REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Economic Terrorism

POSTED BY: OUT2THEBLACK
UPDATED: Tuesday, February 23, 2010 08:19
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Wednesday, February 17, 2010 4:42 PM

OUT2THEBLACK





"Economic Terrorism": The Consequences are Poverty and Mass Unemployment


By David DeGraw

Global Research, February 16, 2010
Amped Status - 2010-02-15


“The American oligarchy spares no pains in promoting the belief that it does not exist, but the success of its disappearing act depends on equally strenuous efforts on the part of an American public anxious to believe in egalitarian fictions and unwilling to see what is hidden in plain sight.” — Michael Lind, To Have and to Have Not



Yes, of course, we all have very strong differences of opinion on many issues.

However, like our Founding Fathers before us, we must put aside our differences and unite to fight a common enemy. It has now become evident to a critical mass that the Republican and Democratic parties, along with all three branches of our government, have been bought off by a well-organized Economic Elite who are tactically destroying our way of life. The harsh truth is that 99% of the US population no longer has political representation. The US economy, government and tax system is now blatantly rigged against us.

Current statistical societal indicators clearly demonstrate that a strategic attack has been launched and an analysis of current governmental policies prove that conditions for a large majority of Americans will continue to deteriorate. The Economic Elite have engineered a financial coup and have brought war to our doorstep. . . and make no mistake, they have launched a war to eliminate the US middle class.

Unless we all unite and organize on common ground, our very way of life and the ideals that our country was founded upon will continue to unravel.

Before exposing exactly who the Economic Elite are, and discussing common sense ways in which we can defeat them, let’s take a look at how much damage they have already caused.

I: "Economic Terrorism": Surveying the Damage

America is the richest nation in history, yet we now have the highest poverty rate in the industrialized world with an unprecedented amount of Americans living in dire straights and over 50 million citizens already living in poverty.

The government has come up with clever ways to down play all of these numbers, but we have over 50 million people who need to use food stamps to eat, and a stunning 50% of US children will use a food stamp to eat at some point in their childhood. Approximately 20,000 people are added to this total every day. In 2009, one out of five US households didn’t have enough money to buy food. In households with children, this number rose to 24%, as the hunger rate among US citizens has now reached an all time high.

We also currently have over 50 million US citizens without healthcare. 1.4 million Americans filed for bankruptcy in 2009, a 32% increase from 2008. As bankruptcies continue to skyrocket, medical bankruptcies are responsible for over 60% of them, and over 75% of the medical bankruptcies filed are from people who have healthcare insurance. We have the most expensive healthcare system in the world, we are forced to pay twice as much as other countries and the overall care we get in return ranks 37th in the world.

In total, Americans have lost $5 trillion from their pensions and savings since the economic crisis began and $13 trillion in the value of their homes. During the first full year of the crisis, workers between the age of 55 - 60, who have worked for 20 - 29 years, have lost an average of 25% off their 401k. “Personal debt has risen from 65% of income in 1980 to 125% today.” Over five million US families have already lost their homes, in total 13 million US families are expected to lose their home by 2014, with 25% of current mortgages underwater. Deutsche Bank has an even grimmer prediction: “The percentage of ‘underwater’ loans may rise to 48 percent, or 25 million homes.” Every day 10,000 US homes enter foreclosure. Statistics show that an increasing number of these people are not finding shelter elsewhere, there are now over 3 million homeless Americans, the fastest growing segment of the homeless population is single parents with children.

One place more and more Americans are finding a home is in prison. With a prison population of 2.3 million people, we now have more people incarcerated than any other nation in the world - the per capita statistics are 700 per 100,000 citizens. In comparison, China has 110 per 100,000, France has 80 per 100,000, Saudi Arabia has 45 per 100,000. The prison industry is thriving and expecting major growth over the next few years. A recent report from the Hartford Advocate titled “Incarceration Nation” revealed that “a new prison opens every week somewhere in America.”



Mass Unemployment

The government unemployment rate is deceptive on several levels. It doesn’t count people who are “involuntary part-time workers,” meaning workers who are working part-time but want to find full-time work. It also doesn’t count “discouraged workers,” meaning long-term unemployed people who lost hope and don’t consistently look for work. As time goes by, more and more people stop consistently looking for work and are discounted from the unemployment figure. For instance, in January, 1.1 million workers were eliminated from the unemployment total because they were “officially” labeled “discouraged workers.” So instead of the number rising, we will hear deceptive reports about unemployment leveling off.

On top of this, the Bureau of Labor Statistics recently discovered that 824,000 job losses were never accounted for due to a “modeling error” in their data. Even in their initial January data there appears to be a huge understating, with the newest report saying the economy lost 20,000 jobs. TrimTabs employment analysis, which has consistently provided more accurate data, “estimated that the U.S. economy shed 104,000 jobs in January.”

When you factor in all these uncounted workers — “involuntary part-time” and “discouraged workers” — the unemployment rate rises from 9.7% to over 20%. In total, we now have over 30 million US citizens who are unemployed or underemployed. The rarely cited “employment-participation” rate, which reveals the percentage of the population that is currently in the workforce, has now fallen to 64%.

