An Entire Nation – India - Sues Monsanto For Biopiracy

Finally a nation has focused the full resources of the people to defeat this predatory virus.   At least someone isn’t following in the path of Neville Chamberlain.  India is simply defending what used to be the rule of law in the United States.   That is, until the rule of law was sold to Monsanto by our for-profit government. 

Today In History : Neville Chamberlain Appeases Evil.

A Warning Of Future Consequences To Those Appeasing Evil Today. Evil Cannot Be Reasoned With Or Negotiated With. Evil Must Be Dealt With Firmly Under The Authority Of Law And Justice.  To appease the status quo that created the crises and suffering of today is to  embrace evil itself.  The world learned that through fifty million deaths and endless devastation by Chamberlain and other global leader’s appeasement of evil.  How many people have needlessly suffered and will suffer today due to the continued appeasement of the status quo’s evil?

The Economic Realities Created By Pigmen Fosters An Environment For Pig Thieves

First off, I should start with a clarification.  By pig thieves, I am not referring to the pigmen of Wall Street.   This is a story about literal pig thieves.  But it’s hard to dismiss the realities created by pigmen that fosters an environment of pig thievery.   

There is very little of what would be classified as truly evil or chronically unstable minds that represent a never-ending threat to society.   A substantial amount of many classifications of crimes are economic to some substantial degree.  As economic opportunity diminishes, crime always increases.  Always.  It also leads to a rise in gangs, rackets and other organized crime elements as we saw in the Great Depression.  Those seeking power always seek to rise to levels of authority whether that authority is a politician, a CEO or a head don of the mafia or a street gang.  What was the primary difference between John Gotti and Wall Street banksters?  Gotti wasn’t protected by politicians.  Wall Street plunders society under the protection of politicians and the rule of law.  Or as we have cited numerous times:

  "Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame and danger that their acts would otherwise involve. But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to the other persons to whom it doesn't belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime." -- Frederic Bastiat

As money has become more and more scarce over the decades, courtesy of the criminal kleptocracy, the U.S. economy chokes even harder on its own vomit.  The realities of the facts are far different that the useful idiots and monetary dunces who argue the Federal Reserve is printing too much money.  (The Federal Reserve has bailed out criminals.  It is not guilty of printing too much money for the underlying economy as the most recent monetary dunce and new demagogy king, Rick Perry, said this week on Tout TV.)  

The primary element in the human condition is fear.  My experience is that very few people recognize the role fear plays in their lives but the flip side of fear is the basic human need of safety we all share.   The lack of money in the economy directly impacts the core human need for safety.  An unsafe mind becomes an uncentered mind.  An uncentered mind can easily become a destabilized mind.   Obviously there are more dynamics than just economics that drive crime but how many people would be stealing pigs if everyone who wanted to work was afforded economic opportunity providing a living wage?  If there was economic safety for every American, and regardless of what the prison in your mind believes, that is very much possible, what would happen to crime in our society?  

Remember, as we wrote on here before the world changed forever, the large prison population in the U.S. is telling us something more ominous.  It might be telling us we live in a violent society glorified by the war state but it is also telling us as the kleptocracy walks off with trillions of dollars of society’s money, the double standard employed by criminal elites lands an endless stream of people in jail.  Often for petty crimes and addictions.  Petty crimes and addictions caused in large part by the kleptocracy thieving our society of our economic safety and now our social safety nets.  All while the kleptocracy’s thievery is protected by politicians. 

Prison population dynamics may be the best economic indicator to determine the state of the U.S. economy.   With the largest per capita prison population of any major country…….  well…… it doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots.  Something is very, very wrong.   

The start of the explosion in prison population lines up exactly with our long time thesis (based on economic data) that the U.S. economic activity peaked around 1980.   What has happened since is nothing more than a generation of massive inflation.  Asset values have not increased because of instrinsic value one bit.  They have increased only because of a profligate criminal class enabled by political corruption.  The start of the explosion i prison population also lines up nicely with Reagan’s statist war on drugs,  Reagan’s trickle down or voodoo economics and and a few other dubious government policies started under Reagan.   I think we used to call Reagan’s deluded political belief system --->> Social Darwinism.   Ronald Reagan was the godfather of statism and economic voodoo espoused by elites.  Elites who hate democracy.  

Let’s see.  Statism - stey-tiz-uh m – noun -  the principle or policy of concentrating extensive economic,political, and related controls in the state at the cost of individual liberty.   The war on drugs, war on poverty, war on illiteracy, the war on crime, the Cold War, the war on terror, trickle down economics……   How’s that working out for you?   Working out pretty well if you work for law enforcement, work in welfare and unemployment administration, work for the war state, work for the security state, work for a corporation or contractor in any of these endeavors, are an education administrator, work in the financial bubble, are one of the tricklers and not a tricklee or you work for the Wall Street banksters who fund these statist endeavors with the explosion in debt needed to keep this racket going.  By the way, Wall Street funds all of this while denying American citizens their economic and constitutional rights of denying them access to democracy’s capital ; a crime against humanity and an offense of treason.    

Title Link here.

 

Volatility Update: World’s Largest Listed Hedge Fund Teeters

Well, we are right back to where we said we would be when President Obama, economists and Wall Street declared the recession over in 2009.   What recession?  This isn’t a recession.  It’s a cliff we sit upon as we head to the new normal somewhere in the nether regions below.  The hell we all get to visit courtesy of the unstable minds who created this mess.  Now that the financial crooks have spent all of the free money Grandma’s Social Security-threatening bailouts can muster, we are back to the financial industry being exposed as systemically-incompetent and morally-bankrupt.  You can put all of the lipstick on the pig you want.  Ain’t no one ever gonna kiss it again.  Ever.  Checkmate.

With senior management rushing into the buy shares in Man’s stock, this is eerily reminiscent of the financial idiots rushing in to buy equity shares in 1929 only to lose everything.   They thought it was all a confidence game.  Well, it is a confidence game.  A con(fidence) game.  A swindling.  Ain’t no one left to swindle.  Guess who’s holding the bag?  The investor class.  Wall Street.  And the political toadies who enabled the game. 

Remember, before this crisis passes, hedge funds go bye bye.  

The Kleptocrats Pick Their Man: Wall Street Cranks Up Donations To Mitt Romney, Their Number One Son

The old saying of follow the money definitely rings true everywhere we look in society today.  From relatively obscure examples like self-serving exploitation in college sports to some of the lunatic fringe religious fanatics to the corporate state’s exploitation of its citizens to the war state’s exploitation of resources and people around the world to the ultimate example being the massive and almost incomprehensible fraud that defines the American political system.  A system that directly and indirectly rakes in untold billions of dollars for no other reason than favoritism.  We have a for-profit government.  Isn’t this what the Republicans have been telling us for years?   That government should be run like a business?   Well, I don’t know about that but it is definitely run like a big business; where girth and power (cronyism) are used to drive out competition for ideas and to sustain bureaucratic and incompetent bloat.  Profit and exploitation (obviously for profit) are its primary motives.   The United States Corporation of America.  In Profit We Trust.

Given the vast majority of Americans are broke while corporations have record profits, (I think we call that exploitation) we know that politicians who raise the most money will do so by genuflecting the deepest to their corporate masters.     

Romney loves to tell everyone he is an experienced business leader.  Well, I’ve worked with business leaders most of my adult life and I’m not sure I’ve ever worked with someone like Romney.   Romney worked in private equity, a business we said before the 2008 collapse is headed into the dung heap of history.  And, I am still quite certain of that position. (The financial cabal is again teetering on the precipice.)  

Private equity uses other people’s money(often government-backed money courtesy of Wall Street criminals) to buy companies who were created on the hard work and creativity of other people’s hands and minds, to then extract (plunder) their fair share of the company’s assets for personal gain before breaking the company up or selling it off after time had inflated away much of the debts taken on while pulling this little con game.   (That inflated away thing isn’t working so well any more. eh?  Without that inflating away dynamic, private equity is exposed for what it really is.  Financial rigging,  financial manipulation, etc.) 

Does Romney have business experience?  Well, I guess he does.  If this is what we call business.  Personally, I think this sounds more like Romney has been on the corporate welfare wagon his whole life.  Private equity as it exists today could not exist without being on the government welfare role.  But more and more this is what defines business in the neoliberal economy.

It’s good to see the Wall Street kleptocracy are lining up behind their number one son.   If it’s up to Mitt, the status quo will get four more years.   

Volatility Update: History’s Deadliest Volcano Awakens

Title link here.

