President Obama’s Failed First Year

President Obama recently said as he accepted the Nobel Prize, “It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root without security; it is also true that security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine and shelter they need to survive. It does not exist where children can’t aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within.”

I wasn’t sure if he was speaking about a struggling nation somewhere in the world where a government had failed to protect its people from dangers pounding on it like a blistering winter storm blanketing its citizens with a few feet of snow, or the United States, for that matter. He spoke about people without adequate food, clean water, medicine and shelter, which are needed in order not only to survive, but also to provide a life for themselves and others. He emphasized that a nation is not a nation if it’s children, as well as others, do not have access to a decent education, or a job, which not only stimulates the economy, but gives life to families.

Was President Obama speaking about Iraq, Uganda, or, just maybe, the very country he presides over as its president?

How are we scoring Mr. Obama’s first year as our president? The very person who pledged to sail in Change We Can Believe In as if he were coming across the finish line of the Sailing Federation’s World Cup, it appears, as captain, has hit a sandbar just a mile into the race and tore a hole in its hull. His ship has been grounded.

I don’t see any accomplishments that as a progressive I can say were changes that I could believe in. Actually, they were policies that fit into the opposite category—failures.

We began the year with the Clintonian and Reaganesta economic toy soldiers who, in the past had spoken of different field instructions, more cautious in fact, about the economy, but once anointed by the new commander-in-chief went forward and continued the economic policies of Little Boy Bush by instructing the Federal Reserve’s Field General, Bennie-The Beard-Bernanke, to load up the wheelbarrows of cash and dump them into the laps of the very “infestment” bankstas that brought down the economy in the first place. No interest necessary Citi, or “Golden Sacks”.

The marching orders read that the “infestment” bankstas were to go forward and increase their capital reserves, since they never really had enough to cover the 30-year long betting cycle of risky loans, and credit default swaps, which made them all very, very rich upper classmen. So, to follow through they went ahead and gambled taxpayer dollars at the Wall Street casino tables, as well as moved forward advancing bets in foreign currencies, commodities, and in other stock markets. In other words, much of the cash they borrowed for free went overseas, just as the jobs they took away from us by outsourcing our own manufacturing livelihoods.

Bennie the Beard was crowned Man of the Year by Time magazine, even though he wrongly spoke about the security of our economy. Bada Bing Bernanke once said that the banks were not involved with subprime lending. In 2007, this economic crime syndicate field marshal general said, “ Importantly, we see no serious broad spill over to banks or thrift institutions from the problems in the subprime market…The troubled lenders, for the most part, have not been institutions with federally insured deposits.” Wow!! Was this guy trying to do some stand-up comedy when he said that?

It is hard to believe that since Bernanke, a PhD and expert in the Great Depression, was so successful selling so much propaganda about the economy, that he was able to be crowned Man of the Year. No doubt, he actually sold policymakers on taking a revised version of Alan Greenspan’s prior bag of crap and made it stick to the wall, such as believing that financial innovations were good for the economy and made banking safer!!! He threw up against the Wall of Crap a belief that our economy had entered a time in history that ushered in smaller and less frequent downturns, which he coined “the great moderation.”

These sweet-as-pie assessments of our grand ‘ole economy were made back in 2007 just before he went squawkin’ to Congress warning about a falling sky Chicken Little style; yet, Bennie The Beard was reading a brand of his homegrown tea leaves as the sky came raining down with Humpty Dumpty type banks, mortgage foreclosures, and failed financial innovations burning down the house so much that he needed a backhoe to get himself out from under the charred rubble. And, that backhoe was driven by Congress, which was blackmailed into accepting the Paulson-Bernanke-BushBoy economic extortion plan.

As we all know, five of ten of the nation’s largest “infestment” banking institutions were underwater with subprime loans that had to be bailed out by their field marshal general stationed at the Federal Reserve headquarters. These bankstas were so worried that they demanded from Congress the creation of a $700 billion bankster rescue program called TARP.

The reality is that Bennie The Beard actually failed to protect America’s depositors, homeowners, and investors to the tune of $12 trillion!!! Now, if that legacy deserves Man of the Year, then what would it take to deserve the dishonor of the Worst Man of the Year?

As the year progressed, the promise to end the war in Iraq became just an exaggeration, similarly to how Sarah Palin boasted to America using that infamous line: “I can see Russia from my house.”

Today, we are still in Iraq, and have escalated the troop deployment in Afghanistan. The war profiteers continue their gleeful praises of our War President. The stockholders of GE, General Dynamics, Halliburton, KBR, and the rest are so happy to see their end-of-the-year dividend/ 1099s all coming in profitably. In addition, Blackwater, ie. Xe, and now remade into The U.S. Training Center, has been allowed to become the new, domestic Brownshirts ready to be deployed anywhere inside the United States by our new president, even though Eric Prince, its commander-in-chief, should be put on trial as a war criminal. Our government continues to use Prince’s private, mercenary military force overseas, too.

More change we can believe in.

As we move threw the year, the bankstas were paying out huge bonuses funded by the taxpayers through various Fed and Treasury programs. There were no significant regulatory changes, nor the elimination of too-big-to-fail. The mega-banks were even allowed to become bigger as they gobbled up closed down smaller banks.

None of the mega-banking CEOs or top executives has been jailed for fraud, either. The Justice department has not done any serious, large scale investigations clearly defining why this economic fraud occurred, who were the ones to blame, and why are they still smiling.

We saw a token “real” economy bailout of only a couple billion dollars because the remainder of the economic stimulus package bailout went into tax-cuts. The Republicans hijacked a Democratic Congress, once again. The unemployed-under employed-no longer looking for work, and the part time wanting full time unemployment picture has reached a near Depression era aggregate figure of almost 20%. 16 million unemployed.

Foreclosures grew to 1 in 6 homeowners. Those still paying mortgages, but are now underwater is around 1 in 4.

Wages continue to erode or stay stagnant. Those who are leery of losing their jobs have cut back on their spending.

34,750 lobbyists continue to infect our government with powers that are unprecedented.

Corporate bankruptcies are looming on the horizon. Bank credit card defaults and those 30-60-90 days delinquent have been on the upswing. Professor Elizabeth Warren, PhD, and chairperson of the Congressional Oversight Bailout Committee has warned our president that we could be on the brink of losing our middle class!!!  But what does our president do when such an honorable and brilliant person hoists the distress flag on his ship? He goes out-of-town, gives a nice speech, and informally poses for pretty pictures. When not doing that he is ducking the issues, or letting others do the work.

Professor Drew Westen, PhD, and political psychologist, summed it up in the first paragraph of his outstanding article called, “Leadership, Obama Style, and the Looming Losses in 2010: Pretty Speeches, Compromised Values, and the Quest for the Lowest Common Denominator”----

“As the president’s job performance numbers and ratings on his handling of virtually every domestic issue have fallen below 50 percent, the Democratic base has become demoralized, and Independents have gone from his source of strength to his Achilles Heel. It’s time to reflect on why.”

Professor Westen goes on to say “What’s costing the president are three things: a laissez-faire style of leadership that appears weak and removed to everyday Americans, a failure to articulate and defend any coherent ideological position on virtually anything, and a widespread perception that he cares more about special interests like bank, credit card, oil, and coal, and health and pharmaceutical companies than he does about the people they are shafting.” Beautifully said!!! There is more!! “Consider the president’s leadership style, which has now become clear: deliver a moving speech, move on and when push comes to shove, leave it to others to decide what to do if there’s a conflict, because if there’s a conflict, he doesn’t want to be anywhere near it.”

YIKES!! Is this the Change We Can Believe In? Have we elected a cowardly president afraid to take on the opposition, the important issues and defend the very people that elected him president?

