Robert Reich has a good article on his blog about the different economic ideas of republicans and democrats.
Reagon is the classic symbol of republican ideals. Cut taxes for the rich, and they will invest more in the country, thus more jobs will be created. This was called trickle down economics.
Obama's program increases taxes on the top, and uses the proceeds to raise the living standards of average Americans by giving them lower taxes, better schools, and more affordable health insurance.
But Obamanomics is a commited to these forms of public investment. And there's good reason: In a global economy, capital moves to wherever it can get the best deal around the globe. That means capital and jobs go to nations that can promise high returns either because labor is cheap and taxes and regulations low, or because labor is highly productive -- well educated, healthy, and supported by modern infrastructure.
The only resource that's uniquely rooted in a national economy is its people -- their skills, insights, capacities to collaborate, and the transportation and communication systems that link them together. Everything else -- including capital, technology, designs, even plant and equipment -- can move around the globe with increasing ease.
This is a great point. In todays global economy we can cut taxes on the wealthy from her to 3009 but there is not gaurantee that they will build, and manufacture in our country. In fact if you read the rest of Reichs argument he goes on to prove how trickle down has not worked. US corporations that have been given takes breaks have not reinvested them into the company. The blue color workers salary has stagnated or gone down while the executive salary has climbed higher and higher for the past 30 years.
Yet the Left's approach is more sound. If we invest in transportation infastructure we can lure companies here. If we invest in education we lure companies here. If we invest in universal health care we take a burden off the company, and lure companies here.
Its odd that this last one is not more important for the right. They are extremely pro business. They dont support unions because unions can cost a corporation more money. Corporations go overseas to find cheaper labor, and less strict regulations to save money. A large part of corporate strategy is to cut cost. So one would conclude, following our line of reasoning that every major US corporation would be as supportive for Universal health care as they are anti union. Yet they are mostly quiet.
Maybe they are trying to protect one of their own, the healthcare corporations. But i doubt it. It seems like an avenue worth pursuing, "corporate america turns on the health care industry and supports obama's universal health care plan, and brings america back into the developed world."
Sounds sweet.
So which side are you one,
do you beleive we need to get more money into the hands of the wealthy elite of the nation to spur manufacturing and economic boom, or
do you beleive we need to rebuild the foundation of the economy, infastructure, health, and education, things that will stay here for many years to come.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Trends
Government bails out banks, market goes down.
Madoff, wall street crook goes to jail, markets go up.
See the pattern?
My plan-enough with the bailouts, start throwing crooks in jail.
And by throw crooks in jail i mean throw crooks in jail.
Madoff, wall street crook goes to jail, markets go up.
See the pattern?
My plan-enough with the bailouts, start throwing crooks in jail.
And by throw crooks in jail i mean throw crooks in jail.
Its all the homeowners fault
Another popular myth about the economic mess we are in is that its the fault of those individuals who took out loans they couldnt afford. But two facts do not support this popular myth.
1.A study has came out saying just as many prime mortgage are foreclosing as subprime.
2.State Attorney generals are about to launch a large number of criminal prosecutions against the mortgage industry for fraud.
Go check out Columbia Journal Review the audit for more.
http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/busting_the_boiler_rooms_its_a.php
1.A study has came out saying just as many prime mortgage are foreclosing as subprime.
2.State Attorney generals are about to launch a large number of criminal prosecutions against the mortgage industry for fraud.
Go check out Columbia Journal Review the audit for more.
http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/busting_the_boiler_rooms_its_a.php
Friday, February 27, 2009
StOcK ShAdInEsS
Jonathan Weil is a great writer over at bloomberg news. He knows how to go into a companies quarterly report and dig up the numbers that matter to show if the company is full of bs. This month he writes about 2 government rules that allow the bs to spread.
Many large banks have taken government loans to help out in these tough times. Most consider a loan to be debt. If we went into a bank for a loan they would ask about our credit card debt(loans from credit cards), and any mortgage debt(loans). No way the bank would view 10,000 dollars owed on our best buy card, the same as having 10,000 dollars in the bank.
So why is this the case for banks who took bailout money.
The loans the banks took are not being called debt on the banks quartely reports. They are allowed to be called equity, which sounds a lot like profits.
Most average people buying stocks would not notice this but it is a highly shady tactic. If we cant do it why can they.
