President Obama's Jobless and Stagnant Wage Recovery Plan

President Obama gave a speech today in Elkhart, Indiana a community hit hard by the economic collapse. He gave his typical feel-good pep talk about how the economy will come back if we do our part. His part is to give the truck company, Navistar International Corporation, the site of his speech $39 million to build a hybrid heavy duty cross-country hauler.

I am sorry Mr. President, what is needed is not $39 million, but $39 billion to stimulate competition among the truck manufacturers to develop a variety of hybrid models. Not just one!

You allowed AIG to receive $13 billion in bailout funding. $26 million went to pay off counterparty debt to Goldman Sachs and other banks, yet all you are willing to do for an industry invested in the real economy, in Green jobs, in supporting a community, is to offer them a measly $39 million. You should be embarrassed to show your face in that town.

You, Mr. President, have sold out to the financial investment banking industry, or what might be called the ‘paper capitalists’ embedded in the Wall Street financial bank robbery and crime syndicate operations.

Outside of Elkhart, approximately 10 miles, is Wakarusa. In that town is Electric Motors Corporation. They are planning to use an empty plant building in a partnership project with the Nappanee, Indiana-based Gulf Stream Coach, to develop an electric vehicle. They are hoping to receive some stimulus funding from the government to move forward. They don’t have it yet.

Again, Goldman Sachs has already received $26 billion in bailout money, but the Electric Motors Company wanting to build a real object to sell in the world market has to hope for funding. What has Goldman Sachs done with their bailout money? They have given huge bonuses and engaged in Wall Street market timing stock investing with taxpayer dollars. This is what Mr. Obama has been doing for America.

Here is the transcript of President Obama’s Elkhart speech.

Nowhere in his speech given to a group of hardworking Americans as listened intently to his message did he call for justice by pursuing an investigation of the financial-banking industry responsible for the collapse of the Elkhart way of life and economy, which includes the very jobs lost in the heartland of America. Nowhere in his speech did he demand justice in the form of major investment banking reform legislation. Nowhere in his speech did he say that transparency and accountability must be the new business-as-usual for Wall Street. Nowhere in his speech did he demand that the Federal Reserve be audited and made to bring forth documents outlining where the money has gone, to whom it went, how much was given out, and what the currency exchanges, warrants, and liquidity swaps are all worth today. Nowhere in his speech did he say that the workers of America should not have to pay the heaviest price resulting from this collapse. Nowhere did he say that those who facilitated this collapse with their corrupt and irresponsible business practices, as well as their intent to commit criminal acts would pay the heaviest price.

It is clear that what President Obama did in Elkhart was to play it safe, take the middle road, the road most traveled by politicians.

The investment banking industry has been promised, pledged and given $12 trillion, which is equal to what the GDP of this nation is in one year’s time. Yet, he had said that in his stimulus package: $500 billion per year for two years is what the real economy will get in order to remake this nation. Who is he fooling? Navistar will get $39 million to design, fabricate and manufacture a heavy duty hybrid truck. Yet, the nation’s working class will likely see 50% of all homeowners by 2012 underwater with their mortgages.

A hybrid truck is what the real economy got this week.

But, what we did see has been Wall Street banks showing large profits and improved balance sheets because, more than likely, Ben Bernanke injected these banks with taxpayer dollars, to the tune of over $2.3 trillion so they could manipulate the market by using very high speed computer-timed and engineered casino-like trades for the sole purpose of jacking up stock prices in order to make lots of money for themselves.

What Tyler Durden, of zerohedge.com, has discovered is that less than $400 billion in money market funds were taken out, since March 2009, to invest in the stock market. He asked then, where did the $2.3T come from, since it did not come from money market accounts? It did not come from working class expendable wages? Nor did it come from savings accounts, since people depositing in savings accounts are looking for no-risk protection right now. Since the cash was really not coming from $2.3 trillion in withdrawals from money market accounts, it more than likely came from Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke manipulating the stock market in order to boost the balance sheets of the biggest financial investment banks, those responsible for the collapse in the first place, so they, once again, can return to becoming cash cows; although, businesses on Main Street and Side Street continue to find it very hard to borrow in order to keep their businesses afloat. Credit continues to be locked up because the investment banks feel that it is too much of a risk to lend.

But Elkhart, Indiana gets cash for a hybrid heavy duty truck. That is only fair, right Barack? Throw a Green bone to the masses while the rich get fat and happy.

So, is only Matt Taibbi, Elliot Spitzer and a few others the only one’s calling this Federal Reserve, Treasury and the investment banks a triangle composed of the nation’s biggest economic crime syndicate in the history of the country?

Mr. President, shouldn’t YOU be calling this out as a crime syndicate, as well? But, YOU Mr. President have embraced the Wall Street financial crime syndicate foot soldiers by allowing them to assist you in the development of economic policy.

What is being hypothesized as the reason Bernanke has embedded himself in this swindle would be to fill up the investment banks with taxpayer cash so they can mop up the U.S. Treasuries that foreign central banks are likely to dump on the world market. Bada Bing Bernanke will be playing disaster clean-up man hoping he can catch these Treasuries before they get sold off at rock bottom prices ultimately driving down the value of the dollar.

