The Financial Instrument That Could Save the Economy - and Why It Hasn't

From Truth-out.org, by Dr. Ellen Brown, 2-24-13. Read link here.

As QE is practiced today, the money created on a computer screen never makes it into the real, producing economy.

Quantitative easing (QE) is supposed to stimulate the economy by adding money to the money supply, increasing demand. But so far, it hasn't been working. Why not? Because as practiced for the last two decades, QE does not actually increase the circulating money supply. It merely cleans up the toxic balance sheets of banks.

A real "helicopter drop" that puts money into the pockets of consumers and businesses has not yet been tried. Why not? Another good question.

When Ben Bernanke gave his famous helicopter money speech to the Japanese in 2002, he was not yet chairman of the Federal Reserve. He said then that the government could easily reverse a deflation, just by printing money and dropping it from helicopters.

"The US government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent)," he said, "that allows it to produce as many US dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost." Later in the speech, he discussed "a money-financed tax cut," which he said was "essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman's famous 'helicopter drop' of money." Deflation could be cured, said Friedman, simply by dropping money from helicopters.

It seemed logical enough. If the money supply were insufficient for the needs of trade, the solution was to add money to it. Most of the circulating money supply consists of "bank credit" created by banks when they make loans. When old loans are paid off faster than new loans are taken out (as is happening today), the money supply shrinks. The purpose of QE is to reverse this contraction.

But if debt deflation is so easy to fix, then why have the Fed's massive attempts to pull this maneuver off failed to revive the economy? And why is Japan still suffering from deflation after 20 years of quantitative easing?

On a technical level, the answer has to do with where the money goes. The widespread belief that QE is flooding the economy with money is a myth. Virtually all of the money it creates simply sits in the reserve accounts of banks.

That is the technical answer, but the motive behind it may be something deeper.

An Asset Swap Is Not a Helicopter Drop

As QE is practiced today, the money created on a computer screen never makes it into the real, producing economy. It goes directly into bank reserve accounts, and it stays there. Except for the small amount of "vault cash" available for withdrawal from commercial banks, bank reserves do not leave the doors of the central bank.

According to Peter Stella, former head of the Central Banking and Monetary and Foreign Exchange Operations Divisions at the International Monetary Fund:

Banks do not lend 'reserves....' Whether commercial banks let the reserves they have acquired through QE sit 'idle' or lend them out in the internet bank market 10,000 times in one day among themselves, the aggregate reserves at the central bank at the end of that day will be the same.

This point is also stressed in Modern Monetary Theory. As explained by Prof. Scott Fullwiler:

Banks can't 'do' anything with all the extra reserve balances. Loans create deposits; reserve balances don't finance lending or add any 'fuel' to the economy. Banks don't lend reserve balances except in the federal funds market, and in that case the Fed always provides sufficient quantities to keep the federal funds rate at its ... interest rate target.

Reserves are used simply to clear checks between banks. They move from one reserve account to another, but the total money in bank reserve accounts remains unchanged. Banks can lend their reserves to each other, but they cannot lend them to us.

QE as currently practiced is simply an asset swap. The central bank swaps newly created dollars for toxic assets clogging the balance sheets of commercial banks. This ploy keeps the banks from going bankrupt, but it does nothing for the balance sheets of federal or local governments, consumers or businesses.

Central Bank Ignorance or Sabotage? Another Look at the Japanese Experience

That brings us to the motive. Twenty years is a long time to repeat a policy that isn't working.

UK Professor Richard Werner invented the term quantitative easing when he was advising the Japanese in the 1990s. He says he had something quite different in mind from the current practice. He intended for QE to increase the credit available to the real economy. Today, he says:

All QE is doing is to help banks increase the liquidity of their portfolios by getting rid of longer-dated slightly less liquid assets and raising cash.... Reserve expansion is a standard monetarist policy and required no new label.

Werner contends that the Bank of Japan (BOJ) intentionally sabotaged his proposal, adopting his language, but not his policy; and other central banks have taken the same approach since.

In his 2003 book Princes of the Yen, Werner maintains that in the 1990s, the BOJ consistently foiled government attempts at creating a recovery. As summarized in a review of the book:

The post-war disappearance of the military triggered a power struggle between the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan for control over the economy. While the ministry strove to maintain the controlled economic system that created Japan's post-war economic miracle, the central bank plotted to break free from the ministry by reverting to the free markets of the 1920s....