The New Normal - How One Hawaiian Paradise Became A Ghost Town

This ties in nicely to our thesis that the investor class is going to get obliterated.  This project is funded by the investor class for the investor class.  One of its first clients was Drew Brees, the New Orlean Saints star quarterback.   A few more “investments” like this and Brees will be forfeiting his career earnings.  Especially when sports-related salaries implode; another something-something that we said was coming many years ago.    All in due time.  The status quo is still busy spending everyone else’s money trying to save itself rather than actually do what is right. 

Greece Faces Austerity Strike .. Again. Yawn.

As the prospect of a disastrous debt default hung over Greece, the government faced strikes and protests Monday against new austerity measures needed to appease the country's rescue creditors.

Disastrous for whom?   I think not.  There is no loss of factory or loss of home or loss of electricity or loss of drinking water in Greece as happened with the recent Fukushima disaster.   I am simply amazed at how many “experts” in the financial and investing community are deluded by the lies created in their own mind.  Debt is a fiction created by the human mind.  It simply isn’t real.   Debt didn’t cause the Great Depression and monetizing it won’t cause hyperinflation.  This is simply about control.

If the EU thugs will not pay off the debts or forgive them, default!   Austerity, the advice of banksters and EU politicians is a crime against humanity.  Austerity only leads to more austerity.   The people of Greece must retake their freedom.  Demand the debts are forgiven or leave the EU.   

Copper’s Waterfall Collapse

There were quite a few people in the economics and financial community hyping last week’s Federal Reserve meeting.  And they were calling for a big rally after the meeting.  Ahem.   We laid our cards on the table last week before the FOMC meeting and said the next major move was going to be down to around 1000 on the S&P. 

If any of these people had just looked at copper,  it was making a new low before the FOMC meeting even started.   Copper continued its crash on Friday.  But just as happened with equities, it is trying to hold Friday’s low.  No surprise since all liquid assets are correlated thanks to Frankenstein finance.  ie, The same firms using the same algorithms and the same factors are trading in copper and equities.   Funny how looking back that copper peaked just a matter of days after we became bearish again on the financial freak show early this year.   The world works in mysterious ways.  :)  If anyone knew anything about what really moves markets, they would have known last week was the autumnal equinox.  Haha.  Sort of. 

We have cited copper on here numerous times over the years as a pairs trade, as a source of financial manipulation and as a barometer of future economic activity.  We have also cited that copper costs about 5c a pound to mine and with copper selling at nearly $5 a pound, the disparity between cost and price was because of the extortion of financial firms inserting themselves into the supply chain. 

Every single paid professional in the finance community that I am aware of, be they bull or bear, has at one time or another been hoodwinked by this commodity supercycle propaganda message coming out of Wall Street.   It’s all one massive lie.   It’s a lie needed for Wall Street to mint its massive profits in commodities and to divert attention away from its speculation as to why commodity prices were seeing astronomical rises.  A lie people on Wall Street actually believe because it is driven by completely faulty quantitative research and fraud.  We have said consistently since starting this blog six years ago that commodities are a bubble being manipulated by Wall Street criminals.  And part of that manipulation involves convincing retirement funds, investors and traders to believe the con.   Copper at its peak reached about 1,000% price premium over any time in the last one hundred years.  Regardless of the value of the dollar or the level of inflation, copper has never risen beyond about 70c a pound. 

Remember, we have written since well before the 2008 collapse that financial markets will move well too fast for people to respond.    The investor class did not cumulatively sell on the first decline this year.  And now they are down too far for most to sell as it is psychologically hard taking a loss.  The Federal Reserve and Treasury don’t have the political cover to give  the same type of helter skelter bailouts they did in 2008.  Bailouts which spurred a monster rally in tradable assets.  That means holding tradable assets into this water fall collapse or any future price weakness may mean losses will not be recoverable.  Ever.   There will almost certainly be no more free rocket fuel or high powered money available to Wall Street to manipulate financial assets in the future.  That is consistent with one our of themes that the investor class is going to be obliterated before this cycle is finished.   And that means all of those people who rushed into the investment management and advisory bubble aren’t going to have much of anything to do.  Remember, as we wrote back in 2006, we are in an investment management and advisory bubble.

The Fish Always Rots From The Head First - Hewlett Packard Becomes The Latest In A Long List Of Companies Run By Dumbasses And The Morally-Bankrupt

This story is completely ridiculous.  HP’s board has shown itself unfit and unqualified to run HP.   The board should do the honorable thing and dissolve itself and put a plan in place to find a replacement board.

When I got out of school about twenty years ago, HP was one of two companies nearly every electrical or computer engineer wanted to work for.   They were a company run by engineers who embraced a culture of excellence and the search for truth.  How the mighty have fallen; a timeless truth of the human condition and all of its institutions.   

This is just another in an endless list of examples of a long held thesis on here that we live in a leaderless society.   And we live in a leaderless society generally because we live in a society where everything is driven first and foremost by money and therefore by self-interest.  Or put another way, driven by control rather than the search for truth.  One cannot serve two masters – the search for money and truth are mutually exclusive.  The search for money is driven by control.  It is without virtue.  The search for truth leading to riches that may include money is the only noble endeavor of capitalism and human industriousness.  Greed is not good.  Greed is driven by evil. 

Rather, leadership or positions of service (CEOs, public servants, etc) have been filled by the most unsavory and incompetent elements in our society to the point where now what our society values beyond all else are the values of those valueless people; greed, and self-service.   HP’s board didn’t care enough about its responsibility to HP employees, HP shareholders, our society or HP the company to even meet with the CEO before hiring him.  They were “too busy”.  Too busy to be responsible for their social, fiduciary, legal and moral obligations?   Too busy to honor the rule of law?  They should return their compensation and resign.

The financialization of our society has led to its moral decay as always happens in any society.   A fish always rots from the head first.   The U.S. is not failing because of any foreign enemy.  The U.S. is collapsing from within because of the moral decay of its leaders.  Leaders who don’t share the same values as most Americans.  Leaders who do not share the values outlined in our Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.    Leaders who do not value community, connectedness, compassion and moral clarity but instead who value above all else the self, the ego and its desire for control at any cost.     

Self-service is not public service.  Self service is not democracy.   Self-service always leads to eventual collapse of the status quo.  Our society is collapsing from within.  Our society is collapsing from moral decay of those in positions of authority.  It’s just that simple.    

Ron Paul Sticks With His Principles, Climbs in Polls

These Republican debates have become generally ridiculous.  Or as Chris Hedges has recently penned about the state of American politics, The Election March of the Trolls.  To watch the two Ken dolls Mitt Romney and Rick Perry see who can shill the most for corporations, the war state and their ever-fluid  positions on countless topics, in some disturbing twist to rise in the polls at any cost, is a grim reminder of the unstable persona of people seeking authority and power.   Having the Dalai Lama participate in any U.S. political debates would raise the level of rhetoric exponentially in the categories of truth, compassion and virtue.  But, in lieu of his presence, Ron Paul seems to be just about the only voice representing any reason, moral clarity and truth.  The corporate or troll state as Hedges amusingly remarks most assuredly fears Ron Paul substantially.   

It’s hard to get a feel for where Paul truly stands given his avid supporters tend to “stuff” the electronic polls.  But I would not be surprised to see it come down to Romney and Paul in the end.  Perry seems to be attempting to benefit from the anger many Americans justly feel about the corruption in our country.  But his message is fading fast by many measures because it’s filled with ill-thought and often anti-humanist positions.    The centered, connected and reasoned mind wants to see virtues in our society restored, but not a dismantling of our social values and many associated social contracts our citizens share with each other through a common bond of dignity and compassion.   Anger against injustice and corruption is virtuous but it must be channeled into constructive solutions.  With Ron Paul, you know exactly what you are going to get.  Straight talk.  Some you may agree with.  Some you may not.  But, personally, I can agree whole-heartedly with ending corporate welfare, the war state, endless banking fraud, government corruption and government spying on its citizens.  

Regardless of any differences I might have with Paul’s economic ideas, I believe strongly that it is in the best interests of America’s future that Ron Paul continue to rise in the polls.  In other words, in the search for truth and moral clarity, people can put aside many differences to achieve greater good for the people of our nation and of the world.

Title link here.

Scientists Capture Particles Traveling Faster Than The Speed Of Light?

We won’t have confirmation until this is validated by other research teams but as someone remarked elsewhere, Einstein may be about to be thrown under the bus.  It’s way too early to draw that conclusion yet.

