Is President Obama Throwing Us Off The Public Option Health Care Bus?

Why should Americans be told they have to make huge sacrifices when the real cause of the economic crisis was directly connected to the actions of the Federal Reserve and the largest financial banking institutions in the country, such as JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. Had the banks been careful with their lending practices, had they kept more collateral in deposit as they over-leveraged their derivative and securities ventures, had the government not went ahead and allowed for no regulation of the bank’s “shadow banking” facilities, had the government aggressively regulated the “paper” economy as it should have been done, had the Federal Reserve Bank avoided creating “bubbles” in the technology and real estate sectors by keeping interest rates at appropriate levels instead of at give-away prices, then much of this collapse would have been avoided.

Had all of the above been done, then Americans would not have had the incentive, and permission to go forward and seek huge stock market gains for their investment portfolios as was encouraged by the investment banking institutions which needed that cash for their own risky gambles. If the investment banking sector had been fully regulated, then the consumer would not have been told that it was OK to go out and buy a home that was too expensive for their budgets, or borrowed repeated on their existing home draining every last dime of equity for spending purposes because of pie-in-the-sky tall tails of an ever increasing price in home values, resulting in the use of them as piggy banks or ATM-type cash machines.

Remember when the last four Presidents of the United States, especially George W. Bush, the home ownership president, along with the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, especially Alan Greenspan, and joined by the most prestigious financial institutions had all said that it was needed for consumers to do their civic duty and spend, as well as borrow because borrowing defined the nation’s wealth. It was all of them that gave the orders to make the light go green and announce it was a “go”.

When the police department in your town allows everyone to “J” walk for 30 years without incident, but then, a group of people crossing an intersection get struck by a speeding truck killing them all resulting in every person in the town getting a retroactive fine for 30 years of “J” walking even if they had not done so, then you have to ask, ‘who is to blame?’ Was it the police for not doing their job and controlling “J” walking, or one might say being neglectful, or was it the townspeople for taking advantage of the lack of enforcement?

I put the blame on the enforcer of the rules and regulations. When the enforcers turned their backs on the rules and regulations, allowing for permissiveness, then they are to be blamed. We, the citizens, elect representatives and pay them well with the nation’s best health insurance and retirement benefits to guarantee that the people of the nation, the recipients of their good will, or bad, and who are instructed how the rules and regulations are to be followed if we are allowed to walk freely upon the nation’s streets and countryside, should not be the ones blamed.

It is THEIR fault!! But, as we are now seeing, the governor of California is now about to punish the most challenged in his state with budget cuts. This is what is being done all around the country. Because the richest among us, the wealthiest investment bankers, and legislators and presidents, and health care insurance company CEOs, and all of the wealthiest CEOs of corporations who have taken their companies down the economic rabbit hole get bailouts, rescue packages, bonuses gleaned off the backs of taxpayers, get a free pass from the government and Justice department, the rest of the citizens, especially those without health insurance, those who lost their homes, those who lost their jobs to outsourcing, or downsizing on behalf of the bottom line, the balance sheet and the stockholders, they will be the ones who will solely experience the so-called “shared sacrifice” declared by President Obama who asked for a “shared sacrifice”.

As Ellen Hodgson Brown stated in her article about how California could create a budget surplus instead of struggling to find a way to pay for their measly $26 billion budget deficit (in relation to the state’s overall gross revenues), it is clear that no one in the governor’s office has paid any attention to alternatives outside of budget cuts. (Read--How The State Can Beat Its Budget Woes: California Dreamin’, 7-10/12-09, Counterpunch.org.)

Their budget deficit, their shortfall, is just small potatoes compared to the Congressional bailout package of $700 billion to the banks that caused this crisis in the first place. And, the Federal Reserve has committed trillions more to cover the backs of these same banksters, and corporations that gambled away and lost trillions of America’s wealth. She writes, “Nearly ten times the sum needed by California was allotted to bailing out AIG [then on] to Goldman Sachs, a single bank.” The nation’s government says to California, sorry, “You are on your own”.

Ms. Brown stated further, “We the people did not precipitate this credit crisis; the banks did. We should not have to pay for the damage with increased taxes or decreased services or [through sacrificing] our public parks and [through rate hikes with our] parking meters.” How true!

