders and Pundits Are Clueless About Bailout Rejection

Stephen Pearlstein is the Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning business columnist. In print and as a TV talking head—like on Chris Matthews’ Hardball late last week—Pearlstein is one of the foremost media cheerleaders for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill.

Or should we call it the Bush-Paulson-McCain-Obama-Pelosi-Reid-Dodd-Frank Wall Street bailout bill?

Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the leadership of the Democratic majority in Congress have become the indispensable partners in Bush administration travesties. First it was funding for the Iraq War. Now it’s lavishing rewards on the Wall Street “Masters of the Universe,” who, coincidentally, have been the financial mainstay of the Democratic Party since the Clinton years.

The TV networks are filled this morning with commentators who are sneering about how a majority of congresspeople voted to save their political butts in the face of the upcoming congressional elections. Political expediency, say the financier-owned media, trumped principle, when the House defeated the bailout bill yesterday by a vote in which 67 percent of the Republicans and 60 percent of the Democrats voted “No.”

The “principle” in this case is that of the loaded gun which Wall Street is holding to Main Street’s head. “Bail us out or no more loans,” Wall Street says in this alleyway mugging. And no more loans seemingly would be a disaster, because for the last quarter century it’s primarily been borrowed money Main Street has been living on.

But maybe Main Street is willing to call Wall Street’s bluff—on principle.

Here’s where Pearlstein enters the picture. His column in the Post this morning is as condescending as it can be. The title? “They Just Don’t Get It.”

Pearlstein writes:

“Americans fail to understand that they are facing the real prospect of a decade of little or no economic growth because of the bursting of a credit bubble that they helped create and that now threatens to bring down the global financial system.”

Here’s what Pearlstein doesn’t get: The only reason there has been economic growth in the last seven years has been due to the housing bubble the Bush administration and Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan created to get us out of the crash of the dot.com bubble in 2000-2001.

The reason these bubbles have been needed is that the United States over the last generation gave away millions of its good manufacturing jobs to foreign nations in order to further the greed of global finance capitalism. So the only way people have been able to live has been through credit bubbles that have the added disadvantage of inflating the prices of assets, including their homes. This is another benefit of the housing bubble: For a home that once cost $120,000, a family is paying a $300,000 mortgage. If they want to sell, they would be lucky to get $200,000, less brokers’ and bankers’ fees.

Pearlstein again:

“Politicians worry less about preventing a financial meltdown than about ideology, partisan posturing and teaching people a lesson. Financiers have yet to own up publicly to their own greed, arrogance and incompetence. And leaders of foreign governments still think that this is an American problem and that they have no need to mount similar rescue efforts in their own countries.”

To call what a majority of the House of Representatives did yesterday in voting down the bailout an action based on “ideology, partisan posturing and teaching people a lesson” is a slur on American democracy. It shows what we already know: the Washington Post is really a house organ of the financial elite. And in dissing what is really part of a widespread populist uprising against financial abuses which have produced a condition approaching debt slavery for a majority of the U.S. population, Pearlstein shows a lack of respect that is typical, though appalling.

His prescription?

“And they will come around, reluctantly, to the understanding that the only way to get out of these situations is to have governments all around the world borrow gobs of money and effectively nationalize large swaths of the financial system so it can be restructured, recapitalized, reformed and returned to private ownership once the crisis has passed and the economy has gotten back on its feet.”

In other words, Pearlstein is really a Keynesian. Governments need to “borrow gobs of money and effectively nationalize large swaths of the financial system.” This means trillions added to the national debt.

But in the point about nationalization there is a glimmer of truth, though not the way Pearlstein means it. For he is wrong in thinking that this particular bailout bill which rewards years of greed, criminality, and government collusion in private banking swindles is the way to proceed. Neither is it right for the government to administer bad bankers’ debts while already the big banks that leveraged the terrible investment decisions—Citibank, the Bank of America, and J.P. Morgan Chase—are getting off scot-free and adding to their empires by gobbling up the small fry.

What then should be done?