Than there is the issue of mark to market. The idea that right now when companies have investments listed on their balance sheet they are allowed to list what the possible future value is of that investment. But many are pushing for mark to market rules where current values would be listed instead of future possibilities.
Makes sense to me. We can use my earlier analogy, if you go to the bank for a loan and they want collateral, you cannot give them something worth a little now that you expect to be worth a million dollars in ten years. They would laugh at you. Yet companies are allowed to play by these rules. Seems unfair and pretty damn sneeky.
The good news is that in one quarterly report a year companies have to list how they value their investments along with the current fair market value. This is one of Jonathan Wiels trade secrets. He goes through a companies quarterly reports to find these numbers.
For example a few companies he currently talks about value their investments much higher than the current fair value. One company claims its investment will one day be worth 94 billion while current fair value is valued at 79 billion. A 15 billion dollar difference.
Jonathan than goes into current stock value of the company being 2.6 billion while the total value of the companies assets is 13.5 billion. So taking the stock value and asset value minus the 15 billion in accounting fudging to bring investment back to current fair value and this company is basically bankrupt.
Thanks accounting rule that lets companies value investments at future value and not current one's.
Many large banks have taken government loans to help out in these tough times. Most consider a loan to be debt. If we went into a bank for a loan they would ask about our credit card debt(loans from credit cards), and any mortgage debt(loans). No way the bank would view 10,000 dollars owed on our best buy card, the same as having 10,000 dollars in the bank.
So why is this the case for banks who took bailout money.
The loans the banks took are not being called debt on the banks quartely reports. They are allowed to be called equity, which sounds a lot like profits.
Most average people buying stocks would not notice this but it is a highly shady tactic. If we cant do it why can they.
Than there is the issue of mark to market. The idea that right now when companies have investments listed on their balance sheet they are allowed to list what the possible future value is of that investment. But many are pushing for mark to market rules where current values would be listed instead of future possibilities.
Makes sense to me. We can use my earlier analogy, if you go to the bank for a loan and they want collateral, you cannot give them something worth a little now that you expect to be worth a million dollars in ten years. They would laugh at you. Yet companies are allowed to play by these rules. Seems unfair and pretty damn sneeky.
The good news is that in one quarterly report a year companies have to list how they value their investments along with the current fair market value. This is one of Jonathan Wiels trade secrets. He goes through a companies quarterly reports to find these numbers.
For example a few companies he currently talks about value their investments much higher than the current fair value. One company claims its investment will one day be worth 94 billion while current fair value is valued at 79 billion. A 15 billion dollar difference.
Jonathan than goes into current stock value of the company being 2.6 billion while the total value of the companies assets is 13.5 billion. So taking the stock value and asset value minus the 15 billion in accounting fudging to bring investment back to current fair value and this company is basically bankrupt.
Thanks accounting rule that lets companies value investments at future value and not current one's.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
TaLkInG pOiNtS
So I was hanging out with some republicans over the weekend who knocked me over with a tidal wave of right wing talking points that i would like to address. I didnt fully address them at the dinner. I have a thing with explanations and justifications. I dont need to give them all the time. In fact I try to not give them most of the time. While most people feel the need to defend and justify their beliefs, especially political, when engaging someone with the polar opposite view, I enjoy learning more about their view. Where and why they adopted such a view. What they truly want. What they truly fear. But this time I could not stop debating in my head how I should have responded to these bogus talking points.
1.The is a partisian bill rammed through the legislation process.
President Obama held numerous meetings and dinners to talk with republican leaders in the congress. Some Democrats were upset because they could not get a sit down with the president while the opposition did.
And the bill could not have passed the Senate vote with winning over 3 centrist republicans. They voted for the bill because the Democrats gave in to some of their demands, less spending, more tax cuts.
2.Tax cuts are the answer because companies can use the extra money to hire more workers.
This is one theory. Yet bush gave out large tax cuts for 8 years and if we remove data from last years economic crisis, not that many jobs were created, and or economy went bust. Author Larry Beinhart writes at huffington post that tax cuts, especailly focused toward the rich, as the bush tax cuts were, tends to put too much money into the economy. All this money is looking for investment and after a slight increase to the overall economy a bubble insues followed by a crash. Larry sites four examples of this patter.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-beinhart/tax-cuts-theology-facts-t_b_144281.html
You also have to take into account that over the past couple of decades the corporate companies have not been sharing their wealth. Executive salaries continue to rise as output rises, yet middle class pay has decreased since 1991. US corporate taxes are already some of the lowest in the world.
