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The Economy Will Not Recover Until the Economic Criminals are Prosecuted, and There Are Real Investigations Into 9/11 and Other Government Failures
Trust in Government is Necessary for a Stable Economy
A 2005 letter in premier scientific journal Nature reviews the research on trust and economics:
Trust ... plays a key role in economic exchange and politics. In the absence of trust among trading partners, market transactions break down.
In the absence of trust in a country's institutions and leaders,
political legitimacy breaks down. Much recent evidence indicates that
trust contributes to economic, political and social success.
Forbes wrote an article in 2006 entitled "The Economics of Trust". The article summarizes the importance of trust in creating a healthy economy:
Imagine
going to the corner store to buy a carton of milk, only to find that
the refrigerator is locked. When you've persuaded the shopkeeper to
retrieve the milk, you then end up arguing over whether you're going to
hand the money over first, or whether he is going to hand over the
milk. Finally you manage to arrange an elaborate simultaneous exchange.
A little taste of life in a world without trust--now imagine trying to
arrange a mortgage.
Being able to trust people might seem like a
pleasant luxury, but economists are starting to believe that it's
rather more important than that. Trust is about more than whether you
can leave your house unlocked; it is responsible for the difference
between the richest countries and the poorest.
"If you take a
broad enough definition of trust, then it would explain basically all
the difference between the per capita income of the United States and
Somalia," ventures Steve Knack, a senior economist at the World Bank
who has been studying the economics of trust for over a decade. That
suggests that trust is worth $12.4 trillion dollars a year to the U.S.,
which, in case you are wondering, is 99.5% of this country's income. ***
Above all, trust enables people to do business with each other. Doing business is what creates wealth. ***
Economists
distinguish between the personal, informal trust that comes from being
friendly with your neighbors and the impersonal, institutionalized
trust that lets you give your credit card number out over the Internet.
Similarly, market psychologists Richard L. Peterson M.D. and Frank Murtha, Ph.D. wrote in October:
Trust is the oil in the engine of capitalism, without it, the engine seizes up.
Confidence is like the gasoline, without it the machine won't move.
Trust
is gone: there is no longer trust between counterparties in the
financial system. Furthermore, confidence is at a low. Investors have
lost their confidence in the ability of shares to provide decent returns
(since they haven't).
Two professors of finance write:
The
drop in trust, we believe, is a major factor behind the deteriorating
economic conditions. To demonstrate its importance, we launched the
Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index. Our first set of
data—based on interviews conducted at the end of December 2008—shows
that between September and December, 52 percent of Americans lost trust
in the banks. Similarly, 65 percent lost trust in the stock market. A
BBB/Gallup poll that surveyed a similar sample of Americans last April
confirms this dramatic drop. At that time, 42 percent of Americans
trusted financial institutions, versus 34 percent in our survey today,
while 53 percent said they trusted U.S. companies, versus just 12
percent today.
As trust declines, so does Americans’ willingness
to invest their money in the financial system. Our data show that
trust in the stock market affects people’s intention to buy stocks,
even after accounting for expectations of future stock-market
performance. Similarly, a person’s trust in banks predicts the
likelihood that he will make a run on his bank in a moment of crisis:
25 percent of those who don’t trust banks withdrew their deposits and
stored them as cash last fall, compared with only 3 percent of those
who said they still trusted the banks. Thus, trust in financial
institutions is a key factor for the smooth functioning of capital
markets and, by extension, the economy. Changes in trust matter.
They quote a Nobel laureate economist on the subject:
“Virtually
every commercial transaction has within itself an element of trust,”
writes economist Kenneth Arrow, a Nobel laureate. When we deposit money
in a bank, we trust that it’s safe. When a company orders goods, it
trusts its counterpart to deliver them in good faith. Trust facilitates
transactions because it saves the costs of monitoring and screening; it
is an essential lubricant that greases the wheels of the economic
system.