They reckoned that the wartime economic system and the vast legal powers of the Ministry of Finance could only be overthrown if there was a large crisis - one that would be blamed on the ministry. While observers assumed that all policy-makers have been trying their best to kick-start Japan's economy over the past decade, the surprising truth is that one key institution did not try hard at all.

Werner maintains that the Bank of Japan not only blocked the recovery, but actually created the bubble that precipitated the downturn:

Those central bankers who were in charge of the policies that prolonged the recession were the very same people who were responsible for the creation of the bubble....

They ordered the banks to expand their lending aggressively during the 1980s. In 1989, [they] suddenly tightened their credit controls, thus bringing down the house of cards that they had built up before....

With banks paralyzed by bad debts, the central bank held the key to a recovery: Only it could step in and create more credit. It failed to do so, and hence the recession continued for years. Thanks to the long recession, the Ministry of Finance was broken up and lost its powers. The Bank of Japan became independent and its power has now become legal.

In the US, too, the central bank holds the key to recovery. Only it can create more credit for the broad economy. But reversing recession has taken a backseat to resuscitating zombie banks, maintaining the feudal dominion of a private financial oligarchy.

In Japan, interestingly, all that may be changing with the election of a new administration. As reported in a January 2013 article in Business Week:

Shinzo Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party swept back into power in mid-December by promising a high-octane mix of monetary and fiscal policies to pull Japan out of its two-decade run of economic misery. To get there, Prime Minister Abe is threatening a hostile takeover of the Bank of Japan, the nation's central bank. The terms of surrender may go something like this: Unless the BOJ agrees to a 2 percent inflation target and expands its current government bond-buying operation, the ruling LDP might push a new central bank charter through the Japanese Diet. That charter would greatly diminish the BOJ's independence to set monetary policy and allow the prime minister to sack its governor.

From Bankers' Bank to Government Bank

Making the central bank serve the interests of the government and the people is not a new idea. Prof. Tim Canova points out central banks have only recently been declared independent of government:

Independence has really come to mean a central bank that has been captured by Wall Street interests, very large banking interests. It might be independent of the politicians, but it doesn't mean it is a neutral arbiter. During the Great Depression and coming out of it, the Fed took its cues from Congress. Throughout the entire 1940s, the Federal Reserve as a practical matter was not independent. It took its marching orders from the White House and the Treasury - and it was the most successful decade in American economic history.

To free the central bank from Wall Street capture, Congress or the president could follow the lead of Shinzo Abe and threaten a hostile takeover of the Fed unless it unless it directs its credit fire hose into the real economy. The unlimited, near-zero-interest credit line made available to banks needs to be made available to federal and local governments.

When a similar suggestion was made to Ben Bernanke in January 2011, however, he said he lacked the authority to comply. If that was what Congress wanted, he said, it would have to change the Federal Reserve Act.

And that is what may need to be done: Rewrite the Federal Reserve Act to serve the interests of the economy and the people.

Webster Tarpley observes that the Fed advanced $27 trillion to financial institutions through the TAF (Term Asset Facility), the TALF (Term Asset-backed Securities Loan Facility) and similar facilities. He proposes an Infrastructure Facility extending credit on the same terms to state and local governments. It might offer to buy $3 trillion in 100-year, zero-coupon bonds, the minimum currently needed to rebuild the nation's infrastructure. The collateral backing these bonds would be sounder than the commercial paper of zombie banks, since it would consist of the roads, bridges and other tangible infrastructure built with the loans. If the bond issuers defaulted, the Fed would get the infrastructure.

Quantitative easing as practiced today is not designed to serve the real economy. It is designed to serve bankers who create money as debt and rent it out for a fee. The money power needs to be restored to the people and the government, but we need an executive and legislature willing to stand up to the banks. A popular movement could give them the backbone. In the meantime, states could set up their own banks, which could leverage the state's massive capital and revenue base into credit for the local economy.

The coming drone attack on America

By Naomi Wolf, from The Guardian, 12-21-12

Drones on domestic surveillance duties are already deployed by police and corporations. In time, they will likely be weaponised.