Dr. Westen continues the hammering. “Leadership means heading into the eye of the storm and bringing the vessel of state home safely, not going as far inland as you can because it’s uncomfortable on the high seas. This president has a particular aversion to battling back gusting winds from his starboard side (the right, for the nautically challenged) and tends to give in to them. He just can’t tolerate conflict, and the result is that he refuses to lead.” “This White House has no coherent message on anything.” Bravo! Bravo! I don’t feel alone anymore. I have been calling out President Obama since day 2, and now the crowd is thickening.

With health care, President Obama delivered nothing he promised. Dr. Weston says that “If the president had simply placed appropriate blame on the health insurance industry for its pre-existing conditions, it’s cutting off care for breast cancer victims in the middle of treatment, and its doubling [of] our premiums and co-pays during the Bush years, he would have harnessed populist anger and pushed this bill through six months ago, and it would have looked like the change we were told to believe in.” Well said!!!

There will be no public option. The health care industry will be covering nearly every American and receiving taxpayer dollars in return. More corporate socialism delivered to the richest sectors in the nation. The allowance to import drugs for Canada will continue to be outlawed.

The Employee Free Choice Act has not been made into law.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has said that the US president has failed to provide accountability on torture.

In the area of domestic spying, “The people at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) make a sobering case why President Barack Obama’s Department of Justice’s new arguments in a case involving warrantless wiretapping are much worse than those made by former president George Bush. In a motion to dismiss Jewel v. NSA, EFF’s litigation against the National Security Agency for the warrantless wiretapping of countless Americans, the Obama Administration’s made two deeply troubling arguments. First, they argued, exactly as the Bush Administration did on countless occasions, that the state secrets privilege requires the court to dismiss the issue out of hand. They argue that simply allowing the case to continue “would cause exceptionally grave harm to national security.” As in the past, this is a blatant ploy to dismiss the litigation without allowing the courts to consider the evidence. Then, Obama’s Department Of Justice second argument is the most pernicious. They claim that the U.S. Government is completely immune from litigation for illegal spying — that the Government can never be sued for surveillance that violates federal privacy statutes.

This is a radical assertion that is utterly unprecedented. No one — not the White House, not the Justice Department, not any member of Congress, and not the Bush Administration — has ever interpreted the law this way.” (http://fromtheleft.wordpress.com,“In Domestic Spying Case, Obama DOJ’s New Arguments Are Worse than Bush’s” 4-9-09)

We continue to see that President Obama has not been the person he claimed to be on the campaign trail, or on inauguration day. I see a person who has sold out to the corporate elite beginning on day two. He has become our Manchurian President. The question is will he show courage in 2010, and no longer remain the coward? Will he become a commanding leader demanding effective and necessary changes that we all can believe in? This remains to be seen, but from what he had thus far demonstrated, the answer is doubtful. FDR led from a wheelchair. His physical limitations were only that to him. President Obama must show progressive action, instead of allowing those with agendas to keep him in the deadly center leaning right.

Thanks for reading, jerry

Fresh Air's Terry Gross Interviews Joshua Kosman

The coming defaulting of companies purchased by some of the largest private equity firms in 2010. Joshua Kosman is interviewed by Fresh Air's Terry Gross. The starvation of American companies by private equity firms. He predicts 1.5 million unemployed because of these potential defaults. This is an amazing story! "Predicting The Next Credit Crisis".

Boycott Joe Lieberman's State of Connecticut

Here is the list of Connecticut companies. If you are so inclined to send a letter to Joe-the hoe-Lieberman stating that you will participate in a "buycott" of the companies in his state because of his dirty, sleazy, slimy manipulative, showboating actions so as to control the outcome of the Senate Health Care bill, then look here.


Here is a Connecticut PDF of the all the corporate headquarters located in his state. See them here.


The people of Connecticut should begin to proceed with a recall of Joe-the hoe-Lieberman as their Congressperson. He has lied through his teeth regarding a public option for Americans and when caught with his pants down, he says that his pants fit fine.


Here is his D.C address:  706 Hart Office Building, Washington, DC 20510, phone the hoe: 202-224-4041; fax:2022249750


thanks, jerry

TO THE REST OF THE WORLD PLEASE SEND HELP

Our government of the United States has turned against the people 100 percent. They are passing bills and giving advice to Uganda on how to kill gay people. Please tell every one you meet how the American masses have been exploited and forced into a mindless slave state. 300 million very sick and innocent people are being converted into mindless animals. Please send help. To Jerry's regular readers- thanks for supporting my pal's efforts, I don't post that often but recommend that you forward the blog, repost and link to Jerry's writings often. His voice is needed.
Thanks

Carl of http://www.ustream.tv/channel/eye-on-washington

Ben Bernanke—Disaster Man Of The Year!!!

I believe the nation is becoming a perverse environment. What has unfolded this week has begun to convince me that this government, and the insiders have hopped aboard something like the amusement park ride called the Drop Down Ride. This is the one where you are strapped into some kind of open-air harness, with your legs dangling below, and slowly pulled several stories up. You are up so high that from below you look like a lollipop dangling from a kite string. Then once you have reached the top, you are dropped down at full speed forcing your stomach up into your esophagus like some kind of internal jet ski ricocheting off your Adam’s Apple as the contents ejects out of you mouth, whereby if you have just eaten a chili dog or wolfed down a burger with all the adornments, you might find yourself wearing it on your shoes.

The nation is being pulled back up toward the top of the Drop Down Ride for the second time. America, and especially Time magazine, had forgotten the full drop down speed that many of us experienced at the end of 2007 and into 2008 as nearly $12 trillion in household wealth was puked up as a result of Little Boy Bush, Hank Paulson, and Ben Bernanke’s laissez-faire, neo-liberal, Chicago School of economic “infestment” capitalism. 

So, Time magazine chose from their three top national and international disasters picking Ben Bernanke to be the Disaster Man Of The Year. What an honor for Bennie-The Beard-Bernanke, crime syndicate operator royale, to be chosen from the list including Little Boy Bush, who was not chosen while president, since he was a complete disaster then, but now, since he is Silent Man, he was picked, as runner-up-ahole for his commitment-to-silence; and then, there was Vladimir Putin, Russia’s strong armed Soviet-styled crime syndicate boss; then, we had Mr. Manchurian President Obama, but he has already been showered with big shot honors, and has done enough bowing with smiling photo-ops accompanied by beautifully written speeches for the year; and finally, there were Steve Jobs of Apple computer for his innovations (he’s no disaster), General Stanley McChrystal for colluding with Dick Cheney in trying to cover up Pat Tillman’s friendly-fire murder, Nancy Pelosi for selling out the Democratic voters and 45 million uninsured, and 16 million unemployed Americans, the Chinese workers (it is not their fault) who work for way below minimum wage without benefits so that Walmart and the American consumer can buy cheap and, sometimes, toxic stuff; and finally, Usain Bolt, a world class Jamaican sprinter (he’s no disaster, either, but a winner!). 

Wow!!!! I would say this was a hard decision for Time magazine. Who deserves the Disaster Man of the Year award from Time magazine? I would say it should have gone to Little Boy Bush. He is the one that brought the economy down in freefall after more than 20 years of disaster being pulled to the top of the Drop Down Ride. It was Little Boy Bush who let the ride drop at warp speed to the ground as it crashed into the concrete base creating an economic earthquake that stretched from sea to shining sea.

Next year, Bennie the Beard and President Obama could be tied for Time’s 2010 Disaster Men of The Year for gutting our manufacturing sector via outsourcing and sending the under-unemployment figures to 20%, while including those who stopped looking for work, and want full-time rather than part-time employment, as well as enriching the bankstas even more, and further draining the average working person’s wages with higher costs, and pretending to regulate, scrutinize, and make transparent the “infestment” banking transactions, and further burdening and submersing the nation in two wars, and permitting Prince’s Xe, the Christian Fundamentalist War Crusader formerly known as Blackwater, and now known as The United States Training Center, the largest private military force in this country with its own air attack force, and sea attack navy, in addition to its ground forces.