The other reason for the engineered stock market rally is to give the illusion that the economy is in recovery and that working class Americans can now, once again, resume their consumer spending practices, and charge up their credit cards. Remember, credit is how the wealth of this country is measured.

But no one is talking about how close AIG is to falling off the precipice and into the bankruptcy pit in spite of their good news profits made the same way that Goldman Sachs does it, which is not the good old fashion way of doing business—earning it. It is all about high speed computer timed trades jacking up stock price values. They appear to be engaged in a shell game because they don’t have enough cash to cover their debt losses. Again, mum is the word regarding all the explosive credit default swaps sitting heavily on the balance sheets of the investment banks. In addition, Bank of America and the other credit card companies are writing down huge losses in credit card defaults.

To further point out the toxic tentacles of the investment financial banking crime syndicate, one has to read Pam Marten’s latest article titled “Millions of Americans Pushed Into No-Law System by Colluding Banks”, found on Counterpunch.org (8-3-09). She wrote about how Wall Street has fabricated their own private justice system through setting up a rigged kangaroo like court to handle the way employee disputes are dealt with. Employees with complaints have been allowed only one recourse option, and that is through “arbitration”. The process of arbitration is “where the financial elite make their own laws and run their own private justice system to carry out those laws.”

What has been unearthed through the courts is that one of the arbitration services that was supposed to be impartial and fair in dealing with issues brought up by employees working for Wall Street corporations was owned by a financial banking institution.

Here is another example solidifying that there is a financial crime syndicate at work. “Documents [show] that the private justice system used by the biggest banks in the country [had] been rigged in hundreds of thousands of cases. Next, evidence surfaces that conclusively shows that the general counsels of these very same banks have huddled together in one room to draft a uniform mandatory arbitration clause banning class action lawsuits in their credit card contracts and shared strategies on its implementation effectively locking the courthouse doors to every credit card holder in America.”

The article went on to say that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, on 4-25-08, charged collusion between Bank of America, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, HSBC Finance Corporation, MBNA, Providian Financial Corporation, and American Express. Many of these corporations, which had been bailed out by the taxpayers, were, at the same time, tightening the screws on them.

This entire arbitration charade was rigged because the financial banking and lending institutions hired on judges and lawyers who had worked in the public court system and appeared to many to have favored them. They lured them away from the public sector and into their various arbitration associations and service entities paying them lucrative salaries to represent their interests. One such association, The American Arbitration Association (AAA) engaged in an “incestuous relationship with corporate America.”

Ms. Marten’s article is a real eye-opener! It clearly shows that the investment-financial-lending banking institutions were rigging the judicial system in their favor without much of a problem. Even Janet Reno, when attorney general under President Bill Clinton, appeared to have ignored the request for an investigation into AAA, which failed to disclose “a financial conflict of interest” with a corporation it had been financially aligned with even though they were providing arbitration services for them.

Eight months later, Janet Reno went off and “was elected to the board of directors of the American Arbitration Association.” Do you feel you need to take a bath yet?

When will President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, Congress and the American people become outraged over the fraud these financial investment banking institutions have been engaged in? The incestuous relationship between Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner and the very institutions that took down the U.S. economy is nothing more than a bunch of dirty, filthy financial crime syndicate operators. The RICO statute needs to be implemented. The Sherman Anti-Trust Law needs be dusted off. It is not enough to just have the newly appointed Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission look into this crime syndicate.

If President Obama is to regain the trust of his supporters, which he is quickly losing, and the nation as a whole, he must move forward with the intent to punish, as well as to shut down this massive and invasive financial parasite that is sucking the life out of the economy of which it is using to sustain only itself and its interests.

President Obama has been filling the toxic soil of the largest investment banks with lots of fertilizers giving them much green but without meaningful results, while without the soil replenishers they would have died because the soil is filled with poison. Instead, what is needed is to fertilize the already enriched soils of the real economy where a field of green and blooms would deliver an immediate solution throughout the country. A few million for a truck company is just not enough, Mr. President. You have been doing it wrong.

thanks for reading, jerry

P.S. Top cities losing home values: Case-Shiller Indices.

The Consumer Thrift Reform Movement

The American working class must quickly realize they have the power in this nation. People feel they are helpless against the rich and corporate oligarchs. But, I am here to tell you how wrong you are!!! You are thinking I have lost my mind. No way.

I have had an epiphany, but may have come to it later than others. Here it is: Why are the financial bankers and the real estate industry moguls, as well as the multi-national corporatists all freaking out from the decline in consumer spending, which has made up 72% of our GDP? Why do they continue pressing for the opening up of credit when the people are already drowning in debt? It is because these debt predators have used the American worker as their wealth engine by keeping wages down enough so the worker must borrow money to sustain their livelihood. These debt predators only pay around 17% in taxes from the earnings gleaned from their dividend and capital gain checks, while the workers pay around 35% of their wages. The rich get off easy, while the working person pays the rich person’s share. Also, they have enticed us with cheaper interest rates and encouraged us to get drunk on spending. Go forward and buy cheap foreign-made stuff even though you don’t need it.