Even based on the “official” unemployment rate, just to get back to the unemployment level of 4.6% that we had in 2007, we need to create over 10 million new jobs, and most every serious economist will tell you that these jobs are not coming back. In fact, we are still consistently shedding jobs, on just one day, January 27th, several companies announced new cuts of more than 60,000 jobs.

Due to the length of this crisis already, millions of Americans are reaching a point where the unemployment benefits that they have been surviving off of are coming to an end. More workers have already been out of work longer than at any point since statistics have been recorded, with over six million now unemployed for over six months. A record 20 million Americans qualified for unemployment insurance benefits last year, causing 27 states to run out of funds, with seven more also expected to go into the red within the next few months. In total, 40 state programs are expected to go broke.

Most economists believe that the unemployment rate will remain high for the foreseeable future. What will happen when we have millions of laid-off workers without any unemployment benefits to save them?

Working More for Less

The millions struggling to find work are just part of the story. Due to the fact that we now have a record high six people for every one job opening, companies have been able to further increase the workload on their remaining employees. They have been able to increase the amount of hours Americans are working, reduce wages and drastically cut back on benefits. Even though Americans were already the most productive workers in the world before the economic crisis, in the third quarter of 2009, average worker productivity increased by an annualized rate of 9.5%, at the same time unit labor cost decreased by 5.2%. This has led to record profits for many companies. Of the 220 companies in the S&P 500 who have reported fourth-quarter results thus far, 78% of them had “better-than-expected profits” with earnings 17% above expectations, “the highest for any quarter since Thomson Reuters began tracking data.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national median wage was only $32,390 per year in 2008, and median household income fell by 3.6% while the unemployment rate was 5.8%. With the unemployment rate now at 10%, median income has been falling at a 5% rate and is expected to continue its decline. Not surprisingly, Americans’ job satisfaction level is now at an all time low.

There are also a growing number of employed people who, despite having a job, are still living in poverty. There are at least 15 million workers who now fall into this rapidly growing category. $32,390 a year is not going to get you far in today’s economy, and half of the country is making less than that. This is why many Americans are now forced to work two jobs to provide for their family to hopefully make ends meet.

A Crime Against Humanity

The mainstream news media will numb us to this horrifying reality by endlessly talking about the latest numbers, but they never piece them together to show you the whole devastating picture, and they rarely show you all the immense individual suffering behind them. This is how they “normalize the unthinkable” and make us become passive in the face of such a high causality count.

Behind each of these numbers, is a tremendous amount of misery, the physical toll is only outdone by the severe psychological toll. Anyone who has had to put off medical care, or who couldn’t get medical care for one of their family members due to financial circumstances, can tell you about the psychological toll that is on top of the physical suffering. Anyone who has felt the stress of wondering how they were going to get their child’s next meal or their own, or the stress of not knowing how you are going to pay the mortgage, rent, electricity or heat bill, let alone the car payment, gas, phone, cable or internet bill.

There are now well over 150 million Americans who feel stress over these things on a consistent basis. Over 60% of Americans now live paycheck to paycheck.

These are all basic things that every person should be able to easily afford in a technologically advanced society such as ours. The reason why we struggle with these things is because the Economic Elite have robbed us all. This amount of suffering in the United States of America is literally a crime against humanity.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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© Copyright David DeGraw, Amped Status, 2010

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010 4:57 PM

OUT2THEBLACK


"There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Tavistock Group, California Medical School, 1961


" The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few to ride them." Thomas Jefferson


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Wednesday, February 17, 2010 5:04 PM

CHRISISALL


Slavery.
Less cruel, but, whatever.


The laughing Chrisisall

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010 5:09 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


The driving force behind all this is not government - it's business. More specifically, profit.

Aside from that, we already live in a company town - it's just that the company is now global, as is the town.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010 5:14 PM

CHRISISALL


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
The driving force behind all this is not government - it's business.
Is there a difference?


The laughing Chrisisall

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010 5:17 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


I glad you asked !

Yes, there is ! B/c while we can't vote out the corporate boards, we CAN vote out our government. Yes, we CAN !

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010 5:22 PM

CHRISISALL


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
I glad you asked !

Yes, there is ! B/c while we can't vote out the corporate boards, we CAN vote out our government. Yes, we CAN !

Can we vote out corporate infiltration of our system?

Excuse me, Imma go play Rollerball....


The laughing Chrisisall

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010 5:33 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


The only reason this goes on is cynicism. There ARE differences between choices. Russell Feingold is not 'just like' Sam Brownback.

If you have no good choices (especially in the primaries where it counts) you can always support a good congress-person outside of your district or state in a tight race.

Here's the thing - large numbers of people HAVE to be involved. Large numbers of people have to be making consistent decisions over time. It's the only way that we are going to be able to take our democracy back. Or, we could just go back to letting them run us around.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010 5:44 PM

IREMISST


Evening Mr. Black!