Here I would like to turn to a proposal by a man I have met and respect. His name is Darrell Castle, and he is the 2008 candidate for vice-president of the Constitution Party. Castle has spent the last year traveling around the country meeting people on Main Street and listening to what they have to say.

This is what Castle proposes in the Constitution Party’s latest newsletter:

“The Federal Reserve Banks should be seized by Congress under Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution. The FED banks could survive as clearinghouse banks, but the Federal Reserve that has robbed the American people for 100 years would cease to exist. The debt owed by the American people to the FED banks would be discharged in bankruptcy. Congress would take monetary policy from the FED and would simply stand in place of the FED through a monetary board. The FED credit computers would be transferred to Congress who would issue new credit (money), because under our present system 97% of all money originates as credit. This new credit would keep the system going and prevent collapse. It could all be done without interest and without debt. The backs of the international banking cartel would be broken forever, and the American people through their elected representatives would control monetary policy; i.e. money in circulation, interest rates, and credit availability.”

Pearlstein, Bush, Paulson, Pelosi, et.al., along with Obama and McCain, should also read the U.S. Constitution. Then they would see that the problem stems from the fact that in 1913 Congress privatized our money supply by turning it over to the private banks that own the Federal Reserve System. This is also why we have lived under the mass delusion that a healthy financial sector leads to a healthy producing economy.

Actually it’s the other way around. The financial sector should support the producing economy, not bleed it dry through interest, fees, commissions, and the destruction that arises from financial profit-seeking.

There is also the fact that while the producing economy has been hammered by job outsourcing and bled white by financial parasitism, it is still a powerful machine that can produce the goods and services people need. We are a strong, capable nation. And we are blessed with the resources we require for a decent standard of living, though not necessarily at a rate of consumption that forever outpaces the rest of the world. But what is wrong with that? The underlying strength of the producing economy was on display this morning, when the Dow-Jones defied the doomsayers by coming back strongly the day after the bailout was defeated.

We now need to do what Darrell Castle of the Constitution Party recommends: Use the power of the money supply to rebuild the producing economy that we have given away and rebuild it from the bottom up: from Main Street.

Unfortunately the fat cats and their political and media apologists “just don’t get it.” But the American people and the members of congress who voted the right way yesterday do.

Copyright 2008 by Richard C. Cook

Richard C. Cook is a former U.S. federal government analyst, whose career included service with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury Department. His articles on economics, politics, and space policy have appeared on numerous websites and in Eurasia Critic magazine. His book on monetary reform, entitled We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform, will be published soon by Tendril Press. He is also the author of Challenger Revealed: An Insider’s Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age, called by one reviewer, “the most important spaceflight book of the last twenty years.” His website is at richardccook.com. Comments may be sent via email to EconomicSanity@gmail.com.

see

FINALLY Someone Said “No” by Richard C. Cook

Rep Kaptur Responds to Bush’s Statement on Bailout Bill Fail

Personal Finance Meltdown Makeover: Take the Long View by Susan Boskey

Bailout by Stealth by James Corbett + Ron Paul: Inflation is an unfair tax

Catherine Austin Fitts: Financial Coup d’etat

Stuff the Bankers by Dale Allen Pfeiffer

Exclusive: Resolving the Wall Street Financial Crisis: Monetary Reform

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse

Cook-Richard C.

WordPress.com Political Blogger Alliance

Rep Kaptur Responds to Bush’s Statement on Bailout Bill Fail

Dandelion Salad

replaced video March 5, 2010

martynic02
October 06, 2008

September 30, 2008 C-SPAN

more about “Rep Kaptur Responds to Bush’s Statement on Bailout Bill Fail“, posted with vodpod

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Dennis Kucinich: Is this the U.S. Congress or the Board of Directors at Goldman Sachs! + Kaptur: Sounds Like Insider Trading To Me!