We have said on here numerous times that most science is not fact at all but merely the extent of human knowledge at any point in time.   And that science is often corrupted by politics, ideology and inertia of self-interested bureaucracies.  If this isn’t the discovery that shatters the foundations of modern physics, eventually something else will.   It’s all good.  It’s all part of the human mind’s search for truth. 

This ties in nicely with our remarks that in cycles of volatility institutions of the human ego are exposed to possible failure.  Science, political systems, economics, nuclear power plants and other human-based institutions are nothing more than inventions of the ego.   The universe cares not about any of them.  They are simply manifestations of our mind.   As such, as the search for truth discovers fallacies in our current belief systems, we shall see those heretofore accepted beliefs of the ego crumble before our very eyes.  And in their place will be a greater enlightenment in our journey. 

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson Willing To Testify Against Dick Cheney For Crimes Against Humanity

Title link here.

Co-story by constitutional attorney Glenn Greenwald -   That's what happens when the Government -- marching under the deceitful Orwellian banner of Look Forward, Not Backward -- demands that its citizens avert their eyes from the crimes of their leaders so that all can be forgotten.

ProPublica - Do Regulations Kill Jobs? Only When Listening To Political Idiots And Corporate Lobbyists.

I commented on ProPublica’s blog about this ridiculous question and I am going to expand on those remarks here.   Over the years it seems I have beaten this regulation meme countless times.  It still exists.  It still exists because corruption of the public mind by morally-bankrupt private interests still exists.   

This issue of whether we need regulation is completely ridiculous and without reason, logic or science.  It is void of any search for truth.  Instead it is simply more ad hominem attacks by political idiots and corporatist shills.  But, then we have ridiculous people running our government who bring up these ridiculous points so there is some necessity to go back and teach first grade concepts to some in society. 

I saw one of my favorite ridiculousnessers, Orrin Hatch, on TV the other day.  Orrin, one of my favorite neoliberals who also wanted to test people for drugs before they received unemployment benefits, (Because we know 80 million Americans are underemployed or unemployed because they are all crack heads.  An extremely elitist, anti-humanist and unconstitutional view)  was whining about how regulation was going to kill jobs on Wall Street.  Ahem.  We do know that regulation and public oversight kills predatory jobs.  That is why Wall Street chafed at a consumer protection agency.  It would mean their profit engine of effing Americans over at every chance they get would have public eyes on it.  Apparently, Orrin and other Republican leadership in Congress embrace this profit engine regardless of how these profits are reaped.  We already know predation has a high profit factor.  It has helped fuel the profit bubble in corporate America.   I think we can safely say Orrin wants to protect this at-all-cost profit motive because it fuels the intermingling of corporate money with political bribery.  All legal of course.  Legal because politicians passed laws to make it so.  (I think instead of drug testing the unemployed, we need to test Orrin to see how many marbles have fallen out of his head.) 

Let me repeat something we have said on here before.  Regulation is the RULE OF LAW applied to economics.  We are a nation of laws and not of men.  Or we were until men started deregulating our economy. Regulation is absolutely necessary.  What would happen in any game without regulation?  A game where anything goes.  A game where only those most willing to engage in any activity necessary to win, would actually enjoy playing.  And let’s say the primary  motive to winning was money.  How would you play baseball or football without rules and regulators?  Would you want to compete?  Could you compete?   You would have anarchy.  And, that is exactly what we see today.  Economic anarchy.  Chaos.  Or, as we have remarked thousands of times, volatility. 

Economics is a game whose activities can be described through math-based (the rule of law or reason in lieu of opinion) game theory.   In reality, we don’t have enough economic regulation or in many cases we have self-regulation as is often the case of corporatism.  Re self-regulation, do you want to live in a society where all murderers, rapists, serial killers and armed robbers are required to self-report their actions?  To self-regulate?  That is what we have in our economy today.  Do you like all of the pollution in our water, our air and in our land?  Do you like drinking water with dozens of known toxic chemicals in it?  Do you like eating food that has poison in it because of pollution?  Do you like all of the exploitative practices by multinational corporations?  Do you want to leave the safety of a nuclear power plant to a corporation running it for profit?  Today we have economic anarchy courtesy of corporate personhood and their beholden lawyerly stooges and political toadies. 

We have remarked on here about the bloated size of the codified code in the United States.  In actuality, we might do better to simply ditch the entire U.S. codified code for business regulation and rewrite it.   Today it is a cesspool of red tape, corruption, corporatist barriers to entry for competing forces in the market, etc.   We need regulation like Glass Steagall.  It was 20-odd pages.   Similar financial code today is thousands of pages and is simply comprised of loopholes, red tape, corruption, bribery and mindless busy work meant to keep competition out of markets.  If you want to start a business in this country, it should be easy to do without a legion of lawyers or excessive cost.  And it should be comparatively inexpensive  unless you are dumping mercury out the factory’s back door or some equally harmful dynamic.

We have had thirty years of deregulation or free market bullshit and look where we ended up.  As we have said countless times, as a society we should seek fair markets.  There is no such thing as a free market – a myth perpetuated by ideologues and scientific dunces.  A fair market ensures there are referees or regulators who ensure the game’s rules are being adhered to.   All of the Ron Paul worshippers out there remember that he idolized the anti-government, anti-regulatory ideology of Ronald Reagan.  Ronald Reagan is the godfather of modern economic mythology.  Ron Paul has some redeeming views on statism but understanding money and economics isn’t one of his strong points.   Ronald Reagan’s view of economics has led to an economic anarchy of kleptocrats.   We live in a post-apocalyptic Mad Max economy where neighbor must raise his sword against neighbor in order to fight over what scraps are left for most citizen.   This while a handful of political, corporate and elite thugs walk off with all of our wealth and the fruits of our labor.   It’s the way of the free market.

Today, with so much deregulation, we don’t have any meaningful regulatory code left in many instances.  Instead, it is red tape and unnecessary statist bureaucracy.   Almost always this is a result of legalized bribery.  That red tape is often put there by corporations bribing our government.  In other words, fascism applies red tape in lieu of regulation in order to stifle working markets.  In other words, red tape is pro-business as Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama have proudly proclaimed.  And, leading Republican candidates Perry and Romney have so proudly also announced.  (They all need to kneel before their corporate masters to raise the billions needed to win their corrupt political races.)   Being pro-business as shills for both political parties are, stifles regulation and working markets and replaces it with red tape, bribery and fraud meant to defeat merit-based competition in our economy and to allow a chosen few to loot our society.  This results in massive monopolies with endless supplies of money to capture our government and continue gutting our regulations (the rule of law) through bribery.

Obama’s health care reform bill was fascist red tape paid for by the health care industry.  Dodd-Frank financial reform was fascist red tape paid for by the financial industry.  Both protect massive bureaucracies by destroying merit, working markets, competition for American labor and competing business ideas that would raise wages and economic opportunity. 

Does regulation kill jobs?  Well, do rules to the game ruin your favorite sporting event or cause the collapse of sports-related employment?  Does paying referees in sports (a tax on doing business) destroy the profit potential of your favorite sport?   These are absolutely unreasoned, ridiculous and asinine questions that no one who embraces democracy, reason, science, logic and the rule of law over opinions of men would ever question. 

We are only debating this point because of massive political fraud and corruption of our government.  And because we have become a nation of men and not of laws. 

Get rid of corporate personhood, privately-funded elections, opacity in government and both political parties (corporations themselves) and this nonissue issue will disappear as will all of the other insanity associated with all of these morally-bankrupt issues.  It will disappear when the voice of reason, of law and of democracy gains the advantage against the corporatist shills.

The Federal Reserve’s Operation Twist

The Fed announced yesterday it was going to buy long-dated securities in order to push rates down.  Yawn.  Well, that’s all well and good but as we have been writing on here for the last six years, the Federal Reserve does not control the economy.  Monetary policy will NOT fix this systemic collapse.  Mind you, in 2007 and 2008 almost everyone on Wall Street thought the Federal Reserve was going to save us from recession.  Recession?  Ahem.  Even if the Fed monetized all debt in the U.S., it would not fix this crisis.   It would simply give us more time to deal with the underlying root causes.  As we have said countless times, debt is but a symptom. 

Each new stimulus program announced by politicians and the Federal Reserve over the last twenty-odd years has had smaller and smaller time impact.  To the point where today, stimulus essentially is having just about no time impact.  The game of fraud and corruption is over.  We are never returning to the world of a few years ago. 