And a distinguished international group of
economists (Giancarlo Corsetti, Michael P. Devereux, Luigi Guiso, John
Hassler, Gilles Saint-Paul, Hans-Werner Sinn, Jan-Egbert Sturm and
Xavier Vives) have written a brief essay arguing:
Public distrust of bankers and financial markets has risen dramatically with the financial crisis. This column argues that this loss
of trust in the financial system played a critical role in the
collapse of economic activity that followed. To undo the damage,
financial regulation needs to focus on restoring that trust.
They note:
Trust
is crucial in many transactions and certainly in those involving
financial exchanges. The massive drop in trust associated with this
crisis will therefore have important implications for the future of
financial markets. Data show that in the late 1970s, the percentage of
people who reported having full trust in banks, brokers, mutual funds or
the stock market was around 40%; it had sunk to around 30% just before
the crisis hit, and collapsed to barely 5% afterwards. It is now even
lower than the trust people have in other people (randomly selected of
course).
Time Magazine notes:
Traditionally, gold has been a store of value when citizens do not trust their government politically or economically.
In other words, the government's political actions affect investments, such as gold, and thus the broader economy.
Trust Is At An All-Time Low
Unfortunately, the public's trust in government as a whole (and see this and this), the justice system, bankers, and the corporate media are at all-time lows.
Why?
Partly because the government has been repeatedly caught lying.
The
government repeatedly said about the subprime crisis, banking crisis,
debt crisis, mortgage crisis, and other economic crises:
- "It's contained"
- "We've got it under control"
and
- "We're going to fix it".
It wasn't, and they didn't ... and so people have lost trust in the government.
But it's not just the economy. The government also got caught making false claims that:
- Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, had a hand in 9/11 (and see this) and carried out the the anthrax attacks
- 9/11 wasn't foreseeable
- That the government doesn't spy on Americans (it did even before 9/11), Americans don't torture, etc.
But
there's another important reason for Americans' lack of trust in our
government and our economy: the failure to prosecute the criminals.
Prosecuting the Criminals and Launching REAL Investigations Is Necessary to Restore Trust
One of the leading business schools in America - the Wharton School of Business - has written an essay
on the psychological causes and solutions to the economic crisis.
Wharton points out that restoring trust is the key to recovery, and that
trust cannot be restored until wrongdoers are held accountable:
According to David M. Sachs, a training and supervision analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, the
crisis today is not one of confidence, but one of trust. "Abusive
financial practices were unchecked by personal moral controls that
prohibit individual criminal behavior, as in the case of [Bernard]
Madoff, and by complex financial manipulations, as in the case of AIG."
The public, expecting to be protected from such abuse, has suffered a
trauma of loss similar to that after 9/11.
"Normal expectations of what is safe and dependable were abruptly
shattered," Sachs noted. "As is typical of post-traumatic states,
planning for the future could not be based on old assumptions about
what is safe and what is dangerous. A radical reversal of how to be
gratified occurred."
People
now feel more gratified saving money than spending it, Sachs suggested.
They have trouble trusting promises from the government because they
feel the government has let them down.
He framed his argument
with a fictional patient named Betty Q. Public, a librarian with two
teenage children and a husband, John, who had recently lost his job.
"She felt betrayed because she and her husband had invested
conservatively and were double-crossed by dishonest, greedy businessmen,
and now she distrusted the government that had failed to protect them
from corporate dishonesty. Not only that, but she had little trust in
things turning around soon enough to enable her and her husband to
accomplish their previous goals.
"By no means a sophisticated
economist, she knew ... that some people had become fantastically
wealthy by misusing other people's money -- hers included," Sachs said."In short, John and Betty had done everything right and were being
punished, while the dishonest people were going unpunished."
Helping
an individual recover from a traumatic experience provides a useful
analogy for understanding how to help the economy recover from its own
traumatic experience, Sachs pointed out. The public will need to "hold the perpetrators of the economic disaster responsible and take what actions they can to prevent them from harming the economy again." In addition, the public will have to see proof that government and business leaders can behave responsibly before they will trust them again, he argued.
Note that Sachs urges "hold[ing] the perpetrators of the economic disaster responsible." In other words, just "looking forward" and promising to do things differently isn't enough.