They are afraid. They are afraid that if the working suckers don’t begin to borrow again, the financial lenders won’t begin to collect on lucrative compound interest, fees and more. Therefore, if we stop borrowing, and control our spending outside of our daily essentials, then we can bring the lenders to their knees. We continue to force demand down just because we are in financial trouble. Currently, there is too much supply, which is one reason why prices are down. Once the supply is used up, and there are fewer products available, then prices start to climb, and inflation revs up more loudly. The corporations and real estate developers are all hysterical because their supplies are still in warehouses, on shelves, and on brand new empty streets.

It is true. It has already started by default. The American working class has been devastated by the collapse of their home values, and 4 million are upside-down on their mortgages. They are losing jobs at a rate of 500,000 per month! Their retirement plans have fallen 80%. Their wages are stagnant, yet they are watching the corporate and financial elitists receive bonuses, raises, fancy perks, and rides on brand new private corporate jets, while these very same economic vampires suck the currency blood right out of the treasury through bailouts and zero percent loans from the Federal Reserve Bank. We stare in amazement that big CEOs ask for bailouts while refusing to give up their salaries, bonuses and retirement plans as they look to the taxpayers to provide infusion funding for their failing corporations. It’s the No Corporatist Left Behind Program.

But wait!!! We CAN knock them silly just by telling them that we WILL NOT be buying any new cars, or borrowing money from their bank loan officers, or looking for a new house unless President Obama changes his HOPE direction and points it at the guidepost labeled Working American.

We want President Obama and his team of coaches from CITI, or Boeing, or GE, or Morgan Stanley, or wherever told that we Americans are tired of his derailed train already!!! Enough is enough. We had 8 years of an ignorant fool boy-president who destroyed the nation’s economy. He took 22 years of a slow burning economic fire, and poured gasoline all over it. President Obama, enough is enough.

We are tired of the same old faces. Geithner, Summers and Rubin, and the rest of the capitulators, who feel that cheating on their taxes is acceptable until they are caught, and are steering your train over to those very same people who have been stealing the nation’s economic wealth away from working Americans. Enough is enough!!!

We have now created the Consumer Thrift Reform Movement. We will contact our Congressional representatives to tell them that we will not borrow money from any “too-big-to-fail” financial institutions. If we have to borrow, we will go down the street to our local savings and loan, credit union, or bank. But that is only if we must!!! We will transfer or keep in place our accounts in those local banks, too.

We will stop spending our disappearing wages except for our daily essentials. We will withhold our spending until President Obama turns his Demo-con train onto the populist/progressive tracks.

We will do what the women in the play Lysistrata did. They withheld sex from their husbands until they decided to stop warring. We will stop spending until you either nationalize the failed banks, open up their books, consolidate their assets, write off their losses, and restructure, or let them go into bankruptcy. Take back their trillions of TARP and Fed fund window “loans”, which were really handouts, in exchange for their worthless toxic debt. OH BOY!

President Obama, you also need to stop the mortgage devaluation bleeding, otherwise, more Americans will walk away from their mortgages and leave their homes empty!!! Is this what you want, 8 million empty homes by the end of 2009? Fannie and Freddie already know that these home cannot be sold, so they are going forward to try and rent them!! I guess we will need more rental properties. Take whatever assets are inside those “too-big-to-fail” financial predatory institutions and salvage the mortgage crisis.

Next, YOU MUST tell any and all multi-national corporations that have facilities in the United States to bring back those jobs and profits NOW or they will be heavily taxed and tariffed. YOU need to stop listening to the thieves and economic predators, and begin listening to working America.

Then you must END our military aggression in the Middle East. We must return the $500 billion per year from Iraq and Afghanistan. We must downsize our military budget, since we spend more than all other nations combined.

Finally, you must stop excessive spending on Homeland Security as they put funds into spying on Americans and more needless and extravagant programs and more. We cannot afford all of these fat-cat spending programs that do not bring forth an economic recovery, but only take away from it. It is time that private companies begin to manufacture sustainable products that improve the quality of life, and assist the nation out of its economic crisis and not contribute to it by draining the treasury of funds that are needed to remake America.

We hold the power!! If we say NO to spending, so goes the economy, in the first 12 months of YOUR watch.

I hear you now saying that such a scheme would hurt our fellow working Americans, but my answer is that your plan will do more damage over a longer period of time. Your plan will be directing trillions of borrowed money from foreign countries that will NOT rescue our economy from the current and approaching disaster. My plan is a protest action; your plan is an economic policy. My plan would put Americans back to work, and reduce the trade deficit, as well as stimulate the economy from the bottom up instead of from the top down.

Your plan is to leave top tier tax cuts in place, and capitulate to those sending you text messages on your beloved Blackberry.

Working Americans are heading toward a severe recession, if not a depression that may last 10 or more years. Those at the top have plenty to live on, even though they may have to downsize a small bit of their lives, since many have cheated on their taxes, no doubt. Yet, they made their trillions, collectively, from their creation of the world’s biggest Ponzi Scheme. Enough is enough!