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What we have seen and what we have received as the remedies to the problem have just been more of the same chicanery that led to the disaster in the first place. We still have the same players, the same crooks and the same "remedies".
Have you ever noticed that the more it changes, the more it remains the same ? Like the French phrase...plus ca change..
We have seen whole industries collapse because they did not take account of the real economy. We have seen the inflation of real estate bubbles, credit bubbles and others too numerous to mention. I remember talking to my mother 3 years ago about the property bubble in Ireland at the time. People were buying houses to beat the band and you were nobody unless you had a property or two. I remember saying to her that this has got to end when the price of property will be too expensive for people to afford and I was right. Property prices took a nosedive and the same people who bet on increased equity and a permanent gravy train were in the can. A roof over someone's head is a basic right in life and should never have been the subject of a speculative game. The moment arrived when a 2 Bedroom semi cost 500,000 Euros. This meant that, to buy the property, you needed two salaries. This meant in turn that a husband and wife had to be both working just to pay the mortgage. This resulted in a whole generation of children who were raised by nurseries and not by their parents. This, in itself, was a bad thing as children need their parents, not just for 20 minutes when they arrive home after traveling 60 miles to work and back and just about have time to tuck the kids in to bed before the manic performance begun again at 0500 the next morning. Is this a life ? No. This was one of the more saddening results of the property game.
The Treasury in America has led the world in the curative process to heal the wounded monster that they had created. The rest of the world has followed suit like lambs to the slaughter. YES, we will guarantee bank deposits, YES we will inject "liquidity" back in to the banks, YES we will regulate the financial markets more, YES, we will ask the IMF to supervise the transactions in derivatives and CDO's and be the Guardian of the Free Market. Who are these guys kidding ? Money does not come out of thin air nor does it grow on trees. Asking the IMF to be the guardian of our economic system goes beyond reasonable credence as it was the latter that sent out the "Economic hitmen" to impoverish and rob any lame duck in the globalised arena. Argentina and several African economies can attest to this.
We have seen in graphic detail just how useless and such a waste of taxpayer money was the TARP, along with the injection of capital in to Banks and financial institutions across the planet . The Banks just took the money and used it to acquire other companies and added the spare change to their ever decreasing balance sheets. Bank execs held multimillion seminars in tropical paradises to discuss the problems that they had created, they gave themselves huge bonuses for the hard work they had done in destroying the wealth of working people, they hoarded all the money for themselves, cranking up interest rates, reducing credit card spending limits to further debilitate the well being of their victims. They have stopped lending to industries because they know exactly what the future holds and want to cover their own behinds before lending any money that might actually boost production and create some jobs. This last point is important as the supply of credit for real production is essential in any truly productive economy. They were only too happy to finance consumption up to now, knowing full well that the moment would arrive when the goose could no longer lay any eggs. At this stage they can at least cook the goose.
Let's face it folks, there is no bailout for the ordinary Joe on the street, there is only free money for the same folks who brought us this disaster and the same folks who have had all politicians in their back pocket for generations. That's it. There is no argument on this. If you have one, I'd love to hear about it
We have had the spectre of "change" foisted upon us during the recent U.S. election, a glimmer of hope, a "change we can believe in" but , hold on a second, the new administration has surrounded itself with the same group of gangsters who engineered the crisis in the first place. the same people who brought us the repeal of the Glass Steagal Act, the same people who brought us the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act (FSMA). Details here. All of the preceding legislation designed to remove the restrictions on totally irresponsible financial grifts without any official oversight. These same people are now crafting the new economic policy that is supposed to rescue the economy. Simply put, who are they kidding ?
It seems inevitable that the situation is on a downward plunge towards the abyss and there is nothing that will be done to prevent it. This is policy, not happenstance. We have insiders like Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright and Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister warning that America is going to experience an event that will dwarf 9/11 in magnitude and Barack Obama will have to have the "Moral Character" to be able to make unpalatable decisions with regard to the American people. What are we talking about here ? Well, we have to look at what's already in place. Prison camps constructed by Halliburton throughout the U.S., the legal basis for imposing martial law, the continuity of Government plan still active, the return of some brigades of U.S. army soldiers assigned to "civil unrest" duties. Add the pieces up and you know what you see. You don't need a guide here. The powers that be know damn well what's on the horizon; they do not envisage an economic recovery and they only see an opportunity to realize an age old dream of unlimited power and an impoverished population with no choice but to go along or starve.
Alex Jones has always been on the ball with this. World government and the enslavement of the population. A few years ago, one looked at the evidence and thought that Alex was on to something good here, but recently, as I look at it, all the pieces are slotting in to place. We actually have world leaders talking of a "New World Order" right now in front of millions of viewers who are probably hearing the expression for the first time. This just goes to show how efficient the mainstream media has been in spinning information for the masses for the last so many years.
