Articulate Jerry from over at Eyeonwashington.blogspot.com has been kind enough to forward/share some of his thoughts regarding our dire political/economic predicament. Though you may not share all of his specific viewpoints, I'm quite certain you will enjoy the read nonetheless. Thanks Jerry!
EYE-ON-WASHINGTON
The political system is once again, creating a new quandary for our nation due to its failure to build a transparent government. Without appropriate supervision of its operations, and a necessary level of regulation to make sure the system responds to its own best interests and practices, and not for a select few, our democracy cannot work effectively.
This is how the derailment occurred under the direction of Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, our nation’s central bank dating back to 1913:
Along with a capitulating series of presidents, who followed the prescribed philosophy of unbridled and secretive capitalism under a trickle-down theory through a pyramid-style economic methodology, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson, Phil Gramm, and many within the Republican and Democratic Parties have presented us with the unbelievable meltdown we are all witnessing.
The late John Kenneth Galbreith, claimed that the trickle down theory was responsible for the Panic of 1896. It was called by the elites of the time “The Horse and Sparrow Theory”, meaning that if you fed the horse enough oats, the horse would pass on its good fortune to the sparrows hanging out along the road. No Sh*t! There is absolutely no example of trickle-down theory working anywhere in the world, as far as I have found, that would justify continuing it, beyond this point in time. It is only an idealistic, pie-in-the-sky theory.
I am no economist, but only a lay person intrigued by the crime story that has surrounded the privileged elite controlling the credit markets starting with the most powerful on top and moving on down to those who wanted to buy a piece of the wealth-accumulating dessert.
This 30-year run has led us to where we are today. 30 years ago this crime story began establishing its foothold, building its operations and soldiers creating a cyber-wealth empire, which has amounted to somewhere between $450-500 trillion in worldwide toxic derivatives now woven throughout the fabric of foreign central banks, financial institutions, private equity funds, hedge funds, pension funds and sovereign wealth funds. Now this cyber-wealth is on the verge of melting down exposing deceptive, secretive, greedy, and extremely under-capitalized practices.
What has been uncovered is that President Reagan’s free market, trickle-down economic express-train policy, driven by his senior engineer Alan Greenspan, has finally hit the inevitable wall. Its theory was to let those at the top of the pyramid acquire all the wealth they could and, through its basic fundamentals trickle down as a stimulus to those “sparrows” hanging along the roads of Main and Side Street. We just saw that it failed. Those 10% at the top have acquired massive amounts of wealth, while the economy has failed - leaving the middle class to suffer with foreclosures and real wage shrinkage. What we also witnessed was the top of the pyramid collapse, and the top-tier wealth accumulators seeing their lending financial institutions fall into conservatorship, insolvency or bankruptcy because of their trickle-down principles. These institutions have ended up holding toxic debt that was virtually worth-less - requiring them to activate their distress calls to congress and the White House. “Help, help. Save our wealth.”
Now the Treasury, Fed, and President have decided to create a new Pyramid Scheme but not molded out of private free market theory, but out of a socialistic model.
By infusing the largest failing financial institutions with the previous recipients of the Fed’s 2% open window, we will witness over one trillion dollars of taxpayer-treasury funds being given out to the Bush “Haves and Have-Mores”. In addition, the Fed has provided foreign sovereign wealth funds, and foreign central banks with taxpayer-treasury funds because they’re angry over their losses resulting from the Pyramid Scheme, since they ended up buying leveraged-out, AIG insured (through credit default swaps that are worth-less), and collateralized debt obligations made mostly out of mortgage debt. YIKES! Those countries took a major wealth-loss hit and now want the U.S. government to bail them out, too. They seem to have forgotten that such investments are NOT safe, nor guaranteed by the U.S. government, but risky. This has been the Great Unwinding for those at the top, or close to the top of the Pyramid Scheme. If you were not such a big player, you ended up drowning. As with the Titanic, only the elite and privileged got to the lifeboats in time leaving those in steerage to meet their fate. Remember, they all were told that the Titanic was unsinkable. That was what Greenspan and the financial institutions told their tickle-down investors, as well. SOL, as they say.
The new trickle-down fundamental is to privatize the earnings and socialize the losses. This is what McCain means when he says the fundamentals are good. They are good for the wealthiest 10% of Americans, not the many who have seen a $300 per year loss in real wages.
So how will it all unwrap over the next month, three months, 12 months? If I knew, I would be a rich guy, too. I’d be on Letterman, Oprah, Leno and Larry King. O’Reilly would be begging me to go on his show, but I would refuse and call him a jerk on the phone. I’d be on a big-time world tour, with Bono, and Krugman and Roubini, giving out advice and selling my book and Internet newsletter. I’d have a cottage by the lake, and a loft in the city. I’d be sitting pretty during the Great Unwinding. There would be groupies wanting me to analyze their investment portfolios. You know the shtick.
