Monday, February 28, 2011

The Documentary Gas Land And ProPublica’s Exposure Of The Bush Presidency’s Natural Gas Deregulation Disaster In America

I thought I had better get this up here given it has been sitting for some period of time and the Inside Job Oscar reminded me.

Lawrence Wilkerson, retired colonel and former chief of staff for Colin Powell under the Bush presidency, has given some stunning interviews on the wars that were waged between his boss and Dick Cheney.  And the corruption of Dick Cheney and his team during their shared tenure in the Bush presidency. (Yes, Wilkerson has been point blank about his perspectives.)  One of his candid interviews exposes grave concern for what Dick Cheney did to destroy many of our regulations, especially as it pertains to energy exploration, something his former employer Halliburton benefits from handsomely.  Wilkerson remarks that he is concerned for the harm that will last for many years to come.  

I have little doubt if we had transparency into government, we would be having public trials right now across a wide range of issues including Wall Street’s rampant corruption.  And I wrote not too long ago that I believe that is a plausible outcome at some point in our future.   We will most likely see an extra-judicial process or Nuremburg-type tribunal as we mentioned before.  I take this position because I think the corruption is so massive and widespread in the the government, that the government itself cannot be trusted to do the judicial diligence necessary to investigate and prosecute its own massive fraud.   If and when will that happen is anyone’s guess.   It will be only when the deceit has become so apparent that our government is in crisis.

Watch Wilkerson remark of how Cheney, someone with no experience in business, became CEO of Halliburton, and how he then used his rolodex gained in his time as a public servant (good-ole-boy cronyism) to increase his wealth 30-40 times.  Sound familiar?  Sounds like Bill Clinton and Al Gore who were bureaucrats with no skill at anything other than again using their rolodex (cronyism) to become the two wealthiest ex White House public servants.  And who didn’t do anything to increase the wealth of society to earn that money.  

Dick Cheney is America’s most notorious neoliberal.  As an aside, if you are interested in watching all of Wilkerson’s comments including that Cheney wanted a new cold war with China, and how George Bush growing awareness that Cheney was a problem, the interview links are here.  Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4.  Very interesting perspectives. 

The gas industry is destroying our country with this completely deregulated process called fracking.  A process developed by Cheney’s cronies at Halliburton.  A process that is deregulated courtesy of the Bush presidency.  I am not exaggerating when I tell you the documentary Gas Land will horrify you as to what is going on in our country.  None of it is being reported in the mainstream press.  The destruction of our water supply from fracking is absolutely incredible and firms have shielded themselves from prosecution by writing the laws.  Sound familiar?  A little like Wall Street?   The documentary is on HBO from time to time and is available on DVD.

Additionally, ProPublica has actually dedicated an entire section of their web site to the progression of this crisis and the process of exposure of its many dangers and the frauds behind it. 

 

posted by TimingLogic at 9:45 AM

Inside Job Wins Oscar For Best Documentary

Inside Job should be on Netflix and in the local video stores by now.  Maybe even within some public libraries.  One more plug for an excellent documentary that exposes many (not even close to all) of the frauds Wall Street sociopaths committed.

posted by TimingLogic at 9:10 AM

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Huffington’s Plunder

We have remarked about how ridiculous the sale of  Huffington Post was to AOL was purely from a financial perspective.  One that is similar to the asinine internet deals of the 1990s and the mergers & acquisitions scams of today.  Chris Hedges goes beyond the obvious financial stupidity of the deal (blessed by AOL’s incompetentent banksters and financial auditors) and looks at it from a purely moral perspective.  One that will ring a bell with many Americans and people around the world.  It’s an example of the exploitive elitist corruption we see not only the the U.S. but in China and the entire Middle East.  

Those who take advantage of workers, whatever their outward ideological veneer, to make profits of that magnitude are charter members of the exploitative class.

It was bad enough that Huffington used her site for flagrant self-promotion, although the cult of the self has reached such dizzying proportions in American society that such behavior is almost expected. But there is an even sadder irony that this was carried out in the name of journalism.

posted by TimingLogic at 4:07 PM

Air Force Awards New Bloated Tanker Project While Americans Rot - We The People Are The Enemy Of The War State

There is no money for teachers.  There is no money for Social Security.  There is no money for health care.  There is no money for emergency medical technicians.  There is no money for unemployment benefits.  There is no money for heating assistance for the elderly.   There is no money for homeowners.  There is no money to create jobs.  There is just no money, period.

That is, unless you are the war state.  Then there is endless money.   The military budget spread across all agencies of the government is arguably $1 trillion.  (Department of Energy which houses the budget for the nuclear arsenal, the Defense Department, the State Department, Homeland Security, the CIA, the NSA, Wall Street banksters, and countless other agencies.)   The rest of the world’s military budget combined?  Less than half of that.   

The Air Force gets a new tanker plane for $35 billion dollars and the American people get a boot in the ass.   Yeah, yeah.  This creates jobs.  Jobs funded by taxpayers at an astronomical cost to society both in dollar terms and ultimately through the perpetuation of the war state and the military-industrial complex.  None of this is about defending our country.  It’s about corporate power and projecting hegemony that results in endless loss of life, fraud, infringements on democracy, loss of economic opportunity, propping up American puppets and blowback better known as karma

We already have the two largest air forces in the world.  The active air force and then an even larger air force  of unused planes sitting in the desert….rotting.  (See pictures below)    Proponents of the war state would tell us that these 5,000 planes are used as parts.   True.  Partly.  But what is also true is that there are a LOT of current generation planes sitting under shrink wrap that can be brought back into active duty quickly. 

This is an example of the war state’s directed overproduction for the benefit of of the state, its power, its greed and for the benefit of socialist welfare corporations minting untold profits through this endless overproduction.  (The same dynamic of overproduction in the industrial food monopoly)  We need more airplanes at this time like we need a hole in the head.  What we need is more butter.  Less guns, more butter.  But the war state cares not about poverty, corruption, fraud, democracy or economic opportunity for its citizens.  It cares about control and power. 

It’s time to repeal the National Security Act, dismantle the CIA and end the war state that has resulted from it.

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posted by TimingLogic at 9:54 AM

Friday, February 25, 2011

U.S. Business Lobbyists Kept Muammar Gaddafi In Power? U.S. Rebuilds Ties With Libya Without Concern For Human Rights

The corruption runs well deeper than most people are willing to consider.  Their belief systems are based on a life time of conditioning rather than truth.  They unwittingly play the role of useful idiots to the elites and political parties in the U.S.   

Well, to be fair, we know this isn’t the complete story because Muammar made Tony Blair his bitch after Tony whored out the people of Britain and Libya.  Hey Tony, got any blood on your hands?  Funny.  Death can’t be washed away.  The stains are permanent.   

Democracy is dead.  If you want it back, you are going to have to be the change you want to see in this world

U.S. Lobbyists kept a murderous thug in power

ProPublica – U.S. Rebuilds Libyan Ties At The Expense Of Human Rights

posted by TimingLogic at 10:15 AM

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Crimes Against Humanity – Wall Street Thugs And Toady Politicians Proudly State That TARP Is About To Turn A Profit

Timmy and Benny will never tell you any of this.  But if they cared about the American people, democracy and/or actually were competent enough to serve our country, they would never allow this to happen.   If this crisis has crystallized one thing for me, it’s that fraud and corruption is much more rampant than I ever could have imagined.  And I can imagine a lot.   Our leaderless society has resulted in the greatest moral injustices and criminal subversion of the rule of law that  this country has ever faced.

If the inspector general of TARP states that the bailout to Wall Street is going to costs as much as a $25 trillion dollars, and this crisis is likely to cost much more than that in soft as well as hard quantifiable costs, then how is TARP about to turn a profit?  It’s quite simple.  It isn’t.  And remarks of such are complete mischaracterizations of Wall Street’s massive fraud.   TARP profitability is simply ridiculous.

We have remarked of this countless times on the blog but a job is not a job is not a job.  A company is not a company is not a company.   There are jobs which add to the wealth of society and there are jobs that rely on the wealth of society.  Banking and finance relies on the wealth of society.  These businesses consume wealth.  They do not create wealth.  This is an economic fact not a point of view or opinion.   A job is not a job is not a job.  So, all of these obscene bonuses and Wall Street schemes are nothing more than schemes meant to defraud society and steal its wealth courtesy of pliant  Washington politicians. 

The fact that TARP is about to turn a profit means exactly what?  It means our banking system has taxed society into repaying TARP.  It means that money was gained through wealth transfer with the complicity of the Federal Reserve.   The evil Satan that is Wall Street continues to pillage our society into squalor. 

Where does Wall Street’s graft take place? 

