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The Giant Banks, Federal Reserve and Treasury Have All Blackmailed America
As I wrote last October:
Congressmen Brad Sherman and Paul Kanjorski and Senator James Inhofe all say that the government warned of martial law if Tarp wasn't passed. And Rahm Emanuel famously said:
Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before.
Last year:
- Senator Leahy said "If we learned anything from 9/11, the biggest mistake is to pass anything they ask for just because it's an emergency"
- The New York Times wrote:
"The
rescue is being sold as a must-have emergency measure by an
administration with a controversial record when it comes to asking
Congress for special authority in time of duress."***
Mr.
Paulson has argued that the powers he seeks are necessary to chase away
the wolf howling at the door: a potentially swift shredding of the
American financial system. That would be catastrophic for everyone, he
argues, not only banks, but also ordinary Americans who depend on their
finances to buy homes and cars, and to pay for college.Some are
suspicious of Mr. Paulson’s characterizations, finding in his warnings
and demands for extraordinary powers a parallel with the way the Bush
administration gained authority for the war in Iraq. Then, the White
House suggested that mushroom clouds could accompany Congress’s failure
to act. This time, it is financial Armageddon supposedly on the
doorstep.“This is scare tactics to try to do something that’s in
the private but not the public interest,” said Allan Meltzer, a former
economic adviser to President Reagan, and an expert on monetary policy
at the Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business. “It’s terrible.”Not Just Government
But it's not just government . . .
If
the too big to fails say that the world economy will crash and there
will be martial law unless they are bailed out, politicians - most of
whom don't understand finance or economics - will believe them, and
sound the alarm themselves.
As Karl Denninger wrote yesterday:
[S]ounds like "Bail me out or I will crash everything."
Isn't
that analagous to walking into a bank, opening one's coat to reveal an
explosives-laced belt, and saying "gimme all the money or everyone
dies!"
I noted in November:
In
the 1974 comedy Blazing Saddles, Cleavon Little plays the new sheriff
in an old Western town. The sheriff is African-American, and when he
rides into town for the first time, the [racist] townspeople pull out
their guns and are about to shoot him.
But he quickly puts a gun
to his own head, pretends he's scared of his own gun, and says "BACK
OFF OR THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN GUY GETS IT!!!" The townspeople are dumb
and fall for it, suddenly terrified that he'll kill himself. Here's the
scene.
That's what Wall Street is doing with the bailout.
The
fat cats on Wall Street are saying "give us a lot of money, and buy all
of our bad debt for a lot more than its worth, or Wall Street will get
it and we'll go into a depression!"
Are Americans stupid enough to fall for it?
In a recent interview, William K. Black uses the exact same Blazing Saddles sheriff-bank analogy.
Miles Kendig has a different - but parallel - analogy for the giant banks:
In
essence, what we have here folks is a characterization of the banks and
the government that has assumed the risk profile of these banks as some
sort of 1,000 pound men, unable to move without assistance. They have
suckered everyone else into the idea that if anything is done to move
these overweight, unhealthy "persons" to health they will have a heart
attack and kill us all since they sit upon the crossroads of commerce
and have sold most folks the idea that they are the heart of the nation
and indeed the world. Given these "objective" circumstance the
government is not only beholden to the 1,000 pound persons, but is one
of them itself, will do everything to make the rest of us carry them so
as to save them the indignity of actually addressing their morbid
obesity and the cycle of codependency that enables them all to remain
so fat.Any way you look at it, the too big to fails are not needed and they are dragging our economy into a black hole. Like the sheriff in Blazing Saddles or Kendig's 1,000 pound men, they are playing us for fools.
[Yves Smith] shared another analogy with me: a
man with 15lbs. of Semtex strapped to his waist. She says "any surprise
people in the vicinity are very attentive to his desires?"
As Bloomberg notes today:
The vote was another victory for the Fed, which months ago faced one of
the biggest challenges to its power and independence in its 96- year
history as lawmakers responded to public anger over bailouts of Wall
Street firms. The amendment Ensign supported was included in the
financial regulatory bill the Senate approved yesterday.
