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A Time To Speak Out
From Mike Krieger of KAM LP
A Time to Speak Out
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
- Bob Dylan
Carl Quintanilla: Futures were down 30 now down 175.
Joe Kernan: These pictures (Greece) aren’t helping.
- This morning on CNBC
The technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.
Zbigniew Brzezinski in his book Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era
I wasn’t going to write this week so this will be extremely brief. The entire charade that has been propagated on humanity is coming completely unglued and there is absolutely no stopping it. I have only one request to those that are reading this. If you know of specific incidences of corruption or serious wrong-doing come forth and tell everyone now. This is your last chance. When this things breaks the 99% of people on this planet that have been unwilling victims of a very small group of elitist political and corporate players and others will be so completely destroyed they are going to go after people and in a very serious way. This must be done calmly and without violence but it must be done and it will be done. At that point the backstabbing and selling out by people that previously held alliances with one another will be so chaotic it is going to be tough to separate those did the most harm from those that were willfully ignorant. I fear that being willfully ignorant will not be a defense that will appease many so it is best to come out before that point is reached. For those that have read A Tale of Two Cities or just generally know your history remember what happened in the aftermath of the French Revolution. There was illogic and indiscriminate punishment applied in many cases. I hope this never happens and I will fight to prevent it all the way but the best thing one can do now is come clean if there is anything you need to come clean about. Bob Dylan said it best in the quote at the top. This is the chance. Do not let it pass you by because of fear or greed. Truth is all that matters.
Turn the Television Off
I barely watch any television anymore. It has been this way for several years now and it is the best thing I have ever done in my life. I turn it on to CNBC when I wake up for 15 minutes or so and then I watch reruns of “The Office” before I go to sleep. That said, the 15 minutes I get from CNBC in the morning is invaluable. It reinforces why I don’t watch tv and it also reminds me why many investors are so lost. As the futures plunged this morning Joe Kernan stated “ These pictures aren’t helping.” Helping what exactly? Helping an agenda. An economic philosophy that unfortunately dominates our current financial system. A system that is NOT free market in many crucial ways, but rather is top down autocratic system run by Central Bankers (you have to read this http://www.marketskeptics.com/2010/05/federal-reserve-has-been-abusing.html). That profession needs to go or be changed entirely back to its root functions. Later in the news segment one of the guests begged the CNBC anchors to take the pictures off the screen. They don’t play well in Disneyland. Television can be great for certain purposes but do not for a minute think you are getting the news of the day. You see what you are permitted to see. Mainstream journalism is dead.
The Latest Martin Armstrong Piece
I also wanted to implore everyone to read the latest piece by political prisoner Martin Armstrong. Here is the link. http://www.martinarmstrong.org/files/Closing-at-10520-32-Down-3-2-5-14-10.pdf
If we don’t stand up now then the world envisioned by Zbigniew Brzezinski may come to pass. It will be a technocratic neo-feudalism. Your children and grandchildren are going to ask what you did during this time. How you stood up. What side were you on. We can’t let this chance slip away.
Mike
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Precisely my point, who would junk that? Fu$kin trolls (spit).
Badassery - my new favorite word.
Awesome Gully.
I want to know what sites you troll on a daily basis and what is and has been on your reading list.
Mine is simple:
ZH
Rense
goroadachi.com
halfpasthuman.com
theoildrum.com
financialsense.com (sometimes)
By the way, would welcome other awesome sites
Oh yes and Fofoa when he does write.
Books I'll save for another day
Any chance the Internet gets shut off for awhile (or longer) if the shit STOPS the fan???
yes
Well. If it ever does go down, then it probably stays down.
They booted the Internet once.
That would be the national power grid. Black starting the grid, nationally, has never been done. TCP/IP and the 'net are still using US DoD protocols and standards that will allow a fairly rapid restart, and can circumvent point to point failures - that's whay they call 'em routers.
I can restart my home network in 10 minutes, if the DSL is hot. Otherwise it can take half an hour.
I can restart the corporate LAN in an hour, maybe 6, so long as none of the slave databases piss all over themselves. If the DB are borked then all bets are off. Can take all night.
I cannot imagine, for the life of me, trying to reboot a continent. There is probably stuff out there running that if it ever lost connectivity would become scrap. There are routers that nobody knows the password to that were last configured in 1998. There are hacks running in memory that were never saved to ROM. There are networks running over software firewalls and routers running on personal computers and laptops wired to a bookshelf with a "do not touch!" sticky note on the screen, that have a lapsed license and will silently fail on reboot.
Maybe the protocols are good. Maybe they are not. The hardware is one huge kludge. The Morris worm nearly ate the world once and I wonder if we can really reboot the Internet.
Doesn't the data exist in an infinate hyper world? couldn't say in a thousand years we tap back into the sytem?
That's total bs. There is no "rebooting the Internet" because it isn't a monolithic entity. There are some major chokepoints to our communications these days, but you make it sound like the whole thing would have to come up all at once and that is absolutely not the case. Stuff breaks all the time. The Internet is a DECENTRALIZED network and would be quite easy to "bring back up" although I don't even know what that means. What would take out the power to the entire contintent? Nothing short of nuclear war, and that's not going to happen.
So please, take your poorly informed opinions and stupid scaremongering and stuff them.
Uhm, no (real)expert here, but surely the NSA (No Such Agency) could bring the internet to a HALT at any time. IMHO.
"What would take out the power to the entire contintent? "
Talk about getting educated, you might want to do a little reading about EMP attacks and the distruction it would cause to all communications.
I know, it's all a big conspiracy theory, blah, blah, blah.
There are routers that nobody knows the password to that were last configured in 1998.
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4856837/-_Xploitz_-_Master_Password_List...
There are hacks running in memory that were never saved to ROM.
Yeah, those are a prob, and if they're on many-port routers then god help us. BGP!
rig the bicycle to be a electric generator ..your part of the room will always have light
Wow ... what a picture.
They'll find some way to shut 'er down. Are any ZH'ers ham radio operators? That's about the only way you'll be able to get decent information.