Corrupt government created this crisis.  A government with moral clarity is needed to fix it.   We need a restoration of democracy.  And that will only happen when we have true leadership.  In other words, public servants who understand what Lao Tzu wrote long ago. 

"A leader is best when people barely know he exits. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, 'We did it ourselves.'."

Only the American people can rebuild our economy and get us out of this crisis.  Only by empowering all Americans economically within the framework of a democratic economic model can we see a return to prosperity in this country.  A model that allows those seeking merit to thrive.  (Merit being measured countless ways including ideas, creativity, hard work, business acumen, intelligence or whatever merit you are capable of sharing with society.  We all play a role in our success and we all have some merit to share in that success.) 

America and other free nations are great not because of politicians.  We are great in spite of them.  Politicians around the globe need to institute economic policies that will empower the cumulative abilities of a free society to excel.   But in order for that to happen,  politicians will have to give up control.  That will never happen.  I repeat never.  Only true leaders realize that it is not their ability that makes them great but the empowerment and recognition of the abilities of others that makes them great.   Leadership requires faith in your fellow man.  Faith that giving up control will reward your efforts well beyond your ego’s delusion of self-importance. (the basis of the need to control) 

It’s never about you. 

The Seeds Of Democratic Economics Are Sprouting In Public Banking. Wall Street Is Finished. Forever.

We have hammered incessantly on Wall Street over the life of this blog.  They are nothing more than a cabal of crooks.  They insert themselves into the supply chain of every business they meddle in to take their cut just like an organized crime syndicate.   Essentially, that is all they are.  A protected racket of thugs just like OPEC.  They produce nothing of value to society but instead prey on creativity of companies, individuals, municipalities, retirement funds and poverty-stricken people around the world.  If you value democracy, human dignity and human development as virtues our democracy should embrace, Wall Street truly is the greatest evil we have ever faced as a free nation.  It plays a primary role in the war state, racism, high unemployment, poverty, concentration of wealth, obesity, the proliferation of gangs, rampant drug use and on and on.  Anyone who has studied history knows that many of these were hallmarks of English society during its reign of terror around the world known as the English empire.   A reign of terror backed by gold and silver based monetary systems.  And if you truly understand monetary economics, and most self-professed experts and nearly every economist are truly clueless, then you understand what I just wrote.   At some point in the future, I hope to blow your mind about how our economy and our monetary system would be different with democratic banking.   In other words,  if you can dream what the world should look like,  it is more than likely possible. 

I don’t want to get ahead of myself because I have a roadmap of posts scribbled out over time but as we have mentioned countless times, private for-profit banking is a relic of history’s tyranny.  Private for-profit banking and private money can never serve the interests of democracy.  Ever.  There are literally no examples of it doing so throughout all of human history.  I don’t care if it is backed by gold, diamonds or unobtanium.   On that note, gold is a tool of the rich, elites and the state used throughout history to deny people their basic economic rights and freedoms.  Those seeking a return to a gold standard are playing into the hands of the status quo.   They will eventually be exposed as playing the role of useful idiot for the monied elites and the corrupt interests of our society.   I wouldn’t be surprised to see a return to gold money proposed by the status quo at some point. 

We have written for the last five years that Wall Street serves no purpose to our society.  And, that it could very well turn out that advances in technology and finance make them obsolete.  For some time we have actually ramped up the rhetoric that I believe Wall Street is finished.  Forever.   When you cheat, steal and defraud local communities, states, retirement funds, corporations, our citizens and our government, there is consequence.   When you create economic misery, hunger and even death, there is consequence.  Then when you then cut off access to society’s capital or even steal it from local communities and states, there is consequence.   One of those consequences will be to re-introduce local capital and money into local communities and states.  One example of this is public banking.  (Amusingly, another is Groupon and similar services.  Groupon creates money that can only be used in the local economy.)  We can point to history for examples of this dynamic.  And we can point to Newton’s Third Law - for every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction.  The cat is too far out of the bag.  Wall Street is never going to put the cat back in the bag.   I don’t expect Wall Street to even exist within the next decade.   And how glorious that will be for democracy and human development!

The cited links below aren’t my ideas of what a public banking system would look like but I would be wildly happy were these excellent starting points approved.  They represent quantum leaps forward in democracy, democratization of capital and self-rule (localization).   And, we are likely to see solutions morph over time as society becomes more aware of what is possible with democratic banking.  In other words, these are very substantial moves in the right direction and one shouldn’t let perfection become the enemy of the good. 

Open your mind to the lies of the status quo and the corruption, fraud, poverty, misery and unemployment that results as a consequence.   You REALLY should to listen to and read these!  Spread the word of democracy and let’s get rid of Wall Street for good.

Barbara Dudley on Oregon’s effort to create a state bank. (MP3 audio)

Letter to California Governor - how to solve your employment blues.

Ellen Brown – California Legislature Passes Bill to Study State-Owned Bank

Bill Clinton – The American Dream Is Under Assault

I find there great irony in this interview since Bill Clinton arguably did more to create this crisis than any other President or individual.   It is of no surprise that Clinton’s notorious ego won’t allow him to consider the real truths behind this crisis and his complicity.  Instead, it’s all about everyone else.   The human mind is the great deceiver.  

As it pertains to Bill Clinton’s view of the American dream, "Its called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."  Or so said George Carlin.

Update On Financial Markets

In Friday we completed an upside pattern in the NYSE volume as shown in the top graphic below.  That pattern is a W-shaped bottom, highlighted in red, with an upward projection equal to that pattern’s height as shown in blue. 

In the mean time the SPY ETF or the S&P 500 ETF looks like a shotgun blast over the last few months.   Price is scattered everywhere with gaps all over.  No one has been able to mount an upward trend or upward penetration of this messy chart.   If one looks closely, there is the possibility we are in the fifth wave and final wave upward that may propel us somewhere north of 1250. 

ETF volume and usage has picked up substantially since the return of market volatility a few months ago.  The SPY volume has increased 2-3x over prior months.  Additionally, while I would have to kill you if I showed you, many other derivatives and futures products are showing aberrant behavior.  This shows an environment we have said is going to come to pass is likely in the process of happening; that we are relying completely on derivatives to levitate the market.

I don’t anticipate future price based primarily on patterns but if one would project the next move in price based on the S&P price pattern in conjunction with the NYSE volume pattern,  we would see a next attempt to rally the market at about 1000 on the S&P 500.   But first we may have some brief unfinished business on the upside.   

I want to remark of something we have uniquely written about at least a dozen times over the past three years.  Wall Street and hedge funds have traded counterparties out of financial markets.   This is an unintended consequence of bailouts without reform and Wall Street’s massive corruption of the rule of law.  Anyone exposed to these markets in any fashion may be running the risk of eventual forfeiture.  Or counterparties not being able to fulfill their obligations on either side of any trade.  That isn’t just stocks, that is any financial instrument.  Especially derivatives like CDS’s used to destroy financial institutions, countries, etc.  (And is currently being used to terrorize Europe.)  Wall Street, hedge funds and the investor class are holding a tremendous amount of overvalued or, in the case of derivatives, completely worthless paper instruments.   And they aren’t receiving the necessary liquidity injections, either through the replenishment of a functioning economy or through wealth-shifting bailouts, to keep their legalized theft going forever.  At some point, liquidity will again dry up.  It’s the exact same dynamic, albeit applied to different financial markets, that we uniquely wrote was going to happen a year before the 2008 collapse.  This at a time when most no one in Europe or the U.S. under the age of 90 had even heard of a liquidity shock. 

One thing is certain.  Nothing has been fixed.  N-o-t-h-i-n-g    Fraud is still the primary economic and political model by which the world is governed.  

The System Of Control Is Failing - Geithner’s High Profile Visit Leaves Europeans More Dumbstruck Than Starstruck

This environment is starting to remind me of a post-apocalyptic science fiction B-movie titled “Reign of Terror” where dragons prey on  the earth and on humanity.  Sound familiar?  Eventually when there is no one left to prey on, the dragons start preying on each.   There is no moral conscience or code that drives evil’s desire for control.  Where there is no moral clarity or rule of law to protect from  predation, evil will always turn against evil at some point.   We see this in countless examples today and throughout history where man turns against man. 