We the people, 48 million of us, are without health care insurance. The insurance companies of this nation, AIG included, have been reaping record profits, as well as taking government tax dollars to shore up their evaporating balance sheets. Yet they have spent trillion of dollars lobbying congresspersons over the last 10 years. TRILLIONS. But we the people must pay the price for their lavish lifestyles, edacious corporate spending sprees, and more.

Currently, the Blue Dog (SHIT) Coalition is being influenced grandly by the insurance lobbys through campaign contribution bribes to favor the profit takers over the nation’s people who elected them into office as their representatives. It is time that corporations no longer have the same rights as a person. They are not people but entities ALLOWED under the rule of law, of which they must adhere to, to be a corporation. People are born with these rights of protection. Corporations apply and pay for the right of protection and operation.

The Blue Dog Shit Coalition should be castrated or neutered during their next election cycle. They are doing the bidding for the insurance lobby by holding up a public option plan that would benefit Americans, but instead, huckster-selling the insurance co-op proposal to their constituents and party members. This would not empower the members of the many health care co-ops that would be established, but make them victims to the insurance companies, once again. Only a large, single group plan, such as a public option, would empower the members to demand reasonable pricing for premiums and drugs.

To further my point that the people are continuing to be held captive by the largest of the financial banking institutions, which I have called a crime syndicate, James Howard Kunstler, the renowned writer, has echoed this claim, and recently, the infamous Eliot Spitzer, the former governor of New York has, too, called it a Ponzi scheme, when I wrote about it being The World’s Biggest Ponzi Scheme months ago.

What we have now is the Federal Reserve chairman, ‘Bada Bing’ Ben Bernanke, as he was questioned by Florida Representative-Democrat Alan Grayson that he did not know where the hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars, which had been injected into foreign central banks in exchange for their foreign currencies, had gone to! This had all been done without approval or oversight by individuals in the Congress or the White House. Ben Bernanke has been acting like a lone bandit printing money in his basement without government approval, when in actuality, this is against the law!

The Federal Reserve keeps printing money and lending it out placing their liabilities further and further in the danger zone of insolvency. Their capital is shrinking as their liabilities grow larger and larger into the realm of 40 times more in liabilities than capital reserves. This pushes the Ponzi scheme into what could be called a national security risk. Now, we see that Bada Bing Bernanke is a very slick con-artist. He knows where the money has slithered off to, but he won’t tell, and congress has fizzled out in creating law that would audit his secret goings-on.

The economic collapse cannot recover if recklessness prevails and the “riskiness” demonstrated by the financial-banking institutions continue to push the nation further toward a code red national security danger zone. We cannot have a jobless recovery when the country reaches two points away from an under-unemployment rate of 20%.

Bada Bing Bernanke is very afraid of further dollar deflation so he is very likely printing money, and buying up their U.S. Treasurys, which are about to be dumped on the world’s open market for whatever auction price they can get knowing their economies are in trouble. They might find other currencies or investments a better value.

The Obama administration would be better served by dumping the Goldman Sachs refugees working inside as “moles” for GS and bringing on individuals who could rescue this president’s economic policy from crashing and burning, since he has allowed the “GS Moles” to favor the “paper” economy over the real economy.

President Obama claimed a victory in January, but has failed to demonstrate what should be a commanding lead through strong, decisive, and persuasive determination. Those who supported change are getting very tired of not seeing any worth believing in.

thanks for reading, jerry

President Obama and the “Dons” of Wall Street

President Obama ran a campaign that appears to have been based upon a platform of delusional ideologies. He thought he was the "somebody" that was spoken about in the speeches, back in the 1970s, advocating Black Power--"I am somebody!" He told us he was that somebody who could bring change to America. He told the voters that he was the person who could fulfill the empty pots with hopes and dreams that would grow into something worth being proud of once again.

Instead, he entered the presidency backwards; his back to the people who elected him, while facing the kleptocrats and oligarchs that ushered him into the Oval Office with their checkbooks.

President Obama has done nothing for the economy but erode it. He continues to bring along worker bees groomed by the corrupt queens running the financial and corporate super-hives. They continue to empower those entities that have destroyed the economy.