Rep. Kapture: Let’s Play “Wall Street Bailout” The Rules Are…

Personal Finance Meltdown Makeover: Take the Long View by Susan Boskey

Bailout by Stealth by James Corbett + Ron Paul: Inflation is an unfair tax

Catherine Austin Fitts: Financial Coup d’etat

Stuff the Bankers by Dale Allen Pfeiffer

FINALLY Someone Said “No” by Richard C. Cook

Exclusive: Resolving the Wall Street Financial Crisis: Monetary Reform

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse

Personal Finance Meltdown Makeover: Take the Long View by Susan Boskey

Dandelion Salad

Sent to me by the author.

by Susan Boskey
www.AlternativeFinancialNow.com
www.TheQualityLifePlan.com

“Truth is not told; it is realized.” Author Unknown

Americans on Main Street have been urgently requested to take the plunge with Treasury Secretary Paulson and Ben Bernanke to bailout Wall Street’s bad debt to the tune of $700 billion and counting. We have been told that this must happen in order to not only stabilize Wall Street but the economic system itself. Or else! As of this writing 9/29/08, the House has just voted to reject the bailout.

If a bailout bill does eventually get passed, it won’t be a magic bullet and we as a nation will continue to flounder in uncharted economic waters. But perhaps more importantly, millions struggle to maintain their equilibrium when it comes to household finance.

Personal finance gurus have taken front and center, weighing-in on the news and talk shows. They beat the drum of “whatever you do, don’t liquidate” and please, stay calm. Stay calm?

My concern is what the personal finance gurus are not telling Americans. Their advice to John and Joan Q. Public as regards the best approach to decision-making in light of the current financial meltdown is flawed. Why? Their solutions do not reflect the-elephant-in-the-living –room-root cause. Instead, we are told the financial crisis is due to the sub-prime mortgage collapse, mortgage defaults and the subsequent downturn in housing prices nationwide. Yawn.

The Emperor’s New Clothes

It’s the mainstream media that has served up this convenient cover story. As in the Hans Christian Anderson tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes, though the king is most certainly naked as he parades down the street, virtually all the spectators of the royal parade see the king as he himself wants to be seen; wearing magnificent robes. Only when a child in the crowd proclaims the king’s nakedness is the mass delusion of the townspeople shattered.

Thanks to the Internet, the “children” with eyes to see and ears to hear the truth about money are growing in number. As a result, many cracks exist in the official story line about why we are in the financial mess we’re in and what we must do to get out of it. There’s much more to know.

The real root cause goes back to the time of widespread understanding of how interest-based money lending, also known as usury, corrupted the fabric of relationships and of society. In modern times, usury has come to be considered business as usual via a global network of central banks. Almost no one today gives it a second thought.

The central-banking system is global and was carefully designed to be a debt-based in nature: Money is issued into existence at the time it is loaned at interest. Interest that compounds over time becomes both revenue for the system’s shareholders and inflation in the cost of living for you and me when debt service gets added to the cost of goods and services.

To most people’s amazement, The Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank, is not actually even part of the government but a private for-profit corporation with shareholders. However, as in The Emperor’s New Clothes, don’t expect TIME magazine to run a cover story on this any time soon.

The System of Money

My association in the 1980’s with R. Buckminster (Bucky) Fuller led me to understand the wisdom of the saying “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. Money is but a part of a monetary (central banking) system in the same way the earth is but one aspect of the solar system. It’s impossible to fully understand earth as a planet without understanding the system that contains it.

A more complete picture of money comes into view with the big picture of the monetary system. As we were changed forever when we saw the whole earth from space for the first time, getting the big picture of the monetary system changes the way we think about money.

A comprehensive view would put an entirely different spin on the Paulson Plan for a mega-bailout. A comprehensive overview would tell us that going $700+ billion more into national debt in a debt-based system will only delay the inevitable bottoming out of an already heavily indebted system. Such an injection of capital would be much like giving a heroin addict a larger injection to continue to be able to experience their high.

It’s really no different. The monetary system by design needs larger and larger sums of credit (digital money) to pay down debt and access working capital. It’s an insatiable beast needing more and more new credit to keep the wheels turning. As a result, I humbly submit that what we have is a completely unsustainable monetary system.