As an evil and morally-bankrupt global financial cabal and criminal global economic system starts to implode, the evil forces that control it will eventually turn against themselves as it did in Reign of Terror.    That is the basic truth associated with neoliberalism.  It is survival of the fittest.  Or, survival of those most willing to throw their fellow man under the bus.  There is no search for truth in any of the neoliberal institutions around the world today.  If there were, we would see reasoned debates on how we solve crises around us.  How we create a democratic economic system that meets the needs of all of our citizens or how we solve many of the great crises facing humanity.  Instead we simply see a neoliberal system seeking to impose its authority or its control on innocent and free peoples.  We see self-interested evil attempting to maintain its control and authority rather than to serve humanity or society. 

The human mind only has two intents in every experience it faces; the intent to control or the intent to seek truth.   Control is driven exclusively by the human ego.  The human mind’s need for control creates negative energy, emotional instability, depression, anxiety and other self-destructive outcomes.  These two intents are mutually-exclusive.  There is no overlap.  

There is one primary intent of authority around the world today.  That is, simply to maintain and extend neoliberal control.  The ego’s unstable desire for control, which exists in every human being, is why no man should ever have dominion over another.      Democracy has morphed from a form of self-rule via elected public servants (those who subsume their ego for the good of society and humanity)  to instead self-granted authority and dominion over society and humanity driven by the ego.  And, it is for this very reason that these institutions are failing around the world. 

There is no truth to be found in any of the economic or financial institutions around the globe who use authority and control to prey upon innocent people.   There is only ego and its associated need for control.  So, what we see are attempts at control like Geithner’s attempt to tell the European bureaucrats what to do.   To send a message of control delivered by a morally-bankrupt political system beholden to criminal bankers and fascist shills for corporate power.  And in return, European bureaucrats play the same hand of control on the European people as they seek to impose their morally-bankrupt interests or control upon the sovereign people of Europe.

Control is an illusion created by the ego.   Control only exits in the human mind.  It isn’t real.  The system of control is failing as the search for truth becomes manifestly evident to those seeking it.  Open your mind and you will see. 

Title link here.

Rick Perry Explains How “Supernatural Events” Rain Guides Him

I just can’t resist some of the absolutely and continual ridiculousness of politicians.   If a politician is talking, a source of comedy is just around the corner. 

Some time I will dust off my old philosophy coursework and maybe even use a little bit of Boolean algebra to prove that politics and politicians can never be a source of truth.   That is much of the basis for why I wrote not too long ago that at some point humanity will move to a post-political form of self-rule.  Politics and politicians are both relics of early civilization.  And at some point, we’ll rid ourselves of both just as we have other faulty relics of past human existence.   

In the mean time, a friend sent me this and I threw up a little in my mouth while listening to it.   It’s good to know that demagogy and pandering are alive and well as a central tenant to politics.

Our society is crumbling because we have a government not based on the rule of law but on the whims of man.  Because our rule of law is being shred by the whims of politicians, bankers and corporate cronies.   God told President Bush to invade Iraq,  political leaders of both parties believe God has chosen them to lead the U.S. in a holy war, President Obama is now purported to have said he is relying on gut instinct to fix the economic mess politicians have created and now Rick Perry is interpreting rainfall as God’s will to guide his future. (And if he wins the presidency, your future too)

As I have said before, we live in a society where your right to ignorance or to divine your future by rain or voices in your head are protected by law.  And I support that right whole-heartedly.  But, a free and vibrant society can only flourish under the framework of reason, logic, science,  the search for truth and the associated rule of law.   And by the way, reason, logic, science and the search for truth are completely consistent with spirituality as taught by Christ, the Buddha and many others.  It is not consistent with governing a society based on voices in your head.   Regardless of whether those voices are real or that of your imaginary friend Bob, our society is based not on those voices but on the rule of law, the search for truth, reason and logic.   The rule of law protects us from those voices or any other whims of man. 

Politics and politicians will never fix our economy.  Ever.  Only reason, logic, the search for truth and the associated rule of law will ever lead to an economic recovery in this country.   Now leaders in positions of authority may institute reasoned and logical solutions that will enable the American people and our economy but that would require electing a leader to political office.  Today, we have no leadership willing to embrace these successful principles.   We have no leaders in politics. 

The more meddling and bandaids politicians try to slap on an economic system based wholly on the whims of man, the larger this crisis will eventually become.   And no amount of rainfall will change this fact.

Ron Paul’s Campaign Manager Died Sick And Unisured, The Way ‘Freedom’ Allows

And, might I add, he did financially-destitute leaving his family with $400,000 in medical treatment bills.   There is some incredible irony in this story.  As there is with Paul’s answer to a health care question in the Republican debate a few nights ago.   That is, if someone gets sick and doesn’t have health insurance, well, shit happens and you pay the price with your life. 

Update:  I forgot to insert in the above paragraph that Paul’s campaign manager was denied health insurance.

I like Ron Paul as someone who sees the massive fraud in Washington and the encroachment of the state on our freedoms but some of his views on freedom,  libertarianism and economics are batty as hell.  I want government cleaned up but I don’t want to live in a society he envisions.  It is a world seemingly where no matter what adversity you face in life, whether it is by chance or dumb luck, you are left to the forces of the “free market”.   Personal responsibility is important but his neoliberal view is not representative of a healthy state of mind.  The human mind is healthy when its basic needs are met as outlined by Maslow’s hierarchy.  That means the human mind is granted safety, community and connectedness.  

On some level I view Paul’s perspectives as often anarchist rather than libertarian.  There is a substantial difference.  Paul takes an extreme view of government and community in the sense that he seems to think government is always the problem and no matter what happens in life, there is no formal support structure or connectedness or community to assist.  Actually, a true libertarian understand that functioning government (the rule of law and the will of the people) is the solution.  These ideals of community and connectedness are clearly outlined in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. 

Being a libertarian means one values the primacy of individual liberties.  That does not mean one thinks functional government is a problem.  In order for the primacy of the individual to be possible, effective government is necessary.  For some who may be mentally-challenged or some who may experience bigotry and hate because of skin color or sexual orientation or gender or someone who is disabled in any way or some who have been victims of Wall Street fraud or countless other examples, often people need effective government to become who they were meant to become.  Government  must play a role in supporting the primacy of individual rights and with that comes the rights of supporting individual opportunity.   In other words, people and society need community to become who they are meant to become.  To become personally responsible.  To become whole.   To be given the fundamental opportunity to lead a self-determined life.   The only formal facility we have to accomplish this is community itself.   That is government.  Government is the will of the people.  All people.   Individual responsibility and accomplishment takes primacy but in many situations, we often need assistance to lead that self-determined existence.  A true libertarian understands the complexities of life as opposed to viewing everything as a black and white ideology.    

Euro – Dollar Update

Below is an updated weekly graphic of the euro divided by the dollar.  The euro rose substantially and continuously against the dollar post 2000 into the 2008 collapse. Since,  the euro has been a yoyo of volatility.  That yoyo has been lower lows and higher highs.  The longer term pattern points to the euro dropping 50% from its 2008 peak to around 80, which is lower than its initial launch value.  That is simply the chart interpretation.   How the future unfolds could take many forms.  The union as it currently stands is not sustainable.   Everything other than a return to self-rule (democracy) and localization (democratic economics)  is a band-aid.  

Remember, we have said for ages the dollar is putting in a long term bottom here.  And that it could rise violently and substantially at some point thus catching American politicians, multinational corporations and the Federal Reserve off guard.   That view has been an incredibly lonely position.  Even one of our favorites, Marc Faber, was barking that the euro was a legitimate currency and the dollar was toast years ago; a completely unreasoned and non-thinking statement of pure ideology and self-delusion. 

The dollar has risen to its highest level against the euro this year as shown below.  And although the histrionics of many would wish to convince you otherwise, the dollar hasn’t put in a new low against the euro in four calendar years.  And we could have anticipated all of this from one dynamic alone.  That is, globalization ended back in 2008.  The end of globalization, which we have uniquely anticipated, has many macro connotations regarding the value of the dollar.  All of them are bullish.         

Remember, volatility is a precursor to a change in trend.   Since 2008, the chart below shows incredible volatility in what was a strongly rising euro for the prior eight years. 

Der euro ist kaput and in our next post we’ll open the kimono on many of our prior posts to explain in greater detail how incredibly wrong everyone is as to why.    The remarks about the profligacy of debt-laden Greece, Portugal, Spain, etc are utter and complete neoliberal nonsense and those writing statements supporting this position are society’s useful idiots for bank mobsters and the wildly corrupt status quo. 

ProPublica’s Dollars For Doctors

ProPublica keeps adding to its Dollars for Doctors series with many new stories.