American corporations have moved a large part of there operations overseas to cut costs. Many tax breaks handed out for reinvestment have been spent outside of this country. One point to really hammer this home is that in the recent stimilus bill there was a fight to keep an ammendment forcing companies who recieved stimulus money to buy american products, like steel etc. Corporate america faught this hard and lost. But they would have not faught so hard if they did not have such large overseas operations.
Tax cuts do create more money for companies, but will they invest and hire more workers today? Many dont think so. The reason why companies are laying off workers has less to do with companies not having money to spend and more to do with no money coming in. People are not buying. No matter how many tax breaks you give a company and no matter how many workers they hire, people in this country are not buying. Wouldnt it be better to get money into the buyers hands, and once they buy more, the company has not choice but to hire more workers to keep up with the demand.
Ronald Reagon made popular the phrase trickel down economy. Meaning, give money and tax breaks to those atop the economic food chain and it will trickle down. This theory has proven to not work as can be seen by the fact that executive salaries have increased over 100x since reagon, while middle class salaries have either stagnated or decreased. And as i mentioned above his policies lead to a huge recession and more bank closures than during the great depression. There is no trickle down. The top keeps it all. There is no incentive for them not too. The wealth and levels of land ownership in this country have become more and more concentrated through right wing philosophy.
3. FDR's spending caused the great depression.
This is the best of them all. I have been reading David Sirota lately who has talked a lot about this issue, in the defense of FDR. David found that public spending created by FDR's new deal lead to the largest decrease in unemployment in the history of the country, from 1930 to 1940.
He also points out a clever trick the right wing has by pointing out 1937 as a year unemployment grew. But dont worry David responds that in 1937 conservative pressure grew for FDR to stop spending and start balancing the budget. He gave in to the conservatives and his successfull drop in unemployed began to turn around and get worse, until he went back to his spending policy.
There is also a chart floating around the internet that was created by John Mccain's economic adviser where he shows through data that for every doller spent on public spending and tax cuts, to jump start the economy, that public spending has a larger bang for the buck.
President Obama has chosen to spend, through public works projects, to create jobs, and get money into the hands of those that will buy. The more buying the more hiring.
4.The government is too big, this stimulus package just makes them bigger.
No it doesnt. This stimulus package gives money to states who are going to have to cut very important programs this year because they dont have enough revenue. The plan gives money to unemployment programs, medicare programs, public infastructure spending, increased money for education.
When people point out the government is too big they always point to program like medicare and social security, but these happen to be paid for by taxes every citizen pays. What they dont mention is how successful these two programs have been. They dont mention how successful other government involvement has been like the fdic insurance, like way they maintain roads and bridges, like the public education system.
They also dont complain about the bloated military budget. When it comes to the military, these same people that want a smaller government, love to expand the military. They have no problem bailing out the banking and finance industry. After 9/11 they did not say one word about the government expansion in security, new department (homeland security), illegally wiretapping our phones.
There philosophy is selective, and thus full of shit.
Whats the difference between right wing talking points in one hand, and a pile of shit in the other hand, at least the hand with the pile of shit is warm.
1.The is a partisian bill rammed through the legislation process.
President Obama held numerous meetings and dinners to talk with republican leaders in the congress. Some Democrats were upset because they could not get a sit down with the president while the opposition did.
And the bill could not have passed the Senate vote with winning over 3 centrist republicans. They voted for the bill because the Democrats gave in to some of their demands, less spending, more tax cuts.
2.Tax cuts are the answer because companies can use the extra money to hire more workers.
This is one theory. Yet bush gave out large tax cuts for 8 years and if we remove data from last years economic crisis, not that many jobs were created, and or economy went bust. Author Larry Beinhart writes at huffington post that tax cuts, especailly focused toward the rich, as the bush tax cuts were, tends to put too much money into the economy. All this money is looking for investment and after a slight increase to the overall economy a bubble insues followed by a crash. Larry sites four examples of this patter.
1. Herber Hoover,
cut the top tax rate from 73% to 25% in 1925.
The result the Great Crash of 29' followed by the great freakin depression.
2.Ronald Reagon,
cut the top tax rate from a 70-92% tax down to 50%, resulting in the
worst "recession since the great depression".