People often ask me, in terms of my argument about "ten steps" that mark the descent to a police state or closed society, at what stage we are. I am sorry to say that with the importation of what will be tens of thousands of drones, by both US military and by commercial interests, into US airspace, with a specific mandate to engage in surveillance and with the capacity for weaponization – which is due to begin in earnest at the start of the new year – it means that the police state is now officially here.

In February of this year, Congress passed the FAA Reauthorization Act, with its provision to deploy fleets of drones domestically. Jennifer Lynch, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, notes that this followed a major lobbying effort, "a huge push by […] the defense sector" to promote the use of drones in American skies: 30,000 of them are expected to be in use by 2020, some as small as hummingbirds – meaning that you won't necessarily see them, tracking your meeting with your fellow-activists, with your accountant or your congressman, or filming your cruising the bars or your assignation with your lover, as its video-gathering whirs.

Others will be as big as passenger planes. Business-friendly media stress their planned abundant use by corporations: police in Seattle have already deployed them.

An unclassified US air force document reported by CBS (pdf) news expands on this unprecedented and unconstitutional step – one that formally brings the military into the role of controlling domestic populations on US soil, which is the bright line that separates a democracy from a military oligarchy. (The US constitution allows for the deployment of National Guard units by governors, who are answerable to the people; but this system is intended, as is posse comitatus, to prevent the military from taking action aimed at US citizens domestically.)

The air force document explains that the air force will be overseeing the deployment of its own military surveillance drones within the borders of the US; that it may keep video and other data it collects with these drones for 90 days without a warrant – and will then, retroactively, determine if the material can be retained – which does away for good with the fourth amendment in these cases. While the drones are not supposed to specifically "conduct non-consensual surveillance on on specifically identified US persons", according to the document, the wording allows for domestic military surveillance of non-"specifically identified" people (that is, a group of activists or protesters) and it comes with the important caveat, also seemingly wholly unconstitutional, that it may not target individuals "unless expressly approved by the secretary of Defense".

In other words, the Pentagon can now send a domestic drone to hover outside your apartment window, collecting footage of you and your family, if the secretary of Defense approves it. Or it may track you and your friends and pick up audio of your conversations, on your way, say, to protest or vote or talk to your representative, if you are not "specifically identified", a determination that is so vague as to be meaningless.

What happens to those images, that audio? "Distribution of domestic imagery" can go to various other government agencies without your consent, and that imagery can, in that case, be distributed to various government agencies; it may also include your most private moments and most personal activities. The authorized "collected information may incidentally include US persons or private property without consent". Jennifer Lynch of the Electronic Frontier Foundation told CBS:

"In some records that were released by the air force recently … under their rules, they are allowed to fly drones in public areas and record information on domestic situations."

This document accompanies a major federal push for drone deployment this year in the United States, accompanied by federal policies to encourage law enforcement agencies to obtain and use them locally, as well as by federal support for their commercial deployment. That is to say: now HSBC, Chase, Halliburton etc can have their very own fleets of domestic surveillance drones. The FAA recently established a more efficient process for local police departments to get permits for their own squadrons of drones.

Given the Department of Homeland Security militarization of police departments, once the circle is completed with San Francisco or New York or Chicago local cops having their own drone fleet – and with Chase, HSBC and other banks having hired local police, as I reported here last week – the meshing of military, domestic law enforcement, and commercial interests is absolute. You don't need a messy, distressing declaration of martial law.

And drone fleets owned by private corporations means that a first amendment right of assembly is now over: if Occupy is massing outside of a bank, send the drone fleet to surveil, track and harass them. If citizens rally outside the local Capitol? Same thing. As one of my readers put it, the scary thing about this new arrangement is deniability: bad things done to citizens by drones can be denied by private interests – "Oh, that must have been an LAPD drone" – and LAPD can insist that it must have been a private industry drone. For where, of course, will be the accountability from citizens buzzed or worse by these things?

Domestic drone use is here, and the meshing has begun: local cops in Grand Forks, North Dakota called in a DHS Predator drone – the same make that has caused hundreds of civilian casualties in Pakistan – over a dispute involving a herd of cattle. The military rollout in process and planned, within the US, is massive: the Christian Science Monitor reportsthat a total of 110 military sites for drone activity are either built or will be built, in 39 states. That covers America.