Just readin' your observations and thought I'd relay some things my Mo-in-law was saying recently about how America is the greatest country in the history of the world how how she believes it is the only country blessed personally by God and that we have the best healthcare in the world... For a moment, I imagine that somewhere in N. Korea someone was saying the same thing about their country...

It's awful hard to rally a people to change a thing when a good deal of people BELIEVE there's not a thing that needs changing... That and 1 out of every 4 people have a serious mental illness these days, just imagine how many of them with the current system go untreated and then envision the task ahead...

God, I need a cuppa hot tea... and a good forced sterilization program!

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010 5:59 PM

FREMDFIRMA



Education > Sterilization.

-F

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010 6:06 PM

IREMISST


You ever talk to anybody you know speaks the same language as you and yet they simply don't have the wherewithal to process? Can't educate those who don't wanna BE educated...

Besides, sterilization sounds like so much more fun, esp this evening! Who wants to help?


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Wednesday, February 17, 2010 6:15 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
The only reason this goes on is cynicism. There ARE differences between choices. Russell Feingold is not 'just like' Sam Brownback.

If you have no good choices (especially in the primaries where it counts) you can always support a good congress-person outside of your district or state in a tight race.

Here's the thing - large numbers of people HAVE to be involved. Large numbers of people have to be making consistent decisions over time. It's the only way that we are going to be able to take our democracy back. Or, we could just go back to letting them run us around.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.



Good point. I'll be supporting Lloyd Doggett for Congress here in my district, but I'm about shit outta luck on my Senate choices. So I'll take the money I was gonna donate to a senate run or a gubernatorial candidate and send it to Russ Feingold, or Bernie Sanders, or Alan Grayson, or somewhere else where a good person can use it!

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010 6:58 PM

FREMDFIRMA


Quote:
Originally posted by Iremisst:
You ever talk to anybody you know speaks the same language as you and yet they simply don't have the wherewithal to process? Can't educate those who don't wanna BE educated...

That's why Cricket Bats really exist.

"Education" can take many forms, and I've been known to teach ethics by physical-trauma osmosis on occasion.

-F

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010 8:20 PM

OUT2THEBLACK


Quote:
Originally posted by Iremisst:
It's awful hard to rally a people to change a thing when a good deal of people BELIEVE there's not a thing that needs changing... That and 1 out of every 4 people have a serious mental illness these days, just imagine how many of them with the current system go untreated and then envision the task ahead...

God, I need a cuppa hot tea... and a good forced sterilization program!


Be careful what you wish for...these devils have a plan for you...

Folk have a hard time overcoming their programming...Unfortunately , nowadays some of the most 'educated' are the ones having the most difficulty knowing that they're being scammed...

Nice of you to drop by and say hello !

“For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.” — George Orwell

The poverty and ignorance serve the interests of the economic elites ; it pays for them to reinforce misconceptions about the way things work , especially within the 'education' systems...

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010 8:58 PM

OUT2THEBLACK


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Aside from that, we already live in a company town - it's just that the company is now global, as is the town.



Fantasy Finance and Monopoly Money are bringing us down :

http://ampedstatus.com/the-great-unemployment-cover-up-and-the-looting
-of-america

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010 9:13 PM

OUT2THEBLACK


Quote:
Originally posted by Iremisst:
You ever talk to anybody you know speaks the same language as you and yet they simply don't have the wherewithal to process? Can't educate those who don't wanna BE educated...



You've sure got that right ; here's some good reading...I don't agree with it 100 percent , but it's right on the most important bits :

http://www.hermes-press.com/real_history.htm

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Thursday, February 18, 2010 4:26 AM

IREMISST


Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
That's why Cricket Bats really exist.





Kaylee style: Ohh, Cricket Bats is nice!

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Thursday, February 18, 2010 4:34 AM

IREMISST


Quote:
Originally posted by out2theblack:

Nice of you to drop by and say hello !


Always have time for you, hon!



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Thursday, February 18, 2010 7:21 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


MORE GOOD PEEPS TO SUPPORT:
Key Senate Democrats push for health care public option
Quote:
The fight over health care reform burst back into public view Tuesday as four Democratic senators asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to hold a vote on a government-run public insurance option.

Most observers have considered the public option -- an idea long favored by liberal Democrats -- to be a non-starter since it was dropped from a Senate reform bill passed in December. But Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, and Sherrod Brown of Ohio signed a letter urging Reid, D-Nevada, to hold a vote on the proposal under a rule known as a reconciliation, which would allow the measure to pass with only 51 votes -- a simple majority.

The letter was co-signed by 119 Democrats in the House of Representatives.

Liberal groups MoveOn.org, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America, and Credo Action are pushing other Democratic senators to sign the letter as well.
www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/02/16/health.care.harry.reid/index.html?hpt=
T2

KWICKO: Maybe all those letterwriting campaigns weren't wasted after all.