Many high-level economists agree.
Economists such as William Black and James Galbraith have repeatedly said that we cannot solve the economic crisis unless we throw the criminals who committed fraud in jail.
Nobel prize winning economist George Akerlof has demonstrated
that failure to punish white collar criminals - and instead bailing
them out- creates incentives for more economic crimes and further
destruction of the economy in the future. See this, this and this.
Nobel prize winning economists Joseph Stiglitz and George Akerlof agree.
Indeed, polls show that:
- Most Americans believe that the Iraq war was a mistake. At least half of all Americans wanted Congress to impeach President Bush if he lied about the Iraq war
- Hundreds of millions of Americans think that there was a cover up about 9/11, and want a thorough investigation
- Americans want those who committed financial fraud to be prosecuted
Remember, distrust in the political actions
of those in Washington D.C. undermines the economy. Therefore, the
economy will not recover until the economic criminals are prosecuted,
and there are real investigations into 9/11 (even the 9/11 Commissioners
themselves think there should be more investigation: see this and this), the Iraq war, torture, spying on Americans and other government failures.
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Lots of unfortunate comments here this morning. As Gandhi said, "the only evil we need to fight is the evil that exists in our own hearts". Each of us possesses the same weaknesses that compel the fraudsters to commit their crimes. The enemy is not Goldman Sachs or Ben Bernanke, etc. The "enemy" is greed and fear and malice.
So we should take our focus off the public Super-Criminals and shift it to ourselves, transforming the fight into a strictly personal War on Gread, Fear and Malice?
Sounds like the War On Terror--it's everywhere and never ending. And a complete red herring.
Right, the real war should be against human nature--rather than enforcing the rule of law. /sarc
Who do you work for?
A fair question.
No, we should fight against injustice and criminal behavior whenever we see it. HOWEVER, we should also acknowledge that we all possess similar weaknesses, that we fight against the injustices and the fraud in order to change things, not to hurt people...and YES, we do a lot of work in self-reflection and mindfulness to make us as impervious as is possible to doing the same stuff to others as the fraudsters have done to us.
This is not a spiritual awareness retreat forum. Please orient yourself appropriately to the context.
Unlike some, I have no inherent objection to deep reflection and personal growth, aka "naval gazing." I'm an actual psychologist in the non-cyber world.
But that is neither the character nor appropriate function of ZeroHedge.
I disagree. Where better to make such self-examinations? ZeroHedge is a place in which we learn about the depths of human greed and depravity. It is also a place where we come together and, in some manner, organize our resistance. My contention is that such resistance must be accompanied by mindfulness and must be non-violent.
Wrong, pacifist. If people don't feel the threat of physical violence and possibly death, they will do whatever they want. There is a TON of bonafide psychological research on this. Put away the bong and peace lilies and wake up.
@ xanax
I think you misunderstand the difference between pacifism vs. active non-violent resistance. That's OK. Interesting that you react so angrily to my argument. No big deal.
When the gang comes for a member of your family, stand there quoting Gandhi and see what good it does.
I junked you because you are a tiresome pacifist. Not everyone possesses the same weaknesses, just as not everyone possesses the same strengths. The super-rich, the bankers, their stooges in govt, and the i-dotters and t-crossers that fill the bureaus , all contributed. They have played their role, and now those who execute Justice must play their role.
True Justice will neither weep nor rejoice. But she will be violent. Get used to it.
@ Kiwidor,
Thank you for clarifying.
To be sure, I'm NOT a "pacifist" [sic]. I, like many smarter and stronger women and men before me, believe very much in resisting "evil". However...I DO believe that every human being possesses the same weaknesses---the propensity to react, to follow 'the herd', to act without mindfulness, to punish, etc.---and thus I do not see the enemy as being the "men who did this to us". I see the enemy as the states of mind and heart that form the foundation for such behaviors and actions.
I ask everyone who reads this comment to ask themselves one question:
Do you believe that there is any possibly, were circumstances different, that you could conceivably act in a similar manner as the Blankfeins and Obamas and Bush's and Geithners and Paulsons and Dimons of the world? Do you think there is even the remotest possibility that you could do what these men and others have done to the middle and working classes of the world???