CQ, CQ. Hello CQ...
73
You are 59 here.Go ahead OM.
I bought the manual but have yet to take the test. However I am thinking exactly as you are.
listening.
Redundant systems is key, I'm on the lookout for a rig myself.
... _ _ _ ...
dit, da, dit, dit, da -oh wait, that's morse code, sorry
To prevent flow of information a blocking of DNS servers will do. A complete shutdown of the 'net will harm business too much.
Look for uncensored list of DNS severs and store locally (or print it out,) that should help.
You want the TRUTH? Then keep your browser pointed to ZH! Definitely, don't watch CNBS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hGvQtumNAY
And put on a helmet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onqG5OqiilA
History moves forward like a giant caterpillar. It's when the caterpillar has to make a sudden sharp turn that we get our chance to see its inner machinery, as its segmented shielding bends out of position and just for a moment, exposes its inner nature. Look carefully. These are valuable times where truths can been seen with the naked eye.
there's a reason truth and freedom are one and the same...
Thanks ZeroHedge. Very few speak the truth these days.
www.DerivativesCollapse.com
www.FinancialBlackmail.com
www.RevokeTheFed.com
www.JoeSixPack.me
www.Gold-Silver.US
---Tyler--- with greatest respect and admiration,
The sun always comes up no matter how dark and cold the night. I agree with you that we may see the horrific times ahead. Remember that he French Revolution and the American Revolution were fairly close together. The French were intent with taking everyone’s head off and America was fortunate to have some of the brightest of people together at the same point in time. We were not so fortunate in our own Civil War revolt, and we will not go there again.
The Constitution is in place. Laws that were not enforced will be at question. We are broke and do not understand at this point what broke really means. It indeed looks grim. We may have a societal shift that will take us back to the dark ages, but I doubt it.
I suspect that the breakdown of trust will be a problem in many areas. If there is a failure of keeping the fabric of the society partially together, then more problems. If law and order fails, then we will have to reestablish it.
If the system collapses, we will have to reconstruct it. It appears to be a corrupt system in need of fixin, after all. Remember the---power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. If you stand up in the morning it is a good day. If at the end of the day you and your children are alive it is a good day. We will live to see the bottom of this, and then work our way out. Guys like you are needed. Don’t wear yourself out yet.
Here is a clue. Entropy (see 2nd Law of Thermodynamics) enters ALL systems. You need to become anti-system. Rebuilding this pile of shit falls under the definition of INSANE. Release your mind!!!!
I had a professor explain three laws of thermodynamics once this way:
1) You can not win.
2) You can not break even.
3) You can not get out of the game.
Physicists and engineers tend to look at the economy like any other dynamic system, and not immune to entropy or thermodynamics. Some may hope that gold will give a way around 3), but in the end, even with gold, you will not be able to find the things you want.
...precisely... which is why the construct of "zero-sum" is totally false in the absolute or only...
Too bad currencies cannot be more like energy - neither created nor destroyed, but instead changes forms. Sort of like converting dollars to PM,s or some other commodity.
"The Constitution is in place."
Now THAT'S funny stuff.
which one is he refering to?
What's a "Constitution"?
Maybe what our politicians have up their asses! And they are going to make us wash it?
If the people who profited from the lending-to-infinity-for-profit scam pay for their implicit crimes and regulate, we will survive.
The 1) debt must be restructured and 2) the markets allowed to crash. Two of the hardest political plays ever. Technically doable.
Rich must become less rich and poor must become less indebted.
The government must engineer this.
Only way to growth.
Only way out.
Oh.... There are other ways out....
Update on the biggest class-action lawsuit in world history for 4 trillion dollars (CMKX)
Hodges and Associates Update
We have, as many have speculated, confronted a serious headwind to obtaining Economic Receipt. In my continuing efforts to resolve this matter I have recently communicated directly with the President of the United States. Although it was not my original intention to share this correspondence, it now seems prudent and necessary to do so. The letters are set forth below the next paragraph; they should be self-explanatory.
Earlier this afternoon I also sent the following to my associates in London:
“I have attached several letters which I have recently had occasion to have delivered to the President of these United States. They are, I believe, self explanatory as to what continues to take place in this land, which continues to frustrate the completion of distribution of the World Global Settlements. These Settlements, of course, includes monies for the US Dollar refunding project as an integral portion.
I believe the British Monarch needs to be aware of the exact cause of the continued delay in concluding this matter. It lies squarely in the Whitehouse in Washington, D.C. Your cooperation and assistance is hereby solicited; please ensure that Her Majesty, and other interested Monarchal parties, are advised of the circumstances which pertain. To that end, please feel free to make such use of these letters as may in your sole discretion be required.”
I took this action because the British Monarch is as anxious as many Settlement payees to have this matter resolved; accordingly, she is an ally and needs to be kept up to date regarding what’s actually transpiring.
TEXT OF LETTERS
May 14, 2010
MOST URGENT VIA FACSIMILE ONLY
Honorable Barack Obama
President of the United States of America
Whitehouse
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. President:
I write to you this morning because people within your current administration continue to frustrate dissemination of the World Global Settlements; I am advised today that Mr. Leon Panetta participated in this act on May 14, 2010. I represent some 50,000 shareholders who are to be paid a settlement which consists mainly of monies collected from banks, brokerages, hedge fund corps, market makers, the Depository Trust Corporation/Federal Reserve, and various billionaire “naked-shorter” individuals, as well as some monies due from the SEC for damages. These various monies collected have been held far longer than they should have been, and were swept into the World Global Settlements, thereby delaying payment even further. Taxes were paid into the U.S. Treasury due on these “Settlements” on December 30th and 31st; distribution of these settlement funds could not legally be withheld past midnight of February 14th, 2010.
The continued holding of these settlement funds results in the violation of more laws such as “banking fraud,” “trust fund violations,” and, in times of war, “International Financial Terrorism.” These charges are not at the discretion of the government to overlook in the name of withholding monies that are not its property, nor its right to hold – especially given that now the Treasury is in “DEFAULT” and owned in large part by the Chinese government.