While medicine is a noble profession, I know from first hand experience that as our current morally-bankrupt health care system is architected, doctors play a substantial role as keepers of the status quo and that often means they subvert the search for truth rather than enabling it.   One such example of this is the pharma industry that employs money as a method for ‘encouraging’ the support of doctors.   I’m not going to doctorize on here but we have become a pill-popping nation.  And there are SUBSTANTIAL holes in the efficacy of much of that pill-popping as there are many unintended consequences; many of which are unknown. 

The future of health care in this county is going to be vastly different than what the bloated health care bureaucracy has ramped up for today.   For-profit health insurance is criminal.  Period.  Making people choose between bankruptcy or health care in a country that can pay bankers trillions of dollars to blow up the world is a crime against humanity.  Period.  The system needs transformed.   (And for those who let talking heads of the status quo tell you our health care system is fine and that changing it is socialism or communism or other absolutely ridiculous ad hominem attacks, President Nixon proposed national health care. If Ted Kennedy were still alive, we would have some type of workable plan rather than corrupt corporatist ObamaCare.) 

The light of day that ProPublica and others are providing will eventually help transform this system into one that serves society rather than monied special interests who don’t have a primary intent to serve anything but their own greed. 

The Free Market Speaks – 101 Year Old Detroit Woman Evicted And Kicked To The Curb

When I read stories like this, it makes me incredibly proud of our excellent and virtuous leadership in America.   I can’t tell you how excited I am to report the free market policies of Wall Street and Washington are working.  Let’s make a list of all people over 80 who are late on their taxes or mortgage and expedite some free market policies. 

Our political and economic “””leadership””” institutes and supports such fine economic policies that enrich our society.   This is a perfect example of a lazy crack head who needs to be kicked off the public dole.   We should only allow JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Lehman and other highly qualified corporate persons to be granted access to the public dole.   And granted access they are.  

In closing, I know some of you misguided people who have empathy or morals and want to save the world might think kicking this lazy crack head to the curb is mildly wrong, but Ludwig von Mises tells us we must allow the free market to work.  You’ll eventually get it when you understand how our free market economy must work so that we can get out of this crisis.  Grandma will find a heating grate to live on or a bridge to sleep under after they cut her Social Security.  You know, because Rick Perry tells us Social Security is an unconstitutional Ponzi scheme.  Hey, maybe Wal-mart can offer her a job as a greeter.  At least then she’ll be able to afford to live in a cardboard box.

The Impacts Of Republican & Democrat Neoliberalism And Corporate Fascism - Census Bureau Reports Record Poverty

Pro-business government policy is simply another word for fascism or corporatism.   Pro-business policy create an environment of pro-corruption, pro-government bribery, pro-corporatism, pro-elitism, pro-statism, pro- war state, pro-corporate personhood and pro-neoliberalism.    President Bill Clinton, President George Bush, President Barack Obama, front-running Republican candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, nearly all of Congress and the United States Supreme Court through various failed or fraudulent decisions are all pro-business.  Most politicians unabashedly claim they are pro-business as Rick Perry gleefully remarked two nights ago at the Tea Party debate.  

Politicians from both parties obviously know who pays their bills and lines their pockets.  And, in order to get the billions of dollars of corporate money needed to run both political parties (both political parties are in fact registered corporations) they all realize they must bow before their masters with praise of being pro-business.

Pro-market government policy creates working markets, a vibrant economy, a flow of new economic ideas, competition for our country’s labor, jobs and sustainability.  

It’s getting a little old listening to the Republican  congressional leadership blabber on about cutting benefits to poverty-stricken people.  And that those on unemployment or welfare need to be tested for drugs because it’s manifestly evident most of these low life lazy slobs are crack heads that don’t want to work.

Article highlighting recent release of poverty date

Recent release of date from Census Bureau web site

Census Bureau poverty data directory

Update Remarks

There is just too much going on right now to spend the time to type up my promised Labor Day post on America’s second civil war.  I have the post outlined in my head but that’s all the further I have gotten with it.  I will get it up in October.  Guaranteed. 

Ex-FBI Agent Cites Dysfunction, Lies And Cover-ups Of 9/11 On PBS Frontline Tuesday

BBC article “Ex-FBI Interrogator “Gagged” Over 9/11 Backstory”

Check your local television listings or click on the Frontline link on the link list on right side of the blog to watch the investigative report online starting tomorrow.

Nothing Less Than A Total Return To Glass-Steagall? Or Is It Just Too Little, Too Late?

We were harping about Glass-Steagall years before the 2008 bust.   Years before the public generally knew anything about Glass-Steagall.  And that is what Wall Street and politicians wanted – society to be ill-informed.  Fraud and evil are only possible in the shadows and the darkness.  There are only two intents of the human mind – truth and control.  Evil --> control;  Love --> truth.    Do politicians and elites operating in the shadows love our citizens and our democracy?  Or do they seek to control you and subvert democracy for less than honorable motives?   If Glass-Steagall was repealed for the benefit of democracy and the search for truth, then why was it accomplished in the darkness and the shadows under duress of billions of dollars of lobbyist bribes?  And why was the fraudulent financial reform act of 2010 passed in the darkness under the same duress?

Investment banking is something we have railed against as a criminal enterprise for years.  A criminal enterprise fueled by MBAs graduated from elite Ivy League schools and enabled by a corrupt political class.  

After the 2010 financial reform act, we linked to my original copy of Glass-Steagall on here and compared its concise two dozen page verbiage to that of the Democrat’s multi-thousand page financial fraud act of 2010.  We highlighted how the thousands of pages of this current bill were simply loopholes and fraud meant to tighten the grip of the status quo and lock out competition.  And we wrote on here early in Obama’s presidency that the day would come when his statements that the economy and financial sector were fixed would come back to haunt him.  That faith in government had already collapsed and when faith in those who filled government collapsed, there would be nothing left for people to believe in.  That day has now come.   No one is emotionally or economically invested in the status quo except elites and their political toadies.  Change will be coming.  And it will be coming like a freight train.   

Because of the rapid exchange of ideas and the incredible awareness millions of Americans are gaining due to the internet, the greatest democratization medium or tool in human history,  as I have said before,  I think we are going to take down the Wall Street beast forever.    Wall Street had its opportunity to do what was in society’s best interest.  That window has passed and I believe that could actually make Glass-Steagall irrelevant.   While I don’t expect Wall Street to disappear tomorrow, at some point within the next five to ten years, depending on well too many timeline variables to anticipate exactly when, I believe Wall Street will cease to exist.  Forever.   Forever is a long, long time.  :) 

I expect the status quo to attempt to bamboozle us with a return to the gold standard or even Glass-Steagall at some point.   But at this point, those tools will be used as a deflection from the fundamental truth.  They will be  used in some attempt to prop up the massively corrupt system rather than dismantle it.  Our banking system has never served human development or democracy and I think that is where we are ultimately going to end up quite some years from now.   The efforts of returning to gold-based money or Glass-Steagall  are simply putting lipstick back on the pig and that pig is far too exposed right now.  Ain’t no one ever gonna kiss Wall Street ever again.  Lipstick or not.  Well, sans politicians.  They’ll kiss anything with a dollar tied to it.  Those efforts are too far lost and far too late.   I don’t believe the ultimate solution will have anything to do with gold–based money (a timeless tool of the status quo and elites)  and I don’t believe Wall Street can recreate itself in any sustainable fashion to survive.   We’ll dig very deep into all of this at some point but being against a return to gold-based money is and always be a consistent position on here.   Soon enough we’ll blow a hole in the gold thesis and expose the gold money advocates as nothing more than useful idiots laying the ground work for elites and the status quo; who by the way are the largest buyers of gold today.   If you think the status quo is going to win the future, then you too should be on the same side of the trade as they are.    

I have commented numerous times that I have no problems with capitalism with a handful of very transformational changes from what we see today, or as I coined it before, American-style capitalism versus state-based or corporate capitalism.  But there are other merit-based and democratic solutions that we have highlighted as well.  Not only do I think that Wall Street is going down but it is quite possible that capitalism is in its final throes.   We most definitely are seeing an end to capitalism as defined by Wall Street and neoliberal politicians.  That is, state-based capitalism and corporate capitalism.  We shall see what fills the void. 

The system has failed.  There is no going back.  I am amazed at how many people still continue to use the rear view mirror to anticipate the future.  ie, How many people who believe the future will be based on the past and how many prognosticators who remark we are in for decade(s) of economic crisis.   That is completely based on yesterday’s beliefs.  Yesterday is gone forever and so is that belief system.   Those views are completely illegitimate.  The American economy could roar right now without a massive government stimulus program if we had a democratic economic model.  And so could the global economy.  