  • -It takes place through Wall Street bets against our state governments, our citizens, our communities and our schools through the use of confusing and complex financial instruments and the use of these to steal from and defraud society.
  • -It takes place through the call for cuts to Social Security, cuts to special needs children, cuts to heating assistance to the elderly and endless other social cuts.   Our government cannot afford to pay the tax (borrowed debt) from Wall Street banksters while still guaranteeing social services. 
  • -It takes place through corrupt rigging of financial markets where financial firms take special privilege to thieve other participants with opaque schemes.
  • -It takes place through the Enron-style manipulation of commodities where people around the world are subject to Wall Street extorting their taxes by manipulating prices of basic foodstuffs, industrial and energy products
  • -It takes  place through bets against Greece, Iceland and other countries that drive interest rates higher so banks can then extort higher borrowing costs after creating the very funding crises by manipulating complex interest rate products.
  • -It takes place through mortgage fraud and preying on people who believe banks and government should be trusted when in fact they are setting citizens up for a con game fleecing.
  • -It takes place through corrupt trade agreements lining the pockets of communists, corrupt puppet states, corporations and elites who thieve people living in  slave labor conditions financed by banksters.
  • -It takes place through consumer credit that is granted at low teaser rates and then once people are indebted, raising fees, rates and terms to levels the mafia would envy.
  • -It takes place through government welfare and bailouts that gives the perception of safety that then takes money out of community banks trying to service our society and moves it into firms that use our money to gamble for their personal gain.  
  • -It takes place through the graft of societies money to kill economic vibrancy in the criminal mergers and acquisitions activities that steals from legitimate businesses and creates oligopolies across our entire economic spectrum and enslaves our society to corporatist thugs.
  • -It takes place through endless wars and bribing corrupt governments around the globe to participate in Wall Street’s neoliberal “free market” con job where we, in conjunction with global fraudsters, rip off other societies and deny countless people economic opportunity just as happens here. 
  • -It takes place through government backstops and financial welfare that allows all incompetent banksters to offer subsidized below market prices that steals deposits and legitimate business from community banks trying to serve our society.
  • -It takes place through sending our society’s capital outside of the country while denying our citizens access to our own democratic economic rights.

And now after Wall Street has again stolen trillions of dollars from Americans and people around the globe, they want to increase their dividends to shareholders and demanding austerity from those they stole from.   Since when did our banking system, propped up by the citizens of this country, become more worried about paying a dividend to investors than paying a dividend to our society?     

All of this graft has to be accomplished under the propaganda of economic recovery.  Above are just some of the methods Wall Street rips people and society off so that TARP supposedly shows a profit – one of the greatest lies of our time.   Adolph Hitler would be proud. 

Today’s banking system is the greatest evil in the U.S. today.  It is defendable that our banking system is the greatest enabler of fraud and corruption around the world through its reserve currency status.  And its evil is only allowed to perpetuate through others who are in fact evil, be it the communist party in China or corrupt puppet governments in other countries who embrace the exportation of our society’s capital, (capital that Wall Street neither had the creativity to produce nor the rights of ownership.  They, in fact, stole it.) or a bought and paid for corrupt political class. 

All of these frauds and more take place in financial corporations that are given special government, business, legal and social privileges of keeping our wealth in safe keeping and protecting our economy.   They have done exactly the opposite.  These are not only acts of fraud and racketeering of mobsters,  I believe these are but part of a larger picture involving High Crimes and Misdemeanors. 

Our government, both political parties, and the Federal Reserve continues an environment of fraud where the chosen few incompetent criminals who caused the greatest economic catastrophe in history, continue their theft off of the backs of the working poor, unemployed and underemployed of our society.  

The entire system is based on fraud.  Were our banking system actually serving society, Wall Street would rebuild its balance sheet and repay TARP by funding capital formation.  But that is ridiculous.  Were that taking place we would never have a crisis in the first place. 

We need a public banking system out of reach of political liars that cannot be defrauded by Wall Street sociopaths.  A banking system which has a primary goal of democratic human development.   Wall Street serves absolutely no purpose to our economy or our democracy or to our citizens.  NONE.  And nothing proves this more than the theft of billions of dollars that con men and liars now cite as a success – the repayment of  TARP.

posted by TimingLogic at 9:19 AM

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Scientists Warn Of Link Between Dangerous New Pathogen, Monsanto’s Roundup And The Possibility Of A Food Supply Collapse

I don’t know how many times we have hammered on this concern but, courtesy of a reader from the land of Live Free or Die, it appears Pandora’s Box may have already opened.  Has humankind’s attempt to play God created a new pathogen that threatens a collapse in our food supply? 

Eventually, probabilities are we will be living through the movie I Am Legend  or  28 Days Later if we don’t get politicians out of science and restore sanity to a world of massive government fraud and corruption.  And that includes the political con job of anthropogenic global warming as well. 

WE MUST REFORM A CORRUPT, ORWELLIAN, FASCIST GOVERNMENT SUBVERTING THE RULE OF LAW, OUR FREEDOMS, OUR ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY, SCIENCE AND OUR PUBLIC SAFETY.

this pathogen threatens the US food and feed supply and can lead to the collapse of the US corn and soy export markets. Likewise, deregulation of GE alfalfa “could be a calamity,”

posted by TimingLogic at 11:16 AM

Obama Administration Deregulates Our Food Supply At A Rapid Clip With The Approval Of Three New Genetically-Modified Organisms

President Obama is not Franklin Roosevelt nor is he Theodore Roosevelt.  He has exhibited none of the qualities of a leader and all of the qualities of a politician.  The two major pieces of legislation he passed actually used a broken and corrupt bill-making process to further rig markets in the favor of oligopolies or monopolies they were supposed to regulate and protect society from.  And he has left the American people without a voice in the BP Gulf disaster.  Report after report by scientific experts unveils the massive toxicity and widespread death of an ecosystem while government tell us all is well after the biggest natural disaster in American history.  Where is the new playbook for drilling in fragile ecosystems?   We still have nothing.  

Now, without fanfare, the FDA continues down the path of fascist corporatism with what seems obvious to be corrupt deregulation of our food supply by approving new Frankenfoods at a rapid clip.  There is growing evidence the toxicity of the chemicals used to produce genetically-modified foods has created the bee population collapse we have written about often.   And many scientists have already documented other major concerns with genetically-modified foods.  When will we experience our Pandora’s Box moment courtesy of government fraud and corruption? 

The FDA is supposed to protect society, instead its massive conflicts of interest and the politicization of the agency has become a threat to our health and our freedoms. 

posted by TimingLogic at 9:32 AM

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

The Latest S&P Pattern Is Exhausted

2011-02-22_1916

This is the third iteration of this pattern we have posted in the last month.  In the first, in late January, we remarked of price and time and said “this pattern is nearing exhaustion”.   While the market may seem as though it has risen substantially without abatement during that time, the reality is it has only risen about four percent.   Indeed a large move for a single month but not as much as it may have seemed.   Were this pattern to perfectly complete, we would see a rise to approximately1360 or just about 10 more S&P points from Monday’s high, a rounding error.   The problem with a rise to that level, which is about a half a percent from Monday’s high, is that the pattern is now officially exhausted in time.  It should have expired on the 15th, or one week ago today.   Of course, with today’s move, we have erased all gains since the 15th if we are indeed looking at a time overshoot.

Obviously patterns are esoteric topics often driven by forces we don’t understand and misinterpretation but banks were absolutely butchered today after being rejected in an attempt at taking last April-May’s price.  As we have said numerous times, using our volume cycle count algorithm and some other proprietary data, May 2010 was the turning point for the 2009 and 2010 rally until proven otherwise.  The equity and debt markets of countries driving the global economy have not retaken the April-May 2010 high.  And neither have Wall Street firm’s equity prices.  That is very telling because this is a finance-driven economic “recovery” courtesy of graft and manipulation.    

posted by TimingLogic at 7:51 PM

Is The CIA Giving Nuclear Bomb Material To Al-Qaeda?