Please cut the weepy commentary; you're making my shorts squeak. Look, pal, people are just plain pissed off and some are scared. I know almost nobody who isn't experiencing some form of insecurity about their lives right now. We've been fucked around for the past ten year plus by a very greedy, cohesive klan of elitists and we're not in any kind of mood for moralizing or self-inspection.
If you don't like the commentary here, just STFU, or complain, but don't ry to rationalize it. Most people will just tune you out, junk you or stomp your ass because YOU'RE IN THE FUCKING WAY.
Am I getting through to you. Some of us aren't all that polite to begin with, but most of us are smart enough to know what's going on, so defending the actions of criminals and asking us if we could ever do the same thing JUST PISSES OFF SOME OF US EVEN MORE.
Just fucking drop it or people will start calling you things you don't want to hear. Dig? Peace.
@ Fearless
"...Most people will just tune you out, junk you or stomp your ass because YOU'RE IN THE FUCKING WAY..."
In the way of what?
One more observation:
Were I writing smart, angry compliments to the kinds of comments found on ZH and other like blogs, I would be welcomed and embraced and would feel part of a 'herd' that lauded me and accepted me...a brotherhood, if you will.
Is that the truth?
Truth (and it's something you've strangely stepped over without notice):
Racist comments will most unfortunately occur on uncensored, anonymous public boards. Here on ZH, you will almost invariably find them very heavily junked.
Likewise for insufferably ignorant comments, which I would guess you will not understand in the present case, in spite of the ample opportunity you are being given to do so.
@ Bob
I am willing to admit to being insufferable and self-righteous. But it strikes me that TRUTH is pretty straight-forward. In this case, the TRUTH is that human beings have created this catastrophe, and that we are all human beings. The only thing that makes us different from the fraudsters is our relative lack of wealth and power. Were we in their shoes, each of us would be just as susceptible to behaving like them. Herding behavior goes both ways.
"The only thing that makes us different from the fraudsters is our relative lack of wealth and power. Were we in their shoes, each of us would be just as susceptible to behaving like them."
The desire to say something simple yet deep is ubiquitous and is almost always frustrated. This is an example of such. The fact is that NOT everybody does the same thing in the same circumstances. There is a whole concept of personal responsibility that cannot be so glibbly dissolved. People do make different decisions and are held responsible accordingly. This is at the basis of much of human interaction and has been much discussed in the history of moral thought. No serious thinker in Western thought holds such a simple minded view. Moreover, if your view were correct, behavior would be highly predictable. But it clearly is not.
@ eblair I agree! NOT everybody does the same thing given similar choices. And YES....I agree again vis personal responsibility. I am NOT NOT NOT saying that the fraudsters should be given a pass. I am simply saying that what drove these men (and Blythe Masters) to do what they did could have driven ANYONE...no not everyone would make the same choices, but every human is capable. And so ALL I AM SAYING is that the real evil here is greed...and the men who acted upon that greed and stole from the rest of us are criminals and should be held to account. But STILL, they are NOT the enemy....greed is. And since greed is the "enemy", it follows that the real battles are ones we fight with ourselves, and with our impulses to act greedily---whether out of fear or out of hatred or out of whatever.
Nah, you're trying to rescue your original claim. Change the crime from theft to murder. Would you say that the muderous impulses are the ememy? Of course, in some undeniable sense, we struggle with ourselves. But that doesn't mean that we don't have "real" struggles with others. As the philosophers like to say, 'what you're saying is either obviously false or trivially true'. You can see that you were waffling originally when you felt the need to include "susceptible".
Susceptible, sure - but that isn't a free pass to ACT on it. The thieves that have seriously, if not irreparably, undermined our financial security require punishment - or else we are all complicit in reshaping morality for our children such that stealing from your neighbor and ruining their future is just fine.
<throwing up my hands>
Sounds like that spiritual self-awareness thing is a never-ending task. Good luck.
LOL. You too.