 Our Manchurian President has kept Little Boy Bush as his lifeline. The U.S. Training Center’s private army is not only being investigated for its alleged criminal activities, and alleged murderous actions, it has been kept on to protect the elites in Iraq and Afghanistan through the State department. And in spite of Candidate Hillary Clinton pledging to cancel any and all contracts the government had with Eric Prince’s companies, if elected president, she is being escorted and guarded by this private mercenary armed forces.

What is interesting is that General McChrystal, under Dick Cheney, created a secret, below-the-public’s radar group called JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) operating inside the CIA. Blackwater, a private army, was co-joined with JSOC to conduct covert operations, such as assassinations, predator strikes, and secret intelligence. Now, General McChrystal is President Obama’s top military point man handling the joy-joy-stick in the Middle East combat zones. Does this sound like the Change We Were To Believe In? Was this what we voted for?

In addition to this, Mr. Manchurian President has just lost his lawsuit to keep 22 million BushBoy emails spanning for a few years, but mostly concentrated within a 94-day period more than likely including the cover-up of the person(s) who outed the covert identity of Valerie Plame, and the run-up to the Iraq War. This White House of President Obama had been sued by two groups wanting these emails to come out into the light from the dark, damp depths of Dick Cheney’s undisclosed secret bunker. Sorry Mr. President. This was not what we voted for. We heard you speak about transparency, but we did not know you were hoping to keep Bush’s “Lost Emails” from being found.

We also did not vote for a continuation by your administration to protect the “mega-infestment” banking industry from State regulatory laws preempting Federal laws as states try to strongly enforce anti-predatory lending practices through fines and court settlements. This occurred because the Feds were slow to control the predators as they went after consumers.

The USA Today’s editorial board wrote on 12-9-09, “The Comptroller of the Currency, for example, behaved much like a banking lobby embedded in the Treasury Department.” 

President Obama does not appear to be able to control renegade anti-consumer Democratic cretins oozing out of the New Democrat Coalition, such as Illinois Democon Melissa Bean, who appears to want to protect the “infestment” banks from strong regulation by the states, instead of those of her constituents who were severely damaged by them. The Infestment Banks are crying that some states might cap ATM fees, for example, and this would place a profit hardship upon their potential bonuses and raises. They call it “materially impairing” the national banking operations of the likes of JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, BoA, and Wells Fargo. Such Beans need to be ground up into flour and not left whole by President Obama. But No!!!! Barack, you have turned out to be NOT who we voted for. Had we known, we would have picked another candidate.

And there is more!! Edward Harrison wrote in “U.S. Forfeiting Billions in Future Taxes So Citi Can Exit TARP”, Seekingalpha.com, 12-16-09, “…the federal government has quietly decided to exempt Citigroup from a large future tax bill in allowing it to exit the TARP program. This is a backdoor bailout worth billions and is an outrage that demonstrates the lengths to which government will go to gift these organizations taxpayers money.” “Exemptions under this law are a huge hidden freebie.”

Too-big-to-fail Infestment Banks continue to operate without investigations or regulations by this administration. It has been business-as-usual nearly one year later after one damning Oval Office seat warmer was flown out of Washington as millions of Americans with raised fists and yelling expletives while cheering, and another quietly nestled in for four years.

And, the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, had been extremely slow in the investigations of the fraud and secret deals between the Infestment Banks. We all thought you, Mr. President, would be moving swiftly with a call for justice and truth.

“The SEC had accused Bank of America of failing to disclose to shareholders that it had authorized New York-based Merrill to pay up to $5.8 billion in bonuses to its employees in 2008 even though the investment bank lost $27.6 billion that year. Bank of America had agreed to pay $33 million to settle the charges without admitting or denying wrongdoing, saying it didn't violate disclosure rules but wanted to avoid litigation with the SEC at a time of market uncertainty.” 

“Some Republican lawmakers contend that the government forced Bank of America to take over Merrill, and they have accused the Democratic leaders of the oversight panel of covering up the role of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in the affair.

Geithner was chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at the time of the merger in December 2008. His spokesmen have said he was not involved in any Bank of America decisions after being tapped for the Treasury post by President Barack Obama last November. The $20 billion Merrill deal, forged the same September weekend that Lehman Brothers collapsed, was first questioned after Bank of America disclosed that the investment bank would post 2008 losses of $27.6 billion – far more than expected. Bank of America, which had already received $25 billion in U.S. bailout aid, then asked for and received an additional $20 billion from the government to help offset those losses.” (SEC Widens Probe Into BofA, Merrill Deal, Marcy Gordon,HuffingtonPost.com 12/11/09)

To all of you investigators at the SEC, what about AIG and the rest of fraudster “infestment” bankstas? Barack, hey, this is NOT what we voted for! It is clear; your policies and actions are NOT what we voted for. Therefore, YOU must be the Manchurian President. Would there be any other reason?

Thanks for reading, Jerry        http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

P.S. 

Read more on Blackwater as reported by Jeremy Scahill.

Audio interview with Jeremy Scahill

America: The Land Of The Free Lords And The Indebted Serfs

The economy of the United States appears to have been divided into three parts, or “stimulus packages” that become clearer by the day. The most primary part is the financial-investment banking economy, or stimulus package, has been backstopped with nearly $13 trillion by the government. The financial stimulus recipients don’t have to ask for assistance when they are on the edge of bankruptcy. Government agents, such as former Treasury Secretary Hank “The Paulie” Paulson, current Treasury Secretary Timmie “The G” Geithner, and Federal Reserve chairman Bennie “The Beard” Bernanke all demanded that their financial crime syndicate bosses be thrown life preserves as their sinking investment banks were going down.

The next part of the economic stimulus is the War Profiteering-Pentagon-Homeland Security’s War on Terror economy. They drain over one-third from the yearly U.S. budget to fund private sector companies that are obviously unable to make a go of it in the private sector’s free marketplace. So, they are given lucrative contracts in order to enrich companies, such as Northrop-Grumman, Blackwater, Boeing, General Dynamics, GE, Halliburton, Bechtel, Custer Battles, BearingPoint, Exxon, Mobil, Chevron-Texaco, and a host more Treasury vampires feeding from the taxpayer’s cash troughs. These companies need the public sector, or one might say government “socialized” business contracts in order to satisfy their shareholders, pay bonuses, and fatten up business expenses. They don’t have to come ‘uh askin’ for the government’s socialized checks, they just answer the phone and write up the orders.

The third part of the economic stimulus economy is the most vulnerable. This is the real economy, which includes everyday working people packing up their lunch buckets, and filling their coffee thermoses as they head off to manufacturing and service jobs. Their goals are to create things, make things to sell in the export marketplace, as well as to sell domestically. They are asked by President Obama, “I want you to tell me what we (government) can do to bring back jobs.” The American worker has to come up with the ideas and plans to explain to the leader of the free world just what has to be done.

The workers that make real things that don’t go boom or poof in the night skies of our multi-billion dollar war zones have to go begging for lines-of-credit for their small business operations, since the gluttonous investment bankers would rather use the money they are “loaned” by the Federal Reserve at zero percent interest in Wall Street manipulative gambles, or in foreign currency speculation buys, or in commodities rather than expand lending to Main Street and Side Street in order to rebuild the crumbling economy of the United States after those very bankstas took it down slowly over the last 30 years, concluding with a full force gale of a collapse, with their fraudulent derivative and securities practices. They seem to forget that the cash they are loaned comes to them via the Treasury and taxpayer. But President Obama appears to like it just this way.