We don't need a military takeover: with these capabilities on US soil and this air force white paper authorization for data collection, the military will be effectively in control of the private lives of American citizens. And these drones are not yet weaponized.

"I don't think it's crazy to worry about weaponized drones. There is a real consensus that has emerged against allowing weaponized drones domestically. The International Association of Chiefs of Police has recommended against it," warns Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the ACLU, noting that there is already political pressure in favor of weaponization:

"At the same time, it is inevitable that we will see [increased] pressure to allow weaponized drones. The way that it will unfold is probably this: somebody will want to put a relatively 'soft' nonlethal weapon on a drone for crowd control. And then things will ratchet up from there."

And the risk of that? The New America Foundation's report on drone use in Pakistan noted that the Guardian had confirmed 193 children's deaths from drone attacks in seven years. It noted that for the deaths of ten militants, 1,400 civilians with no involvement in terrorism also died. Not surprisingly, everyone in that region is traumatized: children scream when they hear drones. An NYU and Stanford Law School report notes that drones "terrorize citizens 24 hours a day".

If US drones may first be weaponized with crowd-control features, not lethal force features, but with no risk to military or to police departments or DHS, the playing field for freedom of assembly is changed forever. So is our private life, as the ACLU's Stanley explains:

"Our biggest concerns about the deployment of drones domestically is that they will be used to create pervasive surveillance networks. The danger would be that an ordinary individual once they step out of their house will be monitored by a drone everywhere they walk or drive. They may not be aware of it. They might monitored or tracked by some silent invisible drone everywhere they walk or drive."

"So what? Why should they worry?" I asked.

"Your comings and goings can be very revealing of who you are and what you are doing and reveal very intrusive things about you – what houses of worship you are going to, political meetings, particular doctors, your friends' and lovers' houses."

I mentioned the air force white paper. "Isn't the military not supposed to be spying on Americans?" I asked.

"Yes, the posse comitatus act passed in the 19th century forbids a military role in law enforcement among Americans."

What can we do if we want to oppose this? I wondered. According to Stanley, many states are passing legislation banning domestic drone use. Once again, in the fight to keep America a republic, grassroots activism is pitched in an unequal contest against a militarized federal government.

By 2020, it is estimated that as many as 30,000 drones will be in use in US domestic airspace. Photograph: US navy/Reuters

President Obama's Second Inauguration

Here we are celebrating the second inauguration of President Obama, yet we are still hearing from the stonewallers on the right. Listening to NPR this afternoon, I heard more delusional grandstanding by rightwing pundits.

Their old and stale presidential campaign slogan of the “takers and makers” is still being pulled up from the grave, and their belief that the corporate elite are the makers, when in reality they are the nation’s most dramatic, and at times, grotesque takers!!! They cannot make the profits they have experienced unless the government steps in to offer them significant handouts, perks and favors, along with opportunities to feed from the government gravy train.

They have loved their government no-bid contracts, government bid contracts, government military support in regions of the world where they are mining and drilling and need public protections to make their profits, along with shipping lanes protections; tax write-offs, tax breaks, corporation protections; patent and copyright protections; tax abatements; good roads, bridges, shipping ports, rails all paid for by the taxpayers; government grants; bailouts; government subsidies; cheap Federal Reserve borrowing; inexpensive government leases on public lands; and more!

When will they stop getting drunk on the Kool-Aid that they mix up for each other and serve in their fantasy beakers? I guess it will never end until they are further marginalized by a public that will wake up to the truth-one person at a time. Then and only then will the voting public choose candidates that represent THEIR own best interests and not the interests of the corporate elite who want to deny then health care, good wages, educational opportunities, and truth. Too many people have not a clue other than they are haters and deniers of fact.

The sad truth now is that more and more people are leaving high school without the skills that would allow their brains to read for meaning, analyze and formulate deductions from the content they are reading. Fiction is too abstract for many; therefore, schools are using non-fiction instead. Often we blame the teacher instead of blaming the individual, their family, or other factors.

Our GOPsychopathetics want to rail about their individualism and that people need to take care of themselves instead of having the government take care of them. Yet, this thinking fails when they blame teachers instead of the individual for not taking responsibility for their own learning. They want all of us to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps!