& my comment was probably one of those "unfortunate comments." But, Miramanee, I really liked your comment, it is profound & helps me to understand. ZEROHEDGE has really taught me to expand my own thinking (no, I was not the person who junked you, either)
@ lynnybee,
I agree. ZH is an invaluable resource, and I applaud Tyler et al. for their tireless efforts on behalf of the truth. My only sadness (for lack of a better word) is that sites like ZH quickly devolve into places in which vitriol becomes completely externalized, and scapegoating and anti-Semitism and just hatred in general become the norm. And when that happens, in my opinion, the truth is obfuscated by the herd. In the end----and I believe this with all of my heart---there is no difference between those of us here and the Wall Street and Capitol Hill fraudsters whom we excoriate. Were we in their place, we would probably behave similarly.
By "anti-Semitism" I sincerely hope you aren't referring to naming names, are you?
We combat vets in America are damn fed up and nauseated with all those "brave" Jewish-American draft-dodgers who always want to send us to our deaths.
So when an outstanding financial journalist such as Pam Martens names names, and most, if not all, happen to be Jewish names, anytime some punk as Zionist Jewish-American draft-dodger attacks her as anti-semitic, I offer to meet his punk ass any where, any time, any place.
You are referring to something else, right? You aren't being yet another candy-assed, anti-American coward now, are you?
And by names I mean Rubin, Gramm, Leavitt, Greenspan, Bernanke, Summers, Geithner, Wolin, Gensler, Schapiro, Hormats, and a bunch of others.
If the crime fits.....
Is their crime being Jewish?
Actually, no, but the sheer number of Jewish people in high places of government and BANKING somewhat tarnishes the rest of their ilk.
Again....what does being Jewish have to do with the issue?
Flagged as 'junk' because it's off topic? Or...flagged as junk because I refuse to participate in this anger and hate-filled feeding frenzy?
I am not struck with hate and anger in the comments I have read so far. I see some bluntness which happens around here. Just sayin' and I did not junk you.
And what about this?
by CrackSmokeRepublican
on Sun, 11/14/2010 - 11:34
#726062
Burn the Jewish Talmud that Greenspan and Bernanke follow, and which condones lying-swindling to Gentile "Goyim" ... or better yet just the throw all Bankrupt Scamming Madoff Jews out of America.... and you'll see trust rise. --CSR
Israel Did 9/11 and Jews at Benador did the Anthrax attacks:
http://theinfounderground.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5367
http://theinfounderground.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&p=50653#p50653
Get the Scammers out and you'll see trust come back for a lot of things...
Rabbi Dov Zakheim – Co-author of the PNAC paper on rebuilding America’s defenses advocating the necessity of a Pearl Harbor-like incident to mobilize America. Served as Pentagon comptroller from May 4, 2001 to March 10, 2004. Two large sums of money disappeared from the Pentagon under him. In the beginning $2.3 trillion was reported missing by Donald Rumsfeld (September 10, 2001) and later Zakheim was unable to account for another trillion dollars. Zakheim also had squads of American F-15s and F-16s sold as surplus to Israel at a fraction of their value.
I was making a general comment about the comments to this article. These two comments you have cited (and a few more) do not make the comments to this article a "anger and hate-filled feeding frenzy" as you called it IMO. I do think that the anger and hate by the herd as emotional reactions to what they see happening is understandable. Outrage may be a better word. People then have a choice about what to do with their outrage. Some will make some hate-filled comments on blogs like this. You may want to address them individually in the future instead of making a general comment about all the comments (which I replied to). That's my opinion. Hope I have not misunderstood you.
Where's the "hate"???
9/11 was a Jew Job... prove otherwise...??? No hate about it. Prove otherwise and that goes for any idiot Jew. Did you see that? A Rabbi, Dual Citizen Stealing Trillions for Israel... Trillions... JEW JOB SCAM... there is nothing hateful about it. Scams are baked into the Madoff-Talmudic Pie... and America will keep getting slices of it served up by Jews like Bernanke and Greenspan and Jew Puppets like Obama.