MORE NEWS FROM THE WESTERN FRONT

Move your money
http://moveyourmoney.info/find-a-bank

The Richest 1% Have Captured America's Wealth -- What's It Going to Take to Get It Back?
www.alternet.org/economy/145705/the_richest_1%25_have_captured_america
%27s_wealth_--_what%27s_it_going_to_take_to_get_it_back

CREDO ACTION
www.credoaction.com

Demand answers from Blue Cross
www.moveon.org/

HEALTH CARE NOW! (calendar)
www.healthcare-now.org/takeaction/events-calendar/


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Thursday, February 18, 2010 9:24 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Ire:
Quote:
You ever talk to anybody you know speaks the same language as you and yet they simply don't have the wherewithal to process? Can't educate those who don't wanna BE educated...
Right on! Unfortunately, most people are involved in their own little lives, surviving, and don’t think beyond that—and Tea Partiers and their ilk believe education is bad and they’re smarter than all those “eddicated” assholes—education may not be perfect (by a long shot!), but it has a chance of widening the mind and causing one to question things...if one doesn’t swallow it whole cloth!

O2B: EXCELLENT Orwell quote! Many thanx; that sums it up perfectly, far as I’m concerned!

Ahh, Sig...I intended to put up a post about that, and still will; maybe it’s spitting into the wind, but maybe...just maybe...

Great links; maybe I live in a fantasy world of optimism, but SOMETHING seems to be stirring! I've got an e-mail for Boxer, I want to know why SHE's not part of this and how long it's going to take her to join. I wrote her that I wouldn't be voting next time simply because of the "individual mandate but no public option", so now I'll give her a chance if she gets her shit together...

And it's ELEVEN now, by the way...not just four...




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Thursday, February 18, 2010 2:47 PM

OUT2THEBLACK


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
...If you have no good choices (especially in the primaries where it counts) you can always support a good congress-person outside of your district or state in a tight race.

Here's the thing - large numbers of people HAVE to be involved. Large numbers of people have to be making consistent decisions over time. It's the only way that we are going to be able to take our democracy back. Or, we could just go back to letting them run us around.


"An oligarchy of private capital cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society because under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information." Albert Einstein
- Physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. 1879-1955

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Thursday, February 18, 2010 2:52 PM

OUT2THEBLACK


'...Housing is still under pressure, and commercial real estate is about to become a big problem.

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.

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.

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 recently arrived:

"Thank you for your continued truthful commentary on the 'New Economy.' My husband and I could be it's 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.'

(A Country of Serfs Ruled By Oligarchs

By Paul Craig Roberts)

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24704.htm



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Thursday, February 18, 2010 2:54 PM

OUT2THEBLACK


Inverted Totalitarianism:

Fighting Corporate Rape of US

By Chris Hedges

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24694.htm

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Thursday, February 18, 2010 5:24 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


OTB

In some things, when it comes to me, you are preaching to the choir.

I already know how unemployment is counted in the US. If you are not receiving an unemployment check, you are not counted. It's as simple as that.

That obviously leaves many people out: people whose benefits ran out but who are still not working, people who are working minimal jobs and so are not receiving unemployment benefits but are not making enough to live on, people who are looking for work but haven't yet entered the work force and so are not eligible for benefits, etc. And then they 'seasonally adjust' the numbers, and play other games. Yes, unemployment is vastly understated in this country.

But the answer is not to denominate money as gold, silver, copper, nickel or other metal. Because it doesn't matter HOW you denominate your money - it's ALL merely mental markers we carry in our heads - and that can change in an instant.

The problem is not colored papers, it's having only a few people cornering the money - ie capitalism.

Let me explain:

If I am working for corpA I make a product for which I get paid 4 gold coins. That product is then sold for 5 gold coins. EVERY TIME the cycle turns - from production through sale - corpA's owner gets a gold coin. Sooner or later, corpA's owner will have all the gold coins, and there will be none left in circulation. This is obviously simplified, but it can be shown to be ultimately true, no matter how many exceptions you think you can find.

What happens then ? A crash.

And this will always be true, whether I am paid in gold coins as in my example, colored paper, or bits in a database.

How can these be avoided ?

Well, you could do like many European countries and aggressively redistribute a fair bit of the money to slow the amassing down - but not stop it. You could print, coin or hack more money - increase your money supply. And this makes sense if the economy has grown such that the value of each monetary unit was going up b/c it represented more and more goods and work. You could find new places to exploit ever cheaper labor, making the value of the workers' partial share of the value they create go further. And this I think was the point of Clinton's deals with China. Or you could find a place to sell your goods at gunpoint. Those two together BTW - cheap workers and markets to foist off your goods - are called colonialism. Or you could find a rich place to buy your stuff. Or some combination.

But capitalism MUST expand - into new labor or exchange markets or both - or contract. B/c the minute it stops expanding sufficiently - bringing in outside value to make up for the amount being removed from circulation - a very few people start to collect ALL of that finite supply of money. And that over time will eventually lead to a collapse.

Now, you describe economic crashes on the one hand as normal capitalistic economic adjustments - nothing to worry about, just nature taking its course, and all will soon be well, you'll see (no need to look at the jobless and homeless and human suffering, move along ...)