“The Fed’s
authorities seemed to be under serious threat,” said David Nason, a
former assistant U.S. Treasury secretary who’s now a managing director
at Promontory Financial Group LLC, a Washington-based consulting firm.
Instead, the Fed “appears to have regained its footing and now appears
to be emerging with at least as much authority and likely more.”
***
The
Senate bill contains most of what Fed officials sought. In addition to
preserving their bank-supervisory powers, it maintains a ban on
congressional audits of interest-rate decisions that some lawmakers had
sought to strip away.
***
The outcome
puts Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke in a stronger position to withdraw
record monetary stimulus as the economy recovers ...
And Tyler Durden provides details of how the Fed blackmailed Congress into expanding the Fed's powers:
A
reader provides us with the following letter he received from Senator
Mikulski in response to dissatisfaction expressed about Bernanke's
reconfirmation. The response from the Senator demonstrates [that the
Fed is pressuring] gullible and incompetent senators ... to pass law
after law that is only in the Fed's, and thus Wall Street's interests,
as the alternative would always be a "market nose dive" ....Thank
you for getting in touch with me about Ben Bernanke's nomination to
chair the Federal Reserve. It's great to hear from you.***
I
was advised that rejecting his nomination would cause markets to nose
dive, which would hurt retirees and families saving for their future. I
am not enthusiastic in my support. But I think Mr. Bernanke understands the job that he still has to do.***
Sincerely,
Barbara A. Mikulski
United States SenatorAnd for the counterpoint, here is an example of a Senator who does not fall for the Fed's racket:
Dear Friend:
Thank
you for contacting me. I appreciate hearing your thoughts about
President Obama's decision to nominate Ben Bernanke for another
four-year term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve (the Fed). I voted
against approving Mr. Bernanke, who was nevertheless confirmed by the
Senate by a vote of 70-30.***
While I have heard
the concerns of many that the failure to confirm Mr. Bernanke would
have damaged the financial markets and jeopardized our economy
recovery, I do not believe that anyone, including Mr. Bernanke, is too
big to be replaced. We
should not hold our economy hostage to the Wall Street threat that
total economic collapse is the sure result of not doing everything they
want.Thanks again for contacting me. Please do not hesitate to do so again about this or any other issue that may concern you.
Sincerely,
Tom Harkin
United States Senator
- advertisements -
Awesome, George. There's a big, fat lie at the center of this. Always has been. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see that from the start. Crazy talk was being thrown around, threats of imminent collapse, global financial armageddon, with no substantiating evidence provided and no time to discuss alternative measures. It was a shakedown.
Even asking for substantiating evidence has been portrayed as a dangerous impulse. The government has religiously done everything in its power to prevent the public examination of the factors that Paulson and Bernanke were responding to when they said the sky was falling. That fact, the cover up, more than anything else, is the proof that their cries of imminent disaster were despicable lies. If TARP hadn't passed, and the free lending window hadn't been opened, and ENRON-style accounting tricks not been encoded into law, and AIG counterparties not been made whole, etc, etc, you know what would have happened? Some very rich people would have lost some money and other rich people would have profited mightily from those losses and a lot of foreclosures would have happened and millions of jobs would have been lost and whole countries would have found themselves in trouble, financially.
I guess you get the point. All those things have happened anyway. The difference is, instead of US losing trillions of dollars, executives, shareholders and bondholders would have lost that money after ugly battles among themselves. And we could have spent those trillions in a lot of productive ways to get the economy they destroyed going again.
It smelled from the get-go. It was painfully obvious to me. There never was such a thing as imminent global financial armageddon. There were bad assets, that's all. We now own them. Toxic waste that someone had to clean up, or eat. Banks didn't want to eat them so they forced us to by threatening that sudden, mass hysterical suicide of the entire global banking community was inescapable. Cause that's what people with money do, you know. When they're faced with realizing a loss, they explode. They kill themselves. They don't cut their losses. Look for another angle. They destroy themselves, their families, and everyone around them. Immediately. They can't help themselves. They're crazy terrorist bankers. Give me a break.