I am aware you have issued an “Executive Order” giving the diplomatic parties of Interpol, the Chinese, the Swiss, and the U.K. (MI6), the means to enforce, with all due power, dissemination of the “Settlements.” They clearly are relying on your power to assist this effort and to stop cabinet members of your staff and CIA factions from blocking the Global World Settlements. They are relying on you to exhibit your inherent Presidential character such as integrity and respect for the law, and to recognize the gravity of delaying such an important event intended to rescue not only the immediate US banking community, but to support a recalibration and refitting of various currencies and economies on a world scale necessary to abate the global collapse of economies everywhere.
We are all well aware of the “derivatives,” the Ponzi schemes of the Federal Reserve creating debt out of thin air, the real estate debacle of SIV’s and CDO’s, the “Naked Shorting” in the stock market, and the market’s overall vast manipulation for the profit of the few. The global economy needs these “Settlements” to initiate recovery, and to switch to the new asset-backed US Treasury dollars.
Mr. President, the people elected you for reasons of your promises, your apparent integrity, your conviction to help the American people uphold justice, and to return this Nation to its pre-eminent world status. Please use your good offices to ensure these “Settlements” are disseminated without further delay.
Sincerely,
HODGES AND ASSOCIATES
A. CLIFTON HODGES
ACH/gm
Cc: Lindell H. Bonney, Sr.
Clients
May 20, 2010
MOST URGENT VIA FACSIMILE ONLY
Honorable Barack Obama
President of the United States of America
Whitehouse
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. President:
I write to you again this morning because your immediate personal assistance is required to ensure prompt dissemination of the World Global Settlements. As I have previously stated, I represent some 50,000 shareholders who are to be paid a settlement which consists mainly of monies collected from banks, brokerages, hedge fund corps, market makers, the Depository Trust Corporation/Federal Reserve, and various billionaire “naked-shorter” individuals, as well as some monies due from the SEC for damages. I have also been involved in the representation of other payees awaiting this distribution and have, in such capacity, been in direct communication with the UK Royal Monarch.
I am currently advised and understand the following:
• A portion of the World Global Settlement funds have been collected and are presently held in the custody of the Bank of America in Richmond, VA.
• Said funds are sufficient to cover all disbursements to be made by the authority of the Paymaster who has now spent more than eight weeks over the past three months, in Richmond, for the purpose of concluding these transfers.
• The Paymaster authority has, at the direction of the Pentagon, London, et. al., recently returned to Richmond to consummate the transfers; he was advised yesterday morning at Bank of America that the bank could not allow the transfers to be made until one additional signature was obtained.
• Accordingly, on May 19, 2010 an agent of Interpol began a hand-carry trip through Little Rock, Arkansas, to Charleston, South Carolina, and then on to Richmond, Virginia; the hand carried item was presented to the Bank of America officer this morning.
• The Bank of America officer then advised the Paymaster authority that Mr. Leon Panetta had instructed Bank of America that no World Global Settlement funds were to be disbursed without express personal approval from the President of the United States.
• I have previously been advised that you had given specific written authorization of these transfers when you visited the Richmond Bank of America several weeks ago.
As I advised yesterday in my communication to you, I am persuaded by these facts, that only your direct intervention will be efficacious in bringing this matter to conclusion. Mr. President, please provide, once again, your specific written authority and direction to those who continue to frustrate completion of these World Global Settlements. I would very much appreciate your written confirmation that you will do so without delay; accordingly, I will withhold further communication to the UK Royal Monarch and distribution of this correspondence to my clients until 4:30 PM EDT today.
Mr. President, the people elected you for reasons of your promises, your apparent integrity, your conviction to help the American people uphold justice, and to return this Nation to its pre-eminent world status. I implore you to use your good offices to ensure these “Settlements” are disseminated without further delay.
Sincerely,
HODGES AND ASSOCIATES
A. CLIFTON HODGES
ACH/gm
Cc: Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II
Lindell H. Bonney, Sr.
Clients
Ahh, more stuff from WorldReports.org:
http://www.worldreports.org/news/290_real_time_intelligence_on_the_hijac...
If half of the stuff in the archives at this site are true, well all I can say is that truth is truly much, much stranger than fiction.
If you get bored some evening, just sift through this drama - wow!
I am still trying to decide if it is a parody site like The Onion!
wow...who puts the Queen in a cc:?
+1000.000 for the comment and +1000 for your pic that makes it even better :)
Your trillions in stimulus is fading and your trillion dollar govt backstops of housing have now failed. The downturn in the stock markets is inevitable -Depression is your destiny now middle class fool and now you will see the true power of the banking elite....
Do not imagine for an instant they cannot be eaten. I could eat them myself in a day and not even call it work.
They won't be too elite or powerful when dragged into the streets and bullets inserted into their brains.
remember what happened in the aftermath of the French Revolution.
I remember it well.
SHOP OFF THEIR HEADS!!
Talking of Zbigniew Brzezinski, here is his analysis of the world
Needless to say the last quote is disturbing to say the least
I find it rather, oh I don't know, .....relaxing.
Yes of course, very disturbing. Quite.
However we notice you did not say it was untrue.
Wouldn't be very disturbing if it were untrue.
source of quote?
if true, he is one sick unit. thought that for some time.
sick unit. welcome to normalcy. the linear modern mind. proliferation of ignorance draped in the flag of
profit, (ph). and, the msm is quelling all thought and
insight concerning 5//6//2010 flash dash crash bash.
right.
so, curious, the cheeky reference to speculative
spectacle. compelling, reguiring further attention.
have a cupcake!
.
http://verbewarp.blogspot.com/2010/05/leadership-crazed-and-insane-cult-of.html#comments
.
and.....
.
Why the 'Experts' Failed to See How Financial Fraud Collapsed the Economy
By James K. Galbraith
May 16, 2010
Editor's Note: The following is the text of a James K. Galbraith's written statement to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee delivered this May.
Chairman Specter, Ranking Member Graham, Members of the Subcommittee, as a former member of the congressional staff it is a pleasure to submit this statement for your record.