As Paul Craig Roberts wrote in “The Obama Puppet”,  “President Obama can promise health care to 50 million uninsured Americans, but he can’t override the veto of the war lobby and the insurance lobby. The war lobby says its war profits are more important than health care and that the country can’t afford both the “war on terror” and “socialized medicine.” “The insurance lobby says health care has to be provided by private health insurance; otherwise we can’t afford it.”

Dr. Roberts, former assist treasury secretary under Reagan, continued…”The war and insurance lobbies rattle their campaign contribution pocketbooks and quickly convinced Congress and the White House that the real purpose of the health care bill is to save money by cutting Medicare and Medicaid benefits, thereby “getting entitlements under control”.”

He went on to say that “Entitlements is a right-wing word used to cast aspersion on the few things that the government did, in the past, for citizens. Social Security and Medicare, for example, are denigrated as “entitlements”. The right-wing goes on endlessly about Social Security and Medicare as if they were welfare give-aways to shiftless people who refuse to look after themselves, whereas in actual fact citizens are vastly overcharged for the meager benefits with a 15% tax on wages and salaries.”

Mr. Paul Craig Roberts, Ph.D laid it out very clearly. There is a war against working Americans by the real entitlement class. The very people who have felt entitled to “steal” from Social Security by raiding it in order to demand tax cuts and expand the lucrative contracts by the war profiteers. President Obama, Congress, the Teabaggers, and the lapdog Blue Dog Democrats feel perfectly fine with the real entitlement class of those in the very top wage earning brackets feeding from the government’s socialized cash trough.

Fed Chairman Bennie “The Beard” Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee during his re-appointment testimony that he felt that Congress should make cuts in Medicare and Social Security in spite of the fact that the American worker is getting Pink Slipped, and real patriots, such as Dr. Elizabeth Warren, are loudly warning, while sounding the alarm bells that the middle class is on the brink of further disaster. The Beard calls for “Death To The Middle Class” while he hides those who he handed out zero percent cash loans to because he feels it is not his place to put the markets at risk, yet he is one who allowed the market players to collapse the real economy.

Dr. Elizabeth Warren has said, “One in five Americans is unemployed, underemployed or just plain out of work. One in nine families can’t make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans is on food stamps. More than 120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy every month. The economic crisis has wiped more than $5 trillion from pensions and savings and has left family balance sheets upside down, and threatens to put ten million homeowners out on the street.” (Dr. Elizabeth Warren, 12-2-09, Huffington Post)

Dr. Warren continued…”Families today spend less than a generation ago on food, clothing, furniture, appliances, and other flexible purchases—but it hasn’t been enough to save them. Today’s families have spent all their income, have spent all their savings, and have gone into debt to pay for college, to cover serious medical problems, and just to stay afloat a little while longer.”

As President Obama roams the brown fields of the once thriving manufacturing centers and passes by the empty factor buildings dotting Michigan, he has the gall to ask the unemployed and underemployed workers what would they want him to do. The truth is that President Obama has been told by the nation’s corporate oligarchs that they like things just the way they are.

For example, in Chicago, the president of the construction trades union is considering helping bail out a sunken developer with around $26 million in pension funds to finish his abandoned hole-in-the-ground surrounded by a chain linked fence. This skyscraper was planned to be the tallest building in Chicago, but went bust. It has gotten to the point where workers have to pay for their own jobs, while the bankstas sit fat and happy on huge piles of taxpayer funds. They don’t care if the finished building goes bankrupt trying to pay for itself just as long as workers pay for their own jobs.

The United States is turning into the land of free lords and the indebted serfs.

China pumps all their stimulus monies into manufacturing of exportable products, which can be also used domestically, yet the United States believes that Afghanistan needs around $200 billion more cash injections.

I don’t hear China’s president asking his people how to make their economic engine run faster. They have high speed rail to do that. We have Amtrak. China is building solar manufacturing plants in Pennsylvania, while President Obama is still asking what needs to be done after 12 months of being called ‘Mr. President’, and 2 years of campaigning,. Japan will be importing to their US Nissan dealerships a 100 mile ranged electric car (LEAF) for the masses in the next 12 months, which will take 4-8 hours to recharge when plugged in to your own outlet, and approximately 30 minutes at a quick charge station. But President Obama is still holding job summits, and giving speeches.

10% of the American workforce is in manufacturing. 17% of our GDP comes from manufacturing. What needs to happen, Mr. President is very simple. I believe a kindergartener could tell you what you should do. It is not rocket science. Simply stated all you do is beef up the manufacturing engine in this country. You tell the financial crime syndicate that the free ride is over and it is time they pay back all that they borrowed, with interest. You demand that the Federal Reserve gets audited so we can call in all the loans that Bennie the Beard passed out.

Next, you create a National Rebuilding Initiative, or something like that, by funding manufacturing jobs. Instead of workers sitting idle collecting unemployment benefits, you pay employers to hire workers to make things that will pull the nation forward, such as solar panels, wind generators, geo-thermal systems, electric vehicles, upgraded power grids, high speed rails, energy efficient products of all types, as well as things that will continue to allow America function. You demand that mortgage issuers cut mortgages that are underwater, but still being paid on, to street level values, and then reduce the interest rates. It is time that these bankstas eat some of their toxic garbage, and repair the damage they are responsible for creating.

Next, all workers get health care. As you put people back to work with a National Rebuilding Initiative Project by paying employers to hire workers at minimum wage, they get health care to boot. By putting America to work, workers learn new job skills, they sharpen existing job skills, which makes them more enticing to private sector employers. Taxes get paid. The GDP goes up. The trade deficit goes down. The nation becomes more self-sufficient. Workers become credit-worthy, once again, and banks begin to lend as they are supposed to. Also, you and Congress put limits on how big big-box stores can be and empower communities to refuse their intrusion into their communities. You strengthen communities so, once again, they become self-contained livable centers of life. While you are at it, give tax incentives for family farms, and place a tax on agribusiness conglomerates in order to rebuild family farms.

Regulate the investment-banking syndicate, and do away with too-big-to-fail.

Mr. Marshall Auerback, a Fellow at the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, with 28 years experience in the investment management and global portfolio strategy business, is a person who has expanded upon such ideas. (12-2-09, An Interview with Marshall Auerback, Mike Whitney, Counterpunch.org)

Mr. President, we are all waiting for the Change We Can Believe In, and the Yes We Can you promised. American cannot wait any longer; and, you know it, too!


Thanks for reading, Jerry


http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

Fed Chairman Bernanke's November 2009 Speech at the Economic Club of New York

Watch Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's damning and dire economic forecast for our economy.


                                                       Watch here:



He is trying to put lipstick on our economic pig through his careful manipulation of facts. Here are a few quotes written by Mike Whitney in his article "The Great Stimulus Debate of '09: Crybabies need not apply", 11-20-09, Counterpunch.org.

"The flow of credit remains constrained,economic activity weak, and unemployment much too big. Future setbacks are possible...How the economy will evolve in 2010 and beyond is less certain...Access to credit remains strained for borrowers who are particularly dependent on banks and businesses. Bank lending has contracted sharply in year, and the Federal Reserve's Senior Loan Officers Opinion Survey sows that banks continue to tighten the terms on which they extend credit for most kinds of loans...Household debt has declined in crecent quarters of the first time since 1951. For their part, most small businesses have seen their bank credit lines reduced or eliminated, or they have been able to obtain credit only on significantly many of these businesses expected conditions to tighten further."