On the other hand, you speak of THIS one as if it were literally the end of the world.

I'm not going to speculate about why THIS one is different to you than all the others, though I will say I hope the reason isn't too painfully immediate.

But while there ARE rich and powerful people gaming the system, they themselves are not the problem. WE put the power in their hands by going along with this system. The problem is less personal and more systematic than a few evil men.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Thursday, February 18, 2010 5:58 PM

CHRISISALL


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:

But capitalism MUST expand

Balloons that must eventually pop.


The laughing Chrisisall

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Thursday, February 18, 2010 6:07 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


OOOHHh ... Balloons ! And loud noises ! A party ! I like parties. WHhhooo hooo !




Please don't mind the silliness. And please close the door on your way out.

Thank you.

***************************************************************

good night all

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Thursday, February 18, 2010 6:08 PM

CHRISISALL


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:

The Richest 1% Have Captured America's Wealth -- What's It Going to Take to Get It Back?
www.alternet.org/economy/145705/the_richest_1%25_have_captured_america
%27s_wealth_--_what%27s_it_going_to_take_to_get_it_back

It's Dark Angel time. I told ya.


The not laughing Chrisisall

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Thursday, February 18, 2010 6:11 PM

CHRISISALL


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
OOOHHh ... Balloons ! And loud noises ! A party ! I like parties. WHhhooo hooo !

Laff it up, fuzzball.


Heh, I couldn't resist an ESB quote.


The Solo Chrisisall

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Thursday, February 18, 2010 6:12 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


he he he he he ...

***************************************************************

... and now, I really am gone. Good night.

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Thursday, February 18, 2010 6:40 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Quote:
Originally posted by out2theblack:
Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
...If you have no good choices (especially in the primaries where it counts) you can always support a good congress-person outside of your district or state in a tight race.

Here's the thing - large numbers of people HAVE to be involved. Large numbers of people have to be making consistent decisions over time. It's the only way that we are going to be able to take our democracy back. Or, we could just go back to letting them run us around.


"An oligarchy of private capital cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society because under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information." Albert Einstein
- Physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. 1879-1955



So capitalism's out...

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Thursday, February 18, 2010 11:09 PM

LITTLEBIRD





U.S. Economy Grinds To Halt As Nation Realizes Money Just A Symbolic, Mutually Shared Illusion
The Onion, Issue 46•07, February 16, 2010
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/u_s_economy_grinds_to_halt_as


WASHINGTON—The U.S. economy ceased to function this week after unexpected existential remarks by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke shocked Americans into realizing that money is, in fact, just a meaningless and intangible social construct.

Calling it "basically no more than five rectangular strips of paper," Fed chairman Ben Bernanke illustrates how much "$200" is actually worth.

What began as a routine report before the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday ended with Bernanke passionately disavowing the entire concept of currency, and negating in an instant the very foundation of the world's largest economy.

"Though raising interest rates is unlikely at the moment, the Fed will of course act appropriately if we…if we…" said Bernanke, who then paused for a moment, looked down at his prepared statement, and shook his head in utter disbelief. "You know what? It doesn't matter. None of this—this so-called 'money'—really matters at all."

"It's just an illusion," a wide-eyed Bernanke added as he removed bills from his wallet and slowly spread them out before him. "Just look at it: Meaningless pieces of paper with numbers printed on them. Worthless."

According to witnesses, Finance Committee members sat in thunderstruck silence for several moments until Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) finally shouted out, "Oh my God, he's right. It's all a mirage. All of it—the money, our whole economy—it's all a lie!"

Screams then filled the Senate Chamber as lawmakers and members of the press ran for the exits, leaving in their wake aisles littered with the remains of torn currency.

U.S. markets closed as traders left their jobs and resolved for once to do or make something, anything of real value.

As news of the nation's collectively held delusion spread, the economy ground to a halt, with dumbfounded citizens everywhere walking out on their jobs as they contemplated the little green drawings of buildings and dead white men they once used to measure their adequacy and importance as human beings.

At the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday morning's opening bell echoed across a silent floor as the few traders who arrived for work out of habit looked up blankly at the meaningless scrolling numbers on the flashing screens above.

"I've spent 25 years in this room yelling 'Buy, buy! Sell, sell!' and for what?" longtime trader Michael Palermo said. "All I've done is move arbitrary designations of wealth from one column to another, wasting my life chasing this unattainable hallucination of wealth."

"What a cruel cosmic joke," he added. "I'm going home to hug my daughter."

Sources at the White House said President Obama was "still trying to get his head around all this" and was in seclusion with his coin collection, muttering "it's just metal, it's just metal" over and over again.

"The president will be making a statement very soon," press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters. "At the moment, though, his mind is just too blown to comment."

A few U.S. banks have remained open, though most teller windows are unmanned due to a lack of interest in transactions involving mere scraps of paper or, worse, decimal points and computer data signifying mere scraps of paper. At a Bank of America branch in Spokane, WA, curious former customers wandered aimlessly through a large
empty vault, while several would-be robbers of a Chase bank in Columbus, OH reportedly put their guns down and exited the building hand in hand with security guards, laughing over the inherent absurdity of the idea of $100 bills.