I write to you from a disgraced profession. Economic theory, as widely taught since the 1980s, failed miserably to understand the forces behind the financial crisis. Concepts including "rational expectations," "market discipline," and the "efficient markets hypothesis" led economists to argue that speculation would stabilize prices, that sellers would act to protect their reputations, that caveat emptor could be relied on, and that widespread fraud therefore could not occur. Not all economists believed this – but most did.
Thus the study of financial fraud received little attention. Practically no research institutes exist; collaboration between economists and criminologists is rare; in the leading departments there are few specialists and very few students. Economists have soft- pedaled the role of fraud in every crisis they examined, including the Savings & Loan debacle, the Russian transition, the Asian meltdown and the dot.com bubble. They continue to do so now. At a conference sponsored by the Levy Economics Institute in New York on April 17, the closest a former Under Secretary of the Treasury, Peter Fisher, got to this question was to use the word "naughtiness." This was on the day that the SEC charged Goldman Sachs with fraud.
There are exceptions. A famous 1993 article entitled "Looting: Bankruptcy for Profit," by George Akerlof and Paul Romer, drew exceptionally on the experience of regulators who understood fraud. The criminologist-economist William K. Black of the University of Missouri-Kansas City is our leading systematic analyst of the relationship between financial crime and financial crisis. Black points out that accounting fraud is a sure thing when you can control the institution engaging in it: "the best way to rob a bank is to own one." The experience of the Savings and Loan crisis was of businesses taken over for the explicit purpose of stripping them, of bleeding them dry. This was established in court: there were over one thousand felony convictions in the wake of that debacle. Other useful chronicles of modern financial fraud include James Stewart's Den of Thieves on the Boesky-Milken era and Kurt Eichenwald's Conspiracy of Fools, on the Enron scandal. Yet a large gap between this history and formal analysis remains.
Formal analysis tells us that control frauds follow certain patterns. They grow rapidly, reporting high profitability, certified by top accounting firms. They pay exceedingly well. At the same time, they radically lower standards, building new businesses in markets previously considered too risky for honest business. In the financial sector, this takes the form of relaxed – no, gutted – underwriting, combined with the capacity to pass the bad penny to the greater fool. In California in the 1980s, Charles Keating realized that an S&L charter was a "license to steal." In the 2000s, sub-prime mortgage origination was much the same thing. Given a license to steal, thieves get busy. And because their performance seems so good, they quickly come to dominate their markets; the bad players driving out the good.
The complexity of the mortgage finance sector before the crisis highlights another characteristic marker of fraud. In the system that developed, the original mortgage documents lay buried – where they remain – in the records of the loan originators, many of them since defunct or taken over. Those records, if examined, would reveal the extent of missing documentation, of abusive practices, and of fraud. So far, we have only very limited evidence on this, notably a 2007 Fitch Ratings study of a very small sample of highly-rated RMBS, which found "fraud, abuse or missing documentation in virtually every file." An efforts a year ago by Representative Doggett to persuade Secretary Geithner to examine and report thoroughly on the extent of fraud in the underlying mortgage records received an epic run-around.
When sub-prime mortgages were bundled and securitized, the ratings agencies failed to examine the underlying loan quality. Instead they substituted statistical models, in order to generate ratings that would make the resulting RMBS acceptable to investors. When one assumes that prices will always rise, it follows that a loan secured by the asset can always be refinanced; therefore the actual condition of the borrower does not matter. That projection is, of course, only as good as the underlying assumption, but in this perversely-designed marketplace those who paid for ratings had no reason to care about the quality of assumptions. Meanwhile, mortgage originators now had a formula for extending loans to the worst borrowers they could find, secure that in this reverse Lake Wobegon no child would be deemed below average even though they all were. Credit quality collapsed because the system was designed for it to collapse.
A third element in the toxic brew was a simulacrum of "insurance," provided by the market in credit default swaps. These are doomsday instruments in a precise sense: they generate cash-flow for the issuer until the credit event occurs. If the event is large enough, the issuer then fails, at which point the government faces blackmail: it must either step in or the system will collapse. CDS spread the consequences of a housing-price downturn through the entire financial sector, across the globe. They also provided the means to short the market in residential mortgage-backed securities, so that the largest players could turn tail and bet against the instruments they had previously been selling, just before the house of cards crashed.
Latter-day financial economics is blind to all of this. It necessarily treats stocks, bonds, options, derivatives and so forth as securities whose properties can be accepted largely at face value, and quantified in terms of return and risk. That quantification permits the calculation of price, using standard formulae. But everything in the formulae depends on the instruments being as they are represented to be. For if they are not, then what formula could possibly apply?
An older strand of institutional economics understood that a security is a contract in law. It can only be as good as the legal system that stands behind it. Some fraud is inevitable, but in a functioning system it must be rare. It must be considered – and rightly – a minor problem. If fraud – or even the perception of fraud – comes to dominate the system, then there is no foundation for a market in the securities. They become trash. And more deeply, so do the institutions responsible for creating, rating and selling them. Including, so long as it fails to respond with appropriate force, the legal system itself.
Control frauds always fail in the end. But the failure of the firm does not mean the fraud fails: the perpetrators often walk away rich. At some point, this requires subverting, suborning or defeating the law. This is where crime and politics intersect. At its heart, therefore, the financial crisis was a breakdown in the rule of law in America.
Ask yourselves: is it possible for mortgage originators, ratings agencies, underwriters, insurers and supervising agencies NOT to have known that the system of housing finance had become infested with fraud? Every statistical indicator of fraudulent practice – growth and profitability – suggests otherwise. Every examination of the record so far suggests otherwise. The very language in use: "liars' loans," "ninja loans," "neutron loans," and "toxic waste," tells you that people knew. I have also heard the expression, "IBG,YBG;" the meaning of that bit of code was: "I'll be gone, you'll be gone."