Obama has only a few more chips available stashed in the bottom of his pocket to lay down on the economic recovery crap table, which appears to have been spent while his stack rapidly dwindled within the last 7 months. One of the few chips left hidden in his satchel is for the public option health care program. If lost, the people lose and Obama has damaged his credibility. He may have nothing else to offer. The incompetent and self-destructive GOP are fully aware of Obama's weaknesses and his inability to wield his power because he has allowed his wayward ship to take on way too much toxic- Goldman Sachs-water, as well as his inability to steer his shipmates who make up the cowardly Democratic congress. Even his Blue DogShit Coalition has gone traitor on him by supporting the smoke and mirrors idea of health care coops, which in the long run, would not bring down customer premium or drug costs.

The toxic Talibanistas inside the Republican Party are calling the public option Obama’s Waterloo. Excuse me, but have not these Republicans been engaged in a war against working Americans for the last 30 years? Have they not had the best government health care programs money can buy, while many in America go without or have paid for inadequate healthcare plans with their hard earned stagnant and dwindling wages? Who do they think they are, anyway? These greedy congresspersons have taken in millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the health care insurance industry. They do not help their constituents with smart legislation, but only take from them greasing their palms along the way as they meet and greet their highly paid corporate lobbyists, many of whom went through the government’s revolving door: corporate-to-government-back-to-corporate, and back through the revolving door over and over again. The GOP gathered up their toxic steam under Little Boy Bush but, eventually, began to gag from their own poison when the Democrats took over as a majority party.

The war against working Americans has been funded through a crime syndicate. Crime syndicates, over time, can become institutions. The Mafia crime syndicate has become an institution in Italy, and elsewhere. The Russian crime syndicate, too, has become an institution basically running the Russian economic system and occupying government positions. The Afghanistan poppy crop has been ruled over by a drug crime syndicate spreading its finished product, heroin, all over the world, and, as a result, supplying themselves with dangerous weapons. So, why would anyone believe there could be stability in Afghanistan? Or, Pakistan for that matter.

Crime syndicates can become institutions, and that has occurred especially under the administrations of the GOP, and accepted by the Democrats, along the way with only a few demonstrating resistance. The nation’s largest financial banking and investment institutions have evolved into an economic crime syndicate.

As with drug crime family syndicates, they operate covertly and in secret. This same secrecy is how the “too big to fail” financial institutions have become filthy rich and extremely powerful and influential. They gained super secrecy when Republican Senator Phil Gramm championed the law that allowed these financial-investment banking institutions to perform complicated and fraudulent derivative sales from inside secret “shadow banking” facilities. The law that made it illegal to regulate or supervise these transactions was the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 1999 (CFMA), passed under Clinton and fully throttled by Little Boy Bush. A loud outcry of opposition was heard by Brooksley Born, who, at the time, was the Commodity Future Trading Commission Chair between 1996-1999, but was push aside.

Larry Summers, who worked for Robert Rubin as his undersecretary of the Treasury and later, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, and then, became Secretary of the Treasury under Clinton, and has since become President Obama’s Director of the White House’s National Economic Council, was also on the staff of Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors. For all those years, he did not believe in regulation and supported the sea change the CFMA of 1999 ushered in.

Now, Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, testified before Congress proclaiming that any congressional action that would lead to the auditing of the Federal Reserve would amount to a take over of the Fed by Congress! I guess he forgot that it was Congress that passed the law that created the Federal Reserve in the first place. He went on to shout out in his quiet demeanor that such an action would be destructive to the economy if they were able to get inside the Federal Reserve’s books and shine a light upon their blanket of crimes, secrets and shenanigans.

For President Obama to even consider out loud making Bernanke the super-regulator of the financial industry further indicates where our commander-in-chief has positioned himself in relation to the financial crime syndicate. It would be like giving a private assassin the keys to the nation’s super computing network.

Tim Geithner was given the key position inside the Obama administration after being fully embedded within the financial crime syndicate. He is now the Secretary of the Treasury. Geithner, while working as Chair of the New York Federal Reserve under Little Boy Bush, Hank Paulson (former Secretary of the Treasury under Little Boy Bush), and Bernanke were instrumental in the secretive backroom deal that pressed JPMorgan Chase into purchasing Bear Stearns. Here are the people super connected to the financial banking institutions working secretly inside the government, away from the scrutiny of Congress using government funds to arrange a sweetheart bank buyout deal in order to save Bear Stearns from bankruptcy, while giving taxpayer monies to JPMorgan Chase in order to actually do the buyout. If this isn’t a Nanny Super Rich Welfare State, then what is?