The ego or manufactured self-image of the world around us, loves to be lazy.  In some ways, it is programmed to be lazy.    It does so by seeking control.  Volatility & unpredictability and the ego’s desire for control don’t mix well.   In an attempt at control, the ego anticipates the future using the linearity of the past as defined by our senses.  There is a lot of repetitive and assumptive subconscious and unconscious processing in that lazy interpretation of the future.  It is only when that linearity is shattered that the mind is often capable of envisioning a world beyond that which our senses (ego) have grown accustomed to.   It is only then the mind is able to give up control.  Yesterday and today’s mind view of the world must be shattered.  That is exactly what has happened for countless billions  on our planet today.   With our sensory belief system of the world shattered, the search for truth and a new world is now possible.   That truth will not be based on the control and fraud of the last thirty years and in some cases the last one or even two hundred years.    Truth is achieved in the moment.  By being present and considering what is possible without assigning any value to yesterday’s experiences or anticipating tomorrow’s outcomes.   In that moment one realizes our financial system and our economy must be transformed to serve truth, democracy, community and an emotionally-healthy human experience. 

The status quo had a chance to re-institute Glass-Steagall.  I now think it is more than likely too little, too late. 

The age of enlightenment continues.

Title link here.

Goldman Sachs Stock Breaks Under $100 For The First Time Since March Of 2009

It was just the summer of 2008 when Goldman was pushing towards $250 a share.  And their calls for oil were $300 a barrel.    And just six months ago Goldman was pushing $180 a share.   In 2008 the mainstream financial press was citing Goldman Sachs as some unbeatable economic juggernaut hiring only the most gifted and genius in the world.   Ahem.   In 2008 we were contrarily writing of coming doom again as we were six months ago. 

Intelligence as measured by mainstream society is often a HIGHLY dubious metric based substantially on roteness and mimicry aka delusions and ideology.    There were a lot of well-educated people in the failed Soviet Union bureaucracy as well.  And, all joking aside, there could be a case study comparing substantial parallels between the two. 

Goldman Sachs is a bureaucracy beholden to the status quo.  Everything it does is driven by ideology.  On how to thrive in an environment of the status quo.   Most of that by attempting to rig the game in its favor.  Remember, we have uniquely written for quite a few years that Goldman Sachs is in serious trouble because its business model is completely unsustainable.   For those who believe they will adapt, don’t bet on it.   Do you see any examples of the status quo successfully adapting around the world today?  There are countless historical examples when adaptation was trumped by extinction. 

9/11 – What Have We Learned?

I have never posted anything on 9/11.   There really is nothing I have to say.  We honor countless innocent people who were murdered on this date.  Any life taken violently at the hands of another person is a senseless crime against humanity. 

It has been ten years since that tragic attack.  How has the world changed?  What have we learned about ourselves and the world around us?   If we don’t have an intent to learn about ourselves and the world around us, we can never create a better world.   Is our continued response to the heinous act of 9/11 appropriate?  Are we making the world safer for innocent people not only here about around the world?  And does the end justify the means?  The answer to that last question is clearly no.  And that is why we are a nation of laws.  To protect us from history replete with behavior of men who believed the end did justify the means.   These were not men of laws but men willing to do anything and everything their mind rationalized as necessary. 

We should not only honor those who died today but we should consider what have we learned since.   How has the world changed?  And is it change within the framework of the rule of law and democracy?  Does that change add meaning our our lives?  To the existence of humanity?  Is it necessary change?   Appropriate change? 

Does the enormous security apparatus and untold security and military spending since 9/11  make us safer?   Or did a small band of terrorists win by forcing our society to respond in fear by taking away our liberties, spending ourselves into bankruptcy and killing or maiming untold hundreds of thousands of innocent people around the world.   Is it possible that the greater we respond with force, often involving pain and suffering of innocent people around the world, the less safe we actually are?  The more enemies we create?   Newton’s Third Law tells us for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction.   Taken literally, this could portend a very ominous future.  Let’s hope not.    

What have we learned?  Timely commentary for you to consider. 

Jeremy Scahill - Blowback in Somalia; how the CIA assists in the creation of terrorists (superior journalism)

The Real News - 9/11 was not an intelligence failure  so how does spending trillions to create new massive bureaucracies and war make us more intelligent?  (superior journalism - video)

Ralph Nader - Painful Lessons From 9/11. The Empire Is Eating Itself. (CounterPunch’s web site was down, probably for maintenance, at the time I posted this.  This link will work when the web site comes back up.)

Chris Hedges - A Decade After 9/11:  We Are What We Loathe

The End Of Big Continues - Bank Of America’s Unwinding

We have been talking about the unwinding in the financial economy since starting this blog.  That is well before anyone saw any cracks in the financial system.  As we have ranted incessantly since starting this blog, we are in the biggest financial bubble the world has ever seen.  None of Wall Street would exist today except for government bailouts.  When that bubble pops, no one will be hurt more than JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and the other oligopolies and monopolies that have been bailed out time and again. 

We even wrote a year before the financial collapse exactly and specifically what was going to happen to Wall Street in a few posts on “The Game”.  That is, essentially Wall Street would puke up its liquid assets and be stuck with its toxic, illiquid assets.   And that is exactly what happened.  That is why we had a government bailout.   Wall Street was stuck with illiquid balance sheets.  And mind you, anyone who believes Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein or other Wall Street cronies that say they didn’t need a bailout are full of sociopathic self-delusions.  All of Wall Street would have collapsed.  They are all wildly incompetent at best and guilty of much more at worst.

When a corrupt Washingto failed to break up the big banks, we wrote countless times that Wall Street had won nothing and that if the government doesn’t fix Wall Street by breaking up these firms, the market Wall Street worships (and does anything to avoid competing in by rigging the game through government bribery and monopoly access to society’s capital)  would eventually do it for them.  That is exactly what is happening with this crisis at Bank of America.   Bank of America’s potential firing of tens of thousands of employees is simply an outcome of ‘The Game” we wrote about years ago.  That is, they are puking up more of their liquid assets.  This time their employees are the liquid assets they are ridding themselves of.

Until the government fixes our economy, and they have done absolutely nothing so far, and that includes President Obama’s silly speech last night, as we have noted time and again, Wall Street will need bailout after bailout after bailout.  (there is only one way to fix the economy)   The unwinding will never end until these firms either no longer exist or they have become mere shadows of their former self or they receive endless infusions of society’s capital.  (an end of globalization, which we also have uniquely called, and a subsequent repatriation of America’s capital into our banking system would essentially be another bailout but with massive unintended consequences for multinational firms and the profit bubble.  another topic we have uniquely written about.) 

Many Wall Street crooks privately cheered at the failure of their competitors back in 2008 but what they seemingly don’t understand is that each time a large Wall Street firm or bank fails, their firms become a greater systemic failure risk.   Is Timmy Geithner doing anything about this risk?  He doesn’t even know it exists. 

There are only a dozen or so firms in the world large enough to take the counterparty trades in all of Wall Street’s money-thieving Ponzi schemes.  Eventually without continued government corruption that allowed these criminal enterprises to develop, they will all fail on some level.  Period.  Again, something we have uniquely written.

Remember, another one of our unique theses on here is that we could very well coin this environment the end of big.  It’s coming.  Bank of America is just another in a long list of massive firms that are headed for irrelevance or worse.  And, as long as society’s assets are protected or the failure is relatively orderly, we need to see this for our economy to recover.  The end of big is necessary for a resurgence in local economies.  Of course, as we have ranted incessantly, if our corrupt government would have enforced the rule of law - our anti-trust laws - rather than allowing these firms to bribe their way to the massive bureaucracies of bloat and fraud they have become, none of this would have ever happened in the first place. 

Title link here.

State’s Rights - Scotland Prepares To Leave The U.K.

Back when we first started this blog, we wrote that we were entering a period of rising nationalism.  At that time Hank Paulson, George Bush and Wall Street criminals were telling us life was good.   Paulson said and we quoted at that time that he had never seen a global economy as strong as this.  Contrarily, we were writing of coming doom.  Not just in the U.S. but more so around the globe.  At that time, that was a very lonely position as most bearish minds were focused on the U.S.   And as we have written for ages, the largest crises will be outside of the U.S.   That dynamic is just now starting to reveal itself.    Yet still today the status quo tells us globalization is unstoppable.  Wanna bet? 