"The demand for credit also has fallen significantly...Because of weakened balance sheets, fewer potential borrowers are creditworthy, even if they are willing to take on more more debt. Also, write-downs of bad debt show up on bank balance sheets as reductions in credit outstanding. Nevertheless, it appears that, since the outbreak of the financial crisis, banks have tightened lending standards by more than would have been predicted by the decline in economic activity alone...Unfortunately, reduced bank lending may well slow the recovery by damping consumer spending, especially, on durable goods, and by restricting the ability of some firms to finance their operations."

"The best thing we can say about the labor market right now is that it may be getting worse more slowly."(End)

Bernanke says how 9 of 10 of the mega-banks have been able to fully meet their capital buffers, and recapitalize without the help from the treasury. Their equity has increased by $77B. But he failed to say it has been at the expense of the real economy, and accomplished by taking taxpayer funds to gamble on Wall Street at zero percent interest and, thus, are now able to hand out billions in bonuses.

He said decreases in bank lending will reduce consumer spending and business cash flows. In other words, as a result of the Fed's policies, businesses are dying because the banks that were recapitalized by the taxpayer cannot obtain credit lines in order to make payroll, and buy material. And, as workers lose their jobs, or find their hours cut back, they must be very careful how they spend their precious dollars.

Stress tests will lead the 19 banks to become fully capitalized for future lending. What crap. They are not lending to make any real difference in the economy.

He encourages banks to work with borrowers to restructure failing loans. So when do you think this will happen--Bennie?

He went on to say that over 8 million jobs have been lost in the private sector. He foresees declining work hours. He stated that the labor market will be getting worse, but more slowly. He went on to say that the "economic pain" among male workers between the ages of 25-54 are seeing their unemployment rate rise to 10.3%, and women in that age group to over 20.6%; Young people between the ages of 16-24 to be over 19%; and African-American youth to be 30%.

He said that weak income growth will decrease spending. Employers will shorten work weeks, and transition part-time workers to full-time workers before bringing on new hires. 100,000 new hires per month are needed in order to absorb new entrants into the labor force. Yet he failed to convey what has been predicted as a million and a half more workers finding themselves unemployed over the next 18 or so months.

He said that productivity growth is defined as output per hour of work and that productivity growth per hour has risen at around 5% annual rate this year. This is such crap!!! He failed to say that this growth rate has been mostly due to his Fed fund rates of zero percent interest to the top 10 bankstas so they could increase profits through their speculation and manipulation of Wall Street trades. Lipstick on a Pig, Bennie-the beard--Bernanke, Mr. Bank Crime Syndicate Field Marshall!

He careened against workers by saying that increasing productivity is what is left to improve business. So Bada Bing Bernanke, how will this be done without having to squeeze more juice from the already squeezed out worker? I guess, your double speak, between-the-lines gobbligook talk infers that more outsourcing, more cheap labor from China, Vietnam or Philippines is the way to increase business productivity.

It was truly clear from listening to this weapon of mass destruction that he MUST be fired, and the Fed MUST be nationalized and made transparent. This one man has killed America through his policies authorized by the board of the Federal Reserve.

As he concluded, he had the balls to say that he did not see any major misalignments in the economy. Whaddayathinkindude? The real economy is in shambles. Jobs are disappearing. China is coming over here to build manufacturing facilities. The US is becoming a third world country in many ways. The quality of life is diminishing for tens of millions of Americans. You, Mr. Field Marshall for the Financial Crime Syndicate have recapitalized your pals to such a degree that they can pass out $23 billion in bonus Happy Cash Meals. People are living in tents, in storm sewers, in their vehicles. Food banks and soup kitchens don't have enough food to go around. China continues to show a rising budget surplus, while they keep their currency pegged to collapsing dollar allowing them to sell their stuff cheap in the US.

And you, you bearded wildebeest from the Greenspan School of Failed Policy Studies, don't see a misalignment. Are just f**king stupid or the world's most evil, lying economist on the planet?

thanks for reading, jerry

God's Will Was In The Sachs

Wait. I am confused. Is it God Man Sachs? Is it Lord Blankfein? Is it a Fine Blank God Man In The Sach?

It is so hard to follow these days! We have Lloyd Blankfein, a key player in the financial-banking crime syndicate wanting all of us to believe that he believes in God, and that he is following God’s Plan. Lloyd Blankfein, the guy who has told us that his company, Goldman Sachs, really did not need to be bailed out to the tune of $12 billion by Little Boy Bush’s Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, and Federal Reserve Chair, Ben Bernanke under the TARP give-away program.

No. No. He was just drinking from the public trough for humanitarian reasons. His colleagues and derivatives alchemists needed raises and bonuses, so if the Congress was giving out bail out candy favors called TARP (Toxic Asset Relief Program), then Blankfein was in line with his party bag.

It was in Blankfein’s theocratic master plan to be allowed to transform from a investment corporation into a bank company so he could be allowed to receive government handouts when he really did not need them.

It was God’s Will to have Blankfein attending the infamous March, 2004 secret meeting of the five investment crime family bosses with Bennie-The Beard—Bernanke, Timmie-The G—Geithner, Hank—The Paulie—Paulson to likely discuss knocking off Bear Stearns. It has all been denied that this was the intent. When asked about this secret meeting that would affect the entire economic fabric of the country, and which was kept from the President of the United States, Geithner, acting at the time as the New York Federal Reserve chairman said, ‘It was business-as-usual.’ It was just business. Just business. Ahh. Geithner channeling Tony Soprano.

So what was behind the Bear Hunt? It was rumored that in Blankfein’s theocratic master plan he had more than likely decided to attack da’ Bear by using a powerful killing tool---Naked Short-Selling. Many called it a counterfeiting scheme, such as Matt Taibbi, in his article titled “Wall Street’s Naked Swindle” (10-14-09).

Mr. Taibbi explains, “What naked short-sellers do is sell large quantities of stock they don’t actually have, flooding the market with ‘phantom’ shares that depress a company’s share price by making the shares less scarce and therefore less valuable.”

To paraphrase Mr. Taibbi, a giant number of undelivered shares over the course of a week (3-12-08) amounted to one of the most blatant cases of stock manipulation in Wall Street history. “There is not a doubt in my mind, not a single doubt” that naked short-selling helped destroy Bear, says Ken Kaufman, a Democrat from Delaware, who had introduced legislation to curb such financial fraud.”

The article went on to further describe the scam that goes along with naked short-selling tactics.

“Thanks to the media-fueled rumors and the mounting anxiety over the company’s ability to make its payments, Bear’s share price plummeted seven percent on March 13, [2008] to $57. It still had a ways to go for the mysterious short-seller to make a profit on his bet against the firm, but it was headed in the right direction. [There was this mysterious short-seller out to manipulate the stock price who knew what was going on inside Bear.] But then, early on the morning of Friday, March 14th, Bear’s CEO, Alan Schwartz, struck a deal with the Fed and JPMorgan to provide an emergency loan to keep the company’s doors open.” The stock price rallied to $62, but it was all pipedream. The hunt of da’ Bear was closing in. The Bear was cornered and the trigger was cocked. Here is how Mr. Taibbi describes it:

“The rally was proved short-lived—Bear ended the day [Friday] at $30—but it suggested that all was not lost. Then a strange thing happened. As Bear understood it, the emergency credit line that the Fed had arranged was originally supposed to last for 28 days. But that Friday, despite the rally, Geithner and then-Treasury secretary Hank Paulson—the former head of Goldman Sachs, one of the firms rumored to be shorting Bear—had a sudden change of heart. When the market closed for the weekend, Paulson called Schwartz and told him that the rescue timeline had to be accelerated. Paulson wouldn’t stay up another night worrying about Bear Stearns, he reportedly told Schwartz, Bear had until Sunday night to find a buyer or it could go fuck itself.” And, we all know how that story ended. It was God’s Will!

Goldman Sachs has reaped billions of dollars by engaging in short-selling.