At the time of this deal, Tim Geithner was the chairman of the New York Federal Reserve. He was supposed to be regulating these New York financial institutions, but failed to do so. He was present at this backroom deal, along with Jamie Dixon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, who just so happened to be on the board of the New York Federal Reserve. Could JPMorgan Chase been chosen for this deal because of his relationship with the Federal Reserve board, Geithner and others inside the government? This was totally an inside deal using taxpayer monies, all done in secret, on a weekend, with no one in Congress knowing what was going down.

The whole illusion that there is a free market was thrown out the window, as well as a possible illegal action. This is like the president of a college, such as Yale or Harvard, being asked by a major benefactor who gives the college any amount of money when asked, to “award” a degree to his son or daughter without them ever attending a single class. The deal goes down and all the records are forged to show that the privileged kid got a bought and paid for degree. A fraud is a fraud.

This all sounds like an episode of Tony Soprano trying to make a deal with another local crime family syndicate using the Godfather-Don Corleone as the “mediator”.

President Obama cannot seem to get enough financial crime syndicate worker bees to join his team. His most recent “ranch hand” is a Goldman Sachs Vice Chairman, Robert Hormats, picked to be the State Department’s undersecretary for economic, energy and agricultural affairs, if confirmed. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be pleased because now she has a Goldman Sachs financial insider to do her economic crime syndicate bidding directly with foreign nation states and countries. This is the way it works! The investment banking institutions get government positions whereby they can move legitimately within foreign countries, in this case through the State Department, arranging government deals giving the investment banking crime bosses full knowledge, as well as access, to what is going on.

This is like Tony Soprano having an insider inside the government telling him when a shipment of semi-automatic weapons will be dropped off at the dock, and that there will be a 10 minute window when there will be no one around protecting the shipment.

To further legitimize the fact that the investment banking financial crime syndicate really exists and I am not just exaggerating this fact, we have the special inspector general, Neil Barofsky, for the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) concerned that the U.S. taxpayers will be liable for as much as $23.7 trillion stacked up by Geithner and Bernanke ready to be handed out like burgers at the Carhops drive through windows. He is also looking into 35 criminal and civil investigations.

Just as we had Al Capone, and other gangsters run roughshod and terrorize our streets and citizens, we now have something similar terrorizing our economic system, which had been sanctioned by the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury. It appears that the bank robbers now occupy the bank! Geithner, Bernanke and the “Dons” of Wall Street are controlling the financial banking institutions and have now broken into the Treasury, without resistance from President Obama, or Congress, and have taken over all the office suites.

Mr. Barofsky has decided to open 35 criminal and civil investigations related to the fraud, misconduct, corruption, cover-ups, and lies perpetuated by those operating from within the financial-banking crime syndicate institutions.

Even the Republicans inside the House Oversight Committee now know that Geithner’s Treasury is engaged in secrecy and has pulled the cover over any type of transparency whenever asked by the senior inspector general of the TARP, as well as Congress to turn over documents that might expose wrongdoing.

To add insult to injury upon the taxpayers who funded these bailouts, Geithner has allowed the investment banks that sold "warrants", or common stock, to the Treasury in exchange for bailout funds, to buy them back for a fraction of what they are worth. The taxpayers did not even get back the principal investment. Geithner allowed these thieving banks to buy back their common stock warrants for less than what we bought them for! Sweet deal. We do them a favor and rescue their incompetent butts, and in exchange Geithner does not even ask for the principal back, let alone some interest to boot. This is further proof showing how Geithner is continuously favoring these "Dons" of Wall Street instead of the American people he is working for.

Here are the facts. The State Street warrants, which were worth $92 million at fair market value, were bought back for only $60 million. BBandT warrants had a fair market value of $114 million, but were bought back for $67 million. And then there is U.S. Bancorp. They bought back their warrants for $139 million, when the paper was worth $260 million.

The U.S. taxpayers cannot even get their loans paid back. They have to take less. As the Treasury sees their revenues decline as a result of the economic collapse, and they have to borrow more and more money from China, they won't even ask for the loans to be paid back in full? President Obama should be ashamed of himself for allowing the taxpayers to get fleeced.