We have been writing for some time, even before Wikileaks, that the American people are going to find out something(s) about our government that are going to shatter the American public’s propagandized view of our government.   I am not going to speculate what those revelations might be, but I am confident something very, very ominous is brewing.  I can’t tell you why because then I’d have to kill you.  :) 

I have remarked of this recent recalling of Ambassadors on the blog and have thrown it around with a few friends.   I would believe the most plausible explanation for doing so is that something damaging is about to be leaked or released and these ambassadors were more than likely given confidential talking points that were so sensitive that they were not trusted to be dispersed through normal diplomatic channels.   I have absolutely no material evidence of this.  Zilch.  It is just an instinctual perspective.   Mind you, I have a pretty good sixth sense.  And I believe there is some evidence and rational perspective that sixth senses can actually be explained as rational and real.  :)   But that’s not the intent of this post.  But this sure is: 

American CIA operative charged with murder in Pakistan.   (New York Times)

American CIA operative was giving nuclear bomb material to Al-Qaeda.  (Yahoo India)

Why is this not being reported on Yahoo’s U.S. site?  What is going on?  Is this just hearsay?  The timeline of this fits into the ambassador recall and it would definitely warrant a recall to address talking points with every government around the world should this hit the press.  Whether they are related or based on fact, we shall soon find out.  This seems very wild and impossible to believe on some level.  But then, that would rise to the level of what we have been expecting.   That is, unless it is effectively swept under the rug or completely untrue.  

posted by TimingLogic at 2:04 PM

Paul Farrell – Bankers And Politicians Are Liars

I’m less interested in Farrell’s comments about a crash than I am his naked remarks about Wall Street and politicians.  Finally, someone with a mainstream media voice willing to tell the truth – that Wall Street and politicians are often sociopaths, liars and grifters.    There are some people in Congress I trust enough that I would let them represent me.  But they are few and far between.

Those who seek power are never, ever to be trusted.   While I doubt it will happen, I would much rather our government run on a random generator of names to serve in Congress similar to jury duty.   Or that we nominate our representatives rather than vote for people who are so uncentered that they would adopt any view on any topic just to get elected aka the Mitt Romneys of the world.  But all we really need to do is change the rules of public service and we will attract a more virtuous person to the position. 

This is a perfect place for one of my favorite quotes regarding this topic. 

I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.”  -- William F. Buckley, Jr.

posted by TimingLogic at 10:54 AM

Tony Blair And Muammar Gaddafi Make It Official – The Wedding Date Is Set For The 5th Of November

I have to say that Tony Blair, now a consultant for JP Morgan making a seven figure salary for blowing politicians so CEO Jamie Dimon doesn’t have to, looks smashing here.  It’s a JOKE!  I know Jamie loves blowing politicians and would never let Tony Blair take over that responsibility.  (Excuse the French but I sometimes have this uncontrollable urge to eat croissants, french fries and drink Perrier.  Sorry.  I never got into freedom fries given the source.

The point is that Tony and Muammar make a fine couple. 

A

I feel so safe knowing that political whores like Tony are busy blowing up people, including tens of thousands of women and children, around the world in order to root out terrorists.  Of course, that he is willing to also sell arms to just about any terrorist with good credit so they can butcher countless people under the jack boot of tyranny is simply a matter of the means justifying the end.  Remember, we have a constitution so politicians aren’t allowed to employ these types of crimes on innocent citizens.  But there is nothing in any constitution about people elsewhere.  Although, if we open our eyes and are honest with ourselves, we know the moral crimes are not defendable.   Did Muammar pay cash or were his dealings with Britain financed by banksters?  

Tony is a typical political hypocrite who knows how to sell his soul to anyone who will line his wallet, be it his new husband Muammar, Jamie Dimon or the military-industrial complex.  Moral clarity is never an issue if one has no morals to begin with.  And it appears from the Daily Mail article below that David Cameron is keeping up the tradition.

I’m so glad that American and British politicians are willing to tax us into squalor to fund endless wars all for justice and democracy.  Well, and for corporate profits, greed and power.  I can’t speak for Britain but the U.S. has indentified nearly $300 billion in possible fraud by military-security contractors during the reign of Alfred E. Neumann who also goes by the alias of George Bush.   We also highlighted back in 2009 that the Obama presidency was ramping up international sales of weapons to help spread democracy.  I’m sure this was a key point to winning the Nobel Peace Prize.  

Of course, it seems politicians in both countries are applying many of the techniques used in their foreign military campaigns to citizens in their own countries with spying, rendition, illegal search & seizure, fear-based political terror and  illegal detention.   

If we are honest with ourselves, we must ask a substantial question.  If our country is really a purveyor of peace and democracy, why are we selling a single weapon to another country that is not democratic?  That does not have a rule of law?  That does not have the same democratic institutions as us?  That uses these weapons to beat down innocent people and deny them their natural rights?  Or why do we give aid to Bahrain or trade with communist China?  I think the answer is quite self-evident.  Our economic and foreign policies have nothing to do with spreading democracy and everything to do with power, control and money.  Of course, maybe I have missed something and I need to be enlightened to the real truth.

Come on.  Politicians and banksters  have a sense of humor.  Look at the laughable jokes they have created with our economy, our banking system, our freedoms and our foreign policy. 

But Mr Cameron was accused of hypocrisy after it emerged that he had taken representatives of eight defence firms with him on his Middle East tour.

Critics pointed out that Gaddafi may well have been using British-made weapons to attack his fellow countrymen.

As the scale of the violence became clear, there was increasing condemnation of the former Labour government’s role in supporting Gaddafi’s brutal regime.

In the notorious ‘deal in the desert’ in 2004 the then British prime minister Tony Blair shook the hand of Gaddafi and said: ‘It’s good to be here’ as the two countries opened up lucrative trade links.

Today, as many as 150 British companies operate in Libya and some 3,500 expatriates live there, many drawn in by the economic opportunities.

posted by TimingLogic at 9:59 AM

Monday, February 21, 2011

Libya On The Edge

Elitist thugs everywhere are under threat.  Just as we said when this Middle East uprising started, courage begets courage.   And that is exactly what is happening throughout the Middle East.  People living in fear-based societies now realize tyranny is only possible if the mind allows it.  Fear is a manifestation of a false reality created in our mind: 

The crumbling of fear has been the binding factor in protests happening from Algeria to Iran.  “People speak of not being afraid anymore,” says Mr. Matar, whose own father, a Libyan dissident, was kidnapped by the Egyptian authorities in Cairo in 1990 and spirited to a secret prison in Libya, with little news of his fate since.

Without the fear-based terrorism by the state, (also a favorite in Washington politics) there is no ability to maintain tyranny.  Those who have been stripped of dignity and freedom eventually realize fear is the only thing keeping them from changing the world for the better.    What is this unknown energy that feeds upon itself and emboldens people to do great things?   What we are witnessing truly is great.  Maybe not for European or American politicians that were benefiting from corruption in Libya and other Middle Eastern states, but for those seeking truth and moral clarity, it is indeed great.   

posted by TimingLogic at 7:31 PM

A President’s Day Post - The Rights Of The People To Rule

There are leaders and there is authority.  Seldom does a President of the United States rise to the level of leader.   I don’t believe we have had one in my adult life time.   Let’s take a look at a speech given by a leader a century ago.  He was Teddy Roosevelt, a self-described Progressive Republican.   Blasphemy you say.  Haha.  Nine out ten Americans are probably progressives even today.  They just don’t necessarily understand what a progressive is because politicians have manipulated the term for their personal power and greed.  Progressive and Republican is not mutually-exclusive.   Of course, it is today because the Republican Party is not republican at all.   The current incarnation of the Republican Party has absolutely nothing in common with the roots of its party nor any of its great Presidents.  It is now a fascist party of corruption that is pro-business and pro-elites in lieu of pro-markets and pro-democracy.   It is anti-labor which is diametrically-opposed to the Republican Party’s first President, Abraham Lincoln, whom we have reported was pro collective bargaining against hegemonic businesses.   Collective bargaining is simply democracy applied to economics.  It is The Rights of the People to participate in Rule applied to massive, powerful, tyrannical corporations. 

Is it any more acceptable to allow business tyrants to run roughshod over the people of this country than it is for Hosni Mubarak to run roughshod over the people of Egypt?   Anyway, let’s get to the post.   The link to this speech has been on the blog since its inception.  It is titled The Rights of the People to Rule

On this President’s Day, I think you’ll appreciate the words of a leader.  And mind you, these words were representative of his actions.  This was a President of action who saw his role as being a leader of our country.  Not a politician who talks us to death and does nothing to restore democracy or economic freedom like endless talkers such as Bill Clinton, George Bush and Barack Obama.   Our current president talked a good game during the elections, the only reason he won the presidency.  But then all he did was talk.  That is why he lost the midterms.  Not because his presidential election message was off target.  It’s quite obvious the Republicans have sorely misinterpreted the will of the people.  And so has our president.   They could both learn a thing or two from a populist leader, Theodore Roosevelt. 