Here is another intriguing part of Taibbi’s swindle story:

“A paper presented at the American Bankruptcy Institute earlier this year report[ed] that up to a third of all notes for mortgage-backed securities may have been “misplaced or lost”—meaning they’re backed by IOUs instead of actual mortgages.”

“How about bond? Naked short-selling of stocks is nothing compared to what goes on in the bond market, says Susan Trimbath, the former Depository Trust Company staffer. [She was one of the first people to notice that there was a scam brewing around naked short-selling.] Indeed, the practice of selling bonds without delivering them is so rampant it has even infected the market of U.S. Treasury notes. That’s right—Wall Street has actually been brazen enough to counterfeit the debt of the United States’ government right under the eyes of regulators, in the middle of a historic series of government bailouts! In fact, the amount of failed trades in Treasury bonds—the equivalent of “phantom” stocks—has doubled since 2007. In a single week last July, some $250 billion worth of U.S. Treasury bonds were sold and not delivered.”

“The counterfeit nature of our economy is troubling enough, given that financial power is concentrated in the hands of a few key players---300 white guys in Manhattan---as a former high-placed executive [put] it.”

We all know that Lloyd, or is it Lord Blankfein is part of that cabal. But remember, he is doing God’s Work!

Here are more of Lord Blankfein’s theocratic marching orders from you-know-who.

Phillip Davis wrote on Seekingalpha.com, a piece called “The Global Oil Scam”, 11-11-09, that Lord Blankfein’s Goldman Sachs was engaged in, with others, an oil scam the size of 50—Bernie Madoff swindles. $2.5 trillion in size.

Here it is. “Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BP, Total, Shell, Deutche Bank, and Societe Generale founded the International Continental Exchange (ICE) in 2000. ICE is an online commodities and futures marketplace. It is outside the US and operates free from the constraints of US laws. The exchange was set up to facilitate “dark pool” trading in the commodities markets. Billions of dollars are being placed on oil futures contracts at the ICE, and the beauty of this scam is that they NEVER take delivery, per se. They just ratchet up the price with leveraged speculation using your TARP money. This year alone they ratcheted up the global cost of oil from $40 to $80 per barrel.”

There is more. “You can chart the damage done by Goldman Sachs and their gang of thieves by looking at commodity pricing pre and post ICE. Before ICE, commodities followed a more or less normal growth path that matched global GDP, and was always limited to price appreciation by the fact that, ultimately, someone had to take delivery of a physical commodity at a set price.

ICE threw that concept out the window and turned commodity trading into a speculative casino game where pricing was notional, and contracts could be sold by people who never produced a thing, to people who didn’t need the things that [had] not [been] produced. And, in just 5 years after commencing operations, Goldman Sachs and their partners managed to TRIPLE the price of commodities.”

Here is Lloyd Blankfein’s theocratic motivation. “Goldman Sachs Commodity Index funds accounted for $60 billion out of $100 billion of all formula-managed funds in 2007 and investors in the GSCI lost 15% in 2006, while Goldman had a record year. John Dizard, of the Financial Times, call[ed] this process “date rape” by Goldman Sachs…”

Mr. Phillips stated, “It is not surprising that a commodity scam would be the cornerstone of Goldman’s Sachs’ strategy.” “Before ICE, the average American family spent 7% of their income on food and fuel. Last year, that number topped 20%. That is 13% of the incomes of every man, woman and child in the United States of America, over $1T EVERY SINGLE YEAR, stolen through market manipulation.”

It is very clear to this writer, and no doubt to many others, that when Lloyd Blankfein says he is doing God’s Work, his theocratic master plan is to rip-off the American people, and United States government. His plan is to engage in fraud as a high ranking member of the financial-investment banking crime syndicate. It does not matter where in the world his evil ways are being manufactured, he always comes back to find a nice long straw to stick into the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing trough, supplied with taxpayer dollars, to suck out zero percent cash in order to perform his work for the Lord. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord!

Thanks for reading, jerry

PS:  Thank you Spectre Of Deflation, a great friend of the blogspot, for the great refresher regarding Goldman Sachs. Last year, 2008, Goldman Sachs received a gift from the heavens, or maybe it was just from the IRS and the US tax code. They were able to drop their tax burden down to 1% because of losses. How many of you folks working hard everyday were able to drop YOUR tax burdens? Not only has Goldman Sachs been receiving bailouts, and Federal Reserve Financial Happy Meals, but they don't have to pay taxes either!!! (Read the entire Bloomberg article in the comments below.)

“Keep Government Out Of My Medicare!”

I have written several opinion pieces on what I believe the Obama/Bernanke/Geithner short-term economic plan is for our floundering nation. I have stated that from my analysis Bennie-the beard-Bernanke, a major-general foot soldier for the financial crime syndicate, which has been gathering full-force momentum since the Reagan years, has their sights set on a further collapsing of the US dollar in hopes that it will fall and reach the bottom, called zero, so the masters of this economic Treasury theft can write-off their off-balance sheet toxic mortgage losses amounting to trillions of dollars at an incredibly deflated dollar value. It sure beats writing off losses at a higher dollar value. The destructive piece of this scenario is that wages will also be pushed further downward adding to more of the already 23 million housing foreclosures (held on and off the lender’s public radar), as well as higher under/unemployment numbers, which are inching up toward 20%, or Depression era heights.

It appears to be the idea of President Obama’s economic supply-side, trickle-down team that the only way to compete with the globe’s largest factory floor is to bring wages down to their levels. What Americans don’t realize is that the Chinese central government uses lower wages as their first line of defense when reducing production costs. China will never relent to another country outdoing their rock bottom labor/production costs, since their growth figures (approximately 9%) vitally depend on it. It appears that they would rather dump product onto the world’s market, than lose market share. Walmart, or what should be renamed Communist Chinamart, depends on it in order to expand throughout the world as the globe’s largest single retailer and employer.

What this current impotent president doesn’t realize, or maybe he does and won’t come clean to the public, is that the US cannot compete globally because over the last 30 years the corporate capitalist have decided to move the US manufacturing sector overseas outsourcing 7 million jobs eroding the standard-of-living and forcing working Americans into becoming debtors in order to support their lifestyles and families. Consumer debt had become a way-of-life, eventually forcing tens of millions into default and foreclosure as a result of attempting to magically create asset wealth through debt creation. It does not work. It failed, and now, the nation has been in the depths of the greatest economic forest fire since the Great Depression. We will not see the end of it anytime soon, or even in the distant future.

The 3.9% US economic growth is a fantasy, since it has been created out of US debt through the selling of Treasuries, attracting foreign central banks and investors into our debt clutches via the Federal Reserve’s quantative easing policy of freely printing money lavishing huge amounts of liquidity onto the mega investment banking syndicate. The nation is not growing, but actually “Spread Eagle across the pavement, while Jane and John Doe have put the squeeze on their own spending habits.

Another piece of this Obama-Bernanke-Geithner economic plan that is being down played is the carry trade. What has been happening is that with the Federal Reserve lending out to broker-dealers at zero percent interest, the borrowers go out into the world and find risky higher yielding and highly leveraged assets paying extremely desirable returns, and sticking the Fed’s zero percent cash into these investments, as they short the US dollar. As foreign investors buy US Treasuries, they fuel the US debt and Federal Reserve lending practices.

Dr. Nouriel Roubini stated in the Financial Times of London “Mother of all carry trades faces an inevitable bust” (11-1-09) “They are borrowing at very negative interest rates—as low as negative 10 or 20 per cent annualized—as the fall in the US dollar leads to massive capital gains on shorting dollar positions”… “Every investor who plays this risky game looks like a genius—even if they are just riding a huge bubble financed by a large negative cost of borrowing—as the total returns have been in the 50-70 per cent range since March.”… “Yet, at the same time, the perceived riskiness of individual asset classes is declining as volatility is diminished due to the Fed’s policy of buying everything in sight—witness its proposed $1,800 billion [$1.8 trillion] purchase of Treasuries, mortgage-backed securities (bonds guaranteed by a government-sponsored enterprise [GSE] such as Fannie Mae) and agency debt. By effectively reducing the volatility of individual asset classes, making them behave the same way, there is now little diversification across markets—the VAR (value at risk) again looks low.”