What we have experienced is the greatest heist in the history of the world.
I had a computer programmer back in the old days of computing (1980's) who was programming our office computers (Pertec PCC-2000) for real estate and property management. He thought his position was secure because nobody else there could do his job. A snotty little twerp. Taking one look at his work (Business BASIC is not that hard, but it was new) I decided he was not all that indispensable after all. Fired his arrogant ass. Hired some college kids part time to do the job cheaper.
Maybe we should look twice at this seemingly esoteric banking crap and see how simple it really is. Only the banksters are holding it up as being a sophisticated task that only they can perpetrate -- I mean accomplish.
Wow, a Pertec PCC-2000! Very rare beast. I'm surprised you remember it specifically.
Well played.
But yeah, this banking and currency stuff is easy:
http://www.bitcoin.org/
I am Chumbawamba.
Ooh, ooh. I gotta go take a closer look at that bitcoin thingie. Thanks for the link.
Yeah, those Pertecs cost us $10K each and we had 2 of 'em with added double floppy drives at $4K each. When they offered us the hard drives (the size of a small refrigerator for $30K) we started to look at other options. I had one of those machines in my garage for a few years and about 1995 I took a toolkit to it just for fun. The frame was cast aluminum and would have made a great boat anchor. That thing was mil-spec all the way. I spent 4 years in the Air Force as an electronics technician (aircraft radio, radar, ECM) and I know good stuff when I see it. The Pertec never had a service call and ran nearly 24 hours a day for years. Too bad they screwed up with the PCC-1000 and quit making them. It would have sealed their success.
I say we go medieval..sovereign nations being so obsequious to money lenders is quite unbecoming.
"Lenders have not always put pressure on borrowers. At some point, it was the other way around. According to Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, authors of This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, a king's promise to repay could often be removed as easily as the lender's head..."
"BACK OFF OR THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN GUY GETS IT!!!"???
Sorry, that's not the line at all. It goes:
"NEXT MAN MAKES A MOVE, THE NIGGER GETS IT!!!"
I am Chumbawamba.
As the swine self identify before the bar of public opinion.
I wouldn't go back now for any amount of money (or anything else)
"If you don't give us what we want, we'll shoot ourselves."
Reminds me of that classic scene (one of more than a few) in Blazing Saddles when the new sheriff arrives in town. Dumb enough to fall for it? The end of the scene answers that question too.
"The Giant Banks, Federal Reserve and Treasury Have All Blackmailed America"And in case you haven't heard, there's no Santa Claus nor Easter Bunny, either.
At least we still have Robin Hood:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19v5Kjmc8FI
Dudes, do you think that both can be right. the big banks bought the right (via lobby contributions) to blackmail the untied states.
it sickens me when two people on effectively teh same side get stuck on small details.
Anyone remember 1340? Yes....you do...great.
Remember the leverage and the bills to all the royalty that couldn't ever be satisfied?
Remember the defaults on those bills of credit? Remember the inability of commerce to engage after that? Remember the paralysis of business as no one knew how to exchange anything in their continental economy?
Great! They you will also remember what that paralysis led to. Yes lack of flow of commerce led to food sitting on transport rotting, to food sitting in farmers feeds rotting, to carriers of disease migrating from areas of deprivation to *anywhere* else. And from those rotents we theorize that the Black Death spread.
Now certainly the *fine gentlemen and ladies* of the Bankster persuasion have taken up an *interesting* stance, but before you take up forks and torches (in the drooling clueless normal mob manner) you have to ask yourselves *one* question:
"How many days of food on your grocer's shelf?"
Now that may not be for you, my fine survivalist friend, but it would be for the heavily armed roving bands of *hungry* *thirsty* *pissed off* neanderthals that live just down the road (or [lol] next door).
So in a Zen like way: "Do you have an alternative to the present system that keeps Mad Max away and replaces those *fine ladies and gentlemen" of the Bankster persuasion?"