For international, national and personal financial solutions to be more than Band-Aid measures as a mega-bailout is certain to be, the entire system must be reformed via a total-systemic makeover. As Bucky taught, systems ultimately shape and determine the possibilities of their moving parts.

You’re on Your Own

Until national leaders make monetary reform a top policy priority, everyday Americans are on their own to find the best ways to navigate their personal finance concerns. Each of us is affected by the mechanics of a debt-based monetary system by way of lost purchasing power. What’s more, government purchases of Wall Street’s “toxic assets” will only accelerate this ongoing process.

Yet almost no financial advisors will tell you. Actually, it comes as no real surprise since the professional training of most licensed financial advisors never covers central banking 101 and its personal implications. Advice devoid of understanding the personal impact of the monetary system is short-sighted at best.

The Long View

Like nuclear waste to waste dumps, hundreds of billions of dollars of additional debt due to the purchase of “toxic assets” will have to go somewhere. That somewhere, after the liquidity injection-high wears off yet again, will be directly out of our pockets as lost purchasing power and tax increases.

Job-outsourcing, bankruptcies, foreclosures and debt have meant millions of Americans have traded peace of mind for chronic stress. Enough is enough! Individuals, families and communities stand to gain from (hopefully) an eventual monetary reform but need real answers right away.

Over 25 years of independent research, study and working one-on-one with individuals and families have led me to the following conclusions as regards a long-term approach to personal financial well-being especially while living with the risks inherent to a debt-based system.

The traditional approach to personal finance tends to destabilize lives by use of its main strategy; the repeated leverage of credit and debt. The following recommendations empower people to stabilize their financial lives long term.

Time is of the essence, however. The erosion of purchasing power accelerates over time and dramatically so when billions and trillions are injected into the system all at once. So the sooner corrective action can be taken by individuals and families, the more options they may have for creating a sustainable financial situation.

Here is the formula I recommend:

1. First and of utmost importance: Get the whole story about money. There are many resources, for example, watch (Google) the short and amusing animated documentary Money as Debt by Canadian Paul Grignon. By becoming fully informed, you are more likely to empower yourself by taking necessary action steps.
2. Get out of debt. Mortgage debt is still debt.
3. Track your monthly money-in and money-out.
4. Do whatever it takes to have more money coming in to your household than going out. You must be willing to change your lifestyle if need be. This is a goal that generates a process.
5. Once you have more money coming in than going out, strive to live below your means.
6. Create a cash-flow engine that will drive your finances to keep you ahead of the increasing cost of living going forward so you will not have to revert back to credit use. It’s important to keep in mind what goods and services people will be willing to pay for in both good times and bad. This also applies to people on fixed incomes who are likely to need more money-in (than they thought they would) to keep up.
7. Become a member of an alternative currency exchange system such as Fourth Corner Exchange to access a second-tier economy. If there is not a system in your community, create one.

Once you have changed your mindset about money, are debt free and practicing the above, you will be out of the matrix once and for all. It’s an opportunity to re-build a quality life on your terms, long-term!

Susan Boskey, alternative financial consultant, is author of the book, The Quality Life Plan: 7 Steps to Uncommon Financial Security, an easy-to-understand workbook providing a revised personal finance formula for success based on factoring-in the overlooked risk element of the monetary system itself. As such, it is possible to reinvent similar financial security and peace of mind as in times past. Visit her website at www.AlternativeFinancialNow.com

see

Money As Debt (video) + “In Debt We Have Trusted,” For over 300 years By Jim Kirwan

Bailout by Stealth by James Corbett + Ron Paul: Inflation is an unfair tax

Catherine Austin Fitts: Financial Coup d’etat

Stuff the Bankers by Dale Allen Pfeiffer

Eat Your Cats and Dogs by Joel S. Hirschhorn

FINALLY Someone Said “No” by Richard C. Cook

Ron Paul: You’re Going To Destroy A Worldwide Economy!