I would like Bobby Jindal aka Alfred E. Newman, and Mitch – the – Scarecrow (Wizard of Oz) – McConnell to sit on the floor and try pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. It cannot be done. It is a delusion. It is very clear that neither of them, nor their sociopathic cellmates in Congress or in various governorship positions have NEVER EVER accomplished a damn thing totally by themselves. Nor has BP or any other corporation, for that matter.

What we are hearing today from the rightwing GOPsychopathetics is that Obama needs to be less divisive and more uniting. How hypocritical these blank-slated humans are to their own history. Don’t they remember their last president LilboyBush who upon winning a second term said that he had gained political capital and was going to use it?

President Mission Accomplished spent his political capital giving more to the Real Takers of this nation while the Democrats felt it should be spent differently. On the other side, President Obama has always tried to compromise, find consensus, and communicate to the GOP, yet has found them not willing to do the same. The difference in the use of political capital is that President Obama has clearly stated his commitment to those who have paid into their payroll tax commitments and who expect to receive them upon retirement, while those in the GOP want to alter that commitment in favor of more and more offerings and transfers of wealth to those 1%ers buying up all the political favor cards.

One GOPie said on the radio that too many people are receiving Social Security and that should stop. The middle class don’t require such a benefit, since they are not that needy when compared to the less fortunate among us. Social Security is not a pending issue!! It can be fixed by simply removing the cap on wages over $106,800. At that point, a means testing formula could be implemented for those at the top of the earning’s scale.

I do believe that these GOPsychopathetics seem to ignore the fact that it has not been President Obama who has been divisive but the very folks on the right. We have had Boehner and McConnell both preaching how their objective was to stand in Obama’s way throughout his first term in hopes of making him a one-term president. Well, what they had hoped for just didn’t happen as they had expected. They decided to nominate Mr. 47% as their presidential candidate, and had their rape denying zombies run for congressional seats as they flushed diversity down the toilet. Don’t forget their hatred for anyone voting against them to do it easily. Or, their brigade of psychopaths led by the likes of Allen West hoping to retain their spot in the congressional dining room. And then, there is the Tea Party, which is totally bent over showing its array of obstructionist assholes.

So, the fact is that it has been the rightwing style jihadist (modified definition: refers to a person who believes that a far-right state governing the entire community of Americans must be created, and that this necessity justifies hateful and hostile conflict with those who stand in its way.) that have been standing in the way of progress, jobs, growth, stimulus, reforms in health care, banking, finance, taxes, military spending, global climate change, alternative energy development, and more.

We all know what the GOP playbook was throughout President Obama’s first term, now we have to see if Barack is able to use HIS political capital to set the stage for a turn over in 2014 that will send those obstructionist GOPies back home for good; and, if that would make a difference.

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

Mr. Incompetent Himself-Alan Greenspan Is The Heart Of The Fix The Debt Jihad

Whaddya Know? Professional Economy Wrecker Alan Greenspan Is at the Heart of the Insidious 'Fix the Debt Campaign, by Dean Baker, Alternet.org

Alan Greenspan will go down in history as the person who has done more damage to the U.S. economy and society that anyone who was not a foreign enemy. In fact the destruction he wreaked through his incompetence would also exceed the damage caused by almost all would-be enemies as well.

Greenspan accomplished the remarkable feat as Fed chair of ignoring the growth of the $8 trillion housing bubble. This bubble could not have been easier to see if it had been 500 feet high and lit up with huge neon signs saying "Huge Housing Bubble." But Greenspan insisted the bubble was not there.

And Greenspan somehow didn't recognize that the collapse of this massive bubble would devastate the economy....

If we had a political debate that was driven by evidence, where the accuracy of one's past judgements played any role in the credibility granted their current opinion, then Greenspan would be relegated to the role of ranting fool. His opinions on the economy would be given slightly less credibility than the mumblings of a street drunk...

"The Campaign to Fix the Debt started to come together at a salon dinner held in the backyard of Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, in the fall of 2011. An influential group of economic, political and business leaders — including the former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and Mark Bertolini, the chief executive of the Aetna insurance company — huddled in a too-small tent in the pouring rain."

Click the link to read the complete article.