You know in the Jewish Bolshevik Soviet Union, you could be shot for just pointing out a Jew. They are afraid of people pointing out the obvious. Pointing out their SCAMS...
@ Bob S. Excellent point. My use of the term 'hate filled feeding-frenzy' was wrong.
And yes OUTRAGE! I too am outraged. I am trying to be 'outraged' at the capacity of humans to behave so nefariously, instead of being outraged at the particular men who have undertaken such actions.
Sorry, but that's dumb. I feel like stabbing people and stealing all their stuff from time to time but I DON'T because IT'S WRONG. And not because "God told me" but just because it's impolite to harm your fellow human. The current band of thieves in Wall St apparently lack any type of societal conscience, and as such it is our moral RESPONSIBILITY to punish them.
If indeed the 'rule of law' prevails---laws based upon moral codes of behavior---than it won't be your moral duty to punish 'them'. But you misunderstand my position. I am NOT saying that the fraudsters should not be held accountable. I am simply saying that what drove these guys to do this---the greed, the fear, the lust for power, whatever---these are universal experiences. If every man reflected upon the nature of these impulses and sat with the discomfort of NOT responding to these impulses, the world would be a pretty cool place. I'm not so naive as to think that is possible...but I'm also pretty clear about the fact that the vigilante spirit that exists here and elsewhere will not solve the root problem.
@ Bob S.
Ummmmm....what about this one?
by JimboJammer
on Sun, 11/14/2010 - 10:59
#726032
It is not going to happen ... the FBI , Customs , and the President
are all bought off ... The CIA can fly drugs into the USA and sell
them for Black Ops. Customs can't inspect the cargo planes..
The Jews run Goldman Sachs , and control most of TV news..
Muslims are taking over Europe .. Half the people in jail
should be let out...
... but that's all basically true.
It's well documented the CIA have funded subversive operations throughout the world by selling drugs.
The FBI, Customs and President have all instrumental in incrementally eroding rights and freedoms. Both through action (eg: oppressive border controls) and inaction (failure to prosecute our current crop of bankers is a timely example).
There are a lot of very intelligent Isralies. To whit: some of the best novel technology has come out of Israel, including the low-power CPU design for the Pentium-M which was a grandfather of your current Intel computer. It's natural for a profit-seeking intelligent person to be attracted to banking. Look at all the math geniuses working for Wall Street.
American TV is a joke. Seriously.
From a demographic standpoint, Muslims are set to out-breed the native Europeans within a few generations. The objection here is more about culture than race; would you like it if I moved next to you and setup my own legal and judiciary network?
And ab-so-fucking-lutely over half the people in US jails should be set free -- all non-violent drug offenders should be the first out. This alone would decrease the federal and state penitentiary burden substantially. The war on drugs must end.
" This evil must be rooted out and destroyed. " two years ago my Uncle Walt (86 years old) told me that he feels EVIL or the ANTI-CHRIST is walking the earth again. mind you, he is not really that religious nor does he follow any financial news & does not use a computer. he is convinced of this; & i totally dismissed his silly statement ..... maybe there really is such a thing as "good" vs. "evil" .
I don't think so. There is greed and selfish egotistical fullfilment and there is altruism and selflessness. Evil and good don't exist like light and darkness, positive and negative, they are just allusions to the Yin and Yang, opposing forces. Are roving bands of murderous teenage monkey evil or sharks in a feeding frenzy or killer bees or snakes (like in Eden) or alligators or scorpions?
@ Temp,
Good point. "Evil" is a human construction. (In fact, back in the whaling days, sharks were referred to by sailors as sea-devils or 'wolves of the sea'.)
HOWEVER...it is my contention that, due to the FACT that we possess the ability to employ our pre-frontal lobe when responding to a variety of stimuli, that humans have the capacity to reflect upon their states-of-mind rather than simply to react to them. For example, if I am suddenly overwhelmed by feelings of fear because I have an unconscious memory-moment, I have the capacity to sit with that fear, to reflect upon its origin, to FEEL it...but NOT to react to it.