In 87' Reagen chose to cut the tax even further to 38.5%, resulting in a boom that was a bubble that crashed. More banks crashed than during the great depression.
3./4. Bush I,II
They both followed the same pattern, cut taxes for the wealthy,
cut capitol gains taxes, and cut the inheritance tax.
Both also resulted in a boom, bubble, crash.
Larry also sites the opposite is true. Tax increases on the wealthy has lead to sustained economic growth. He sites four example.
1. WWII(41'-45')
2. Post war with Truman and Eisenhower
3. Clinton years
4.FDR's first two terms (33'-40')
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-beinhart/tax-cuts-theology-facts-t_b_144281.html
You also have to take into account that over the past couple of decades the corporate companies have not been sharing their wealth. Executive salaries continue to rise as output rises, yet middle class pay has decreased since 1991. US corporate taxes are already some of the lowest in the world.
American corporations have moved a large part of there operations overseas to cut costs. Many tax breaks handed out for reinvestment have been spent outside of this country. One point to really hammer this home is that in the recent stimilus bill there was a fight to keep an ammendment forcing companies who recieved stimulus money to buy american products, like steel etc. Corporate america faught this hard and lost. But they would have not faught so hard if they did not have such large overseas operations.
Tax cuts do create more money for companies, but will they invest and hire more workers today? Many dont think so. The reason why companies are laying off workers has less to do with companies not having money to spend and more to do with no money coming in. People are not buying. No matter how many tax breaks you give a company and no matter how many workers they hire, people in this country are not buying. Wouldnt it be better to get money into the buyers hands, and once they buy more, the company has not choice but to hire more workers to keep up with the demand.
Ronald Reagon made popular the phrase trickel down economy. Meaning, give money and tax breaks to those atop the economic food chain and it will trickle down. This theory has proven to not work as can be seen by the fact that executive salaries have increased over 100x since reagon, while middle class salaries have either stagnated or decreased. And as i mentioned above his policies lead to a huge recession and more bank closures than during the great depression. There is no trickle down. The top keeps it all. There is no incentive for them not too. The wealth and levels of land ownership in this country have become more and more concentrated through right wing philosophy.
3. FDR's spending caused the great depression.
This is the best of them all. I have been reading David Sirota lately who has talked a lot about this issue, in the defense of FDR. David found that public spending created by FDR's new deal lead to the largest decrease in unemployment in the history of the country, from 1930 to 1940.
He also points out a clever trick the right wing has by pointing out 1937 as a year unemployment grew. But dont worry David responds that in 1937 conservative pressure grew for FDR to stop spending and start balancing the budget. He gave in to the conservatives and his successfull drop in unemployed began to turn around and get worse, until he went back to his spending policy.
There is also a chart floating around the internet that was created by John Mccain's economic adviser where he shows through data that for every doller spent on public spending and tax cuts, to jump start the economy, that public spending has a larger bang for the buck.
President Obama has chosen to spend, through public works projects, to create jobs, and get money into the hands of those that will buy. The more buying the more hiring.
4.The government is too big, this stimulus package just makes them bigger.
No it doesnt. This stimulus package gives money to states who are going to have to cut very important programs this year because they dont have enough revenue. The plan gives money to unemployment programs, medicare programs, public infastructure spending, increased money for education.
When people point out the government is too big they always point to program like medicare and social security, but these happen to be paid for by taxes every citizen pays. What they dont mention is how successful these two programs have been. They dont mention how successful other government involvement has been like the fdic insurance, like way they maintain roads and bridges, like the public education system.
They also dont complain about the bloated military budget. When it comes to the military, these same people that want a smaller government, love to expand the military. They have no problem bailing out the banking and finance industry. After 9/11 they did not say one word about the government expansion in security, new department (homeland security), illegally wiretapping our phones.
There philosophy is selective, and thus full of shit.
Whats the difference between right wing talking points in one hand, and a pile of shit in the other hand, at least the hand with the pile of shit is warm.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
We NeEd AcCoUnTaBiLiTy
The problem-banks are not only insolvent, they are in debt, the economist roubini says 3 trillion, goldman sachs says over 5 trillion.
Why does this matter? Our national economy runs on credit, if banks are in debt because of bad loans and bad wall street bets, they will not lend.
Round One.