THE great fundamental issue now before the Republican party and before our people can be stated briefly. It is: Are the American people fit to govern themselves, to rule themselves, to control themselves? I believe they are. My opponents do not. I believe in the right of the people to rule. I believe the majority of the plain people of the United States will, day in and day out, make fewer mistakes in governing themselves than any smaller class or body of men, no matter what their training, will make in trying to govern them. I believe, again, that the American people are, as a whole, capable of self-control and of learning by their mistakes. Our opponents pay lip-loyalty to this doctrine; but they show their real beliefs by the way in which they champion every device to make the nominal rule of the people a sham. I have scant patience with this talk of the tyranny of the majority. Wherever there is tyranny of the majority, I shall protest against it with all my heart and soul. But we are today suffering from the tyranny of minorities. It is a small minority that is grabbing our coal-deposits, our water-powers, and our harbor fronts. A small minority is battening on the sale of adulterated foods and drugs. It is a small minority that lies behind monopolies and trusts. It is a small minority that stands behind the present law of master and servant, the sweat-shops, and the whole calendar of social and industrial injustice. It is a small minority that is today using our convention system to defeat the will of a majority of the people in the choice of delegates to the Chicago Convention.

The only tyrannies from which men, women, and children are suffering in real life are the tyrannies of minorities. If the majority of the American people were in fact tyrannous over the minority, if democracy had no greater self-control than empire, then indeed no written words which our forefathers put into the Constitution could stay that tyranny.

No sane man who has been familiar with the government of this country for the last twenty years will complain that we have had too much of the rule of the majority. The trouble has been a far different one that, at many times and in many localities, there have held public office in the States and in the nation men who have, in fact, served not the whole people, but some special class or special interest. I am not thinking only of those special interests which by grosser methods, by bribery and crime, have stolen from the people. I am thinking as much of their respectable allies and figureheads, who have ruled and legislated and decided as if in some way the vested rights of privilege had a first mortgage on the whole United States, while the rights of all the people were merely an unsecured debt. Am I overstating the case? Have our political leaders always, or generally, recognized their duty to the people as anything more than a duty to disperse the mob, see that the ashes are taken away, and distribute patronage? Have our leaders always, or generally, worked for the benefit of human beings, to increase the prosperity of all the people, to give each some opportunity of living decently and bringing up his children well? The questions need no answer.

Now there has sprung up a feeling deep in the hearts of the people not of the bosses and professional politicians, not of the beneficiaries of special privilege-a pervading belief of thinking men that when the majority of the people do in fact, as well as theory, rule, then the servants of the people will come more quickly to answer and obey, not the commands of the special interests, but those of the whole people. To reach toward that end the Progressives of the Republican party in certain States have formulated certain proposals for change in the form of the State government - certain new "checks and balances" which may check and balance the special interests and their allies. That is their purpose. Now turn for a moment to their proposed methods.

First, there are the "initiative and referendum," which are so framed that if the legislatures obey the command of some special interest, and obstinately refuse the will of the majority, the majority may step in and legislate directly. No man would say that it was best to conduct all legislation by direct vote of the people-it would mean the loss of deliberation, of patient consideration but, on the other hand, no one whose mental arteries have not long since hardened can doubt that the proposed changes are needed when the legislatures refuse to carry out the will of the people. The proposal is a method to reach an undeniable evil. Then there is the recall of public officers the principle that an officer chosen by the people who is unfaithful may be recalled by vote of the majority before he finishes his term. I will speak of the recall of judges in a moment - leave that aside - but as to the other officers, I have heard no argument advanced against the proposition, save that it will make the public officer timid and always currying favor with the mob. That argument means that you can fool all the people all the time, and is an avowal of disbelief in democracy. If it be true and I believe it is not it is less important than to stop those public officers from currying favor with the interests. Certain States may need the recall, others may not; where the term of elective office is short it may be quite needless; but there are occasions when it meets a real evil, and provides a needed check and balance against the special interests.

Then there is the direct primary,the real one, not the New York one and that, too, the Progressives offer as a check on the special interests. Most clearly of all does it seem to me that this change is wholly good for every State. The system of party government is not written in our constitutions, but it is none the less a vital and essential part of our form of government. In that system the party leaders should serve and carry out the will of their own party. There is no need to show how far that theory is from the facts, or to rehearse the vulgar thieving partnerships of the corporations and the bosses, or to show how many times the real government lies in the hands of the boss, protected from the commands and the revenge of the voters by his puppets in office and the power of patronage. We need not be told how he is thus entrenched nor how hard he is to overthrow. The facts stand out in the history of nearly every State in the Union. They are blots on our political system. The direct primary will give the voters a method ever ready to use, by which the party leader shall be made to obey their command. The direct primary, if accompanied by a stringent corrupt-practices act, will help break up the corrupt partnership of corporations and politicians…………..

………..The ordinary methods now in vogue of amending the Constitution have in actual practice proved wholly inadequate to secure justice in such cases with reasonable speed, and cause intolerable delay and injustice, and those who stand against the changes I propose are champions of wrong and injustice, and of tyranny by the wealthy and the strong over the weak and the helpless.

(This speech was given while he was the leader of the Progressive Party.  To read the whole speech, go to the Rights of the People to Rule link on the link list.)

posted by TimingLogic at 10:09 AM

Friday, February 18, 2011

Shy U.S. Intellectual Created Playbook Used In Revolutions Around The World

posted by TimingLogic at 11:12 AM

Equity Market Update–The Great Con Game Continues

This is an update to an update we made a month or so ago on the absolutely unusual price activity we have seen on this rally. It is unlike anything I have ever seen. Not only that, but it is in the face of many market factors which are deteriorating in the light of this very, very, very low volatility rise.

Let’s look at an update of the linear regression line we showed a month or so ago. ALL broad U.S. stock indices have the exact same pattern as the S&P below. In other words, markets are completely correlated and the patterns are exactly.  We can attribute this to manipulation.  Not manipulation in the sense that some little man is sitting in a room turning the knobs, but in the sense that the only major players that are left participating in equity markets are the purveyors of Frankenfinance and they are all using the same algorithms.   We have uniquely said repeatedly on here since the rally began in early 2009 that this would eventually happen as monopolies crowded out other market participants in a rigged financial game.   This is a  derivatives-based rally (manipulation) as opposed to one driven by sustainable factors of intrinsic supply and demand.

A linear regression line is a mathematical representation of price over the time frame of the plot.  That said, every time price has started to stray from this linear regression line by more than one percent as shown below, price has been brought back exactly back in line as shown by the arrows.   This is clearly manipulation.

In normal circumstances, everyone being on the same side of the trade always lead to a price correction or in extreme cases, such as 2008, 2000 and 1987, we see an outright collapse. But here is the key point.  Wall Street has been able to subvert the normal cyclicality and price action of markets because the Federal Reserve continues to feed Wall Street endless free money to buy financial assets. So, it hasn’t mattered that that everyone is on the same side of the trade. In other words, sentiment or normal supply & demand characteristics have been failing as a predictor of short term market behavior just as it failed to the downside in 2008 for the exact same reason but in reverse. In other words, sustainability of natural supply and demand phenomenon of markets has no relevance in today’s market.  Theoretically, Wall Street could push the market to infinite under these circumstances.  But they won’t.  And there is a very simple reason why. 

Remember, we have written over the last six months or so that this environment is eerily similar to past environments where Wall Street thought it was invincible. Where they believed they had found a new magic and as we remarked, this time the perceived magic is endless backing of free money to manipulate financial markets courtesy of the Federal Reserve.

Given this is a linear, very low volatility, (the average true range for this move is eerily low ) manipulated move in a nonlinear, expanding volatility world that cannot be manipulated endlessly, this manipulated move will break at some point.  Eventually, not only will this manipulation break at some point but all financial market manipulation will break.  It’s just a matter of what exogenous and unforeseen factors will cause it.  Even though I have been anticipating such an event, no sell signal seems to develop.  All this means in this Orwellian world of a false reality is the bigger the bubble, the bigger the mess in its aftermath.  As I wrote back before the 2008 crash, Wall Street will push and push and push until something breaks. That is how society eventually realizes an unbridled financial system has reached its limits of insanity and/or collapse.  When it is too late.  It’s all just a matter of when.  Honestly, that has lasted longer than I could have imagined.

2011-02-17_1210

Too many people think with their eyes.  I have talked to too many people that have bought this Orwellian view of reality.  The same people also buy the Orwellian view that we are seeing massive inflation which we are not!  More on that in the future.  As we have written endlessly, wealth is not created by rising stock prices (pushing around paper) as Greenspan, Bernanke, Obama, Paulson and other clowns in the investor class have come to believe in their deluded view of economics.

Our economy is in much worse shape today than it was back in 2008. We have more debt. We have less people employed. We have more and more people entering the labor pool with no job prospects. We have more foreclosures. We have more bank failures. We have more personal bankruptcies.  We have even greater concentrations of wealth.  We have people falling off of government assistance programs that politicians now want to cut even more than they did under Clinton. (programs only needed in large part because of massive theft and corruption) And we have an economy that, without trillions and trillions of backstopping and trillions and trillions of dollars of government spending, would collapse.  Who really buys the bullshit?  Anyone?  Bueller? 