Of the multitude of tragedies that face today's youth in the USA, one of the most pernicious is that our children turn off difficult feelings by turning ON the T.V. or the cell phone or the computer, etc. The minute feelings get too big, it's numb-out time.
I have no doubt that people can sense when other around them are stressed in a limbic kind of way. Just like herd animals become extra vigilant when they smell a predator or a flock of birds take flight suddenly.
I don't think that "evil" exists in the form of some tangible entity - but I'm sure our collective semi-conscious reaction to societal stress and pervasive danger could be interpreted as such - and in that way is very real.
Simple and obvious if you focus your attention.
Money, debt, uncertainty, usurary. Who controls the flow?
Too many still feel that they are vested in the system and have much to lose. When the tipping point comes and individuals cut their Gordian knots - "change" will come. Then it depends on the charactor of a nation.
@ Cit,
Good point. I agree. I actually believe that we "sense" evil (if you will) because we know instinctively that we ALL have the capacity to behave similarly. Once the pre-frontal cortex has been subverted by the primitive brain, evil behavior (to varying degrees) becomes the standard, not the exception. The herding behavior most prevalent in the world of finance over the past decades has been fear and greed-based....accumulate accumulate accumulate at the expense of your fellow human beings and at the expense of the planet. Exorcising this "evil" does not mean a revolt against the banks and the men who run them, it means a revolt against reactive and fear-based and greed-based states of mind.
@Mir,
Your post jogged a memory of an article I read recently. Topic was that human brains aren't fully developed until around age 25, *especially* the parts related to planning, thinking ahead, rational decision making, understanding consequences of one's actions. Point of the article that maybe the USA voting age should not be the current low of 18, which was justified at the time when there was conscription at age 18 and a lower legal drinking age.
Would be a worthwhile experiment to try raising the voting age to say 25, when the average brain can have a chance of understanding the consequences of its actions, and an age when most have more life experience, more "skin in the game" and more to lose. Maybe we could upgrade from the continuous parade of charlatans, dirtbags and weasels in elected US government positions.
Nah. Or just lower the voting age to 10. Sponge Bob, Kardashians, new cell phones and other consumer junk, Lindsey Lohans, all around! Woohoo!
On second thought, instead, let's reinstate the draft, lower the drinking age, and keep the voting age. A bunch of drunk, pissed-off draftees with guns might give better results in the voting booths.
"Hundreds of millions of Americans think that there was a cover up about 9/11, and want a thorough investigation"
There's only "three" "hundreds of millions" of Americans, GW. Keep the hyperbole for the economic sphere. There are enough economic crimes to be investigated to keep a real AG (as opposed to Eric "Place" Holder) busy for eight years. You dilute your message trying to chase down every shadow that lurks in the corners.
You made it to Counterpunch before (Congrats!) and spread your message to a wide audience. This fever swamp stuff won't make it.
It is not going to happen ... the FBI , Customs , and the President
are all bought off ... The CIA can fly drugs into the USA and sell
them for Black Ops. Customs can't inspect the cargo planes..
The Jews run Goldman Sachs , and control most of TV news..
Muslims are taking over Europe .. Half the people in jail
should be let out...
yea, well, just wait........ JUST WAIT til the average person realizes that their homes & their money in a bank are virtually worthless (in a few more years) ! Just wait until they see that all the money that they spent a lifetime saving is going to be declared worthless. it's going to be a nightmare. I read most of EGON von GREYERZ articles; & my reading / research tells me that ALL PAPER PROMISES WILL BE BROKEN . Good god, help us all ...... help the elderly & the innocent.
Excellent George.The chaos produced by criminal elements in our own government is very damaging, especially in light of the fact that the government is serving another master.
It is now so obvious and blatant....as we slouch towards a new world order, with oppression and slavery for all....but the masters.
This evil must be rooted out and destroyed.The alternative is too hideous to contemplate.
I wonder how TPTB are going to bail out the banks re MERS and the various state AG lawsuits, without irrevocably showing the populace how corrupt the system really is. The problem is that even the sheeple might take notice of fraud directed at their most prized asset.
Sad comments today.