The first bailout under bush tried to address this buy throwing 350 billion dollars in cash the banks way, while the fed made loans and guarantees on up to 8 trilion. The result was the bank hoarded the money and did not lend and the economy lost over 1.5 million jobs in nov-jan..
Round Two.
Obama and treasury sec. Geitner are planning on giving out the other 350 dollars approved by congress before the elections with hopes of giving the banks enough money that they not only begin lending again but also are able to raise private capitol. So far the Gietnar plan is to give money to those companies or individuals who will buy up the toxic assets hurting the banks balance sheets.
I have a couple of ideas.
One many have been floating is to follow the model that Sweden used when their banks were in trouble. The government took over the bank, fired the management, hired bright minds, fixed up the bank and sold it off to private individuals. The reason why we wont try this probably is because in the process those owning stock will lose all their investment. And we know how this nation feels about its investor class.
Another idea I probably read about, is based on the question what is the actually problem? It seems that our banking system is not sound enough to support our economy that relies on credit. Well so far according to many; we seem to be on the hook for close to 9 trillion dollars that have gone into fixing the broken banks. Why not use that money to establish a new bank. One healthy enough to jump start the credit market that is the engine of our economy. This way we don’t have to worry so much about the too big to fail theory. While our government bank gets the economy going, JP Morgan Chase and company can figure out what to do. We dont need em.
Many say but heh, the government is bad at running things? But there are many bright minds who can be brought in. Right now we have a private banker running the Treasury Department. Under Bush we had a private banker running the Treasury Department.
Now what to do with the Mega banks. One problem I see in this whole mess is the size of our banks being too big to fail. Me and you are not too big to fail. Average Americans go bankrupt all the time and no one steps in to save them. To me the answer is obvious. If your too big to fail, than your too big.
This has been a problem not only of banks but of corporate America. Some corporations are so big that they wield too much power. Whether it be in the halls of Congress when it comes to passing laws. Whether it be with a group of workers fired for trying to unionize. Whether it be a giant health insurance company who has platoons of secretaries and doctors and lawyers on their payroll who constantly deny claims, and fight them.
Why is it that these big powerful interests always win, and the small American citizen seems to lose? Well I think there are two components. The first is that we Americans have not found a way to unify our voice. There are more of us than them. No lobbyist would have a chance if the American public, 300+ million strong, formed its own lobby.
In France they can stop traffic, shut down work across the country, stop colleges, when they choose to protest. Literally, the whole country grinds to a halt. Are we ready for this type of unifying force in America?
So the first part is we need to become stronger. But the second part is we need to weaken corporate power, I think. ( I think because in one sense i see it as a challenge. If the American public is not strong enough to stand up and defeat these powers than we deserve what we get. The bigger the challenge the stronger we become).
If you are too big to fail than you are too damn big, period. Banks like JP Morgan Chase will get split up into 100 banks. Same for the rest. So in the future if shit hits the fan, we can cut off the dead wood, let them go under without having to worry about the ripple effect throughout the economy.
Same goes for corporate America. Wall mart, Best Buy, McDonalds, its all over. It seems obvious, these large firms have too much market share and it is not good for our nation as a whole.
Lets remember the problem is not the housing market, the fall in the stock exchange, the huge unemployment figures that are piling up, or the fact that banks are broke. These are all the results of the problem. And while we need to fix the symptoms, if we do not fix the disease our symptoms will be back soon enough.
The disease is corruption, no oversight, no supervision, no accountability.
Mr. Madoff’s fraud case was brought to the attention of the government oversight committee, the SEC, yet they did nothing. Loans were given out with no money down no collateral and no jobs needed, no one cared because fees were so big. Insurance was sold on stocks and no money was held in case the insurance was claimed. Government oversight agencies were stocked with people who did not believe in oversight. Stock ratings agencies gave crap stock a perfect rating because they were paid off. The accounting industry which no one has mentioned yet, kept books on these banks that are full of fraud, why didnt they catch this?
If you got caught doing any of this at your high school burger joint job, you would be fired. If you got caught doing any of this at your current job, you would be fired. When you went for a new job they would ask you what happened. If they found out, your probably wouldnt be hired again.
When those who were charged with oversight allowed such devastation to occur are not fired and jailed and publicly tarred and feathered, than the unofficial word goes out, do whatever you can get away with because even if you are caught you will not be punished.