Likewise, the real estate industry has all but vanished, with mortgage lenders seeing no reason to stop people from reclaiming their foreclosed-upon homes.

"I don't even know what we were thinking in the first place," said former banker Nathan Collins of Brandon, MS, as he jimmyed open a door to allow a single mother and her five children to move back into their house. "A bunch of people sign a bunch of papers, and now this family has no place to live? That's just plain ludicrous."

The realization that money is nothing more than an elaborate head game seems to have penetrated the entire country: In Wilmington, DE, for instance, a collection agent reportedly broke down in joyful sobs when he informed a woman on the other end of the phone that he had absolutely no reason to harass her anymore, as her Discover
Card debt was no longer comprehensible.

For some Americans, the fog of disbelief surrounding the nation's epiphany has begun to lift, with many building new lives free from the illusion of money.

"It's back to basics for me," Bernard Polk of Waverly, OH said. "I'm going to till the soil for my own sustenance and get anything else I need by bartering. If I want milk, I'll pay for it in tomatoes. If need a new hoe, I'll pay for it in lettuce."

When asked, hypothetically, how he would pay for complicated life-saving surgery for a loved one, Polk seemed uncertain.

"That's a lot of vegetables, isn't it?" he said.

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Friday, February 19, 2010 3:15 AM

FREMDFIRMA



*snicker*
Good One.

You know the really funny part though ?

One reason I prefer to trade goods or services ?
Barter is under the jurisdiction of the Dept of Argiculture, which has no power to assess or collect taxes.

Just so ya know.

-F

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Friday, February 19, 2010 4:42 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Yep, it's all just paper... OR metal... or cowrie shells...

Wouldn't it be nice if we could get rid of our shared delusions like that????

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Friday, February 19, 2010 5:42 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Stark, as an individual was monomaniacal about, well, taxes. There's a problem with taking a single issue and pushing it past the point of applicability - to the effect that if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Something can end up breaking, in this case it was him and his life - and the lives of others.

But DESPITE the fact that he was personally psychologically vulnerable, there is ANOTHER problem: our 'system' is hell bent on eliminating the troublesome middle class and turning everyone into chattel.

WE ARE THE TARGET OF ASYMMETRIC WARFARE, AND WE DON'T EVEN KNOW WE ARE AT WAR.

Think that's an exaggeration ?

WE ARE THE TARGET OF ASYMMETRIC WARFARE ...
http://www.alternet.org/economy/145705/the_richest_1%25_have_captured_
america%27s_wealth_--_what%27s_it_going_to_take_to_get_it_back

"In 1970, CEOs made $25 for every $1 the average worker made. ... 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. '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%.' 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."

And we, the owned, have not even BEGUN to feel the effects.

That doesn't 'just happen' by accident. This IS capitalism, intentionally allowed to exist without limit.

AND WE DON'T EVEN KNOW WE ARE AT WAR ...

... because if we did, we wouldn't be talking about anything else. Instead, we talk about movies, about how PEOPLE are failures for not living up to the American dream, about how it's not so bad, about how the system will make everything its sparkling best, in due time, of course. We just have to have faith and believe that the system is more important than ... we are.


***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Friday, February 19, 2010 5:57 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Quote:
...about how PEOPLE are failures for not living up to the American dream, about how it's not so bad, about how the system will make everything its sparkling best, in due time, of course. We just have to have faith and believe that the system is more important than ... we are.



And at the heart of it, Rue, isn't that really what they tell you to look out for when you're trying to figure out if something's a Ponzi scheme or not? "If it's not working for you, you're not working it hard enough." "It will all come your way, in time; you just need to work the system and be patient."

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Friday, February 19, 2010 9:35 AM

LITTLEBIRD


Just out of curiosity, what are you personally doing to prepare for "Dark Angel" time?


I've been trying to stock up on food a little and various things I think we might need in the case of total collapse, but I never seem to get very far ahead with that because everyone around us needs help NOW. I've got maybe two months worth of supplies.

I also garden quite a bit and plan to even increase that this year. And, yes, I am a big fan of barter.

Of course we don't own any guns so anyone could come at any time and take what we have.

I know we are at war economically and I don't know what else to do about it. Washington seems to be living in an alternate reality.


ETA: We also do what we can politically, but will it be enough, and in time? Gotta keep trying though.

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Friday, February 19, 2010 10:06 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


The whole concept of going back to family compounds, "living off the land" and so forth is not only impratical for MOST Americans, it's also exactly what TPTB want you to do.

Looking at third world nations, if the official economy contracts and people are squeezed out, the safety relief valve has been that they go back, either into the jungle or back to the family farm, and eke out a living that way.

The alternative... IMHO the preferable alternative... would be to rise up en masse, take the current system by the throat and throttle it until it was dead, dead, dead.

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Friday, February 19, 2010 11:07 AM

LITTLEBIRD


Thank's Signy. I think the rising up en masse is coming. I can support that. But, after the revolution, what do we have to put in its place?
I think we should be working both ends of this.