These predators, or I should say sociopaths, really want to convert the United States into a total kleptocracy ruled by the corporate royalists who feed their underlings consulting fees and duty-free jobs after doing their corporate bidding while serving in government or in mindless think tanks funded by the corporate royalists.

The latest to receive a duty-free job is PA Congressman Jason Altmire, who now has a job with Florida Blue, since his Blue Dog role in the Congress was ousted by a Teabagging nutbag from his district. The revolving door of do-nothing jobs with benefits continues.

Their desires are to keep wages and salaries low or stagnated, jobs at a premium, and the consumer indebted to them via credit cards, and mortgages.

When will the working class voters wake up to their manipulation by the GOPsychopathetics they elect?

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

The Fiscal Cliff and the CEO Corporate Psychopaths Inside the Campaign To Fix The Debt

This country is filling up its time with frenzied talk about the Fiscal Cliff. The real story is how the corporate financial clots are hardening up the arteries of the nation’s circulatory system, which is made up mostly by hard working middle and lower class Americans. But, the GOP, which are “clot” deposits clogging the arteries restricting the flow of blood, or prosperity by layering their austerity proposals, or fatty deposits, upon the clots. Instead, they want to produce a cardio infarction that would lead toward a middle and lower class austerity diet, while those have caused the infarction would continue to suck off the government’s teat feeding from the glutinous trough of tax cuts, tax abatements, tax write-offs, bail outs, low tax rates, no-bid/bid government contracts, benefits from discounts when using public lands, benefits from military protections, such as trade lanes, government grants, subsidies, and list can go on and on and on.

Currently, we are seeing a feeding frenzy facilitated by the Campaign To Fix The Debt corporate groupies who want to stick-it to working people. They don’t believe that people, who don’t wear $1000 suits to work, or have padded expense account credit cards, or drive high end luxury cars to work, or have their executive assistants do their dirty work for them should be able to retire at 65 and receive their Social Security checks.

These corporate crybaby predators want the age extended so those who get their hands dirty, or strain their bodies, or are on their feet all day have to work extra years to receive what they have paid into by the age of 65.

These corporate crybaby predators don’t want these hard working people to receive Medicare, or Medicaid, at the price they are hoping to pay. They want cuts to Medicare so these people, who make the things that corporations make and sell, have to pay more for it straining their retirement budgets, while these CEO and CFO corporate predators, who, on average will receive $9 million, will retire in luxury.

These corporate crybabies are today’s modern day psychopaths.

From Dr. Brian Moench, written on Truthout.org—“Schizophrenics, Psychopaths Holding America Hostage”:

“A 2005 British study compared the psychological profiles of 39 senior business executives at leading British companies with those of mental patients in the UK's Broadmoor Special Hospital. The business leaders scored a clear "victory" in the three traits normally used to identify the emotional dysfunction of psychopaths: histrionic personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and compulsive personality disorder.



Other studies suggest that financial elites, like psychopaths, are more likely to feel like rules and societal constraints don't apply to them. Mitt Romney's entire business and political career, especially his approach to paying taxes, is the freshest, most conspicuous example of this personality trait.”

The piece goes on to talk about the CEOs behind the Fix The Debt efforts:

“Enter the 71 corporate CEOs behind the current Campaign To Fix The Debt. These are CEOs making the media rounds and spending $30 million dollars pounding the table on achieving federal deficit reduction exclusively by dismantling the social safety nets - Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security - while they sit on their own massive retirement funds averaging $9.1 million. These are the same CEOs who have contributed mightily to and benefited personally from the deficit they now want closed. Their companies have received trillions in federal war contracts, subsidies and bailouts, as well as specialized tax breaks and loopholes that virtually eliminate the companies' tax bills - companies like Goldman Sachs, Honeywell, AT &T, and Boeing. And no, they are not offering to reduce their feeding at the public trough, instead they want us to turn away the poor, disabled and the vulnerable, calling government support for them "low priority spending."

“Meanwhile, CEOs of the major fossil fuel companies have enough scientific expertise to know that their business model of extracting all the carbon they can get their hands on threatens the very survival of all of mankind, yet they are undaunted in doing exactly that. Who cares about the collapse of civilization when there are quarterly profits to be made? How are these captains of the fossil fuel industry not psychopaths?”