If doubt remains, investigation into the internal communications of the firms and agencies in question can clear it up. Emails are revealing. The government already possesses critical documentary trails -- those of AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve. Those documents should be investigated, in full, by competent authority and also released, as appropriate, to the public. For instance, did AIG knowingly issue CDS against instruments that Goldman had designed on behalf of Mr. John Paulson to fail? If so, why? Or again: Did Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac appreciate the poor quality of the RMBS they were acquiring? Did they do so under pressure from Mr. Henry Paulson? If so, did Secretary Paulson know? And if he did, why did he act as he did? In a recent paper, Thomas Ferguson and Robert Johnson argue that the "Paulson Put" was intended to delay an inevitable crisis past the election. Does the internal record support this view?
Let us suppose that the investigation that you are about to begin confirms the existence of pervasive fraud, involving millions of mortgages, thousands of appraisers, underwriters, analysts, and the executives of the companies in which they worked, as well as public officials who assisted by turning a Nelson's Eye. What is the appropriate response?
Some appear to believe that "confidence in the banks" can be rebuilt by a new round of good economic news, by rising stock prices, by the reassurances of high officials – and by not looking too closely at the underlying evidence of fraud, abuse, deception and deceit. As you pursue your investigations, you will undermine, and I believe you may destroy, that illusion.
But you have to act. The true alternative is a failure extending over time from the economic to the political system. Just as too few predicted the financial crisis, it may be that too few are today speaking frankly about where a failure to deal with the aftermath may lead.
In this situation, let me suggest, the country faces an existential threat. Either the legal system must do its work. Or the market system cannot be restored. There must be a thorough, transparent, effective, radical cleaning of the financial sector and also of those public officials who failed the public trust. The financiers must be made to feel, in their bones, the power of the law. And the public, which lives by the law, must see very clearly and unambiguously that this is the case. Thank you.
James K. Galbraith is the author of The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too, and of a new preface to The Great Crash, 1929, by John Kenneth Galbraith. He teaches at The University of Texas at Austin.
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ps. apologies and disturbing, yes! but ...
His profession's disgrace is the inevitable result of its prevailing statist ideology and self-serving apologies for the centuries-long crime of inherently corrupt and cronyistic central banking.
Burn in Hell, Ghoulbreath --- I weap for you not.
From a Zero Hedge commentator on 7/5/09 and one of the reasons I have continued to come here.
Moral men pitted against the immoral have this advantage, primary allegiance to loyalty and honour. Predators and parasites have low latancy loyalty if any. Moral men draw from a deep well of everlasting water while immoral sup dew and tears. No way can they maintain a cohesive esprit de corps only on plunderous gain, men that subscribe to such venality have none of the other qualifying virtues with which to maintain their power. Like the USA, betrayed from within by self-servers instead of men of majesty, (the bankers) will be brought down by the decrepitude of avarice.
Money is an instrumentwhich conveys man's goodwill service to fellow man in furnishing him the essentials of survival and luxuries of hard won age in grade. Losing sight of that, men seek profit in algorithms, sneakery, subtle diminishment of the institutions and exchanges.
They never prosper long. It is like an error in genetic code which destroys the creature with cancer. Men who trade without the final object (increase of joy for their fellow are in the wrong path, and sabotage their own future's. Here and in eternity.
Dan-
This is a moral dilemma. It's just trading in dollars.
Ummmm... how right you are... "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen"
they ought to put Vassilis Paleokostas in charge of negotiating with the EU for Greece.
he could kidnap the lot of them, ransom the Fed for them and pay off the Greek debt in one swift move
Do you think he would accept a job in hte US?
hmmm. you think they'd pay?
don't who you are Mike (yet) but many thanks for writing this.
It's Just in Time.
I just don't see this as being IT for the USSA. Gold was getting out of hand, option expiration tomorrow (WS front running while the fed stands aside not propping up the market). With the election coming in November,Turbo Timmy the Thief will and Banana Boman Ben have the overnight programs running once again, the monetary base doubling every full moon.
So, I believe this is a dress rehearsal for Gold's next run and takedown.
So it begins. I, for one, am gonna party like I'm 21 again this weekend. Might be the last time in a long time and I'm tired of being psychologically splintered by all this BS. I've done all the preparing I am able. Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst!
Musical interlude for Kali and other psychologically splintered people. Prepare to get well lubed (drinking, that is - I see where your mind went) this weekend.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73sKNUa4M-E
LOL, I luv Van Halen! My best friend in high school married one of Vans friends. Used to party with them now and then. I am not going to limit myself to drinking though, there are other mentally/physically stimulating things to enjoy also!
I was trying to think of a good Dylan quote as a bookend to the one that started the article. I think I found a good one (matches the mood of many here):
"The evening sun is sinking low.
The woods are dark - the town is too.
They'll drag you down, they run the show.
Ain't no telling what they'll do.
Tell Ol' Bill when he comes home,
that anything is worth a try.
Tell him that I'm not alone,
and that the hour has come to do or die.
All the world I would defy.
Let me make it plain as day.
I look at you now and now I sigh.
How could it be any other way?"
- Bob Dylan, "Tell Ol' Bill", (at 4:00 out of 5:26)
from The Bootleg Series, volume 8
The version here is dramatically different and much more dissonant and ominous than the one featured in for the soundtrack "North Country". Much superior, too. I think the later Dylan stuff is maybe more relevant than his 60's writing - a sign of a really great artist to keep up with the times.
Maybe Ol' Bill represents the establishment in this one?
"it must be done and it will be done."
Fucking-A.
(by the way, since we're all coming clean, sometimes I masturbate in the shower)
(OK, OK!!!!! Every time. Jeez.)
So that is why there is never any hot water!
...and the floor's always sticky. ew.
Oh, man! They were just kidding!!
It could be worse, Rusty:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_BstJzcQNA&feature=popw00us11
Sorry, but given the post you are replying to, I am NOT clicking on the youtube you linked....