It has arrived at the stage where there is no possibility of real change without a commensurate fundamental change in basic thinking. We need to rid ourselves of the poison of mainstream TV "News", to rid ourselves of patronizing and intellectually insulting "editorials", to rid ourselves of the belief that elections can change the political landscape.
The sad part about this is that Governments realize that the Internet is the last bastion of Free speech, the last refuge of independent news and opinion. Australia has just announced that there will be no free access to the Internet anymore and it reserves the right to remove "political hate speech" from the provided content. Call it what it is; This is Fascism pure and simple . Other countries have been working on this as well, especially in the U.S, where "protecting the children" has been the rallying cry for control over Internet content. Have these people "protected the children" from poverty ? Have they "protected the children" from a seriously sub standard education ? Have they "Protected the children" from a future where they will have no hope of realizing a productive future, as the basis for the latter has been systematically destroyed ? Simple answer: NO.
Gerald Celente predicted today that there would be revolution in America and probably elsewhere as well. Is it any surprise ? How much can populations take ? How much do you have to take from a Man or Woman before they say "ENOUGH".
Bailing out is only worth it if you can remove more water than is coming in, and with every "real economy" report that comes in, the waters rise even faster. General Motors is failing fast because it makes stuff nobody wants to buy. In free market terms that means that it goes to the wall. This is the system that the Fed have stood by for all those years as they put their trust in "Free Market Forces". Have they been blinded to the consequences of their actions and think that the solution to failing banks and manufacturers is to simply give them more money without even looking at their balance sheets. Would you trust Paulson or Bernancke to run your hedge fund ? I wouldn't think so. Let's take a look at exactly how much the bailouts come to so far..
| TARP | $700 billion |
| Bear Stearns | $29 billion |
| Detroit Big Three | $25 billion |
| AIG | $150 billion |
| Fannie and Freddie | $200 billion |
| Mortgage-backed secs. | $144 billion |
| FHA Rescue bill | $300 billion |
| JPM for Lehman | $87 billion |
| Fed’s TAF program | $200 billion |
| Commercial paper | $50 billion |
| Fed currency swaps | $740 billion |
Total: $2.7 Trillion
Not a single dime of the trillions of dollars thrown at the problem so far has led to an improvement in the system that it was meant to fix.
Quarterly losses are mounting, Banks, along with manufacturing, are dumping employees and slashing costs to "Weather out the financial crisis" , as if the same crisis can be cured simply by grabbing their employees' tax dollars and then firing them to reduce costs.
It's the people who are being fired who are the engine of the real economy. They're the ones who buy financial services, sign up to interest bearing mortgages, buy General Motors F 150 pickups and groceries down the local Target or Wall Mart. The Financial sector can do whatever it wants with the free money but none of it will benefit the people whom it was meant for originally.
The U.S. is shooting the final bolt at the problem. I say the Final Bolt because when they go to borrow the money from foreign governments and investors they will see that the well is fast drying up. For several trillions of dollars to be raised the amount of Treasuries that will have to be sold will bring the forces of the Free Market to bear. An overabundance of product brings a consequent reduction in price. Can anyone say "Bond Collapse" ? Every foreign investor currently holding the bonds already bought will find themselves with a serious hole in their collective pockets. Uncle Sam will have just maxed out his credit card. Is this the big talking point at the upcoming G20 summit ? Each and every party will have to come out of this meeting with something. Somehow, the foreign debt of the US will have to be accounted for. China and Japan will want to feel that their foreign reserves are actually worth something. The call for a "New World Order" is back in the headlines and heralds a ground shift in how the world will be run. There is no alternative as the old system has gotten to the point that it can no longer survive. The engine that kept the American Dream alive and pushed the growth of China is now gone as the there are no more Golden eggs to be laid. That Duck was shot a while ago by Alan Greenspan and successive Fed chairmen. Keeping an eye on the 10 Year Treasury yield these days has become a nail biting nightmare.
So with the "Bailing out" of moribund institutions, all that has been achieved here is the certainty that things will get steadily worse. Nothing that has been done so far has reduced unemployment, increased tax revenue, increased the value of real estate or stopped the Soup Kitchen queues getting longer. It has all been for nothing, well except for the Royal Bank of Scotland execs who threw themselves a $300,000 champagne party, no doubt to celebrate their collective genius at managing other people's money.