This is what America is dealing with inside our legislative branch of government. We have all kinds of deniers. Those who believe the Earth is only 6000 years old. Or, that climate change does not exist. Or, that a woman’s body can naturally abort the seed of a rapist. Or, that an aspirin held between a woman’s legs will prevent pregnancies.

We have psychopaths and the mentally deranged making decisions for the rest of the country. Most live inside the GOP, ie. The Grotesquely Oligarchian Psychopathic Party. This GOP is made up of John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor, and other “fatty deposits” that are not wanting to believe that a majority of the American people have said “NO” to their agenda and their presidential candidate.

They don’t want to hear what the American people have said:

• Raise tax rates on all those earning over $250K.
• Leave Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid alone.
• Make deep cuts in the defense budget.

And, here are some added pieces that the American people want to include in this Fiscal Cliff budget deal (or some facsimile thereof):

• Eliminate the cap on Social Security and then, means test anyone earning over $500k.
• Put into place a Wall Street financial transaction tax on all short term transactions.
• Tax dividends and capital gains at a 32% tax rate for anyone earning over $300K per year.
• Raise tax rates on all income over $250K.
• Cut tax loopholes for anyone earning over $500K.
• Demand that the government negotiate with drug companies for lower drug prices on behalf of all Medicare and Medicaid recipients just as it is done for the Veterans Association.
• Begin to reduce the amount of private contracts for work that military personnel can do.

Doing what I have listed could save the government a great deal of money, and bring about the desired level of new revenues the president is asking for.

Eliot Spitzer wrote on Alternet.org instituting a financial transaction tax in his piece titled

“Tax the Traders! It Would Solve Economic Crisis and Stop Reckless Activity”.

These high end corporate crybaby psychopaths and their legislative stooges in the GOP don’t want to see any government stimulus in order to put Americans back to work doing jobs that cannot be exported. They hate that!!!

They don’t want to admit that China is the world’s leader in manufacturing as a result of huge amounts of government stimulus. They love to ship jobs overseas, especially China, because of their large injections of government cash in the building of a successful industrial infrastructure.

In the article written by Dr. Stephen Leeb, on Seekingalpha.com, titled “A Bright Spot in the Global Economic Landscape”, we read just how successful China is and how Japan, in spite of its fiscal problems won’t institute austerity programs upon its people, but instead, believes in adding more stimulus into the economy.

“One bright spot in the global economic landscape, despite its many detractors today, is China. That country's economy appears to be stabilizing and is likely to accelerate in the months ahead. We learned recently, for instance, that China's manufacturing activity increased last month for the first time in more than a year. This is the latest in a string of reports in the last few months supporting a turnaround in China's economy. The de-stocking cycle there appears to be ending, and the rebuilding of inventories coupled with greater investment and government spending on infrastructure should drive domestic demand higher.”

“Looking further east: Japan, the world's third-largest economy, contracted by 3.5 percent in the third quarter on an annual basis - and the fourth quarter is shaping up to be equally bad. If so, it will mark the fifth time in the past 15 years that Japan's economy has fallen into recession.

Japan is less concerned with austerity, but still has a tough road ahead. To combat this situation, Japan's government is adding more stimulus, announcing a new fiscal package last week worth 880 billion yen ($10.7 billion), while the Bank of Japan expanded its asset purchase program in October to about 91 trillion yen ($1.1 trillion). Moreover, Shinzo Abe, the presumptive next prime minister after elections are held in a couple of weeks, has vowed to take additional monetary measures to drive down the value of the yen to spur the economy.”

These high end corporate crybaby predators, led by Peter G. Peterson, of the Peter Peterson Foundation and founder of the Comeback America Initiative, are wanting to gorge themselves on more and more government money and profits.

This is from Huffington Post, Richard (RJ) Eskow, in the piece “'Fix the Debt' Shows Its True, Billionaire-Funded, Anti-Tax Colors”:

“Peterson's Hydra-headed operation has gone by many names over the years, including the "Comeback America Initiative," "The Can Kicks Back," and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, to name just a few. But while the guises have been many, the message has always been the same: Gut Social Security and Medicare. Shrink government. And absurdly, reduce tax rates for millionaires and corporations in the name of deficit reduction.”