Or maybe: "Golly gee, y'all seem to get mighty shirty with CONgress when they seem not to think two moves ahead. How 'bout yourselves?"
***********************************************
There is a business cycle:
Elites grow servant population.
Servant population is not unlike elite population and begins educating itself.
Servant population finds that it has been *oppressed* by the elite and decides to make things *right.*
Elite, *holders of Power,* understand this endgame and remove the educated populace and substitute a new servant class. Sometimes they scour the entire planet and hide inside.
So:
"The knife you wield in ignorance of your situation only cuts you."
I agree these bankster and others elite are able to get away with what they do because we let them.
A lazy press too busy sucking off banksters, politicians having money stuffed up their rectums by the banksters and regulators paid off in porn and ky. Money (power) is easily buys these people as they are in it for the power and money.
But nothing changes the actions of a politician than an angry mob wanting to toss them down a well. The thing about that is that when the mob is in the streets its too late for the politician to resurect themselves. Already we see a phase shift in the political scene. The status quo of a two party state is no longer acceptable, incumbents of both flavors are being seen as the problem. It is a precious opportunity for the independents.
The politicians must begin to see that standing too close to banksters will evenutally critically taint them. It hasn't got to that stage yet, but with a dead economy it cant be too far away.
The next President and bunch of politicians independants should be running on breaking and bringing to justice and punishment the banking and finance industry.
As I said elsewhere the Knight Templers were once powerful bankers and a fighting force but then....they were no more.
Your analogy to the Templars is a poor fit; they were demonized by King Phillip the (not so) Fair because he didn't want to pay down the mountain of debts he had racked up with them while fighting the English. He introduced gold coinage to France in earnest, before debasing it beyond recognition to fund his military habit.
But hey...if you think the prudent path is to arrest Wall St, torture them unto confession, and then set them alight, then more power to you.
The Fed is a sweat act that is collapsing into its own hoofprint because, like other forms of central planning, it inundates the pricing signals crucial to a healthy economy with self-serving and ultimately systemically destructive noise. With TARP and its progeny the banksters have accorded themselves all the rope in the world. Be patient and enjoy the spectacle as they hang themselves. It's just a matter of time.
>Are Americans stupid enough to fall for it?
That would be a "Yes"?
on Sun, 05/23/2010 - 05:08
#368402
>Are Americans stupid enough to fall for it?
That would be a "Yes"?
UncleFurker,
You asked "Are Americans stupid enough to fall for it?"... The answer is a resounding! Yes!!!!!!!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE
Sorry for the Bad News...
Try to be well given the lie of a reality that we all live, JW
Call their bluff. Stop paying tax, renounce fiat currency, revert to barter. 'Tis better than slavery.
Ah. This is the conundrum. What to do with what we know. One of the worst things about a fiat currency is that a tax revolt cannot be used against it. They just borrow or print more. Is an underground economy the answer? Barter can only go so far. How about black markets? Do we organize? Become a secret society? How do WE become the PTB? I would love to see a story on ZH about ideas to address our dilemma. I am ever optimistic as I believe most of you are, since you are here reading and posting on this fantastic site. What do we do now?
Stop considering it as an issue?
Usually, debasement of a currency starts with sellers of vital/high in demand goods rejecting the currency. This is what triggers the lose of faith in a currency.
For the USD to end, two ways out:
-commodities rich countries reject the USD as a currency. Wont happen as the US has locked the situation.
-commodities rich countries have nothing (or at least not enough) left to sell against USD. End of game for the USD.
The US has no more real power. There is a subtle move afoot to unseat America from its lofty position, gracefully if possible. They are taking their time and making their moves when it is to their advantage to do so. The Empire is an empty shell. Time will expose this reality.
I am Chumbawamba.
It will end when they can sell a majority of exports to non-U.S. markets in non-Dollar denominated trades. It will happen; sooner than later.
A dangerous experience. I mean stop paying tax.