There can be no economic recovery of this nation when we have such criminal activity operating within the White House, Federal Reserve, and the investment-banking Wall Street institutions. The paper economy is no substitute for the real manufacturing economy. Until this is dramatically changed and the criminals prosecuted, there will be no recovery, but only stagnation, or even further erosion of it.

Thanks for reading, jerry

President Obama Has Been Swarmed By The Huge Financial Beehives

I heard a story from a gas company technician about a massive hive of bees that swarmed him. He was standing still when he saw a queen bee leave what he assumed was a meadow hive leading a giant swarm of bees numbering in the thousands. He said it was a huge black cloud of bees that weaved all around as it approached him. The giant swarm came toward him, encircled him, and then, led by the queen, took off into the distance.

This is what has been happening to the average person in the United States. Since Reagan, the financial beehives have been building their worker bee populations in order to go out upon the planet seeking grains of pollen. The pollen consists of the people’s financial wealth.

We have seen a Goldman Sachs beehive, as well as a CITI hive, a BoA hive, and the list goes on. Instead of just a localized, unassuming tree hanging hive, they built fortress hives. The chair queens not only had worker bees, but operative bees that trained the busy little worker drones in the process of finding grains of pollen from the most barren and questionable sources, as well as from the common and plentiful sources.

The worker bees were shown that pollen could be discovered in the open market fields where there could be found a plethora of blooming wealth of flowering capital sources ready for the picking. And, there was nothing to stand in their way.

The worker bees also found usable flowering capital under many rocks and stones, of which they overturned to pluck for the taking.

The chair queens created a syndicate. They would meet together in secret plotting and developing ways to take the pollen grains and brew securitized and “derivativized” nectar formulas to feed all the worker bees motivating them to gather up more and more pollen grains. They were even encouraged to keep a portion of the nectar brew to sell or use for themselves.

The leader of all the land, which had been picked by the leading chair queens, began getting supplied with all the nectar he could get away with. This would ensure the control by the chair queens over the pollen gathering processes. This man was President Obama. The leading and most powerful chair queen was one who ran the Goldman Sachs hive. This chair queen told President Obama that he would be bringing key GS hive operators into his command and control center. The list of key operator bees was numerous. They were instrumental in training operators that swarmed the congress of the land, as well as many other agencies, facilities, and companies.

The goal of all these operators was to make sure that even the pollen stored inside the Treasury of Pollen would end up in the various hives, but mostly in the deep storage module vaults of the GS hive, AIG hive and the CITI hive.

The danger that occurred was that President Obama had placed in charge of the people’s Treasury of Pollen a key GS hive operator. This operator, a high level worker bee, had a fellow pollen-syndicate operator in charge of the Federal Reserve of Pollen Grains. He devised a technique that took a grain of pollen and repeatedly split it into numerous grains diluting the original value of that grain but which still could be made into nectar, although watered down in many respects. Therefore, it no longer had the same potency and “nutritional value” when used requiring more to supply the typical daily requirements of nectar.

The people, who worked hard to plant the seeds, toiled the land using their bodies and minds to cultivate the plants and crops that provided the blossoms and flowers, and ultimately, the seeds that produced the pollen, which the worker bees took at will. There were no rules or regulations set upon the worker bees because if the people’s representatives did not play the game the way the chair queens wanted it played, then they would be attacked by the swarm with repeated stings removing them as an adversary to their greed-based objectives.

After decades of the people laboring over their fields of flowering plants and crops, the worker bees took so much pollen so quickly that the plants could not pollinate each other because the pollen was not being used to propagate the land with new and improved crops and plants, but to steal the pollen to produce nectar inside the hives. In other words, the chair queens and operators wanted all the pollen grains for themselves.

This resulted in fewer crops and plants to find pollen grains. The hives had to lay-off worker bees, and the field hands no longer were able to grow as many crops and plants for the purpose of producing seeds for the following planting season. The overall economy of the land fell into collapse. In the past, the people had lots of fruits, flowers, beans, nuts, seeds, and grains to keep the economy thriving. It thrived too much and the nectar brew began to overheat. The process of splitting the pollen grains to produce the diluted “nectarized” securities and derivative formulas ended up causing a great fire from an unregulated fermentation process destroying all that had been stored and saved.