I’ve got a list…
A big list of them I’ve been suss on…
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.
are we a nation of sociopaths?
a diagnosis of at least three of the following personality traits are needed to be diagnosed with "anti-social personality disorder."
unlawful behavior - bernie madoff et al
deceitfulness for profit or pleasure - fabrice tourre, soros, auction-rate pfd creators
impulsivity or failure to plan ahead - dick fuld, mortgage banks, ambac
irritability and aggressiveness - leisman vs. santelli, hugh hendry, barney frank, krugman
disregard for others' safety - mortgage brokers who sold arms, liar loans and no docs, congress
irresponsibility shown through bad work practices or shirking financial obligations - gm, chrysler, strategic defaulters, extended unemployment
lack of remorse - blankfein doing god's work, greenspan in denial, BP ceo
diagnosis confirmed!
:
A planet of sociopaths. Remember reading an article about " How does psychiatry deal with a sociopathic society?" How DO you?
The money leaders are sociopathic. The Goldman Sach's hearing was an vital point in history. The alarm? It was ALL rationalized and the U.S. Press followed suit.
The punishment will be broad and indiscriminate regardless. The universe is angry at all of us. None will be spared. The fast will endure. Maybe we will learn something worthwhile from all of it, but I doubt it. We were not the smartest bunch of monkeys.
Game over. Reset. Would you like to play again?
Time wounds all heals... let the rumpus begin!
Yes! The rumpus of all rumpusses! Or is that rumpass?
Rump Roast.
lunchmeat
Rumpofsteelskin
Am I the only one who thinks quoting Bob Dylan is ironic when talking about sell outs? The dude made a fucking christmas album last didn't he?
I know Bowie securitized his catalog ... wonder if Dylan ever thought of that. If you are going to sell out, you oughta do it in spades.
That was a hell of a trade by Bowie. Take a discounted lump sum up front in exchange for passing on future royalties for the term of the bond....right before digital file sharing becomes huge and music royalty cash flows start to evaporate.
Show me the Christ-like 20th century entertainer who doesn't wish he/she "sold out" like that in the late 90's.
Kurt Cobain.
The Man Who Sold The World - Nirvana
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fregObNcHC8
Why do you think Kurt killed himself?
True he never sold out but he bought the farm.
Courtney's doing it for him anyway.
Not to mention having the prescience to secure a mountain retreat in upstate NY on those future royalties.
Always a step ahead. Hope he enjoys retirement.
Miss him.
I actually like his Christmas album. Pop-Xmas music is a genre like any other really and he's taken most of them around the block already at this point. It's not exactly dead-serious and it is a charity fundraiser.
What I really like about it is the old fashioned, Currier & Ives-like cover picture that makes the hipster cosmos clench their Iphones in rage.
He even has a moustache!...Imperialism!
http://soundroundreview.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/bob-d
that link did nothing for me. blank or is it me.
did you like: together through life?
beyond here, lies nothin†
well, maybe that says it all.
better album cover link
http://images.publicradio.org/content/2009/10/14/20091014_dylan-christma...
dylan would spend three days getting a high .. then the next week grinding to another halt
Now that is some world-class pessimism. Noriel Roubini has nothing on ZH. In fact, Roubini has jumped the shark, but ZH keeps rolling right along with the doom.
I have been toying with issuing a new form of CDS; The Cramer or CNBC (Haven't decided which would be more appropriate) ... anyway, the CNBC/Cramer Defecation Swap, which will be indexed to the inverse of the level of BS they are feeding us as a way to hedge the negative effect of following their advice/tips/thoughts/whnatever they call it these days.
The entire charade that has been propagated on humanity is coming completely unglued and there is absolutely no stopping it.
Don't even question if they have a backup plan. Undoubtedly they do. They have probably been over this very scenario a million times. All the middle men are willingly sacrificed to save their own skins. Be wary of these people coming to the rescue. Look at their character and personal lives and how they lived them, and especially don't take their words at face value. If they are about truth their lives and actions will support it.
If the game is restarted then remember what Jefferson said " the price of freedom is eternal vigilance"
We need to discuss the alternative. There was a post earlier today that talked about the function of money.(currency)If and when we abolish the Fed what and whom will take its place. For many years my dear old dad talked of the evil Fed in all its glorious conspiratorial manipulations. He never spoke of an alternative.This discussion has to happen. There are many smart, creative, experienced participants on ZH. What will our new economy look like?
Let's light this candle.
http://tickerforum.org/akcs-www?post=137658
right a million points of light .. bush ! where did you keep the wicks hidden
Shit. Vassilis Paleokostas won't even think of kidnapping BP's CEO Tony Hayward. No payoff.
It's not all doom and gloom, as alimony will become far less burdensome...
"THIS IS NOT HELPING!"
Hey! Progress. They're admitting they're market makers! CNBC needs to register as a broker or a lobbyist.
Another big day on VXX...
Within in the last few hours the President of the United States said that legislation likely to now pass in the Congress concerning financial regulations is a protection for the people on Main Street. It’s a lie. If the final bridge to America’s destiny is to be blocked by the lies of our foremost political leaders, any citizen who does not now stand to call them lies must accept the responsibility for this nation’s financial enslavement.
Yours, Mike, is the first of many voices that demand truth. Thank you! But, IMO, you have it wrong that this is the last chance to battle the corruption. IMO, it’s the first chance. We haven’t had a chance until now. The reason? This “very small group of elitist political and corporate players” had the system and all communication closed up; now it’s being broken up. It’s an avalanche just starting… at the top. And, as you say, we must seize the opportunity.
It’s important, as you say, to have order with this, to be able to identify the corruption, name names and establish an early record of the extent of the criminal cabal’s activities. As you say, this chance could be lost in the shuffle. The end is not here yet but we can see harbingers of it. IOW, the weaknesses in their system are beginning to show…and crack.
We’re in uncharted territory now because their plan for world government ran into a world recession at the wrong time. And one of the elitists’ problems is that there are too many members of the tribe in elite positions to defend—that’s going to be a big problem for them.
Adding to the breakup, Obama is running into trouble with his base and with just about everybody else. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I think that regime’s going to blow apart.