But based upon my gut intuition, the Bush Bailout Plan is unsustainable. The Bush Crime Family Conspiratorial Headquarters has one goal in mind, and that is to retain power for their constituents at the top of the Pyramid. The only way to do this is to get McCon elected. If and once elected, the Bush/Cheney crime bosses will hop off the White House grand cruise ship and onto their exiting water craft for safer ground. McCon and McPalin will be left to drift in the dangerous economic waters for 4 years as they so desperately campaigned for.
What the McCons don’t realize is that the U.S. does not have any money of its own left to spend, therefore, they must print more for the Great Infusion. They rely on foreigners to supply us with funds to shore up and patch up a leaking dyke. Will there be a time when they curtail their generosity toward a nation who has squandered it for “more wars, my friends”, or the Halliburton/Blackwater/ etc war machine, or the huge spying enterprise, or the aggression and hostility directed toward others? There is a strong possibility of it ending up backfiring into their faces - affecting their own self-interests. Can the dollar improve under this new socialized economy? Or will we see that these emperors, in fact, have no clothes, as the credit market fails to loosen up out of fear, as cash-strapped consumers put up the duct tape and plastic around their lives waiting for the economic fallout to pass further freezing up the economy. Does this sound like 1931?
Deflation is not to be disregarded. Nor is inflation, for that matter, as it impacts upon many life-sustaining essentials. A value-less dollar is a possibility. Can banks go under while holding on to their government/taxpayer- paid-for and issued treasury life preservers? Yes! How can the U.S. repair and rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan while we, too, crumble under the tribulations of war right here at home? I don’t see much time left.
The top-tier banksta gangstas wanted a guarantee that no “economic insurgents” would fire upon their financial institution’s value, which remains weak, rotten and vulnerable. Plus, these CEO administrators want to make a ton more money by wagering on themselves without the threat of the big, bad “economic insurgents” betting against them. This is how neo-fascism works. The government protects its own and, in this case, it’s the big political party supporters and holders of the oligarchy’s wealth. It all comes at a price! The Republicon Party and those making up the Demo-Con sub-party capitulators, such as Lieberman, will see bigger and fatter contributions fill their purses unless congress stands up to the Paulson/Bernanke/Bush/Banksta criminals.
The Bush administration responded to those he refers to as “my base” who wanted to protect themselves from “economic insurgents”, who are also known as “short sellers”. These are investor/traders who bet that the stock price would fall because the company’s fundamentals are not strong. Short selling has now been removed for 800 chosen stocks, including G.E., allowing the “haves” to bet on themselves without fear of the “insurgents” coming after their unbridled speculation.
Bush once said, “we fight them there, so we don’t have to fight them here.” But the war is right here in America and most people don’t realize it, although it has been very clear to many more of us this week. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan was partly created as a distraction from the economic war right here in America brought to us by the Wall-Street Gangstas, and their crime bosses. There is a war between Wall Street, and those living on Main and Side Street. Protect Wall Street first. They get the U.S. backed Protection Service. March forward and manipulate the heck out of the markets. Give protection money to the foreign central banks and sovereign wealth funds to keep them from dumping their U.S. Treasury bills and bonds, or dollars on the open market. By showering them with bailout funds, Hank “the Paulie” Paulson, and “Bada Bing” Bernanke, along with the White House crime bosses, have encouraged those international bankers to continue to fund our debt, USING OUR GOVERNMENT ISSUED BAILOUT MONEY. WOW! What a deal!
I believe if the government wants to socialize these financial institutions, then take them over. Cut the investors out. Let them take their hits. Replace the greedy CEOs. Remove their golden parachutes, bonuses, salaries, stock options and send them home. Raise taxes on the top-tier wage earners. Carve up these mega-financial institutions into smaller, more controllable, transparent and regulated entities. These corporate thieves, foot soldiers and “benefactors” must feel the financial pain and not the middle class who were victimized by their rise and fall.
In addition, we need to realize our hegemonic failure in the Middle East and shut the wars down. Leave the bases and
stop the human and economic losses. Orchestrate a massive industrial rebuilding movement that would focus on alternative energy and re-engineer an alternative energy grid. And finally, provide single-payer health care allowing workers to move between employers or start their own businesses without the fear of losing coverage and, remove the heavy health care burden experienced by businesses, which drains valuable capital needed for expansion.
You have just read my views - only one set of eyes and one mind.
Jerry Eyeonwashington.blogspot.com
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