To this day it boggles my mind how those charged with oversight are not only not fired, but they are not in jail. No bank executive are in jail, no mortgage executives are in jail, no accounting executives are in jail, no governemnt oversight executives are in jail. Its almost as if this was just an accident. The word has gone out, those in the inner circle of elite power will never have to pay for any of their wrongs. Obama's economic team cannot claim anyone who saw this crash coming. Why is that? W
The same crew that crashed the country is the same crew saying only we can fix it. But I know different. The Blogoshpere knows different. This house that Rothchild built is a fake. It cannot survive. It is a cancer. When you have cancer that causes you to lets say lose nutrients, the answer is not more nutrients. Sure it helps, for now. But everyone know you need to cut that shit out. And guess what? If you go back to your same lifestyle that cancer is a coming back. Because your body is set up, physically, mentally and spiritually to support cancer. You need to change your diet, exercise more, and meditate more, create a different internal environment that is hostile to cancer.
That’s just what we need as a nation. New leaders, New role models, new powers, new ideas.(read this next part with Dr. Martin Luther Kings Jr's voice in your head).
I have a dream. That one day we can build a nation, a world with a new environment that is hostile to corruption, to lack of oversight, supervision, and accountability.
If you want some real information on whats going on, look of cjr the audit, or david sirota, or npr planet money, or bill moyers, or roubini, each one of this these guys should bring you dozens of other references.
Why does this matter? Our national economy runs on credit, if banks are in debt because of bad loans and bad wall street bets, they will not lend.
Round One.
The first bailout under bush tried to address this buy throwing 350 billion dollars in cash the banks way, while the fed made loans and guarantees on up to 8 trilion. The result was the bank hoarded the money and did not lend and the economy lost over 1.5 million jobs in nov-jan..
Round Two.
Obama and treasury sec. Geitner are planning on giving out the other 350 dollars approved by congress before the elections with hopes of giving the banks enough money that they not only begin lending again but also are able to raise private capitol. So far the Gietnar plan is to give money to those companies or individuals who will buy up the toxic assets hurting the banks balance sheets.
I have a couple of ideas.
One many have been floating is to follow the model that Sweden used when their banks were in trouble. The government took over the bank, fired the management, hired bright minds, fixed up the bank and sold it off to private individuals. The reason why we wont try this probably is because in the process those owning stock will lose all their investment. And we know how this nation feels about its investor class.
Another idea I probably read about, is based on the question what is the actually problem? It seems that our banking system is not sound enough to support our economy that relies on credit. Well so far according to many; we seem to be on the hook for close to 9 trillion dollars that have gone into fixing the broken banks. Why not use that money to establish a new bank. One healthy enough to jump start the credit market that is the engine of our economy. This way we don’t have to worry so much about the too big to fail theory. While our government bank gets the economy going, JP Morgan Chase and company can figure out what to do. We dont need em.
Many say but heh, the government is bad at running things? But there are many bright minds who can be brought in. Right now we have a private banker running the Treasury Department. Under Bush we had a private banker running the Treasury Department.
Now what to do with the Mega banks. One problem I see in this whole mess is the size of our banks being too big to fail. Me and you are not too big to fail. Average Americans go bankrupt all the time and no one steps in to save them. To me the answer is obvious. If your too big to fail, than your too big.
This has been a problem not only of banks but of corporate America. Some corporations are so big that they wield too much power. Whether it be in the halls of Congress when it comes to passing laws. Whether it be with a group of workers fired for trying to unionize. Whether it be a giant health insurance company who has platoons of secretaries and doctors and lawyers on their payroll who constantly deny claims, and fight them.
Why is it that these big powerful interests always win, and the small American citizen seems to lose? Well I think there are two components. The first is that we Americans have not found a way to unify our voice. There are more of us than them. No lobbyist would have a chance if the American public, 300+ million strong, formed its own lobby.
In France they can stop traffic, shut down work across the country, stop colleges, when they choose to protest. Literally, the whole country grinds to a halt. Are we ready for this type of unifying force in America?
So the first part is we need to become stronger. But the second part is we need to weaken corporate power, I think. ( I think because in one sense i see it as a challenge. If the American public is not strong enough to stand up and defeat these powers than we deserve what we get. The bigger the challenge the stronger we become).
If you are too big to fail than you are too damn big, period. Banks like JP Morgan Chase will get split up into 100 banks. Same for the rest. So in the future if shit hits the fan, we can cut off the dead wood, let them go under without having to worry about the ripple effect throughout the economy.