For us all, the greatest danger is a false flag “Reichstag fire” whereby they will try to marshall the masses to obliterate some of the resistance. The elites are using the progressives now, stirring them up into a frenzy, urging them to go after the tea party movement. Rand Paul is trapped by Rachel Maddow, and so it begins. Non-compromisers like Ron Paul pose a tremendous danger to them—and they’re pulling out all stops to try and discredit him. And I don’t think even they know just how dangerous he is to them. More voices like Paul’s and more identification of the problems are to come.
Once the truth establishes the suspicions and plants the evidence against the oligarchs and who they are, and backs it with the lists of these people, such as firedoglake,com’s list of the Goldman Sachs people tied up with the Obama Administration, at this stage--after the trials this country has been through and survived with Teddy Roosevelt and the breakup of the big trusts, with the sellouts of President Wilson to the Fed, with the impeachment trials of Andrew Jackson for fighting the central bankers, with the assault on state rights by Lincoln and his civil war--to end up with this bag of filthy criminals who have no morality and no country loyalty is unconscionable. And then to think that these people, who are only interested in raw power and greed and money, are sitting in the White House, in the house the people built and the people fought and shed blood for, and getting young men all worked up that Al Qaeda is the enemy, and sending them to be shot into tiny pieces, is to realize no country on earth has sunk so low.
Within the last few hours the President of the United States said that legislation likely to now pass in the Congress concerning financial regulations is a protection for the people on Main Street. It’s a lie. If the final bridge to America’s destiny is to be blocked by the lies of our foremost political leaders, any citizen who does not now stand to call them lies must accept the responsibility for this nation’s financial enslavement.
Wonderful....JR
JR and Geopol make a great pair. Bring them to town and put them on the air.
+ 1100
JR, you go girl (boy).
naming names, be careful.
you know who i am talking about. i have just decided that man just can't quit. he is getting deeper and deeper. it actually isn't very pretty. very vicious cycle. wheelin and dealin. very much like the Godfather. he hasn't done pilates with my daughter for a couple of months, out of the country away from the family, keeping up with all compromisers.
ciao
Obama is such a Bozo! I wish he had some members of his inner circle who had actually met a payroll or worked other than in the public sector. They have no clue.
Yeah, this is a new problem, totally unique to this set of felons.
Mike, a HUGE thanks for the great article!!!! Like you, i too stopped watching the Idiot Box (my grandmother's term for TV) years ago. Yes, like you there are moments of 'weakness' per se that simply reinforces WHY it is best not to watch the TV.
Makes me wonder... if more people turned off the Idiot Box, how much smarter and more honestly informed would the American people be? Thanks again for the great article.
When I watch TV, it feels like someone has a jackhammer to my scull. And if I am watching it with people, I feel crazy when they laugh, or are entertained by whatever, and I sit there. I look around and I see these people, laughing at a sitcom for example, and I am thinking, 'that wasn't funny'. TV makes me feel bad all around.
Makes me wonder... if more people turned off the Idiot Box, how much smarter and more honestly informed would the American people be?
Its surprising how much more intelligent and clear headed you become. I also don't watch t.v. anymore. I used to rationalize it by telling myself that I would watch educational programs which I did most of the time, but by doing this I supported all the other trash because they bundle it together. Now I watch what I want when I want on the internet and read. I believe it would be a start to reshaping America.
mad magazine would be only second to national inquirer.
9 TV less years and I have eyes that can SEE and ears thsat can HEAR!
The difference is staggering!
No doubt, the coming revolution will be telly-cast!
It'll be like UFC+NFL+Jackass+Cops+WWF
You get the drift.....er!
How long does it go on.....you know what is good about the truth, everyone knows what it is, how ever long they have lived without it. no one forgets the truth, they just get better at lying.
I can see it in everybody's eyes. Everybody knows....
well, i can see it in a lot of eyes, but not all of the folks at Taco Bell seem very tuned in so far... maybe it's just the folks i hang with.
Ok, can I bitch? Thanks
I just learned from the guy putting in new windows in my house (BTW, thanks everybody, some sort of energy credit is paying for about 2/3 of the cost, but I digress) about this lead paint ruling coming out of the EPA -Did you know that after July, anyone putting in windows or painting your house will have to be "lead certified"? He says if we had waited until after July he would have to put a tent over the house to do the work, and in hazmat-type suits. The old windows then have to be taken to a toxic waste dump.I used to be able to put the old windows out on the curb with a "free to a good home" sign on them so the artsy types in my neighborhood could do cool things with the old wavey glass. Nooo, now we'll have to pay a small fortune get rid of the old windows.
Can someone tell those bozos at the EPA that this will add layers of costs and fees onto any building project! This type of dumbass regulation is going to put the final dagger in the heart of the construction industry. The best the Repub's can do was Imhoffe (I think it was him) put in an ammendment that would not allow this to be enforceable until every state has a training facility... Yea, lets add more layers at more expense, way to go guys.
Sorry, had to vent.
Although I confessed earlier, I'll do it again, for another sin - ok, I wasn't sick those 6 mid-week days this winter that just happened to coincide with the best powder skiing of the year. My "eye" problem was really one where I just couldn't see coming to work!
mtguy
Children's Books in Dumpsters: Washington's Madness ContinuesThe kiddie police have begun to march across America, threatening thrift stores, as I warned.
On February 10, workers in America's thrift stores tossed out every children's book that was printed prior to 1985. That is the law.
A parent is not allowed to go into a thrift store and buy a book printed before 1985. Those books are now gone.
On the dumpsters filled with children's books, read this.
Congress has spoken. Well, not quite. The bureaucrats who use Congress as their hand puppet, agency by agency, have spoken. The bureaucrats spend their careers identifying threats to the people. They get paid to do this, and they are paid well. They invent a presumed threat and then terrorize Congress into passing a 500-page bill that no Congressman has read. Then the bureaucrats add more regulations in the name of this 500-page law.
This has gone on since 1913, and it will continue to go on until the system finally breaks down. This is the logic of the system.
Here is the new reality, one week old. If you can still find any pre-1985 books, it is because the thrift store's managers don't know they are breaking the law and could be fined or sent to prison if they persist.