The frightened chair queens ended up going to the Federal Reserve of Pollen Grains and President Obama’s key chair queen operative inside the Treasury of Pollen demanding they turn over all their stored grains to them, otherwise the hives will self-destruct and disappear leaving only the small beehives hanging throughout the fields, valleys, mountains and villages. The chair queens painted a bleak and grim future if they were not in control of the pollen grains.

The disappearance of the giant hives would have been good in the long run because the local people would have a more sustainable relationship with the bees, the crops and plants. The chair queens were afraid of this occurring removing them from the wealth-gathering process of stealing pollen grains from the people.

The sustainable scenario did not happen. The chair queens won out because President Obama favored them over the needs and survival of the people. What would be needed is for President Obama to authorize his command center to go out and use a potent and effective, as well as long lasting, bug defogger on all the massive hives that had caused the collapse in the first place!

The sequel has yet to be made. Stay tuned.

thanks for reading, jerry

Timmy Geithner Continues to Rip-Off the Taxpayers

SPECTRE of Deflation, a loyal reader and insightful commentator on this blogspot, offered this news SNIP:

Banks buying back TARP warrants at a discount, panel says
Published on 07-10-2009


WASHINGTON - A panel that oversees the $700 billion bank bailout package said Friday that financial institutions buying out warrants they gave the government in exchange for capital injections are now buying back those stakes at well below their fair value.

The Congressional Oversight Panel, which is charged with overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, said in a report that a group of 11 small banks that have repurchased government warrants in exchange for taxpayer-funded assistance, have bought-out the stakes at 66% of their face value.

The oversight panel, which employed three Harvard University valuation experts to conduct the analysis, said taxpayers would have received $10 million more had the warrants been sold back to the banks at their face value.

The report argues that liquidity discounts are a key factor for why the warrants were purchased at such low prices. Should a similar discount be a major factor for warrant repurchases at larger institutions buying out government stakes, the shortfall to taxpayers could be as much as $2.7 billion, the report said.

A group of 32 financial firms, including 10 large financial institutions, paid $70.2 billion to buy out preferred shares Treasury received when they received financial assistance. These buyouts have made the firms eligible to buy back the warrants the government received along with the preferred shares.

Banks that received financial assistance as part of TARP were required to give the government warrants for the future purchase of some of their common shares. Warrants are the right to buy common shares of a company at a set price at some point in the future.

The report said, however, that the Treasury may have other goals with the repurchases that supersede maximizing taxpayer returns.

"Treasury has said that it wants to allow banks to operate again without TARP assistance as soon as they are strong enough to do so," it said.

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

My comment back to SPECTRE was as follows:

"The report said, however, that the Treasury may have other goals with the repurchases that supersede maximizing taxpayer returns.

"Treasury has said that it wants to allow banks to operate again without TARP assistance as soon as they are strong enough to do so," it said."

I guess the goal is to rip-off the taxpayers in order to favor those who brought down the economy in the first place.

This is my view---the consumer definitely must take some of the blame for their current fate, but the fact remains that they were told from the President Bush on down that spending and borrowing was good for the country. That low interest rates, high returns on equities, and that speculation was the way wealth was to be created, and productivity and an increase in GDP, as well as foreign investment was healthy for the nation.

Bush said after 9-11 for America to go shopping! "Leave your troubles in an old kit bag and smile, smile, smile."

This is what many, many Americans believed. They are not economists. They saw that when the Tech Bubble broke, it took down the value of equities,but the recovery only took a couple years to show progress again. They think the same way today! They don't realize that these lost jobs are gone forever.

Currently, the consumer is being punished, so to speak, by seeing that the financial syndicate con artists, such as Geithner, are continuing to offer special deals and arrangements to those banksta thieves.

Spectre, I am assuming you feel the same, how disheartening it is that there are no real leaders, other than Ron Paul and a few others who don't really march into the public eye screaming how we should not take this anymore.

Michael Jackson, upon his death, gets a massive vocal and public audience. I guess upon the death of America it will be then when the loud voices of protest and anger begin to get loudly heard.

I felt this news flash was important enough to post. Thanks, jerry

A BRIC Thrown To President Obama

President Obama had a dream, but when he woke up he found a BRIC had been thrown through the White House window! (See the past opinion piece posting.)