Same goes for corporate America. Wall mart, Best Buy, McDonalds, its all over. It seems obvious, these large firms have too much market share and it is not good for our nation as a whole.
Lets remember the problem is not the housing market, the fall in the stock exchange, the huge unemployment figures that are piling up, or the fact that banks are broke. These are all the results of the problem. And while we need to fix the symptoms, if we do not fix the disease our symptoms will be back soon enough.
The disease is corruption, no oversight, no supervision, no accountability.
Mr. Madoff’s fraud case was brought to the attention of the government oversight committee, the SEC, yet they did nothing. Loans were given out with no money down no collateral and no jobs needed, no one cared because fees were so big. Insurance was sold on stocks and no money was held in case the insurance was claimed. Government oversight agencies were stocked with people who did not believe in oversight. Stock ratings agencies gave crap stock a perfect rating because they were paid off. The accounting industry which no one has mentioned yet, kept books on these banks that are full of fraud, why didnt they catch this?
If you got caught doing any of this at your high school burger joint job, you would be fired. If you got caught doing any of this at your current job, you would be fired. When you went for a new job they would ask you what happened. If they found out, your probably wouldnt be hired again.
When those who were charged with oversight allowed such devastation to occur are not fired and jailed and publicly tarred and feathered, than the unofficial word goes out, do whatever you can get away with because even if you are caught you will not be punished.
To this day it boggles my mind how those charged with oversight are not only not fired, but they are not in jail. No bank executive are in jail, no mortgage executives are in jail, no accounting executives are in jail, no governemnt oversight executives are in jail. Its almost as if this was just an accident. The word has gone out, those in the inner circle of elite power will never have to pay for any of their wrongs. Obama's economic team cannot claim anyone who saw this crash coming. Why is that? W
The same crew that crashed the country is the same crew saying only we can fix it. But I know different. The Blogoshpere knows different. This house that Rothchild built is a fake. It cannot survive. It is a cancer. When you have cancer that causes you to lets say lose nutrients, the answer is not more nutrients. Sure it helps, for now. But everyone know you need to cut that shit out. And guess what? If you go back to your same lifestyle that cancer is a coming back. Because your body is set up, physically, mentally and spiritually to support cancer. You need to change your diet, exercise more, and meditate more, create a different internal environment that is hostile to cancer.
That’s just what we need as a nation. New leaders, New role models, new powers, new ideas.(read this next part with Dr. Martin Luther Kings Jr's voice in your head).
I have a dream. That one day we can build a nation, a world with a new environment that is hostile to corruption, to lack of oversight, supervision, and accountability.
If you want some real information on whats going on, look of cjr the audit, or david sirota, or npr planet money, or bill moyers, or roubini, each one of this these guys should bring you dozens of other references.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Chinese New Year, Year of the Ox, 2009, Chinatown NYC
Here are some pictures from the closing ceremony of the chinese new year, year of the ox. I spent all day on sunday in chinatown NYC for this parade. Walking for 7 hours was hard enough i cant even imagine how hard it was for the lion dancers. Each club has its own parade that marches up and down chinatown with a few lions, a drum, a gong, and some cymbols. The lions stop at close to a hundred store fronts to bless the store for the upcoming year. I would also like to point out how hard it is to manage this. You have flags leading the parade who sometimes walk to far ahead, you have drums at the end of the parade, you have three lions to coordinate to make sure they bless every store front, you have to make sure people with poles hold back the crowd, you have to make sure your lion dance teams are rotating into the lion and not leaving guys in too long.
At the end of the day the club performes a martial arts demo.
Here are some pictures from the closing ceremony of the chinese new year, year of the ox. I spent all day on sunday in chinatown NYC for this parade. Walking for 7 hours was hard enough i cant even imagine how hard it was for the lion dancers. Each club has its own parade that marches up and down chinatown with a few lions, a drum, a gong, and some cymbols. The lions stop at close to a hundred store fronts to bless the store for the upcoming year. I would also like to point out how hard it is to manage this. You have flags leading the parade who sometimes walk to far ahead, you have drums at the end of the parade, you have three lions to coordinate to make sure they bless every store front, you have to make sure people with poles hold back the crowd, you have to make sure your lion dance teams are rotating into the lion and not leaving guys in too long.
At the end of the day the club performes a martial arts demo.
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