That the stock market and financial markets have gone up means what? It’s a mirage of fraud that will again fail. With an economy that worsens by some measurement every single month, equity markets require more and more false liquidity or manipulation(not provided by wealth creation but through debasement and fraud) from the Federal Reserve to prop it up.

As I wrote some time ago in response to lunatic comments made by President Obama and Soviet prime minister Bernanke, the stock market going up is proof the economy is not recovering. Wall Street is taking free Federal Reserve money that should be used to invest in our economy, and instead using it to speculate.  Not for the benefit of society but for the personal avarice and greed of the great satan Wall Street actually is. All while the underlying economy continues to deteriorate.

posted by TimingLogic at 10:32 AM

Thursday, February 17, 2011

The Lies Behind The War In Iraq

Colin Powell is speaking out in Britain today regarding this story from two days ago.  He is calling for an investigation into how and why false information from a known liar was fed to him via the CIA.

One might wonder why a government with unparalleled spying and intelligence programs would listen to uncorroborated evidence presented by a known liar.  Or for that matter, from a single source.    The answer can’t be more than a few choices.  It’s either gross incompetence, which is a good enough reason not to give an incompetent bureaucracy even more power and money to destroy our liberties and operate with reckless abandon resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, or there is some attempt at twisting the evidence to meet an end objective of war, in which case  our government officials would be subject to criminal prosecution.    Which is it? 

posted by TimingLogic at 2:05 PM

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Matt Taibbi : Why Isn’t Wall Street In Prison? Because Our Justice System Actually Protects Financial Fraud

I have concluded that we literally must have one of the most overtly corrupt governments on earth.  It’s not just one single thing.  It’s the entire government that has been turned into a fraud factory by politicians, the Supreme Court and corporate crooks.  
posted by TimingLogic at 8:45 PM

The End Of Globalization Is Nigh. The U.S. Seeks To Expand Support For The State Of Yemen While Yemeni People Seek An End To The State Of Yemen

In what has been one of the Orwellian realities of our Brave New World, we have the largest democracy (republic) the world has ever seen supporting some of the most brutal states in the modern world.

Is there some possibility that our domestic policy is being driven by the same forces seeking to subvert freedom abroad?    How democratic is our economy?  Our economy is extremely tyrannical.   

If you understand what is going on in the Middle East, and what is likely to spread around the globe, it is a rejection primarily of economic globalization and “free trade” propaganda.  It’s about economics and social justice – both of which are inextricably intertwined.   Is this dynamic really nothing more than seeing corrupt elites flaunting their wealth achieved by rigging the system while the vast majority are told to eat cake?  This is clearly not how the mainstream media or politicians see Egypt or volatility elsewhere but the status quo never sees the future. 

The human mind has only two intents in everything it does.  The intent to control or the intent to learn.  Those two dynamics can never be shared within our own mind.  They are mutually exclusive.  Those who seek power are the most uncentered people in society.  They are deluded by their primary intent to control.  It is impossible to ever find the truth without relinquishing extreme narcissism or fear found within the desire to control.   Most relationships of any type are primarily built upon control. 

Whether it is a path of personal enlightenment or seeking to understanding the world around us, we shall never be successful while seeking to either control ourselves, others or the external world.  And the ego is indomitable.  It is only defeated, even if temporarily, when our mind’s delusional creation of reality is shattered.  Or, through personal or external crisis.   That is why crisis is necessary for truly transformational change.  We must break the cycle of control created by the human mind.  And that is exactly what is happening throughout the world today.  People are breaking the cycle of control created by the minds of elites and uncentered megalomaniacs whether that is in the propaganda of mainstream media that is failing, or of economic tyranny that is failing, or of the ever-controlling state that is failing.   Inventions of the human ego are failing as the intent to learn and seek truth is gaining the upper hand over the deceit of fraud that blinded so many from the truth.   Enlightenment is not only throwing off the shackles of our own mind but throwing off the shackles created in our mind by others who seek to control us.  The people of Egypt are our brothers and sisters in the effort to defeat control.  And so are the people of China.  And the Sudan.  And on and on and on. 

Link here

and here

posted by TimingLogic at 10:28 AM

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The Federal Reserve’s Reign Of Terror Must End

One of our favorites, Paul Farrell, is at it again.  And there is no holding back.  Every point he makes has been hammered to death on here.  His assessment is grim but speaks the truth.  Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve are enablers to economic terrorists better known as Wall Street banksters.

posted by TimingLogic at 12:19 PM

Germany And France Report Near Zero GDP Growth

With tens upon tens of trillions of dollars and equivalents being thrown at this mess by political idiots and banksters, and with the status quo embracing a global economic recovery, and with interest rates around the globe at near zero, we should not be seeing countries in Europe bordering on collapse or showing  near zero GDP growth.   We all know the reality.  Without massive backing and bailouts from central banks around the world, globalization and global finance would collapse. 

The steroid-induced false growth in the U.S. over the last few quarters is impossible to sustain.  We will soon be joining these types of numbers.  And if emerging markets collapse, and they will, we will see an outright global mess even greater than we’ve seen so far.  More on that in the next post. 

Our uninformed political leaders are trying to fit a square peg in a round hole to appease their corporate masters - our economy is primarily a service-based economy and our monetary system does not match up with the needs of a service-based economy.   Of course, you’ll probably never read that anywhere else because the entire world has embraced junk economics as Michael Hudson, the economist I cited in the last post, would say.  All we hear from most of the mainstream hacks is that we need to return to gold.  That doesn’t solve any of our problems and we’ll cover that as well in the next few months.

As we have commented before, a mathematical fact is that a service-based economy is incapable of growing, something that seems to be lost on politicians, economists and financial carnival barkers.   Our monetary system requires growth in order to have any type of sustainability.  The debt bubble is but a symptom of this mismatch and other issues.  It has almost nothing to do with a fractional reserve banking system as many uninformed commenteurs would have us believe. 

Link here.

posted by TimingLogic at 10:55 AM

100 Year Birthday Celebration Of Ronald Reagan – The Godfather Of The Real Estate Bubble, The Predator Economy And Economic Oligarchies

It may be unfashionable to call out someone who is so revered by so many minds consumed by propaganda but that’s exactly what I am going to do.  Both HBO and PBS are running documentaries of Reagan for his 100th birthday.  I watched enough to see the theme was  focusing on the human mind’s fantasy that Reagan epitomized the American dream.  Reagan may have been epitomized the American dream on some level but I’m not sure how his actions as President can be classified as a success.  To rise from an abusive home of relative squalor and make something of himself is a great success story.  But to then become President where he single-handedly espoused principles that dismantled our economic and political freedoms seems to only be a dream in the sense of most nightmares.  

Reagan’s presidency highlights one point very clearly.   That is, how in God’s name has our political class adopted a view that presidents are somehow granted divine authority to fuck up anything and everything they choose as their gift of gab is able to convince other equally ridiculous politicians to do it?   Reagan knew about as much about economics as Obama.  That is just about absolutely nothing.  It is unfashionable to speak frankly about how many people idolize presidents as figures larger than life, a pervasive shortcoming of the human mind, but those who seek power and authority are often the most uncentered  people in society.  And therefore the decisions they make are seldom in the best interests of society but rather reflect the complexities of the human condition.  We need constitutional rights to protect our economic freedoms from smooth-talking know-nothing power mongers and we need to enforce the Constitution on issues of human liberties. 

Reaganomics is one of the greatest crimes against democracy and the American people.  The ridiculous economic voodoo that rich people’s scraps will create the wealth for the rest of us is based on the timeless evil  of class warfare perpetuated by crooked elites.   See how well Reaganomics would sell in Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, Libya and Saudi Arabia.  In fact, I literally just saw a professor in Egypt call trickle down economics absolute nonsense – because that is exactly how their economy works today, just as ours does.  

Voodoo economics  may only be surpassed by the even more fraudulent perspective that Wall Street banksters know the difference between their ass and a hole in the ground or that their Frankenstein finance of pushing around paper creates wealth and is the basis for American economic might and a sustainable economy – a position that Ivy League MBA programs, George Bush, Bill Clinton, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, almost all Washington Republicans and Democrats and President Obama supports.  And this too will have dire consequences just as Reaganomics has.

Reagan was the mouth piece for special interests seeking to overturn democracy and that is exactly what he did.  It was all wrapped up with a pretty bow and encased in wonderful words of freedom, democracy and the American flag while just the opposite was happening in the morally bankrupt economic voodoo he espoused. 