Exclusive: Resolving the Wall Street Financial Crisis: Monetary Reform

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse

Bailout by Stealth by James Corbett + Ron Paul: Inflation is an unfair tax

Dandelion Salad

Sent to me by the author.

by James Corbett
The Corbett Report
30 September, 2008

While the public is distracted by the “bailout bill” and its rejection, trillions are pumped in to keep financial balloon inflated

The media is falling all over itself to report on every minutiae of the so-called Wall Street “bailout bill” and its rejection by Congress yesterday (just a few of the thousands of examples can be seen here and here and here and here). And why not? The media’s breathless coverage of the bill has produced a furious backlash by the public and hysteria on Wall Street in a self-justifying feedback loop that makes the media attention seem merited.

The startling truth which the controlled corporate media is not reporting, however, is that a bailout is actually taking place right now, completely out of the public spotlight. This program has already pumped trillions of dollars into Wall Street (compared to the mere $700 billion proposed in the legislation that the media is focusing on) to help prop up the faltering investment banks and promises to pump in even more, every dime of it to the detriment of the taxpayer though the public will have no stake in its success. Why, then, is this program not being talked about in the media?

Slipping under the radar last week amidst the hullabaloo in Washington over the bailout bill was this story noting that in the past week alone, the Federal Reserve had pumped an astonishing $188 billion per day into the system in the form of emergency credit. This means that in just four days, the Fed injected as much money into the system as the entire $700 billion bailout proposal. After the proposal was rejected, the Fed responded by immediately announcing it would pour another $630 billion into the global financial system.

The Federal Reserve, of course, is America’s central bank and although the above story conjures the reassuring image of a national bank lending out some of its vast reserves to help Wall Street weather the storm, the fact is that the Federal Reserve is not Federal and has doubtful reserves. In fact, the trillions of dollars that have been lent to the banks in the last few weeks were created out of nothing by the privately-owned Federal Reserve. When the Federal Reserve “lends” money to a bank through repurchase agreements (repos), credit auction or other method, it is not actually lending out money from its vaults. It is simply creating the money it “lends” out as electronic credits created in the recipient banks account. It is literally money out of thin air.

That the general public is on the hook for this money created out of nothing is not an exaggeration. It is paid for in a dimly-understood mechanism often known as the “inflation tax.”

Inflation is nothing more than an indication that the ratio of money to products that can be purchased with that money has been increased. Since the overall number of dollars has gone up without any corresponding increase in economic production (as happens when the Federal Reserve creates money out of thin air), the value of each individual dollar goes down. That means that the value of the money in each individuals’ bank account (not to mention their pension and social security dividends) can be reduced simply by the flick of a pen of a Federal Reserve paper-pusher. (Unless of course that individual just happens to be a billionaire investment mogul or a Vice President who can divest themselves of U.S. dollars in time for this inflation not to affect them.) This is sometimes known as an inflation tax because its overall effect is the same as if the government came in and took that value out of the individuals’ bank account. Watch Ron Paul explain the inflation tax in the video below:

Ron Paul: Inflation is an unfair tax – Bernanke: I couldn’t agree with you more

planettan

September 23, 2008

Ron Paul to Fed. Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke:
“…we had free rides all these years…that we were able to shipped our inflation oversea…now the debts come home, you have to buy back these bad debts…I maintain that inflation is a tax, it is an unfair, a regressive tax, it hurts the working class, the poors and the poor retirees the most…”

Ben Bernanke:
“Congressman, I couldn’t agree with you more that inflation is a tax, that inflation currently is too high…”

more about “Ron Paul: Inflation is an unfair tax …“, posted with vodpod

The most insidious part of this inflation tax is that the inflation does not begin until the new money begins to circulate in the system. In other words, the first person (or, more likely, giant corporate conglomerate) to use the money receives its full value, while those at the bottom of the pyramid retrieve the diminished returns of a devaluing dollar.