So why throw even more money at the problem when it obviously is not solving the problem ? In the case of General Motors, the loss in unemployment terms could come to 2.5 million. Gone would be the health care that the company provides it's current and former employees. This would seem like a worthy candidate as the fallout is so great that this company is just "too big to fail". But the system has already failed and the inevitability of more company failures is guaranteed...there is no getting away from this unless the system is turned on it's head. The Real Economy has to drive the Means of Production and not the other way round. There is no point in General Motor's burning through all their savings for another year using more tax payers money if , by the end of that year, there is nobody left to buy their products. This simply amounts to an unbelievably gross waste of money. There is no return on this investment and the only upside is that some of the employees will get to keep their jobs and healthcare a little longer.Thousands of jobs will be lost via mergers and cost cutting schemes anyway.
The only realistic way to save General Motors is to invest in what General Motors actually earns money doing; Selling automobiles. This is not achieved by handing them cash, it is achieved in investing in their customers, who at present, are a fast diminishing commodity. The latter is the indespensable component of the system, not the other way round.There are a lot of other Auto companies out there that offer much better products at a lower price and if GM is not up to the mark it's history anway.
If the $2.7 trillion dollars had been invested in rebuilding America's Economy, i.e. creating jobs for the unemployed, reducing capital gains tax, and thus stimulating real economic growth, repairing infrastructure, renovating derelict factories, keeping people in their homes, keeping them mobile and maintain a disposable income, reducing their tax payments, then the return on the investment would have been greater. A new fair banking system, to replace the current racket that has caused wholesale destruction, could have been organised along the lines of Credit Unions where the customers actually own a part of the institution. This would have heralded a step in the right direction to recovery by basing the economy on real value, not CDO's, MBS's and Derivatives, which is just a way of lighing a fire downwind of you and hoping the wind doesn't change. By doing precisely the opposite, the available capital has been squandered and ended up in the pockets of the same people who are responsible for the mess in the first place. Oh and by the way, American Express has just decided to become a bank and feed at the taxpayer trough. Come on down, the water's just fine. One time only Cash Giveaway ! Get it while we still get to keep it !
It's time to stop the deliberate waste of public money and hold our "Benefactors" to account. The "useless eaters" (Henry Kissinger) are watching their hedge fund being managed by the largest coalition of organised crime in human history.
We are all standing dumbstruck in front of a Giant Onion whose layers are being peeled off one at a time. With each layer exposed, the reality dawns brighter and we are beginning to discover real meaning behind current events.
Looking back even over the last year reveals a ground shift in Global power as each player shuffles in to a more dominant and convincing position. Since the “Credit Crunch” began early last year we have seen Russia and China form a mutual defense pact, Russia and China asserting their ties to Iran and making it extremely clear that any attack on Iran would be a direct attack on Russia and China’s economic interests. We have seen a gradual willingness on the part of the US to withdraw from Iraq, the only caveat being that they leave behind a compliant dictatorship that will nurture US corporate interests. The backlash from the Iraqi opposition and Al Sadr has been vehement that this arrangement will definitely not fly. We have also heard NATO commanders saying that Afghanistan is an unwinnable war. Big surprise here, you cannot win a ground war with aerial bombardment, that lesson was well learned in Vietnam. The Taliban have all but taken over Kabul by now and “President” Hamid Karzai is soiling his Gucci underwear with the seeming retreat of his buddies who forced him in to power in 2001.
We have also seen the failed US backed attempt to retake the breakaway regions in Georgia. The Russians knew exactly what this was about. The US has specialized for decades in sub surface interference in other countries all over the world to further strategic / Economic goals. The Russians sent the US a very verbose message by crushing Georgia and destroying it’s military infrastructure, and, I may say, with absolute justification. This was a backdoor invasion of Russia’s interests and territorial integrity and had to be resisted. No use in Europe and the US calling Sour Grapes on this one; you wake the Bear, he’s going to come after you!
We also have seen a more conciliatory tone come from Washington vis a vis Iran and it’s Nuclear program. All the screaming and shouting of Israel is losing force in the US as the later realize that they are a power whose day of reckoning is dawning and there is very little they can do about it. The US now wants to reestablish diplomatic ties with Iran in an attempt to have it take up the role of Cop on the Block in the Middle East. Too little too late, the Russians and Chinese were playing chess while the US had a mentally challenged cowboy trying to understand the rules of checkers.
Nemesis is a bitch.
In Europe, we are beginning to see a gradual polarization of interest as each country realizes that the European Community is just that, but in name only. Each sovereign state has it’s own particular problems to deal with as the tidal wave of economic payback crashes over different beaches.