Reaganomics or trickle down voodoo economics, as his eventual vice president George Bush would call it, can only work by restricting access to capital and economic opportunity to a very few.  It works by choking off economic democracy and creating an environment of neofeudalism like we see in Egypt and America today.  And that is exactly what happened by choking off the economic vibrancy of America and the liberties of the vast majority of Americans.  Our economic freedoms have been on a continuous downward track with every American president since as wealthy special interests continued the recursive dynamic of pumping more and more money gained by Reaganomics graft into both major political parties to control the economic ideology of our nation.  In other words, Reaganomics led to stolen wealth that led to the ability of elites to fund greater theft that led to even more wealth that led to even greater theft by controlling economic legislation in Washington.   (George Bush Sr. was the perfect example of the psyche of a politician.  He was more than willing to sell his soul for power and greed by hopping onto Reagan’s political ticket, one that had an economic ideology he labeled as voodoo absurdity.)

We have talked on here many times that America’s economic activity peaked between the late 1970s and early 1980s.  And that is just about the time free market economics, code word for corrupt Reaganomics, took hold in our country courtesy of Wall Street mobsters and corrupt elites.  And while I am not going to share that data on here, it is actually quite easy to prove when our economic activity peaked if you know what to look for.   While GDP has increased substantially since, it has been because of the massive money bubble and because of greater and greater government spending necessary to keep the Ponzi scheme going.    These dynamics have created the perception of ever-increasing wealth while the economy has been structurally destroyed in the process.  Reagan presided over the beginning of the end of American economic hegemony.   There is absolutely no recovery without a new economic model.  We will get one, of that I am completely certain.  It’s just a matter of whether it will be driven by politicians of virtue or if it will be in response to economic disaster.

Economist Michael Hudson, one of but a handful of economists I respect in their search for truth and understanding of real economics in lieu of  bat shit economic ideology, talks about the true legacy of Ronald Reagan;  The creator of the predator state where regulation was destroyed, crooks gained control of the economy & our political process and where these same crooks  now attempt to convince average Americans that their enemies in all of this morass are public sector workers because they actually have a living wage.   This attempt at dividing the non-political and non-elite class of Americans through the use of  schadenfreude hides the true reality.  But this elitist-pushed deception is necessary if the crooks are going to maintain control of our economy and continue to subvert democracy and economic freedoms.  It will fail.  There is absolutely no doubt.  Fraud is simply not sustainable without the physical enforcement of the state when it is finally revealed for what it is.  And that is what we are witnessing today.  The failure of decades of fraud.

Ronald Reagan was not a great president as ideologues would have us believe.  He might have been a decent person who was simply deluded by his own ego and false belief system, but he was not a great president.   He was just another in a long line of failed Washington idiots, posing as presidents, spanning the decade from the late 60s until Reagan took office and finally turned our society and our economy on its head with voodoo. 

Today, Washington politicians from both parties practice the same Ouija board economics because graft draws a certain kind of mind to Washington politics just as it does to Wall Street. 

If we change the rules to politics and what it means to serve our country, a different kind of person will arrive in Washington.  Our rules to politics should encourage virtue not vice.  And then the sociopathic crooks and power-mongers will go elsewhere for their fix. 

posted by TimingLogic at 9:52 AM

Monday, February 14, 2011

Public Advocate For The City Of New York – Wal-mart Is Bad For American Taxpayers, Bad For Employment And Bad For The Middle Class

This is a topic we have hammered for years.  Back when the world was partying hard, we wrote that many believed the Great Depression was caused in large part by monopolies.  And we wrote of their negative economic consequences.  We need a radical reform of our government as it pertains to the rules that are engaged to deal with monopolies and oligopolies before they are able to get to that point.  Every single sector of the U.S. economy is under the repression of such a dynamic.   If we had government leadership willing to right the wrong of decades of corruption and deregulation in our government, it would go a long way towards restoring economic democracy. 

This report on Wal-mart is gaining momentum around the internet and in my estimation its just about two decades too late.   I would encourage you to spread it across other blogs and internet sites as we will never see this in the mainstream media or in Washington political discussions. 

I’m quite familiar with Wal-mart’s strategies and know quite a few people who have worked with the retailer’s management in multiple capacities.  And having worked with retail management myself for a substantial part of my career, I know the impact the company has on our economy and other firms.  I would like to have a friend of mine who works for one of America’s largest retail real estate firms write an op-ed on here sharing Wal-mart’s real estate strategies.  But she would never do that for fear of reprisal.  You would find it quite interesting.   An unfortunate effect of a fascist government is that corporations wield their political and economic might to squash democracy and dissent, whether it is legitimate or not.  We live in an environment ruled by feudal lords who covet power and greed over democracy and as such, they use threats and intimidation by manipulating our legal system to keep a lid on democratic dissent

I have officially boycotted Wal-mart for years.   They are a prime example of corporate socialism, living off of the taxpayer dole to provide a below market cost structure that others wishing to play the game fairly have a hard time matching.   That is, unless they adopt the same job-killing, wealth-destroying strategies outlined in this report.  This is also a COMMON tactic also used by industrial food monopolies to make much of the Frankenfood we are presented at the grocery stores appear very cheap comparative to nutritional alternatives.   We are told this is due to the productivity of the American farmer.  In actuality, it is a result of the massive government handouts or corporate socialism which provides industrial and often toxic food at below market prices.   It is impossible to have a vibrant market-based economy within our current economic  framework where politicians whore themselves out for personal benefit while dismantling the rule of law.

Maybe an Orwellian world dominated by firms like Wal-mart is one some wish to live in.  They can hide behind supporting these dynamics under the Orwellian propaganda of the American flag, free market brainwashing and sub par quality provided by monopolies as they work so hard behind the scenes to subvert competition and working markets by manipulating government policies.  I choose not to embrace such a world or submit to such delusional propaganda. 

I applaud the Public Advocate for New York City for having the guts to do what few others outside of small town America will – calling a spade a spade.  Monopoly and oligopoly firms like Wal-mart create massive negative consequences well beyond the obvious and our government’s lack of will (because of the masssive legalized bribes or lobbying these firms do)  to enforce the anti-trust rule of law is a massive problem for our economy, for our personal liberties and for the dignity of our people as well as the dignity of the human race.  

I have included the report’s three main themes  below.  I think many of us can all attest to its accuracy with our real life experiences.   Especially those of us who have seen its effects and those of other big box retailers on small towns that have been hollowed out.

1. Wal-Mart’s Economic Impacts: Net Loss of Jobs, Fewer Small Businesses

2. Wal-Mart’s Costs to Taxpayers

3. Wal-Mart’s low paying jobs contribute to the decline of the middle class

This report is a BIG deal.  And a very constructive one at that.  The more it is publicized, the more detractors of monopolies and their bought-and-paid-for political toadies will gain a voice for enforcing the rule of law and, if necessary, adopting new rules to deal with destructive dynamics like this.

posted by TimingLogic at 7:44 AM

Saturday, February 12, 2011

President Obama Implores Business Roundtable To Invest In America. Business Roundtable Tells President Obama To Go Fly A Kite.

A few days ago we highlighted how ridiculous the President’s rhetoric was from a White House address where he implored multinational businesses to hire American workers.  Then on Monday, he gave them the same ridiculous address in person.  They effectively told him to go fly a kite.

Anyway, it seems obvious that our President believes one of his great tools to affect change is oration or rhetoric.   There is no doubt he is a great orator and an intellectually-gifted person.  But leadership is about neither.   If the President thinks he is going to convince the Business Roundtable to hire American workers just by talking, his ego borders on that of delusion. 

The Business Roundtable members have cumulatively created not a single net new job in the United States in forty years.  Not one.  In fact, just the opposite.  They have cumulatively cut tens of millions of jobs.  That is because we don’t have a government that supports working markets or democracy but rather the desires of corporations.   How can anyone honestly believe they are going to change that dynamic with rhetoric?  This is not a political campaign.  It’s the real world.  And in the real world, you actually have to do something to effect change.  And I don’t mean health care and financial reform bills that actually perpetuate and strengthen the corporate death grip on working markets. 

Over generations, we have placed more and more of our economic and democratic self-determination into the hands of power-seeking politicians who respect neither.  And now we are paying the price through systemic fraud and corruption created by those very people.  Only when the American people accept responsibility for their own rights and no longer outsource their desires and wishes to political blowhards, will we see a return to democratic and economic sustainability.  

We need government that works as a servant to the people and not to corporations and lobbyists.  And that means we must elect people of substance who will not compromise their moral clarity but instead will be a voice for our wishes of economic democracy and democratic government.  We need what our President and most politicians in America are not.  We need leaders not politicians.  We need action not rhetoric.  We need constructive conflict not appeasement.  We need people willing to speak truth to the evil that exists and who are willing to confront it.   We have little of that in government or business.  So……..

