Nothing Was Sacred: The Theft of the American Dream
by ilene - July 18th, 2010 1:39 pm
Jesse wrote a terrific opening post for Phil’s Weekend article and popular R.E.M. song "It’s The End of the World as We Know It." - Ilene
Nothing Was Sacred: The Theft of the American Dream
Courtesy of JESSE’S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
America must decide what type of country it wishes to be, and then conform public and foreign policy to those ends, and not the other way around. Politicians have no right to subjugate the constitutional process of government to any foreign organization.
Secrecy, except in very select military matters, is repugnant to the health of a democratic government, and is almost always a means to conceal a fraud. Corporations are not people, and do not have the rights of individuals as such.
Banks are utilities for the rational allocation of capital created by savings, and as utilities deserve special protections. All else is speculation and gambling. In banking, simpler and more stable is better. Low cost rules, as excessive financialisation is a pernicious tax on the real economy.
Financial speculation, as opposed to entrepreneurial investment, creates little value, serving largely to transfer wealth from the many to the few, often by exploiting the weak, and corrupting the law. It does serve to identify and correct market inefficiencies, but this benefit is vastly overrated, because those are quickly eliminated. As such it should be allowed, but tightly regulated and highly taxed as a form of gambling.
When the oligarchy’s enablers, hired help is the politer word, and assorted useful idiots ask, "But how then will we do this or that?" ask them back, "How did we do it twenty years ago?" Before the financial revolution and the descent into a bubble economy and a secretive and largely corrupted government with a GDP whose primary product is fraud.
Other nations, such as China, are surely acting for their own interests, and in many cases the interests of their people, much more diligently and effectively than the kleptocrats who are in power in Washington and New York these days. How then could we possibly subvert the Constitution and the welfare of the people to unelected foreign organizations? If this requires a greater reliance on self-sufficiency, then so be it. America is large enough to see to its own, as the others see to theirs.
Economics will not provide any answers in and of itself. Economics without an a priori policy and morality, without a guiding principle…
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Joe Barton and the Big Big Debate
by ilene - June 21st, 2010 1:43 am
Robert Reich writes: "The real challenge of our time has nothing to do with whether one trusts Big Business and Wall Street more or less than Big Government. The challenge is to keep the two apart, each focused on what they’re supposed to be doing." We separate Church and State for good reasons, why not separate State and Big Business? Ex-politicians could still work. They could start businesses, find government jobs, write books, join rock bands, return to previous careers, except not in the financial sector, but anything connected to their work as public servants would be off limits. – Ilene
Joe Barton and the Big Big Debate
Courtesy of Robert Reich
Representative Joe Barton’s apology to Tony Hayward for what he termed a “shakedown” of BP by the White House in order to get BP’s agreement to a $20 billion escrow fund, was the best thing to happen to BP since April 20, and the best boost for the White House in months. What possessed Barton, the ranking Republican on Energy and Commerce?
Adding to the mystery is the fact that just four years ago, Barton, as the committee’s chair, excoriated BP’s top brass (who were then appearing before the Committee to explain the firm’s negligence in allowing 270,000 gallons of oil to spill on Alaska’s North Slope, the worst spill ever recorded in that fragile territory) for a “corporate culture of seeming indifference to safety and environmental issues … And this comes from a company that prides itself in their ads on protecting the environment. Shame, shame, shame.”
How did Barton go from BP as shameful villain to BP as shakedown victim? And how did he fail to sense the dimensions of the public’s outrage at BP this time around?
Is it because Barton is virtually owned by Texas oil money? This can’t explain Barton’s turnaround because he was owned by oil four years ago, too.
Is it old-fashioned partisan politics? Four years ago Republicans were in charge of Congress and the White House, and now Democrats are. But this can’t be the reason either because Barton’s bizarre apology to BP yesterday so embarrassed congressional Republicans they pushed him into retracting it hours later.
Stupidity? Barton was smart enough four years ago to deliver one of the most scathing criticisms of BP by any member of Congress. His “shame, shame, shame”…
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Why the Dow is Hitting 10,000 Even When Consumers Can’t Buy And Business Cries “Socialism”
by ilene - September 22nd, 2009 11:54 am
Many may be asking this question, as the market surges higher and the news (looking out past gov’t influenced near term numbers) looks so bleak…
Why the Dow is Hitting 10,000 Even When Consumers Can’t Buy And Business Cries "Socialism"
Courtesy of Robert Reich at Robert Reich’s Blog
![[IMG_0516.JPG]](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_r3bP1mw8CJE/SOtptPlKxEI/AAAAAAAAAAs/qPwWlVCoJcw/S220/IMG_0516.JPG)
So how can the Dow be flirting with 10,000 when consumers, who make up 70 percent of the economy, have had to cut way back on buying because they have no money? Jobs continue to disappear. One out of six Americans is either unemployed or underemployed. Homes can no longer function as piggy banks because they’re worth almost a third less than they were two years ago. And for the first time in more than a decade, Americans are now having to pay down their debts and start to save.
Even more curious, how can the Dow be so far up when every business and Wall Street executive I come across tells me government is crushing the economy with its huge deficits, and its supposed “takeover” of health care, autos, housing, energy, and finance? Their anguished cries of “socialism” are almost drowning out all their cheering over the surging Dow.
The explanation is simple. The great consumer retreat from the market is being offset by government’s advance into the market. Consumer debt is way down from its peak in 2006; government debt is way up. Consumer spending is down, government spending is up. Why have new housing starts begun? Because the Fed is buying up Fannie and Freddie’s paper, and government-owned Fannie and Freddie are now just about the only mortgage games remaining in play.
Why are health care stocks booming? Because the government is about to expand coverage to tens of millions more Americans, and the White House has assured Big Pharma and health insurers that their profits will soar. Why are auto sales up? Because the cash-for-clunkers program has been subsidizing new car sales. Why is the financial sector surging? Because the Fed is keeping interest rates near zero, and the rest of the government is still guaranteeing any bank too big to fail will be bailed out. Why are federal contractors doing so well? Because the stimulus has kicked in.
In other words, the Dow is up despite the biggest consumer retreat from the market since the Great Depression because of the very thing so…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the site