Anyway, we have also been ranting that the future will be a return of localization and State’s Rights for ages.   When we first started talking about State’s Rights, the left-leaning political mob and Homeland Security bureaucrats were LABELING State’s Rights advocates as possible terrorists, loonies and other generally unsavory terms used to marginalize reasoned dissent.  Nothing more than a timeless trick used to crush reason rather than consider the truth.   A trick that would have labeled Thomas Jefferson’s State’s Rights perspectives as a potential terrorist.

ter·ror·ism – noun - the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.

How true has that push for local sovereignty and nationalism now become?  Everywhere.   Japan just elected a nationalist as they sack leader after leader cowtowing to the globalization criminals.  Scotland is seeking a return to its sovereignty as nationalists have gained an upper hand.   Iceland flipped the EU banking criminals the bird when they demanded Iceland repay their criminal debts.  States in the U.S. are pushing back on Washington hegemony.  The EU is under tremendous pressure as citizens seek a return to local rights and rule.  

Are these the actions of an unreasoned mind?   No.  Those are simply examples of a global movement to restore sanity to people’s lives.  People want more responsibility and say in their economic and personal liberties. Look around the United States at neighborhoods and communities that have been hollowed out by Washington political corruption.   Community is necessary to achieve any type of harmony in one’s existence.  People want to add to the richness not only to their personal lives but to their community or the world around them.   People want to make a difference and they want to determine how they do that.  They want to fulfill their life dreams regardless of how simple they are.   There is a need for a national government but it is not the need defined by the Republicans and Democrats.  It is a need that should be meant to protect and enrich our lives. 

The game is over.   There is nothing anyone in Washington can do before the 2012 elections to stop the tide. 

Title link here.

And here.

A Secret Message Straight From The Mouths Of Elites For The Useful Idiots Unwittingly Doing Their Dirty Work.

Unwittingly………..  I think we call that person a dimwit.

It’s amazing how many useful idiots there are on our society today.  Many are financial bloggers.  Many are Tea Party members who hate government.  Any government.  There are many people who ignorantly and unknowingly mouth for elites who hate democratic government and democracy.   Elites love fascism, corporate welfare and the war state.  They support anything that enriches their power and control.      Not so much for social programs that serve the need of society and  underprivileged.   Often underprivileged because of the undue power and control of elites.  Unstable minds of the often sociopathic and evil driven by power and control don’t care one bit about you, me, our communities, our democracy or our country.  This ties directly into our upcoming second civil war post and into our prior posts about the appeasement of evil.  

Part one of the Koch brother audio tapes

Part two of the Koch brother tapes

Top Secret America

I’m going to slip a post or two in here before I put up my post on America’s second civil war. 

I have been waiting on this Frontline documentary for the better part of a year.  They slipped this in under my nose and had a first airing last night.  It was too late for me to post in advance but this is a must watch for all Americans.  And for anyone who understands secret societies, police states, surveillance states and abuses of secrecy and power, you will be incredibly disturbed by the war state run amok as shown in this documentary.    The mathematician and Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky outlined in his published work what constitutes a fear-based society.  The United States is fast becoming a fear-based society.  It isn’t the Soviet Union but it also isn’t a democracy.   It’s amazing how many non-thinking bureaucrats in the war state, in the political system and in the corporate for-profit military-industrial complex simply do as they are told with profit as a primary motive.   And in the process, they continue to destroy America’s liberties and our economy as we slip further into the war state’s fear-based society.  This is a prime example of the timeless truth that bureaucrats or keepers of the status quo seldom exercise their conscience or any critical judgement as to what their actions may mean.  That includes how they may be impacted by their own actions.  We have highlighted this time and again including prescient quotes from Martin Niemoller and Henry David Thoreau.  

This documentary was originally supposed to air in January of 2011 and has been delayed numerous times.  I suspect the information is so overwhelming that the producers had a hard time boiling this down to an hour.  An hour really doesn’t do justice to the level of  investigative journalism undertaken by The Washington Post’s Dana Priest and William Arkin.  

The original investigative work was released almost a year ago on the Washington Post.  And there is an incredible wealth of investigative research and information on their Top Secret America portal.

The PBS Frontline web site has numerous stories as well as the hour long documentary.  These are top rate examples of investigative journalism.  Someone’s going to win some awards for this work.   The documentary is showing again tonight on local PBS stations.

In closing, your jaw will hit the floor when you see the Department of Homeland Security’s new $4 billion office complex being built in Washington.   That is in addition to thousands of other locations that have opened around the United States to support the massive security apparatus’ mission.   The new headquarters is the largest construction project in the United States today and the largest federal construction project since the Pentagon was built.  

We have a massive bureaucracy to serve the war state’s outward projection of power around the world.  And now we are putting in place another massive bureaucracy to project that power inward onto the American people.   Those who go against the war state’s outward projection of American hegemony, whether legitimately or not, live in fear.  And now that same fear-based bureaucracy is being projected inward and onto the American people. 

Democracy cannot survive when our government operates in secrecy.  Democracy is dead.  It is up to us to revive it by seeking transparency, a return to the rule of law and the Constitution and by electing people outside of the massively corrupt two party political system.

A Labor Day Post – The Process Of Relearning

I was originally going to write a follow up to a post that we put up in August of 2008 and simply link back to the original post for reference.  But, I have not had a chance to start typing up the new post.  So, instead I am going to link to the original post for today.   My next post, a follow up to the original, will be on America’s second civil war.   Over the next year, I am going to slowly lift the veil on the delusions and lies about banking, poverty, economic opportunity and corruption that has been pulled over our eyes.  And ask you to consider to think differently about many topics that are so ingrained into a massively corrupt economic system that can be changed forever.  And changed to create a world that most people today don’t believe is even possible because they have never seen such a world and because they think with their eyes.  Lies of the mind.

In August of 2008 the world was just about to change forever.  And now it has.  There is no going back.  So, today we build a new world.  A better world.   A world where we have an opportunity to reject the hate, divisiveness, corruption, rigged markets, unbridled greed and endless crimes against humanity associated with the poverty-creating junk economics of the status quo.  

The world today, with humanity’s wealth of understanding and knowledge, can eradicate poverty, corruption, unemployment and hunger.  And, we can do it in a merit-based economy that embraces ideals of personal responsibility, accountability and democracy.   We can make a rewarding society that embraces all of society rather than requiring all Americans to compete against each and other innocent people around the world for crumbs.

Everything that you see today is simply a dream.  It is a dream created by corruption and evil of the unsettled mind.  The world as we know it only exists because we allow that dream to continue.  But that dream will eventually end.  We will create a new dream.  And we have the opportunity for that new dream to reject the endless war, hatred, poverty, corruption and divisiveness of the status quo.   

To the 90+% of Americans who are, in fact, laborers, happy Labor Day!

Link to the August 2008 Labor Day post -  A Labor Day Post – An Economic Allegory And The Process Of Relearning

Secret Documents Uncovered In The Fall Of Libya Show Gaddafi Is Partner In CIA’s Global Illegal Torture Network

Libya was one of the most brutal police states in the world.  It is now just coming to light how heinous the regime was.  No one can really quantify the number of people tortured by Gaddafi’s police state but some are estimating the figure as high as a million people.  This in a country of six million people.  This would put them on a comparative scale with the Nazis who had a hand in killing over 30 million people. 

If you listen to the video from Human Rights Watch, you’ll hear that they uncovered documents tying Libya’s police state to participating in illegal rendition for the CIA.  In other words, as part of the CIA’s so-called war against terror, Libya’s state security apparatus worked for the CIA. 

ter·ror·ism – noun - the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.

Now, who again are the terrorists?  I’m having a hard time keeping this straight. 

Remember, I expect to see many shocking horrors about our government revealed in coming years.  If this doesn’t shock you, the state’s propaganda has desensitized you and turned you into a stooge for state-based crimes against humanity.   Let’s call a spade a spade.   If this doesn’t shock you and encourage you to demand change in our government, you have become a moral coward.  The vast majority of people in Nazi Germany were also moral cowards.  They turned a blind eye and then claimed to have no affiliation with crimes of the state when American troops rolled into Berlin and exposed Nazi horrors to the world.

By the way, apparently one of the current rebel leaders in Libya and his pregnant wife were tortured by the CIA and Gaddafi.  It’ll be interesting to see what blowback presents itself as the people of Libya learn of Gaddafi’s torture ties to the United States and Europe.   This could turn very ugly for both Europe and the U.S.

A lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.  -- Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda.

Title link here.