The leaderless society continues. 

posted by TimingLogic at 9:41 AM

Friday, February 11, 2011

Celebration As Mubarak Steps Down

This reminds me of watching the Soviet Union crumble right before our eyes.  That truly was an amazing moment.  And so is this.   We have just witnessed the government of one of the most populous countries on earth fall in a matter of days. 

The illegitimate status quo everywhere should take notice.  In the U.S. corrupt banksters and elites believe they have regained the upper hand.  They are clearly deluded by their ego’s self-importance – a major blind spot.  We are never going back to the way the world was only a few years ago.  Never.   A lesson in the foolishness of linear thinking – a hallmark of bureaucrats and quite frankly, Wall Street carnival barkers and their Frankenstein finance.  In Egypt the world changed more in thirty days than it has in the last thirty years.  Think about that. 

Suleiman will not survive.

As we have said on here numerous times the impossible may actually be probable.

posted by TimingLogic at 1:41 PM

Mubarak Steps Down: Omar Suleiman, Head Of Egypt’s Gestapo And The CIA’s Egyptian Torture Program, Is Now In Charge

Who is Omar Suleiman?  Generally a likeable guy.  That is, if you are Adolph Hitler.

posted by TimingLogic at 12:30 PM

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others, as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders, serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.-- HDT

posted by TimingLogic at 11:00 AM

WikiLeaks Docs: Torture-Linked Egyptian Police Trained in U.S.

Courtesy of Democracy Now:

Newly released classified U.S. diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks have shed more light on the key U.S. support for human rights abuses under Mubarak’s regime in Egypt. The cables show Egyptian secret police received training at the FBI’s facility in Quantico, Virginia….   A cable from October 2009 cites allegations from "credible" sources that some prisoners were tortured "with electric shocks and sleep deprivation to reduce them to a 'zombie state.'" One cable from November 2007 shows then-FBI deputy director John Pistole praised the head of Egypt’s secret police for "excellent and strong" cooperation between the two agenciesPistole currently heads the Transportation Security Administration in the United States.

posted by TimingLogic at 10:34 AM

American Foreign Policy Exposed - The Gap Between U.S. Action And Rhetoric In Egypt

It is becoming more and more apparent that the U.S. does not want democracy in Egypt.   The more on considers this from a rational perspective, the more one understands.  Why would Washington want an independent voice in Egypt?  Washington controlled Mubarak with bribes and the power of the U.S. military.  Washington cannot control an open and free society which may express dissenting views.   By the way, that not only applies to Egypt, that applies to our domestic policies as well. 

I am obviously not the only one who sees the U.S. actions confirm something stinks in Washington with regards to Egypt.  As journalist Robert Fisk points out, the U.S. has hand picked its replacement stooge – a CIA torturer and brutal Mubarak thug.  As Chris Hedges remarked in one of the prior posts, the people of Egypt see our actions and hear our words even if Americans are shielded from the truth.  How thirty years of U.S. corruption in Egypt plays itself out will be very interesting.   If the entire regime is toppled, what U.S. secrets may be uncovered?  Needless to say, it ain’t workin’ out in Washington’s favor so far.  

In some ways, the opening remarks in this interview reminds me of our dilemma.  Of wanting a return to equal rights democracy and multi-party elections.  The U.S.’s ruling party The National Neoliberal Soviet Democratic-Republican Corporatist Welfare War Party also gains just about 97% of the vote as does Mubarak.  Having two small groups of power-seeking thugs (the two political parties in the U.S.) control the debate and control elections in America is not much different than what has been going on in Egypt for the last thirty years.   In the U.S.,  candidates dissenting from party views created by a handful of crooked politicians at national party level is not tolerated.  Those espousing dissent or the diversity of views that reflect our society’s diversity are not allocated national election funds.  Therefore, we get candidates with a very,very narrow ideology that falls in line with the party power structure.  We get a long line of Hosni Mubaraks.  In other words, we get a political system guaranteed to garner 97% of the vote that is controlled by a handful of people pulling the levers for the two parties.   And where do those people gain their power?  Quite simply though massive sums of money from American and international elites who want nothing to do with democracy and corporations who seek to subvert economic democracy.   Frankly, we get people who have sold out our democracy and our country.  It’s that simple.   Do the actions of any of our leaders ever match the rhetoric?  Does Obama’s actions match his rhetoric in Egypt?

We need to bust up the two party monopoly and open our political system to the diversity of ideas that would make our democracy and our economy vibrant again.  

As more and more leaks are aired in the Egyptian crisis, Hosni Mubarak has been exposed to be one of the greatest criminals the modern world has yet seen.  His net worth is estimated to be as much as $70 billion.   We can be quite certain almost all of that is American taxpayer money he plundered from the people of Egypt.  And mind you, the American government clearly knew Mubarak was stealing all of this money and they didn’t care.   Mubarak evidently flaunts his wealth in the United States so we can be quite certain this is no secret to our government who spies on everyone according to Wikileaks documents.  And we can be completely certain all of Mubarak’s wealth is because his financial graft and illegitimacy was backed by American military force.   All while tens of millions of Egyptians were denied any semblance of dignity.  And while countless Egyptians rotted in prison or died at the hands of a brutal thug. 

Change and civility you can believe in.     The real awakening continues. 

Title link here.

posted by TimingLogic at 9:41 AM

Thursday, February 10, 2011

IMF And EU Consider Plan To Allow Greece To Write Down Debt As Banksters Realize The Obvious - Greece Is Going To Default

Although the timing of this isn’t that important, I wanted to get this up while it is still relatively fresh. 

We have been highly critical of austerity plans whether they are in the U.S. or elsewhere.  Austerity if a failed ideology of the status quo.  (By the way, so is the debt for equity idea put forth by Nassim Taleb.  I like Taleb but his idea will not work.  Neither austerity nor DFE addresses the fundamental issue driving this crisis.  As we have said bazillions of  times, this is not a problem of debt.  Debt is but one of many symptoms of a failed economic ideology.)  Even Marc Faber, one of our favorites, remarked in a recent video we put up that the U.S. needs an austerity plan.  Um, no we don’t.  What we need is a new economic model. 

We uniquely wrote a year before the 2008 crash and a few times since of what would eventually be termed unwinding as the crash of 2008 unfolded.  And then just as now, I can tell you with 100% certainty that austerity leads to the same unwinding and eventual crash.  It perpetuates an environment of lower and lower living standards as cuts lead to even less ability to pay debts that lead to even more cuts.  The process is one that never ends until society has been decimated.  If you don’t quite understand this dynamic, then you should at least wonder why the status quo, corporatist politicians and the corrupt banksters support austerity.   Do you actually think these people care at all about you or in the case of politicians, have any clue what they are talking about?

Austerity’s cycle is vicious and endless.  Whether it is Governor Christie in New Jersey or Prime Minister Papandreou in Greece, these are failed ideologies that will lead to even more misery.  Do government’s need to get their houses in order like the rest of us?  Yes.  Can the U.S. spend a trillion dollars a year on defense and still have a vibrant economy?  Absolutely not.  We don’t need bankster-supported ideologues destroying the living standards of necessary government workers and necessary government social services just because these same crooks have been successful at doing so in the private sector.   Massive wage and benefit cuts in the public sector has support because of the most ugly of aspects of the human condition - if I have to suffer, then they do as well.  Better known as misery loves company or schadenfreude.   

Massive public sector cuts without private sector gains will lead to more private sector job losses.  We see this in Greece today.  Austerity has led to a crash in the money supply and that means default could happen much more rapidly than anyone expected.  That is the only reason why the EU and IMF are rushing into this toxic mess they have created.   And the same thing would happen in the U.S. with similar austerity plans.  Yes, we need to fix the public pension issues and those will involve substantial haircuts.  Yes, we need to rationalize the size of government.  Yes, we need to fix government and have it work for people rather than corporations and scumbag lobbyists.  But those espousing this environment is all somehow because of public unions are ridiculous.  Karma is a bitch and wishing misery on others manifests its outcome in many unexpected ways.   One would be misery and even job loss on those supporting such efforts.

We need a sovereign-specific policy of raising the economic opportunity and living standards in the private sector along with fiscal responsibility in the public sector to rebalance the public sector funding crisis.   The U.S. economy once roared when it had debt levels similar to today.  We we were able to pay down our debts at a rapid clip.  Our problem is not debt.   If you believe this is impossible today, you are hoodwinked by crooks and people espousing positions they don’t understand.  It is more than possible and we have written on here that the U.S, with the right economic policies could have 2% unemployment within a handful of years.  (All of those people citing debt as a cause of the Great Depression are clueless.  As we have noted before, debt did not cause the Great Depression.