Ireland, for example, is basically an agricultural country, as it always has been fundamentally; it was only after Ireland joined the EU that we got the money to change our country around. The fatal mistake , however, was that we relied on giving US companies huge tax breaks to settle there and employ hundreds of thousands of Irish people who suddenly found themselves living the American Dream. Little did we realize that our employers would move on as soon as they found a cheaper country.
Germany, on the other hand, already had it’s huge industrial powerhouse grinding along in the Ruhr valley and elsewhere. These Germans knew from bitter experience that a powerful industrial base is the engine of an economy. Being subject to the whims of foreign companies who outsource to the lowest bidder Is not.
This is exactly what happened in the US but with a cruel twist. It was the US government themselves that facilitated the outsourcing of American jobs to Asia and elsewhere. Thus have they created an unfillable void that has destroyed the country. Make no mistake, the Financial crisis in the US will only get worse and what you are seeing from the Government is the wholesale looting of the public coffers before the game is up. Period.
Iran, China, and Qatar are now in the process of forming a natural gas consortium somewhat along the lines of OPEC. With Venezuela looking to get in to OPEC, as well and the defense cooperation between Russia and Venezuela, the pieces are moving around the board and Uncle Sam can only look on and despair. So, knowing the game is up, the US oligarchy – that is exactly what it always has been – take to what they know best: Robbery.
Interesting comment from Colin Powell the other day ( This man has an uncanny knack for spilling beans where one would assume he shouldn’t)…
"The problems will always be there and there's going to be a crisis which will come along on the 21st, 22nd of January that we don't even know about right now.
So I think what the President has to start to do is to start using the power of the oval office and the power of his personality to convince the American people and convince the world that America is solid, that America is going to move forward, we are going to fix our economic problems, we're going to meet out overseas obligations."
Well, what do we make of this ? Powell is more or less conceding the game right there. By “meeting our foreign obligations” does he mean that the US pays back all those 30 trillion dollars worth of IOU’s that the US has been sending over to Japan, China etc over the last 30 years after Nixon pulled the plug on the Gold standard and the American Dollar ? Nixon had no choice to do that as there was not enough Gold to cover the bill.
Payback is a Bitch.
Looks like the current administration, after having created the mess, wants to dump it in to Obama’s lap. But where’s the problem ? They have already looted the nation and spread the loot amongst themselves and their buddies. Poor Barack Obama thought he could just walk in and change things, but as the campaign wound on he did realize that it’s a rigged game and the proper tribute had to be paid to his masters in Washington and Israel.
So, all in all folks, looks like Uncle Sam , as the United States of America,has pretty much thrown in the towel. What beast will be incarnated to replace it no doubt will be revealed the “New World Order” that everyone is talking about these days.
Thinking back on what has been happening over the last few years, one gets the vivid impression that Government always has a plan and even when it seems that they have lost the plot and are running around like headless chickens, there is a method behind the madness. The Nafta superhighway is already in operation and Mexican freight goes straight in to the US with no hindrance from customs. Ever since Alan Greenspan lowered interest rates to ridiculous levels, which basically created the debt bubble, America has been living on borrowed time. Mounting debt to China was always going to lead to a debt default as the US would never be in a position to pay it back and this was obvious from the start to even the most dim witted politicians and Businessmen. So the introduction of the Amero as the only solution to an engineered event like what is happening right now, would be presented to the world as the only viable option after the Dollar is totally destroyed. How the world will respond to this is very open to question, but the perception of the US as a working model of Capitalism is fast fading even in the view of EUropean and Eastern leaders.
Article below..
The US Secretary of the Treasury has informed the China Development Bank that the US has shipped $800 Billion of a new currency called the Amero, which is to be based upon the merging of the economies of The United States, Mexico and Canada into what is termed as The North American Union.
The current American debt obligation to
Virtually unknown to the American people is that their current leader of the US Department of Treasury, Henry M. Paulson, Jr., has been tasked by President Bush to lead the efforts to join the economies of the US, Canada and Mexico and is also the head of the North American Development Bank, the bi-national financial institution established by the United States and Mexico to further the merging of their economies, and the leader of the Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC), the organization created by the governments of the United States and Mexico to further the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
In this blog I will be suggesting various ways to safeguard yourself from Economic Oblivion with timely investment of your remaining resources. The important thing to remember is that, even as the House of Cards comes tumbling down, it's still possible to profit on the way down.
We didn't make this mess so I don't have any moral qualms about securing my own future and that of my children.
So, with that in mind, let me know what YOU think is happening right now and let's get the ball rolling as there is not a lot of time left and this is the point to remember; Do not have any illusions that bailing out Banks with Taxpayer money will cure a problem whose enormous mass has only begun to break through the Ice..more on that later.