Commonly, the US citizens like to lull themselves to think of themselves as being necessary to the US state.
Fact is they are less and less. Already a large number of US citizens taxes are not needed by the US government.
Countries all around the world do not buy US debt in hope that one day, taxes will be raised and getting their money back.
They buy US debt to get an access to the commodities world market.
The US tax payer is not needed save to pretend.
That is where the bluff lies.
Reserve currency status (backed by 50% of world military spending), electronic money and unlimited leverage lets us sit at the head of the table for the time being.
Only 50% pay any income tax at all with that number falling. Federal VAT and rising state sales taxes will extract some blood in the future as government funding crisis develops.
tony bonn - "indeed the cia imported vast hordes of nazis to amerika after ww2 in order establish the 4th reich..."
Too true. The US won the war militarily, and then the government was seduced by the methods of the Nazis and we lost the ideological war. We adapted all the moral depravity of the enemy that was supposed to be beyond contempt. Their scientists took us to the moon and their medical experiments were studied with a dismissive and expediant - well the subjects are dead - ignoring the data won't bring them back. We now see the fruit of it coming to full maturity with union thugs sent out to act like brown shirts above the law. Can a Reichstag fire and seizure of powers be far behind?
You need these... mchandler@ameri..., http://zapatopi.net/afdb/ and / or http://www.stopabductions.com/...
As Keiser put it they are suicidal, willing to blow themselves up as a last resort.
I think they got us reacting to them. Howzabout this? If the value of Joe Sixpack's 401k goes down, you're dead meat. Let them react to us for a change!!!
Let them react to us for a change!!!
It's not hard to do my friend. All we have to do is organize a tax/work/consumption strike. It's pretty easy. Take an unpaid staycation for a week, deliver the common sense demands, and promise to continue the staycations ushering in fiscal hell and an end to the charade unless the demands are met. From what I've seen our representatives get real motivated when faced with blackmail and the country going to hell on their watch. So let's put their feet under the fire, and see if they'll squeal our tune. I'm down with it. I will take an unpaid vacation, and find another job if I have to, to save my country; hell it's the least I can do. We don't even have to get our fat American asses off the couch for crying out loud, let alone carry a picket or storm a government building, just take an unpaid vacation.
Bet you a Mapleleaf we can get Charlie Daniels to write us a fight song. Gotta mention Andrew Jackson using his cane on some twit! LOL
A straight up blackmail & extortion scam. On this scale I believe it may well be a bit more considering the ongoing damage & destruction of lives, property and the very sovereignty of nations of peoples.
Thanks GW.
Render unto to scammers what belongs to the scammers - Federal Reserve Notes. Let them pay for the mull in gold
I used to smugly think that Russia was a Mafia state, run like a Mafia suburb for the benefit of the cronies of the power elite. And the elite washed one another's hands, the oligarchs washed Putin's hands, Putin took care of the oligarchs. In Russia, the power lies in the government through its control of the military and the media and through the oligarchs' control of the country's natural resources.
I came to this country (legally) as a Cuban immigrant and have always taken pride in being an American. But today, as George Wallace used to say in a different context, there ain't a dime's worth of difference between Russia and the United States. The levers of control may be different. The oligarchs control the banks. The media may as well be controlled by the government for all the docility they show. But this situation stinks.
And what is scary is that it may well take a significant upheaval to set the thing right again-if it can be set right at all.
GW! Take back your country!
2nd generation Cuban's... and 3rd generation Cuban's are as bad as any of the other true immigrant American's...
1st Generation works thier ass off, 2nd continues but spends like drunken sailors... 3rd are drunken sailors, strictly.
No offense but being a 5th Generation South Florida boy! I have a fairly good understanding of what the Cuban American Community Suffers now days, entitlement is a TRUE AMERICAN View!
Omega 7 was on our list for a long time... as a child I went to a few of the meetings... Cuba, is a beautiful place and I have particpated in 3 (maybe 4) regatta's for Medical Supply drop off... Boarded and harassed by New Jersey Coast Gruard idiots... Fuck them any way, I tell them to get back to what ever exit they hail from.