Our position has been that Greek should default on its foreign debt and reclaim its sovereignty and along with it institute a public banking system.  Greece’s current debts primarily benefited the status quo’s fraud rather than democracy.  This same dynamic is the reason why we have such massive debt in the U.S.   It’s also why the U.S. should either default or monetize its debts.   Our debts benefited fraud and elites while saddling the rest of us with their massive corruption.  (Unlike Greece, the U.S. has no foreign debts and our policy makers could easily monetize our debts.  And that is what we wrote would eventually happen.  No histrionics please.  Under the right policies it would have zero impact on inflation.  Again, lies perpetrated by know-nothing ideologues and banksters.

It is now apparent that Greece is guaranteed to default and possibly yet this year.  When the Greek austerity plan was announced, we said default was imminent.  Similar plans in the U.S. will lead to similar crises.  

Restructuring Greece’s debt still doesn’t do anything to solve Greece’s economic problems but it may be a realization to the crooks that default and total loss is imminent without some debt restructuring or forgiveness.   And that would mean Greece’s exit of the EU is also imminent.  That is the only reason the EU and IMF, two self-serving corrupt organizations are coming to the aid of Greece.  If Greece cannot regain economic sovereignty within the constructs of the EU, then it needs to leave the EU to actually institute policies required for a sustainable recovery. 

Title link here.

posted by TimingLogic at 9:52 AM

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

U.S. Sows Confusion On Egypt – Presidential Inexperience Or Something More Sinister?

Could the White House’s waffling and inconsistency with regards to Egypt be a result of Mubarak’s attempts at extorting the U.S.?  

Why would our government effectively demand a transition to democracy and then days later fall into a position of effectively supporting Mubarak?  Because that is the lengthy transition to no where our government now supports.   Our policy now seems to be to help Mubarak hold on and hope this crisis passes. 

We really have no idea what is going on because of lack of transparency but there is obvious reason to suspect Mubarak has threatened to squeal on the U.S.  and its many dirty deeds.  We have two and maybe three White Houses that would possibly be exposed.  I have nothing but suspicion to back that up so now it is simply a verbalized thought.  But one thing is certain - our position has changed because new data has become available.  New data we do not see.  What is that data?

Link here.

posted by TimingLogic at 3:14 PM

Volatility Update: Is Iceland’s Volcano About To Unleash A Great Fury?

I just can’t keep up with volatility around the world, be it social, economic or natural phenomenon.  But in the last few months volatility  appears to be picking up momentum again.   These are clues that should guide us as to when financial market volatility will resume. 

Link here.

posted by TimingLogic at 11:53 AM

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Surprise. Surprise. Tea Party Joins With Democrats to Defeat Patriot Act Extension In A Victory For We The People,

This horrid piece of Orwellian legislation isn’t dead yet but maybe Congress is showing signs of life.  Link here.

posted by TimingLogic at 10:24 PM

William Greider – America’s Road Leads To Cairo

One of our favorites.  Greider is a titan of journalism when journalism meant something.  Greider predicted this crisis 15 or so years ago and many economists, including Paul Krugman, mocked him.  His words should never be taken lightly.

“The issue at stake here is far more threatening than smug elites seem to understand. Nothing erodes the authority and legitimacy of government more severely than a spreading awareness of unequal justice. The feds send hapless drug mules to prison for twenty years. For billion-dollar swindles, they won’t even call a grand jury. This corrosive contradiction can become a national disease. Americans are learning from these events—another investigation with shocking evidence, but not much happens afterward. This will sound farfetched, I know, but this is a road that leads eventually to Cairo.”

posted by TimingLogic at 12:11 PM

Moderate Democrats Seek To Repeal Mandate To Purchase For-Profit Insurance

posted by TimingLogic at 11:28 AM

China Raises Interest Rates

It’s important to remember something we wrote on here years ago before the Chinese equity market collapsed.   That is, China was raising reserve ratios in lieu of interest rates within its economy because so many of its banking loans were nonperforming.  And raising rates would have the effect of calling in these loans or expose them as unpayable.  That China has been raising rates since October should tell you something.  It might also tell you why emerging countries financial markets are now underperforming and why data released last week shows us that money is being repatriated to the US at rates not seen since the collapse.   Umm, all of these points have been discussed on here and the last two have been discussed on here in the first month of 2011.   

posted by TimingLogic at 10:51 AM

Monday, February 07, 2011

President Obama’s Envoy, A Washington Lobbyist For Egypt’s Illegitimate State, Calls For Hosni ‘The Thug’ To Stay In Power. Instead Our Government Endorses The CIA’s Favorite Torturer.

Former Vice President DICK Cheney, (oops, my finger slipped on the capitalization key) current Vice President Joe Biden, the Clinton gang of two, Tony Blair, Silvio Berlusconi and other member of the western kleptocracy have voiced support for Hosni Mubarak.  He’s such a fine man and a good friend of the US and Europe.   Makes me all teary eyed.

But…  this one is really interesting.   

We have written that our democracy is for sale to anyone with the jack.  By the way, that ain’t you.  Hosni the Thug (his official crime syndicate name) uses American taxpayer aid to hire Washington lobbyists on his behalf. 

I wonder what Mubarak seeks for these Washington lobbying efforts?  Maybe just a voice with Congress to share his genuine desire to repay American taxpayers for their aid?  Or possibly a trip to President Obama’s White House Superbowl party while forty million Americans enjoy their food stamp gruel dinner?   Tea and crumpets with Madonna?  An autographed LeBron James basketball?  Or maybe military aid and assistance from American security firms on the latest torture tactics and spying techniques to maintain his big black leather swastika boot on the neck of poverty-stricken Egyptians?  No big surprise.  Every oil fiefdom and corrupt government in the world lobbies our government via legalized bribery. 

You know what’s really interesting?  If the US government throws Hosni under the bus, most likely a MAJOR reason why DICK Cheney very publicly supports Hosni, he could squeal like a pig about very, very, very dirty secrets.   Just like everything else, including wars of profit, our government has outsourced much of its dirty work to its most favorite toadies.  Hosni has achieved the elite status of most favored torturer by the CIA.  Of course, all in the name of democracy and freedom. 

And now the US government is officially backing a regime change by one of the CIA’s favorite torturers in Egypt.   And another story here. 

Gee.  Could this have anything to do with an attempt to keep a lid on those torture secrets with a good ‘ company guy’?   How silly.  Of course not.  Our fearless leaders surely have only the best of intentions of supporting Egyptian democracy.    Could this be the reason the U.S. recalled ALL of its global ambassadors, an unprecedented move?  To prep them for possible damage control and the associated official talking points?  Did Mubarak threaten to snitch if the U.S. threw him under the bus?  

How fun would that be?  Ahem.  Not!  International war crimes filed against the US government?  What did we say on here some time ago about possible Nuremburg-type trials?  Haven’t Berlusconi and Blair been involved in rendition as well?  Hmm.  Just a wild thought.  Maybe it’s just coincidental timing all the way around.

Change and, of course, now with the civility you can believe in. 

It sure is good to be the king.  Not much longer though.

posted by TimingLogic at 2:25 PM

The Economic Insanity Is In Full Force - AOL Buys Huffington Post

This is another sign insanity has returned in full force.  Actually this reminds me very much of the AOL – Time Warner merger which was one of the last gasps of insanity in the year 2000 right before markets rejected the latest incarnation of economic stupidity.  

I like Arianna Huffington a lot and I sometimes link to the Huffington Post.  But let’s get real.  We have rigged economic markets that keeps tens of millions of Americans and their economic ideas from participating yet we have a financial and business industry willing to bless this deal? 

The Huffington Post is essentially a shell company relying generally on aggregation of news and stories reported by other sources and from free commentary provided by bloggers and people in the political community who have similar views to that of Arianna Huffington.  There is nothing wrong with any of that.  But AOL is paying ten times revenue, yes revenue, for a company that is basically a mirage.   The Huffington post has no substantial tangible value.   This is complete insanity.  Quite frankly, this is Ponzi economics at its best.  I don’t blame Arianna.  She is simply cashing the lottery ticket that AOL is handing her.   

The Huffington Post is pumping this acquisition as a merger of visions.  That sounds mighty familiar.  Sounds a lot like the mumbo jumbo of why companies with no tangible value were being pushed onto buyers in deals with upside down finances during the internet bubble.  Then as this Ponzi scheme collapsed, we found out visions don’t pay the bills. 

This is another example of economic nonsense that will more than likely never see any positive return.  And I do mean never.  Just like the AOL Time Warner merger.   The insanity is back in full force.

posted by TimingLogic at 11:47 AM