The People’s Republic of China is ramping up the rhetoric. It is calling out the dangers of the world’s reliance on a “single sovereign-sovereign currency”. The danger lies in the “concentration of risk and the spread of the crisis”. Now, if this does not sound like “Reaganistic” Cold War Battle Cries, I don’t know what does!

Instead of the “menace” being the “Red Menace”, ie. Communism, it has become the United States via the dollar. (Read “Wary of Dollar, China Wants Super-Sovereign Currency”, Informationclearinghouse.net; Xin and Buckley, 6-26-09.)

The People’s Bank of China is inferring the U.S. dollar is becoming not only an international concern, and a risky global currency, but also the Boogieman’s currency for all to watch under a global microscope by the planet’s new CSI (‘Currency Scrutinizing Investigators’) forensic headquarters—The International Monetary Fund (IMF).

There is new pressure on the IMF, as they become the organizational body, to perform Timmy Geitheresque Currency Stress Testing on the dollar, as well as other currencies being considered for reserve currency status.

They might ask such questions as, will the dollar hold up under increased financial loads, such as further bankruptcies, to include credit card and commercial loans, further un-underemployment pressures, higher federal indebtedness, expansion of poverty figures, additional military expenditures and entanglements, decreasing private investments, increased personal savings (currently, it reached 6.9% of disposable personal income, and will likely reach 10% in the future), and more.

The sited authors stated “In an essay last March, [China’s central bank’s governor,] Zhou [Xiaochuan] caused a stir by suggesting that the Special Drawing Rights, the IMF’s unit of account, could eventually displace the dollar as the principal reserve currency.” OUCH!

It appears that China’s central bank’s governor, the equivalent of Federal Reserve bank governor Ben Bernanke, has pushed aside the Federal Reserve’s head honcho, and others, as he grabbles his way to the top of the heap in order to claim King of the Hill banker status. The blustery talk of Mr. “X” puts fear into the Dow Jones and forces the U.S. executive branch to go on the defensive. Bernanke ends up looking weaker and weaker on the domestic front, as well as the incompetent head of ‘Banksta Incorporated’ who has placed the U.S. economy into its dangerous tailspin causing a national security disaster.

Mr. “X”, China’s “Dragon Master”, appears to have come out showing he might be able to reduce Beanie Benny Bernanke into a naked pile of carved up flesh shavings. 

China’s Mr. “X” wrote an essay in March referencing a PBOC 670 page report recommending the use of the IMF’s SDR (Special Drawing Rights) currency as the principal reserve currency. The report Mr. “X” referenced said, “ to avoid intrinsic shortcomings in using a sovereign currency as a reserve currency, we need to create an international reserve currency that is divorced from sovereign states and can maintain a stable value over the long term”, as sited in the Xin and Buckley article. Again, these two authors bring more forward.

It seems that China has taken a lesson from the Little Boy Bush Presidential Playbook. In the chapter named Mind Control, and under the subchapter---Make Them Afraid, the Chinese government has raised the “Red Flag” that the “U.S. fiscal and monetary stimulus will generate inflation and drive down the dollar, handing Beijing big losses on its vast portfolio of U.S. bonds”, as was reported by Chinese officials.

The PBOC report, as sited by the mentioned authors, laid claim that much blame can be placed at the feet of poor regulation and supervision. “[There has been] inadequate [attention] paid to the risks.”

Once again, Mr. “X” slaps at “Bada Bing” Bernanke and Timmy “the Titanic” Geithner’s hands, as well as the others culpable as governmental incompetents who are using government positions to serve their financial crime syndicate masters, and accomplices in the theft of America’s wealth for the purpose of derivative gambling via the securities crap tables in order to make the top 10% extremely rich at the expense of everyone else, while bringing the nation to a Code Red National Security Risk level. Where is Tommy “the Tank” Ridge when you need him to dispense the duct tape and sheet plastic.

Team Obama is hoping none of these changes will happen very quickly, but if the U.S. economy continues to erode, falter, and sputter as seen with June’s unemployment figures, there is much for concern. Team Obama thinks it has time on its side because there maybe trouble brewing inside China’s Emerald City. Experts are saying that China maybe creating its own economic/financial bubble, the likes we saw break in 2007.