This is the agenda of American’s current number of corporate psychopaths.

Here is some propaganda spewed by one of the financial sucking predators on the right.

[Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and head of the Campaign to Fix the Debt] “MacGuineas herself has been an extreme anti-tax ideologue for quite some time, using her billionaire-funded platform for years to write appropriately revenue-unfriendly commentary, often with chirpy sales-brochure-ish titles like "The Corporate Tax Is Dying!" (Exclamation point included.) That 2005 piece, published in Legal Affairs, included statements like this one:

"American corporate tax rates are higher than those imposed by most of our trading partners, and that disadvantage takes its toll."

Not so. The official tax rate is on the high-end, but the actual taxes paid by US corporations are lower than those of most other industrialized countries.”

This is what the GOP is great at---lying, and then, lying some more!!

Here is more from the Maya Monster:

“MacGuineas proposes a severely regressive consumption tax that would hit consumers far harder than corporations. (There are arguments for well-structured "VAT" programs; MacGuineas doesn't make any of them.) She also argues for eliminating home mortgage deductions and employer health benefit tax breaks, which would have a devastating impact on the middle class.

MacGuineas is also given to arguing for another position: means-testing Social Security and Medicare. That's not surprising, since the idea was first widely promoted by another Peterson entity, the Concord Coalition. And while the idea may sound reasonable, the Concord Coalition's idea of "high earners" who ought to see their benefits cut starts at a lifetime average annual income of only $20,000 per year.”

Here is more from the Huffington Post author:

 “With all these tax breaks for high earners and corporations, do MacGuineas and Crew have any ideas for raising revenue? Actually, they do: take it from the struggling middle class. MacGuineas co-authored a paper with economist Martin Feldstein arguing for a cap on individual income tax deductions -- a move that would effectively gut employer health insurance and other vital middle-class programs. (Feldstein's name may ring a bell with viewers of Inside Job, which explored his use of government positions to promote deregulation -- to the great advantage of corporations he served as a board member.

That's the hidden agenda behind the Peterson/corporate/billionaire lobby: cut tax rates for millionaires, billionaires, and corporations; end the payroll tax; downsize government, including Social Security and Medicare; and gain a little added revenue by shifting the tax burden onto the middle class. And that's why the lobby's "Committee For a Responsible Federal Budget" runs articles promoting "rate-reducing tax reform" and others with titles like "Reducing Both Tax Rates and the Deficit is Possible."

Mr. Eskow concludes:

“Let's be clear: This crowd doesn't really care about deficits. It never has. It's an anti-tax group, which pursues its goals by fighting to downsize government programs and "reform" the Internal Revenue code.  Its natural allies are the Republican Party, the nation's mega-corporations, and billionaires.”

“Fix The Debt Campaign's Bipartisan Veneer Masks Conservative Backing”, written by Paul Blumenthal and Christina Wilkie, you will find a link to the list of the high end corporate crybaby psychopaths comprising the Campaign To Fix The Debt cabal.

Here is link for you.

http://www.fixthedebt.org/uploads/files/CEO-Fiscal-Leadership-Council-Membership.pdf

I want to conclude this piece by saying that President Obama and the Democrats MUST squash the dangerous group of psychopaths inside the Congress who are “clotting” up the system preventing it from moving forward toward improved health.

In addition, the Congress, the President, and Eric Holder must go after people like Florida Governor Rick Scott, and others around the nation that worked very hard to suppress the vote, intimidate voters, and control the outcome of the election through their tampering of the process.

We have learned that the organization called Anonymous had allegedly “firewalled” Karl Rove’s computer servers that were programmed to sabotage the Obama vote in Ohio. Rove did not know that his servers were blocked by Anonymous’ interventions numerous times. That is why Rove was shocked when Ohio went to Obama and was trying to convince Fox News to just wait for the real results.

http://www.examiner.com/article/anonymous-claims-karl-rove-tried-to-hack-steal-the-election

 Scott must be investigated, along with those in Ohio, and elsewhere, who did what they could to Fix The Vote in favor of Romney. We cannot allow this corruption, and treasonous acts to go untouched. We must speak out and push for justice, along with the Congressional Democrats and the President to not waver in regards to the debt problems.

The clot thickens!

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