Kleptocracy unleashed
2008-09-24 01:55:23.876889+00 by
Dan Lyke
5 comments
In amongst all the other choice pull quotes about the idiocy of the massiv etheft currently under way in Washington and Wall Street, Elf found a doozy that I'm going to interpret slightly differently: From Roll Call: White House Dispatches Team to Push Economic Bill:
[White House Deputy Press Secretary Tony] Fratto insisted that the plan was
not slapped together and had been drawn up as a contingency over previous
months and weeks by administration officials. He acknowledged lawmakers
were getting only days to peruse it, but he said this should be enough.
So the administration has admitted to seeing this coming for "months and weeks", but suddenly it's a "work all weekend" situation with tons of pressure to pass the bill. I'm all for fluid credit markets, but remember that Greenspan complained of "irrational exuberance" back when the Dow was at 6500, and many of us have been calling this housing bubble for the better part of a decade. I'm not saying the Internet age hasn't brought us a very expanded economy, but, let's face it, houses should cost half of what they do (and I say this as someone who just bought at the peak) and the Dow shouldn't be over 10k. Spending the next generations into even deeper debt to keep up those unsustainable levels is evil, pure and simple.
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comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment Re: A note to pass along to your representatives in Congress ... made: 2008-09-24 02:58:07.325313+00 by:
jeff
For me, as an American taxpayer AND VOTER, my vote for you in the upcoming election rests on ONE VOTE by you. If you vote for the Paulson Bailout Plan, you will not get my vote, period. Because in voting for the Paulson Bailout Plan you are allowing the biggest transfer of wealth from our collective homes and businesses, as Americans, to the bank accounts of international bankers, mortgage dealers and speculators. You are legalizing the fraud that took place. You are, in effect, legalizing this illegal transfer of wealth, this theft. You are saying it is OK for some to take extreme risks with OUR money for THEIR personal gains. You are, in effect, allowing these speculators to keep their profits but to have the American taxpayer absorb their losses. Heads they win, tails the American taxpayer loses. Are you going to vote with the lobbyists or with the American taxpayer, the VOTER? Do you stand on principle or are you just another politician on the take? WE will be watching.
#Comment Re: Time to revisit Zeitgeist made: 2008-09-24 04:32:40.801248+00 by:
jeff
[edit history]
Given these times, the Internet movie Zeitgeist is worth another watch.
You can skip part I (religion), and part II (9/11), but part III (banking) is very germane to what is occuring today. It starts at 1:14.30 in the video.
Must viewing.
#Comment Re: Quoting Ron Paul ... made: 2008-09-24 17:08:19.427793+00 by:
jeff
Whenever a Great Bipartisan Consensus is announced, and a compliant media assures everyone that the wondrous actions of our wise leaders are being taken for our own good, you can know with absolute certainty that disaster is about to strike.
The events of the past week are no exception.
The bailout package that is about to be rammed down Congress' throat is not just economically foolish. It is downright sinister. It makes a mockery of our Constitution, which our leaders should never again bother pretending is still in effect. It promises the American people a never-ending nightmare of ever-greater debt liabilities they will have to shoulder. Two weeks ago, financial analyst Jim Rogers said the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made America more communist than China! "This is welfare for the rich," he said. "This is socialism for the rich. It's bailing out the financiers, the banks, the Wall Streeters."
That describes the current bailout package to a T. And we're being told it's unavoidable.
The claim that the market caused all this is so staggeringly foolish that only politicians and the media could pretend to believe it. But that has become the conventional wisdom, with the desired result that those responsible for the credit bubble and its predictable consequences - predictable, that is, to those who understand sound, Austrian economics - are being let off the hook. The Federal Reserve System is actually positioning itself as the savior, rather than the culprit, in this mess!
• The Treasury Secretary is authorized to purchase up to $700 billion in mortgage-related assets at any one time. That means $700 billion is only the very beginning of what will hit us.
• Financial institutions are "designated as financial agents of the Government." This is the New Deal to end all New Deals.
• Then there's this: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." Translation: the Secretary can buy up whatever junk debt he wants to, burden the American people with it, and be subject to no one in the process.
There goes your country.
Even some so-called free-market economists are calling all this "sadly necessary." Sad, yes. Necessary? Don't make me laugh.
Our one-party system is complicit in yet another crime against the American people. The two major party candidates for president themselves initially indicated their strong support for bailouts of this kind - another example of the big choice we're supposedly presented with this November: yes or yes. Now, with a backlash brewing, they're not quite sure what their views are. A sad display, really.
Although the present bailout package is almost certainly not the end of the political atrocities we'll witness in connection with the crisis, time is short. Congress may vote as soon as tomorrow. With a Rasmussen poll finding support for the bailout at an anemic seven percent, some members of Congress are afraid to vote for it. Call them! Let them hear from you! Tell them you will never vote for anyone who supports this atrocity.
The issue boils down to this: do we care about freedom? Do we care about responsibility and accountability? Do we care that our government and media have been bought and paid for? Do we care that average Americans are about to be looted in order to subsidize the fattest of cats on Wall Street and in government? Do we care?
When the chips are down, will we stand up and fight, even if it means standing up against every stripe of fashionable opinion in politics and the media?
Times like these have a way of telling us what kind of a people we are, and what kind of country we shall be.
#Comment Re: 1913 made: 2008-09-24 17:09:51.738573+00 by:
jeff
[edit history]
Let us not forget that the "creation of the Fed" was "forced" down lawmakers throats in 1913. History tends to repeat itself. Or more succinctly:
Amsel (Amschel) Bauer Mayer Rothschild, (circa 1838), "Let me issue and control a Nation's money and I care not who makes its laws."
There are more equally disturbing quotes found here.
#Comment Re: Dear American made: 2008-09-26 12:54:43.278444+00 by:
jeff
Dear American:
I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.
I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 700 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you. I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transaction is 100% safe. This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred. Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds. Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson