The Perfect Storm...

...for the influentually wealthy

What we have is a perfect storm for big business and banks to get a stranglehold on our economy and wealth. Except that as a former corporate banker (1st Chicago-Bank1-Chase) we could see this storm brewing for at least the past decade.

It's real simple.

Unemployment will drive down wages. Big business and banks have little risk with the government pumping bailout money into the banks. With everyone unemployed only big business will be able to use that money for loans. Also, with The Federal Reserve creating currency at the whim of the extremely influental wealthy so the government can pump more into the banks, they are creating inflation, so even though there is unemployment, prices will not go down. What with most everyithing we purchase distributed by big business, there will be no reason to drop prices.

NPR reports current college grads are looking ath $28.000/year jobs. I remember a discussion with several of my banker friends (from when I worked in a corporate bank) wondering how people could live on wages less than $38.000/year. That was over eight years ago and the CPI (Consumer Price Index) has been increasing by and averate of 3.5% per year. However, wages have been on a steady decline

If you don't think as I do, that this is orchestrated by a small perecentage of like-minded and very influential people and that this has happened completely due to circumstances, then you have a Perfect Storm of Circumstances

Yah, right

Time to get aware and then contact your Legislator and tell them to vote yes on H.R. 833 (Abolish the Board of Directors for The Fed) and H.R. 1207 to Audit and End The Fed.

I am not the only one to see this

This is not just the ramblings of a pissed-off pudgy middle aged guy Alternetjust posted a similar story today

Why Do We Take This Crap!

Last night I heard the CEO of GM, Fritz Henderson say that they “need to balance the balance sheets”, so 3,000 people are going to loose their jobs.

What did we give GM money for?

In this economy loosing one's job means, loosing one’s home, cars, perhaps the splitting up of families as they are dispersed to whomever can care for them; or for some it will be homelessness, or even death. And we sit here and say, “Oh, okay. That’s the way it is.” and go on Twiittering and Facebooking about buying pastries or deciding whether to go out or Tivo tonight.”

“Balancing the sheets” is corpo-speak for paying off the investors.

We have come to the point where money counts for more than the quality of human life, or even life itself. We accept that because the investor gave money that they are more deserving than those who have given commitment and time.

Bunk! Your job is not a risk venture.

But that is what GM has done! Turned jobs into a risk venture by making workers suffer a higher risk than the investors. Let the investors take the hit, not the workers. They knew and even considered the risks when they gave up money in hopes of making a more money without effort. A promise of return based on a façade of credit derived from an economy of aggregate (non-existent) currency and fractional loaning. Have you ever considered taking a job to be a risk venture? No! You trade your time and skills in return for money. The investors are the ones who took knowing took on a venture involving risk, managed on a shaky paradigm of greed pandering to a false consumer ideology. And they did it smugly knowing that people they would never meet or face might have to pay the price of abject hardship because they took too much risk.

And why should we just sit back and say this is the way it is.

In case you have been living in a cave for the last nine months, we have bailed out those investors; not only with our current tax dollars, but with our future economy.

So, it’s in our right to stand up and say

, “No don’t let GM off the hook. Let the risk-venture capitalists suffer the risk they paid lip service to. It’s our money and it’s our future. Let those who put in an honest day’s work off the hook. Let those who take risks, bear the costs of their risks.” Contact your representative and the President and tell him you are informed and will not stand this.

Are we a nation of cash flow or people?

What is more important to you?

Money or the quality of life for 3,000 people.? Think about it and answer as if you had to sit with one of those 3,000 people and their families and tell them this is the way it is. Don’t answer lightly just because you are spared that confrontation, as, apparently Fritz Henderson is spared.

You can go back to Twittering now.

Where will it end?

The Fed Strong Armed Bank of America

From the NYT: "Now, Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo of New York has revealed that Mr. Lewis said the Treasury secretary at the time, Henry M. Paulson Jr., and the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, put pressure on him to complete the Merrill merger while keeping quiet about the losses until an additional government bailout." This is what happens when our currency is controlled by a private investment bank. (See for yourself -- Click on the link):

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/was-bank-of-america-entrapped/

Another quote from the Times: "There is something unsavory about the government creating a crime that otherwise would not have occurred."

How far will this go? We're talking about The Fed strong-arming the 3rd largest domestic commercial investment bank at the time(Bank of America). Pres. Andrew Jackson had it right when he wanted to divest the responsibility of our currency to state bank. So did Harding, Lincoln & JFK.

Oddly ironic that they were all assassinated

Who the F*ck Do We Think We Are?

Yesterday when I heard President Obama's response to Korea launching a nuclear missile, I couldn't help by think, "we are picking this up in the middle." Obama spoke about holding Korea accountable for not following the rules. What are these rules? Rules that say we, the United States, are the only country who has the right to exact military aggression throughout the world?
((continued below)

Earth Day is April 22nd. Perhaps you should give this some thought.

Available at Quimbies, 1850 W. North Ave, Chicago or http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewwork.asp?AuthorID=75609
Or I will send you a free copy if you can show me you donated time or money to any pro-Earth advocacy/activist grouop.

Rhetoric

The rhetoric is that countries like Korea and Iran are run by megalomaniac tyrants who want nuclear weapons because they are bent on world domination. Excuse me? We are speaking about two countries who have had skirmishes with their direct neighbors while it is the United States that has extended the force of our military throughout the world, under false pretenses. In Iraq we chased after WMDs that didn't exist. In Afghanistan, we chased after Bin Laden, who was a direct threat to us. Bin Laden seems to be out of the picture and now our military aggression has expanded to Pakistan, all in the name of "regime change", to spread our benevolent (puhleese) democracy.

If you were Iran or Korea, or any other country in the Middle East, could you really look at our military aggression and not see it as imperialistic in nature? If you were Iran or Korea with militaries tenth the size of our military, wouldn't you want a nuclear weapon to leverage in the saber rattling that global affairs have become? Watching America is web site that samples news agencies from around the world. http://watchingamerica.com/News/). Take a look at it and you will see that we are not the benevolent giant that our leaders would want us to believe.

I'm not saying that the acquisition of any nuclear weapons by any country is a good thing and that we should sit back and let it happen, but perhaps if we were to pull back on our military aggression in the world and eliminate all of our nuclear stockpile, we might be in a better position to leverage influence against countries like Korea from getting them. After all, since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of Nuclear Detente why do we need nuclear weapons. It's a zero sum game. If a country like Korea or Iran launched an nuclear attack, what would we do? Launch a retaliatory
strike that would wreak devastation on the surrounding countries, which in the case of Korea would be China. Imagine what kind of situation that would throw us in.

I am glad that after his initial knee-jerk reaction, Obama indicated a need for a test ban treaty. However, how effectual can that be if we aren't willing to lay down our arms. It's like the U.S. is the biggest bully in the neighborhood and we have Korea's shirt bunched in our hand and our other fist cocked and we demand that they unclench their fists. Until, we are willing to unclench our own fist and release our grip, can we expect anyone on this planet to take this serious?

I work with gang-bangers and our behavior in the world reminds me of their
twisted sense of respect, which is ill gotten by threat. What further bothers me is that though Obama has proselytized d being the President of change, he surrounds himself with people who's agenda in the global arena is the same as the past. Many of
those close to Obama and have his ear, have long ties with the Bilderberg Group and the Tri-lateral Commission. (see http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/15/politics/politico/main4866504.shtml)The Bush driven Neo-Con New World Order is still alive and kicking in this administration.

We have a president who professes to be a President of the people. I encourage everyone to log on to http://Whitehouse.gov and in the upper right corner of the screen click on Contact and tell the President it's time for a less agressive America in the world.Or I will send you one free if you show me you have donated (time or money) to any Earth advocacy/activism group.

The Problem With Americans is....

Americans!

We are Consumers....

....and our need as consumers has left us easy prey to those we blame for the plight of our economy. Were it not for our insatiable hunger for things, mortgage bankers would never have been able to sell us homes we can't afford; and there wouldn't have such a thing as sub-prime loan rates, or mortgaged back securites. Were it not for our sense of entitlement to every item flashed before us on TVs, web sites or the pabulum we ingest from slick lifestyle rags or those boxes of free news on street corners, we never would have run up the credit card debts most of us now suffer.

....And We Have Now Consumed Ourselves
More below....

New Release available soon on Amazon.com.

Availble here now!

Yes, the financial institutions are predatory with their ever ready fees to charge us when we make the slightest slip (and don't they help us to slip as much as possible). Equally predatory are the real-estate institutions willing and waiting to give us mortgages with high default risks and then take that pool of high risk mortgages and auction its value off on the stock market in the form of Mortgage Backed securities until we were trying to extract twenty gallons of water from a five gallon jug. However, for every predator, there needs to be a prey and we made ourselves the prey through our needs -- Needs? Perhaps there came a point where we allowed us to believe our desires were actually needs.

If we hadn't had such an obsession to acquire and to limit our possessions to what we could afford, the whole credit industry would have remained a tamed pet it was in the seventies. Remember when you only purchased those truly big items, such as a home on credit. Even big-ticket items were thing we saved for. If it hadn't been for our need to have things now, the whole predatory lending industry never would have been fed enough to grow into the the beast that now mauls our economy.

We now have an economy based on credit. We've willing let manufacturing franchise our economy to other countries because we were so dazzled by the parade of things we could purchase, consume, that we didn't care how that parade was formed. We turned a blind eye to the fact that manufacturing hasn't paid taxes for over a decade, taking those tax breaks meant to keep jobs here, but off-shored them. As long as we were hypnotized by bright shiny objects and only had to consider our personal cost once a month when we glossed over our credit card statements, we didn't care that our economy left our country

We have a chance for change:

Well things have decayed and now we have the opportunity to undo our trend to consume until we have consumed ourselves. We can live within our means, quit feeding the dragon of credit fees and debt, spend only on the things we need. We can demand, through our purchases, that the bulk of money we spend to purchase any given items be backed by jobs, not to line the pockets of stock holders It's time to quick blindly consuming like a herd that will graze away it's own source of food simply because it in front of us and we can have it now, while paying for it tomorrow.

Well, tomorrow is here. Time to pay for the fact that we may have eaten our own young.

Erich Fromm had it right. We have escaped the burden of freedom and let others lead us by our desires for things as if it were rings in our noses, to line the pockets of the very rich. Remember when we had a viable middle class in this country? Wasn't that long ago, just over a decade. But, the cost of maintaining freedom is having to make choices, including the choice to delay gratification.

Slap in the Face to Joe Main Street

The Morgan Stanley - Citi Merger

If ever there was a merger that proves that we have become a country "of the investor, by the investor, and for the investor," it's the Citi/Morgan Stanley merger. I suspect that Abe Lincoln would feel as I do that this is a perversion of what he meant during his famous Gettysburg address**

New Release available soon on Amazon.com.

Availble here now!
Keep in mind that Citi has been claiming injury by the mortgage crisis to which it was a huge contributor in creating. This merger will create the largest brokerage on the planet with $1.7 trillion in "client" assets.

Say that aloud: "one point seven trillion dollars in client assets" That means that while on Main Street U.S.A unemployment is climbing and most of us are making decisions to pay the utilities or buy groceries at times, investors still have, and must be hoarding $1.7 trillion dollars. This probably a pretty good indication as to where the $350 billion of the $700 billion Bailout Funds have gone.

Now if you read the news blurbs, they indicate that this merger will service 1.6 million households "globally" That word globally is important because thought 6.8 million sounds impressive, it means that this merger will only be beneficial to .024 percent of the world population it is serving. That's two percent of one percent. That means that less than one percent of the world population.

It also means that these few investors hold assets that are nearly four times our national debt of $455 billion. The paradigm of the current administration has place our country in debt to line the pockets of a very few investors. It also means that these few investors and we are only talking about the clients of the Citi/Morgan Stanley merger, hold assets that are 42 times the trade deficit the country currently faces. That means if we were to ask Citi/Morgan Stanley's clients to pay off the deficit, they would still have $1.66 trillion. Say that aloud. one point six trillion dollars

The reason this last factoid is important is because this trade deficit was created in large part by large manufacturing off shoring it's workforce in order to reduce overhead and line the pockets of investors. Although, if you were to listen to them, it was to survive. Of course, survival really was dependent on huge profit returns to investors, despite the impact on Joe Main Street jobs. The irony of this being missed by large manufacturing in their greed is that as you move your workforce offshore, jobs drop off and when jobs drop off, so does your consumer base, which is exactly what we are seeing in this new recession: A middle class no longer able to forward the economy by keeping cash flow moving. In other words, a middle class no longer able to function as a middle class

When are we going to finally realize that whatever we do to improve the economy, we need to move away from the supply side paradigm of pandering to the investors. We need to bring back jobs and build an economy based on products and Joe Main Street.


** "Of the people, by the people and for the people"