Sorry to be so freekin' slow in understanding all of this. What can we use to replace the present system? I know you and others have talked about these things before, but could you expand a bit for me? Pretend you're talking to a 10 year old.


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Friday, February 19, 2010 11:18 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Hmmmm... I hedge a bit. I garden, I have tools and skills, I have some handy knowledge - and I have guns. I don't tend to keep a whole bunch of food stockpiled, because food, once bought, must be eaten or it goes bad, while ammo and guns, once bought, will last virtually forever if stored correctly.

Besides, I'm in liberal-land, so I figure in a SHTF (Shit Hits The Fan) situation or a Zombie Apocalypse, I'll be able to trade my protection (guns) for somebody's hospitality (food).

I've got a "safe place" mapped out to get to (several, actually), far off the map and off the grid, with a large spring-fed pond and creek, and a choice of vehicles that can easily get me there. And I've got friends who have supplies that complement mine (one has no guns, but is stockpiling foodstuffs, learning how to make campfire bread, and the like, another who is an avid bowhunter and outdoorsman, a couple who are nurses, one who's an EMT, etc.)

If worse came to worst, I'm not *ready* ready, but I'm more ready than most. And what I don't have, I'm betting a truckload of guns and tens of thousands of rounds of ammo will help me to acquire. We'll band together and make our way from there.

And the funny thing is, I don't even think it will happen in my lifetime, but I'd rather have and not need than need and not have.

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Friday, February 19, 2010 12:07 PM

FREMDFIRMA



Allies > Supplies.

The supplies are nice, but when it comes right down to it, to survive when things get ugly, you need other people you can trust.

There's a kind of not much talked about tenative agreement around here between the communities in the dead zone and the local farmers that if things go to hell in a handbasket, we'll just scale back and cover each other with a mutual sharing of skills and resources, although depending on the when that first winter would seriously suck cause supplies would be tight until we increased farming/food production significantly.

My place in it wouldn't be a hell of a lot different than what it is now, just harder - cause in a matter like that, you're gonna have the folks who wanna go viking and use it as an excuse to loot and pillage, etc...

Given my age and physical condition, comes to that I'd be more teachin folk the hows and whys than actually dealin with that cause my mad-inventor skills would be more useful to getting the best out of whatever tech we have that can be adapted - although I am fairly certain, or at least hopeful, that we won't fall that far down the civilization ladder if things get screwy, cause even badly crippled our economy and infrastructure (other than power/phone/internet) could maintain a 50's-60's tech base, so we're not talkin about back to the stone age here, most likely...

In fact, the folks who'd suffer the MOST are the damned ivory tower CEOs and their bootlickers, and I am pretty sure they'll be gettin short shrift from the rest of us given that most of their powerbase would collapse without the political props which hold it up.

The cities are prettymuch screwed though, you have almost no idea how fast and how badly things can go to hell when you cut off a cities supply of food, water, sewage and power - something which certain alphabet goons have a "plan on the shelf" to actually DO as a measure to "force compliance" or even use as an excuse for emergency powers - that's all documented under the executive orders FEMA runs off of.

-F

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Friday, February 19, 2010 12:11 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


I can't believe we are discussing how to just crawl away and not die. There are hundreds of millions of us, and less than a thousand of them. Sheesh.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Friday, February 19, 2010 12:50 PM

LITTLEBIRD


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
I can't believe we are discussing how to just crawl away and not die. There are hundreds of millions of us, and less than a thousand of them. Sheesh.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.


I don't think we are just discussing how to crawl away and not die. I think we are discussing how to be prepared so we can continue fighting if the shit hits the fan. Can't we do both?

Frem and Kwick hardly strike me as people who are focused on crawling away. Far from it! And thank's for your reply's by the way.

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Friday, February 19, 2010 11:26 PM

FREMDFIRMA



Indeed.

Remember that I am kinda the "Dept of what if..." and have a "plan on the shelf" for EVERY bloody thing, up to and including a complete friggin disaster.

There's a process for this, even.

First part of it is handling being thrown back on your own resources, and acheiving some kinda sustainability for the immediate future, basically rebuilding and restructuring your community, so that it can survive.

That'd leave me busy as a damn beaver training folk in defense, on top of using what skills I have to refit existing tech to where it'd work, I'm pretty sure I could indeed power site three for at least a year just off the fuel in the vehicles with an ad-hoc generator, etc etc.

The yards would be converted to gardens, the park becomes a crop field, and the fences get pulled and rebuilt as a perimeter fence and watchtowers, so forth, so on.

Cause that first rush, you *ARE* going to have to deal with folk who use the chaos as an excuse to go a-viking, that's gonna happen prettymuch no matter what.

The second rush, refugees, well, Eric Flint had some good ideas in the novel 1632 for how to handle that problem, and no, it wasn't runnin em off or shooting them, although the essential idea behind it actually comes from a chinese dude by the name of Cao Cao from the three kingdoms era.