As for GW taking his Country back... its your Country too stupid! Dont feel bad, all of us here on our high moral horses have ZERO chance in educating the masses enough to effect any real change. Sad, but true.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE Somone here posted this and it soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo fucking true!
JW...
Whew !! THATS freakin scary..(I had to 'broadcast' it to all my e-mail contacts..)
Thanks for posting the link..Now I think I'll go puke..
Thanks for the video JW. I love your posts. I don't know what to say. Obviously very frustrated. Glad to be able to share thoughts here on ZH. I still work hard. Came here without a nickel and pretty pissed off that Benron wants to see me off the same way. Quite honestly, I worry for my kids. Thanks again for the video and for your good, thoughtful posts on many of the topics.
http://www.apfn.net/Doc-100_bankruptcy.htm for more info if you seek it.
Sense we are doing video's that are crazy... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHmwZ96_Gos&feature=PlayList&p=C1B06538A32767DF&playnext_from=PL&index=156
who's gonna enforce that nonsense? They dont follow the rules now when away from home, what makes you think there going to support such bs as that? They will all quit and go home and then they can make whatever rules up there they want to make up..I can tell you that right now..This isnt the same military thats as dedicated as the old school boys..we have dont ask dont tell and all kind of,,,nevermind thats to funny.
hear ye hear ye all of interest..The receivers of the United States Bankruptcy are the International
Bankers, via the United Nations, the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund. All United States Offices, Officials, and Departments are now
operating within a de facto status in name only under Emergency War Powers.
With the Constitutional Republican form of Government now dissolved, the
receivers of the Bankruptcy have adopted a new form of government for the
United States. This new form of government is known as a Democracy, being an
established Socialist/Communist order under a new governor for America. This
act was instituted and established by transferring and/or placing the Office
of the Secretary of Treasury to that of the Governor of the International
Monetary Fund. Public Law 94-564, page 8, Section H.R. 13955 reads in part:
"The U.S. Secretary of Treasury receives no compensation for representing
the United States." (blacks law dic. democracy/re/ of communist order)
Few know of this. Most americans have no idea we are /have been in bankruptcy.
Most of them are probably too worried about their own impending bankruptcy to worry about it. The rest have already declared bankruptcy.
Exactly, most people dont know, look at the people next to you on the freeway, they know? care? How do we get Peter Jennings and Katie Couric to broadcast this everynight:
Look America your gettin fucked in the ass without even a kiss from the banksters. Now go out and take your money out of that major bank and put it in a local one or credit union.
Thats how citizens can cause a meaningfull shift of power. The only one I can think of because when politicians hit Washington ....tired old story..
Peter Jennings is dead, and Katie Couric only broadcasts what her editors tell her to.
Peter Jennings only spoke out on his deathbed.
They are all captured. They are all prisoners of the Regime, doing their bidding...or else.
The true conveyors of news were George Carlin and Bill Hicks. They're gone now. We have no champions.
I am Chumbawamba.
A riddle. do you know why the events after 1929 are called the "great depression"? it was great for the bankers! they foreclosed on everything. (reclaimed each unpaid title) they got it all back to do over again. it was also great for the fed, reset the books to zero. and so whom now holds legal title to our fair country??
I often wondered why they called it "great", thanks for clearing that up for me.
attention please.....a round of applause ladys and gentlemen.....there has never before been so many bloody "houdini's" in one place, at one time in world financial history. bravo hooligans and rapscallions.
You forgot mountebanks and knaves.
Undoing the bailout could mean an effective collapse of the government.
That's going to happen eventually, anyway. It's better that it occur in an orderly fashion rather than through a sudden shock.
I guess it's more palatable to the media to essentially kill off all states that aren't NY or CA and then wait until that "roving zombie hordes" problem becomes too big to ignore.
The worry about "roving zombie hordes" is going mainstream, as evidenced by Brian Williams saying on Letterman that if he didn't have to, he wouldn't leave the house.