China is buying up huge amounts of commodities inflating the prices. This is a worry. Chinese lenders are handing out cheap yuan to commodity speculators, while those in the “real” economy are having a hard time getting access to cash.

Team Obama might be waiting to see if such a meltdown occurs inside China, which might defuse the alterations to the dollar as the reserve currency.

China has spent $4T yuan on its stimulus. Bank lending for the purpose of issuing credit has reached $6T yuan since December. “Much of this lending has not been used to support tangible projects but, instead, has been channeled into asset markets”, written by Mr. Andy Xie in his piece titled “Fear the Dark Side of China’s Lending Surge” (found on Bomlat.blogspot.com). Mr. Xie wrote further “The current surge in commodity prices, for example, is being fueled by China’s demand for speculative inventory. Damage to the domestic economy is already significant. If lending doesn’t cool soon, this speculative force will transfer even more Chinese cash overseas and trigger long-term stagflation.”

I believe we have seen this all before. Is China close to what we have already been experiencing with our economy? The flight of cash and investment, as well as the financial economy taking favor over the real economy is all too familiar to the U.S.

The People’s Bank of China’s vice-governor, Su Ning estimated more that $6T yuan of credit lines would be given to investors for the first half of the year. The economy expanded by 6.1% in the first three months, and is expected to grow by 7.0% from April to June.

China has seen significant outflows of capital exiting safe investments, such as money market funds into riskier credit and equity funds, such as emerging market funds.

Found on Bomlat.blogspot.com, Mr. John Lee was sited in his piece “Gloss Cannot Hide Rot in China’s Growth Story”, “Most Western commentators focus on the spectacular success of China’s export sector and the emergence of China as the world’s factory. But the greater contributor to Chinese growth is actually domestically funded fixed investment, which constituted over 50 percent of gross domestic product last year and more than 40 percent of that year’s growth.” “[B]ank loans drawn from citizen deposits funneled into state-controlled banks—constitute around 80 percent of all investment activity in the country.”

WOW!!! Does this sound familiar?

“Despite impressive GDP growth, about 400 million Chinese people have seen their net incomes stagnant or decline over the past decade. The income of the poorest 10% has been declining by 2.4% every year since the beginning of the century.”

Bloomberg News wrote this on 6-25-09: “hidden debt in China’s corporate sector is higher than revealed by official bank-loan data, since 44 percent of corporate capital expenditures in 2008 was financed by money whose source is literally unknowable.” This was the case with U.S. mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps. The origin of those bonds was literally unknowable, too.

If this actually happens, and the U.S. economy picks up, then Team Obama will look good. But, if China is able to maintain a positive GDP, and avoid an economic meltdown by building its nation from within--domestically, then Team Obama will likely be permanently damaged for the rest of their one-trick pony show presidential term.

How can the United States have a ‘jobless recovery’, which is what the flap jawin’ media is hacking about? The stimulus package will save many government jobs, such as those employed by colleges, universities, junior colleges, and those inside government offices, but where will that lead? From where will the nation’s productivity evolve? How will it increase exports, reduce foreign oil, improve the consumer markets, such as the sales of the New GM? Is Team Obama seeing the purchase of a New GM automobile the end goal? 

What is now being written is that through increased personal saving, the consumer spending frenzy, which was extraordinary, will return to what will be seen as more normal. Yet, what will be normal will require a significant shrinkage in the consumer marketplace, such as fewer retail jobs and the entire supply chain that gets product on the shelf. There will be shrinkage in commercial real estate, and manufacturing, as well.

It sure appears that the shrinkage is not over. I suspect there is much more to come. Now, who will blink first: China or the United States? Will BRIC succeed or fail?

Henry Kissinger said that Obama is playing a game of chess. Those who will continue to suffer are those in the middle and lower classes as their pieces get knocked off the board. Yet, it is clear that the biggest financial banking syndicate: Goldman Sachs and CITI will be standing right behind President Obama pointing out the moves.

Thanks for reading, jerry

NPR's Fresh Air interview of Christopher Dickey on the Iranian Crisis

Once again, Ms. Terri Gross, the host of the Npr.org radio program, Fresh Air, has interviewed journalist Mr. Christopher Dickey, who spoke about the crisis in Iran and the a look into the future! This is extremely interesting.  Listen now.