Dr. Roubini went on to say, “So the combined effect of the Fed policy of a zero percent Fed funds rate, quantative easing and massive purchase[s] of long-term debt instruments is seemingly making the world safe—for now—for the mother of all carry trades and [the] mother of all highly leveraged global asset bubbles.”

Here is Dr. Roubini’s big point, “ But one day this bubble will burst leading to the biggest coordinated asset bust ever: if factors lead the dollar to reverse and suddenly appreciate—as was seen in previous reversals, such as the yen-funded carry trade—the leveraged carry-trade will have to be suddenly closed as investors cover their dollar shorts. A stampede will occur as closing long leveraged risky asset positions across all asset classes funded by dollar shorts triggered a coordinated collapse of all those risky assets—equities, commodities, emerging market assets classes and credit instruments.”

This detailed explanation clearly defines the probable outcome from the Fed’s reckless lending policies supported and encouraged by Team Obama.

As Team Obama has focused intently on rescuing the mega investment banking syndicate through extremely cheap liquidity in order to pad their balance sheets cushioning their eventual toxic write-off losses at the expense of the US dollar, their policies illustrate that as the dollar is shorted as it falls to the bottom, higher risk leveraging in equities and other assets will collapse once the dollar begins to climb as Bennie the Beard Bernanke realizes that the only way to pull foreign investors back into US Treasuries and bonds would be to raise interest rates.

The most absurd viewpoint by a slice of America is the determined efforts by the likes of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, and others to fight any sort of Public Health Care Option instead of getting damn angry over this massive theft of our economy and the destructive policies executed by Team Obama. I guess they have no objection to the financial sector’s $16.5 trillion in total debt as of the second quarter of 2009, which is equal to what they had accumulated in 2008. My question to all these 9-12ers is what will you do when you lose your health care? Where will you go? What will you do when someone dear to you in your household comes down with a very serious illness and you have no health insurance?

Congresswoman Bachmann said at her Tea Bagger anti-health care Washington, DC rally on 11-5-09, "Nothing scares members of Congress more than freedom-loving Americans." So, this is what Republicans believe is freedom—to work against the self-interests of gullible flag wavers. So, freedom means that when you lose your health care and there is no government plan to rescue you, you can foreclose on your house, willingly while singing America The Beautiful, and declare bankruptcy in order to escape from those massive and mounting medical bills. So, being a freedom-loving American is to allow the mega financial crime syndicate to get zero percent interest directly from the Federal Reserve to rebuild their balance sheets, while you have just seen half of your retirement savings vanish permanently as a result of those unregulated investment banks fabricating and pedaling smoke and mirror derivatives that were worthless, while, at the same time, making themselves trillions of dollars destroying what you have so tirelessly worked for. So, freedom-loving is to embrace the greedy US corporate capitalists who created this economic firestorm and gleefully pushed your wages down, while shipping your jobs overseas to China where wages don’t mean too much to employers, and their food and drugs are not as safely regulated, and a 40 hour work week is irrelevant, and their environment is much more polluted. I guess, to be a freedom-loving American allows one to be delusional, hypocritical, and stupid with a smile. So be it! Give your grandchildren a good-luck kiss as they apply for a low paying job.

We have had 7 million manufacturing jobs lost, $14 trillion of home equity and retirement assets disappear as a result of the economic firestorm, 23 million foreclosures, and a horrendous level of under/unemployment encroaching on 20% of Americans. We will see a lost generation of our college and non-college youth living in debt, and without jobs. Yet, the whack-jobbers protesting a Public Option ride buses to Washington, DC to rally against their own self-interests. Have they not read the Senate Congressional Budget Office report stating that this government administered plan would save $10 billion? That is the problem when one consumes huge amounts of mind altering Kool-Aid. The 9-12 protest movement appears to not have a real grasp of the nation’s problems because they lack understanding and drink from the propagandist’s poisoned wells.

It is about the jobs stupid! There is no recovery without them. Economic growth based on stock market gambling achieving big profits is not a recovery plan. The lack of a Marshall Plan to rebuild the manufacturing sectors and create sustainable jobs through a renewable energy policy, and the rebuilding of wages should be the battle cry among all working class citizens, and not the rescue of the blood-sucking investment banking predators, which are still close to drowning. But unfortunately, such an important message is being missed by a bunch of sign wavers wanting “Government Out Of My Medicare”.

thanks for reading, jerry

The Militarization Of Our Own Police

The G-20 in Pittsburgh, during September, was an eye-opener for many locals, as well as followers of the event. For the city of Pittsburgh, the disturbing takeover by police and military forces has since passed not unlike a go-around with a painful gallstone.

But the reality is that there are other locations around the country experiencing the impact of Martial Law exercises and their local police department’s spending government funds on brand new riot gear, armored assault vehicles, and other pieces of equipment designed for war and the occupation of a community, city or county. The terrorism industry has now taken hold in the United States. Even former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who served under George W. Bush, has warned us of the potential to overspend on the anti-terrorism industry, or terrorism industry depending on how you look at it.

During an interview on Oklahoma television, while on a speaking tour, he told the reporter that the United States has many other very important ways to spend its money. He said that we must be careful to have balance in our national spending, and appropriate domestic funds on what is needed to be safe and nothing more.

Former President Eisenhower expressed a similar point during his term as president. As a former general, he warned the nation of the military industrial complex and the dangers of becoming too consumed with such a build up. Today, the United States spends one-third of it budget on the military industrial complex.

Maybe it was no surprise to the 1200 residents of Troy, Tennessee, on September 30, 2009, when 150 soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 5th Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment, and the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade out of nearby Fort Campbell conducted a full scale air assault training operation in preparation for deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan in 2010. Maybe I am an alarmist, but after witnessing what Martial Law could look like, such training exercises that went on without concern in Troy could easily be exercises in the occupation of an American city, as well.

It appears that on the same date as the training in Troy, a small rural town with no police force, known as Hardin, Montana, was occupied by a private para-military force, which went under the name of the “American Police Force”. This private police force, with a Serbia-like logo attached to their black Mercedes SUVs, and commanded by an ex-felon, paraded around town scaring the bajeebers out of the local residents. One of the town officials had arranged for an un-contracted agreement with the APF before they decided to move into town and guard/ occupy an empty prison facility. In addition, they also decided to become the de-facto police force for this town.

It sure sounded like an old western movie when a band of bad boy cowboys take over a quiet, unassuming little one eyed place in the road trying to mind its own business. When the United States begins to see private para-military forces getting contracts on native soil, I believe we all need to take notice.

So, what is the fear? Why do local municipalities, counties, and cities have to request federal government funds to purchase equipment that would more likely be used in a militarized zone, or to combat terrorism? Is this nation hiding terrorists in Oakland, California, or Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, or in Marin County, California, or Sacramento, California, and need to be supplied with front line combat gear provided through the Department of Homeland Security? The HLS department has passed out $465.2 million in stimulus money for armor plated assault vehicles, LRAD machines, training exercises, gas masks, bomb-mitigation vehicles, surveillance devices, new digital radios, ammunition, a 44-foot fast-response boat with a kitchenette and mount capable of holding an M60 machine gun, Segway scooters for bomb squads, outfitted with all-terrain tires, oversized fenders, and trailer hitches, computer-aided dispatch equipment, hazmat response vehicles, surveillance gear, portable radios, respirators and much more stuff a lot of which will never be used and likely collect dust and turn into junk. Why?