Why, then, is the public not furious about this stealth bailout, now taking place at the blistering pace of nearly $1 trillion a week, and all to the taxpayer’s detriment? The obvious answer is that the media is not whipping the public into a frenzy about it, instead focusing its attention on a $700 billion program and allowing the public to feel like they scored a blow against Wall Street when the program gets rejected. If so, it’s time the public got wise to how the system is really being run by and for the benefit of private bankers and at the expense of the average taxpayer. Otherwise, the fleecing of the public will continue unabated even as the public thinks they’ve won the battle.

Related works from The Corbett Report:

Money Masters Producer on Economic Crisis (video)

How To Fix the Economy (podcast episode)

Richard C. Cook on Monetary Reform (interview)

see

Catherine Austin Fitts: Financial Coup d’etat

Stuff the Bankers by Dale Allen Pfeiffer

Eat Your Cats and Dogs by Joel S. Hirschhorn

FINALLY Someone Said “No” by Richard C. Cook

Ron Paul: You’re Going To Destroy A Worldwide Economy!

Exclusive: Resolving the Wall Street Financial Crisis: Monetary Reform

Richard C. Cook: Poverty In the Midst of Plenty (audio)

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse

Snow found in Martian skies

Dandelion Salad

Sept. 29, 2008
Courtesy NASA

and World Science staff

NASA’s Phoe­nix Mars Lan­der has de­tected snow fall­ing from Mar­tian clouds, sci­en­tists say, and space­craft soil tests have given ev­i­dence of past in­ter­ac­tion be­tween min­er­als and liq­uid wa­ter, pro­cesses seen on Earth.

A la­ser in­stru­ment de­signed to gath­er knowl­edge of how the at­mos­phere and sur­face in­ter­act on Mars has de­tected snow from clouds about 4 kilo­me­ters (2.5 miles) above the space­craft’s land­ing site, the re­search­ers re­ported. Da­ta show the snow va­por­iz­ing be­fore reach­ing the ground.

[...]

NASA: Snow found in Martian skies.

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Nuclear armed F-16s in Iraq?!

My source for this information is anonymous and I do not know who it is.  It was sent to me Sept 29, 2008.  I have no way to validate this, but it is too important not to post.

If this is a reality, then we must alert all of our Congresspersons that this has occurred.  If we are on the brink of a nuclear war it is paramount that as many people as possible be alerted to this fact.

I received the following information:

“Tactical nukes were loaded on the F-16′s in Iraq this AM.”

An additional comment relating to this was the statement:

“They’re preparing for the “October surprise”…”

I’ve been given the grave responsibility to share this.  Ethically and morally I have to respect this person’s trust that I would fulfill the sharing of this information.

This needs to be investigated.  Congress needs to know.  The people need to know.

Email or call your Congressperson:

Nuclear armed F-16s in Iraq?!

Originally uploaded by Lorri37

This is what I sent, please feel free to copy and paste this in a message to your Congressperson:

It has been brought to my attention that F-16′s in Iraq have been armed with nuclear tactical weapons.  If this is true, it implies that we are prepared to engage in a nuclear war.  Are you aware of this?  The other reference to this information is suggesting that this relates to a term stated as an “October surprise.”  This seems to imply that a forthcoming attack may occur in October.  Does this relate to the Israeli war games in June 2008.  See CNN’s video report: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a72_1214248618

I have just read this story yesterday, “U.S. Deploys Radar, Troops To Israel” http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3744319&c=MID&s=LAN

Is this not evidence that we are in the process of preparing to assist Israel in a nuclear attack on Iran?

My concerns also relate to the information found in this video posted September 20:

“MIR: Israel’s October Surprise?” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4INL26sWUFk

The information from these sources coupled with the critical information concerning nuclear armed F-16s in Iraq brings extreme concern for the stability of our nation and the world.

The potential consequences are too dangerous to even consider.

sincerely,

Write To Congress

L’Shana Tova – Happy New Year by Lo

Dandelion Salad

L’Shana Tova Umetuka Tikatevu

May you be inscribed in the book of a Good and Sweet Year.