Boils down to more or less "you wanna eat, then pick up a hoe and get to work!" - I got plenty of things for less able folk to do, and the elderly actually make quite good teachers and kid-watchers, and so forth and so on.

But really, by the time you get to a point where you might *have* to worry about them thousand assholes ?

They'll prolly be dead.
All that "money" means nothing when it's reduced to worthless paper, and without it, without the political and social infrastructure to force folk to comply with their demands, most of em will likely swing from a rope, get torched in their gated community homes, be pulled limb from limb, etc..

And those who do make it to their cozy little bunkers, *IF* they ever become an annoyance, get the treebeard treatment (or as the ex calls it, the noahs ark strategy) - just plug up all the holes and keep pouring water in, yes ?
Or if you really wanna be nasty - concrete!

Survival first, revenge later, if needful at all, which I doubt.

On the other hand, there's not lettin it come to that, and frankly, I been workin THAT angle all my life, just a matter of time now, a race between sanity and self destruction, and buying the time - which is a no brainer, since I happen to be as good an "immovable object" as I was a damned unstoppable wrecking ball.

-F

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Tuesday, February 23, 2010 8:09 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Speaking of banks:

702 banks at risk of failing
Nearly one out of every 11 banks is at risk of going under, the FDIC says in a new report, according to CNNMoney.com. FULL STORY
http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/23/news/companies/fdic_list/index.htm?hpt
=T1
" With the FDIC having shuttered 20 banks so far this year, it is on track to seize at least as many financial institutions, if not more, as it did in 2009. Last year, the FDIC shut down a total of 140 lenders nationwide.

Bair confirmed that the pace of bank failures would pick up this year, which would likely put a further strain on the agency's deposit insurance fund.

This fund, which covers customer deposits when a bank fails, slipped into red last fall for the first time since 1991. The fund's deficit continued to balloon in the fourth quarter to nearly $21 billion - its largest deficit on record."

Bush and Obama would have been FAR better off handing over the money to homeowners, and forbidding foreclosures until loans could be examined for fraud and renegotiated.

The homeowners and the banks would have been covered, which would have covered subsequent investments made on home loans. Since investments made on loans multiply the losses, what they did was fruitlessly shovel money at phantom losses at the top of the investment chain, while leaving the underlying problems intact.

Way to go, team !

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Tuesday, February 23, 2010 8:11 AM

OUT2THEBLACK


Many believe that the dollar is headed for a fall...Some say that it is a deliberate policy of the US government , and it would seem there is more than a little truth in that assertion...

Here's a Link to an article that contains some truth ; but it also contains some outright untruths and disinformation , which is the usual modus operandi surrounding the subject of the economy within the mass media :

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/How-long-can-the-US-dollar-rb-4165978641
.html?x=0




'...Based in Palo Alto, California, Merk has been trading for 16 years and is currently president and portfolio manager of Merk Investments, the biggest mutual fund manager dealing exclusively with currencies.

He acknowledges he has had to scramble in his short-term funds to avoid being on the wrong side of the euro's nosedive. But over the next decade and beyond, Merk said the dollar has nowhere to go but down.

Investors will balk at "reckless U.S. fiscal and monetary policies" and start looking for alternatives to the U.S. currency, he said.

Others might take refuge in commodities. A recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing showed billionaire investor George Soros' New York-based firm more than doubled its bet on the price of gold during the fourth quarter.

Merk, whose $550 million Hard Currency Fund is designed to profit from a steady dollar decline, said he believes Washington is banking on a gradual dollar devaluation to shrink its monstrous debt and fuel an export boom to propel the economy.

"Now I am convinced that (U.S. authorities) consider a weaker dollar the solution to many of their problems. But you can't turn your policies upside down and expect the rest of the world to put up with it forever." '


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Tuesday, February 23, 2010 8:19 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


As an aside, let me point out that in this so-called international crisis, many countries have not had even ONE bank fail.

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Speaking of banks:

702 banks at risk of failing
Nearly one out of every 11 banks is at risk of going under, the FDIC says in a new report, according to CNNMoney.com. FULL STORY
http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/23/news/companies/fdic_list/index.htm?hpt
=T1
" With the FDIC having shuttered 20 banks so far this year, it is on track to seize at least as many financial institutions, if not more, as it did in 2009. Last year, the FDIC shut down a total of 140 lenders nationwide.

Bair confirmed that the pace of bank failures would pick up this year, which would likely put a further strain on the agency's deposit insurance fund.

This fund, which covers customer deposits when a bank fails, slipped into red last fall for the first time since 1991. The fund's deficit continued to balloon in the fourth quarter to nearly $21 billion - its largest deficit on record."

Bush and Obama would have been FAR better off handing over the money to homeowners, and forbidding foreclosures until loans could be examined for fraud and renegotiated.

The homeowners and the banks would have been covered, which would have covered subsequent investments made on home loans. Since investments made on loans multiply the losses, what they did was fruitlessly shovel money at phantom losses at the top of the investment chain, while leaving the underlying problems intact.

Way to go, team !

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.


***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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