Now we ask what is happening to America? It has entered into a new paradigm and it does not look good. There are tent cities popping up all over this country. People who were once homeowners and renters, with jobs, and spending money are now living in their cars, in storm sewers (Las Vegas), and empty buildings. There are now 1 in 50 school aged children living outside of a permanent home. Nearly 47 million Americans are uninsured, and it is projected that by next year there will be 52 million uninsured. And then, there are the 16-25 million underinsured. These people just might go bankrupt because of medical bills piling up, or because their health care provider refuses to pay. 62% of all bankruptcies were from those with health insurance. The Commonwealth Fund had reported that nearly two-thirds of US adults, around 116 million people, struggled to pay medical bills, or went without health care because it cost too much, or were uninsured for a time, or were just underinsured.

Are these the people that our law enforcement will use their new Homeland Security “toys” on once they get angry enough to protest their government’s Treasury theft? We all have to wonder, and, possibly worry, as well. As Pittburghers recently witnessed, these weapons were used upon citizens protesting just this economic theft and the G-20 nations, many of which were complicit in the economic principles called neo-liberalism.

This blogger has been writing about the $23 trillion transfer of Treasury wealth and monetized by the Federal Reserve to backstop the small handful of huge financial-banking institutions that caused this economic disaster resulting in nearly 20% of the under-unemployment of our work force, and losses of half of America’s retirement savings wealth, or $2T, because they engaged in securities fraud and fabricated derivatives with no real capital to support them. Yet they have been bailed out (over $3T), and now, were about to pay billions of dollars in bonuses to keep their fraudsters from moving on until those at MSNBC, such as Dylan Ratigan, got really, really mad about this economic theft by the financial-banking crime syndicate bosses and seemed to have woken up President Obama from his deep sleep regarding this massive disrespect of all hard working Americans.

Now, Michael Moore has just written in his list of ‘What Not To Do’ suggesting Americans get their money out of the hands of Wall Street and, especially, away from the largest investment banking syndicate bosses. He is now saying what this blogger was saying months ago. Get out of Wall Street and put your money in local, neighborhood banks.

This economic collapse could have saved the Treasury most of the bailout money and the backstopping monetization scheme by just buying up the collapsed Wall Street investment banks that came to Hank Paulson, Congress and LittleBoyBush, at the time. Their street worth was less than $300B. Had Congress said to them, either you go out and find your own bailout funding, or we buy you out based upon your real worth, which wasn’t much. But no. The oligarchs won out. They succeeded in the socialization of their losses and the privatization of the winnings. The congresspersons needed to bailout the bankstas, so they could get some of that back in the form of campaign contributions.

So what does this all mean? It means that these large investment banks are still sitting on trillions of dollars of toxic mortgage debt, which has thus far not been written off. Just listen to Professor Elizabeth Warren, chair of the TARP Oversight Committee, and she will explain it further. Basically, the banks have been allowed to steal government money in order to gamble on Wall Street fattening up their balance sheets for a time in the future, maybe next year, when the dollar will be devalued so much that all that toxic mortgage debt could easily been written off at its lowest nominal value allowing the bailed out investment banks to return to profitability at the expense of the taxpayers. When the dollar devalues to that point, wages will fall, as well. More foreclosures, and unemployment will likely occur, and corporations and businesses will fold. Empty commercial buildings will dot the landscape of our communities. Yet the investment banks will be saved!!!!

They will be hated, too. Americans might just get angry, and hit the streets in mass demonstrations. At that point, all the Homeland Security toys and their keepers will be out in force holding them back with all their might. The tanks, assault weapons and vehicles, police in riot gear, and more might be seen occupying more and more communities.

Paralleling this scenario might be the Federal Reserve raising interest rates on the bonds once the banks are saved because Bada Bing Bernanke might be finding that foreign central banks, and sovereign wealth funds dumping low return treasury bills and bonds as a result of the dollar’s value tanking to be just too scary. A raise in bond interest rates could trigger inflation even more, as the Fed would try and re-attract foreign currency buyers back into the dollar. With wages very low, and people struggling to stay solvent, inflation would empty their skinny wallets even more. And, without new jobs to come on line, foreclosures, and shrinking spending will be the norm.

We experienced collapsing consumer credit by $19B, in July. August added another $12B to that collapse. This turns into a 5.8% annual rate drop in consumer credit. Who can borrow? Who wants to borrow? As consumer credit tightens due to rising unemployment, there are fewer credit-worthy people available to take on the risk. This will further collapse the demand for credit and deepen the recession.

The dollar is being shed by foreign central banks. More nations are buying euros and yen, the highest percentage in any previous quarter.

President Obama has been perpetuating the myth that “a dollar of capital in a [huge bailed out Wall Street] bank can actually result in eight to ten dollars of loans to families and businesses. In order for the $1 trillion that the Fed has lavished on banks to produce a faster pace of economic growth, [an unprecedented number of] indebted households and businesses would have to take on an additional $8-10 trillion [of new] debt. Indebtedness would become a way of life. That seems to be the plan.” (Cockeyed Economics, Alan Nasser, October 9-11, 2009, Counterpunch.org)

The Average American household is too tapped out to even consider further indebtedness, especially since the banking oligarchs offered no “Shared Sacrifice” which President Obama has asked from all of us.

Found in the article “Cockeyed Economics” is the US Census Bureau’s Consumer Income Report of August 2008. It stated that real median household income was $50,233. Now for those households headed by married couples, have a median income of $72,785. If they own a home costing $169,000, it is very likely with all their yearly expenses, they have nearly zero savings at the end of a year. That means that with an unexpected expense or two or three, they have a zero balance at the end of the year. There is no savings. They might actually go negative. There would be no financial college support for their kids.

It appears that President Obama is stuck in a neo-liberal frame of mind. A form of laizzez-faire economic capitalism, which has shown to have failed and been the cause of this collapse. He actually seems to believe that by dropping wages resembling those of competing third world nations, the US will recreate the boom years of 1949-74. He does not seem to understand, as pointed out by Mr. Nasser, that it took decades to build a strong and vibrant, domestically consuming and exporting manufacturing sector. It has taken decades to destroy it. Therefore, it will take decades, again, to rebuild it into something viable. This is the Obama view of recovery.

What this means is further suffering Americans. A very eroded standard of living and our children never being able to have a life others had once joyfully experienced.

President Obama’s priorities are more with the financial-banking crime syndicate and making them fully solvent so they can once more sell wildly profitable exotic and toxic derivatives, which have basically dried up since the collapse of our economy, as well as perpetuate the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, than with those living and working on the corner of Main and Side Street.

It has been revealed that the fuel costs to America by just the U.S Marines in Afghanistan comes to $320 MILLION per DAY. That sure would buy a lot of recovery to working Americans. It costs the U.S Marines $400 per gallon of gas to fill their gas tanks. Is this what we need to be doing during this economic code red national security crisis?

It appears that the U.S government has armed the domestic police forces close to the level of what is found in combat theaters. Our government has militarized our neighborhood cops and is training them to see the public as a possible enemy. Why? Because the United States is devolving into a third world country. It is in decline in nearly every possible way. The corporate oligarchs have taken power by "over-lording" the White House, trying to control a great many congresspersons, and influencing the final outcome of our laws in order to suit their corporate agendas.

This is the new American Paradigm. And, this may be only the beginning. But we can do something to possible change the direction. One major directional change would be to pull all your money away from the hands of Wall Street, otherwise, they have it for their own use.

A new American Paradigm has been cooking in the crock-pot for 30 years, and now it has boiled over. The question is—what comes next?

thanks for reading, jerry