Catherine Austin Fitts: Financial Coup d’etat

Dandelion Salad

Please try to listen to at least the first 3 of these videos, lots of great info.  ~ Lo

IWantDemocracyNow

Today on Flashpoints: Another special extended edition of Community Business with Catherine Austin Fitts, as we continue to cover the meltdown on Wall Street and its reverberations on Main Street; we’ll feature listener calls and a close look at the implications of a $700 billion dollar bailout.
Penny Pritzker
01:00 Intro: Economic Meltdown and the Sub-Prime Culprit Penny Pritzker
Dennis and Nora

06:00 Community Business with Catherine Austin Fitts: A Crumbling Empire
Catherine Austin Fitts, solari.com

more about “Catherine Austin Fitts on the bailout…“, posted with vodpod

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see

Stuff the Bankers by Dale Allen Pfeiffer

Eat Your Cats and Dogs by Joel S. Hirschhorn

FINALLY Someone Said “No” by Richard C. Cook

Exclusive: Resolving the Wall Street Financial Crisis: Monetary Reform

Black Monday? Global Investors vote “No” on Paulson’s Bailout

Rep. Dennis Kucinich Rejects $700 Billion Bailout

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse

Stuff the Bankers by Dale Allen Pfeiffer

by Dale Allen Pfeiffer
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Dale’s blog post
Sept 29, 2008

I’ll parse as few words as possible. We don’t need this bailout. The economy will not crash if Congress doesn’t pass it. What is more, the bailout itself could sink the economy.

No economists were consulted about this bailout. No one knows where Paulson came up with the $700 billion figure. Investor Marc Faber, who is considered a reliable judge of these things, believes the actual amount of the bailout necessary will be closer to $5 trillion.

Every economist worth his or her credentials has gone on record against this bailout. Nobody has offered any details on what they want to do with this money. The best we can figure is that Paulson intends on giving extravagant Christmas presents to all his banking buddies.

So how’s this for a bailout package. We use this $700 billion to develop a reliable mass transit system throughout the country, and to rebuild our communities so they can go back to being more self-sufficient. That means relocalizing production and agriculture, and placing the necessary markets within walking distance. And while we’re at it, we can refurbish our homes for energy efficiency.

Now I haven’t run the figures on all this, but I am willing to bet it will not cost $700 billion. And all of this retooling would actually provide jobs and stimulate local economies, instead of swelling some financiers’ pockets.

Unfortunately, between the war debt and the bailouts, we are wasting any chance we might have to do something positive for the people of this country. Our future security is being mortgaged to pay off a pack of thieves.

This amounts to a banker’s coup on the US government and the taxpaying public. As a part of this legislation, the financial institutions which benefit from this bailout will become agents of the government. According to the most popular definition, that is fascism.

The $700 billion bailout will cost every man, woman and child in this country $2,000. My nephew’s newborn daughter will be indebted before she is even a month old. And if the true amount of the bailout is actually $5 trillion, then the amount owed by every man woman and child in this country will jump to $14,000. A family of four will accrue $56,000 of debt in order to pay off the imbeciles who got us into this mess in the first place.

And with all that, the bailout will not solve the problem. It may delay disaster for a few months, but the fall will be even harder when it does come. The next swing of the pendulum could bring down our entire country. So what would happen if the US was placed into receivership?

It is too late to stop the bailout. But we can make damn sure our politicians know how we feel about it. I sure as hell will not vote for anyone who supports this bill — including presidential candidates.

Anyone for a tax rebellion?

see

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse

Eat Your Cats and Dogs by Joel S. Hirschhorn

FINALLY Someone Said “No” by Richard C. Cook

Ron Paul: You’re Going To Destroy A Worldwide Economy!

Exclusive: Resolving the Wall Street Financial Crisis: Monetary Reform

Black Monday? Global Investors vote “No” on Paulson’s Bailout

Rep. Dennis Kucinich Rejects $700 Billion Bailout

Ralph Nader: Wall Street toppled