Congress passed the enabling legislation law last year: The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. It has 239 sections. I don't expect you to read it – after all, no Congressman or Senator did – but click the link and skim it: "Most parents are irresponsible and must not be trusted."
Every Federal law looks like this one. This was true when I was a Capitol Hill staffer for Ron Paul in 1976, and it will be true for as long as the Federal government is solvent by means of (1) our tax money, (2) Treasury debt investors' money, and (3) Federal Reserve fiat money.
The bureaucrats are now enforcing the letter of the 2008 law. Congressmen will feign ignorance. "Gee, how were we to know?"
Too late. The books are in landfill.
But why? "Stop dangerous lead paint!" Right. The lead paint in pre-1985 kids' books in minuscule traces. There is no known example of any child being injured by lead paint from a book. No matter. The law's the law.
This seems insane, but it is the relentless logic of the State: "Nothing is permitted unless authorized by the State."
The Federal government has authorized abortion on demand. But, once a parent allows a child to be born, that parent is not be allowed to buy the child a pre-1985 book. Such books are too dangerous for children.
This is the logic of Washington. This logic is relentless. It will be extended by law into every nook and cranny of our lives until it is stopped.
This will stop it: (1) the destruction of the dollar, (2) the bankruptcy of the Federal government, and (3) a decision by millions of Americans to say, "I will not obey this law." Law by law, people say, one by one, "I will not obey. Arrest me. I will hire a lawyer. Maybe I will simply defend myself in a court of law. I will resist." Gandhi did it. It worked. People will organize, law by law, to clog the courts, jam the legal system, and vote out of office every politician who does not repeal a specific law. Nothing else can stop this madness.
Americans have surrendered their liberties to Washington, one by one. The process is relentless. No insanity is too great for the bureaucrats. Yet the public is oblivious.
It stems from a simple assumption: "My neighbors are irresponsible. They must not be allowed to make voluntary exchanges, no matter how harmless." This belief leads to a principle of law: Nothing is allowed unless authorized by the State.
Some of your friends may think you are extreme for not trusting Congress and the bureaucrats. Forward this report to them. They may not yet perceive the nature of Beltway madness.
It is going to get much worse. We can be certain of this. Bureaucrats respect only one thing: budget cuts. That's a long way away. But the destruction of the dollar may not be.
http://www.city-journal.org/2009/eon0212wo.html
The New Book Banning Children’s books burn, courtesy of the federal government. 12 February 2009It’s hard to believe, but true: under a law Congress passed last year aimed at regulating hazards in children’s products, the federal government has now advised that children’s books published before 1985 should not be considered safe and may in many cases be unlawful to sell or distribute. Merchants, thrift stores, and booksellers may be at risk if they sell older volumes, or even give them away, without first subjecting them to testing—at prohibitive expense. Many used-book sellers, consignment stores, Goodwill outlets, and the like have accordingly begun to refuse new donations of pre-1985 volumes, yank existing ones off their shelves, and in some cases discard them en masse.
The problem is the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA), passed by Congress last summer after the panic over lead paint on toys from China. Among its other provisions, CPSIA imposed tough new limits on lead in any products intended for use by children aged 12 or under, and made those limits retroactive: that is, goods manufactured before the law passed cannot be sold on the used market (even in garage sales or on eBay) if they don’t conform. The law has hit thrift stores particularly hard, since many children’s products have long included lead-containing (if harmless) components: zippers, snaps, and clasps on garments and backpacks; skateboards, bicycles, and countless other products containing metal alloy; rhinestones and beads in decorations; and so forth. Combine this measure with a new ban (also retroactive) on playthings and child-care articles that contain plastic-softening chemicals known as phthalates, and suddenly tens of millions of commonly encountered children’s items have become unlawful to resell, presumably destined for landfills when their owners discard them. Penalties under the law are strict and can include $100,000 fines and prison time, regardless of whether any child is harmed.
Not until 1985 did it become unlawful to use lead pigments in the inks, dyes, and paints used in children’s books. Before then—and perhaps particularly in the great age of children’s-book illustration that lasted through the early twentieth century—the use of such pigments was not uncommon, and testing can still detect lead residues in books today. This doesn’t mean that the books pose any hazard to children. While lead poisoning from other sources, such as paint in old houses, remains a serious public health problem in some communities, no one seems to have been able to produce a single instance in which an American child has been made ill by the lead in old book illustrations—not surprisingly, since unlike poorly maintained wall paint, book pigments do not tend to flake off in large lead-laden chips for toddlers to put into their mouths.
At any rate, CPSIA’s major provisions went into effect on February 10. The day before, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) published guidelines telling thrift stores, as well as other resellers and distributors of used goods, what they could safely keep selling and what they should consider rejecting or subjecting to (expensive) lead testing. Confirming earlier reports, the document advised that only “ordinary” children’s books (that is, made entirely of paper, with no toylike plastic or metal elements) printed after 1985 could be placed in the safe category. Older books were pointedly left off the safe list; the commission did allow an exception for vintage collectibles whose age, price, or rarity suggested that they would most likely be used by adult collectors, rather than given to children.
Since the law became effective the very next day, there was no time to waste in putting this advice into practice. A commenter at Etsy, the large handicrafts and vintage-goods site, observed how things worked at one store:
People who deal in children’s books for a livelihood now face unpleasant choices. Valerie Jacobsen of Clinton, Wisconsin, who owns a small used-book store and has sold over the Internet since 1995, commented at my blog, Overlawyered: “Our bookstore is the sole means of income for our family, and we currently have over 7,000 books catalogued. In our children’s department, 35 percent of our picture books and 65 percent of our chapter books were printed before 1985.” Jacobsen has contacted the CPSC and her congressional representatives for guidance, but to no avail. “We cannot simply discard a wealth of our culture’s nineteenth and twentieth children’s literature over this,” she writes. She remains defiant, if wary: “I was willing to resist the censorship of 1984 and the Fire Department of Fahrenheit 451 long before I became a bookseller, so I’d love to run a black market in quality children’s books—but at the same time it’s not like the CPSC has never destroyed a small, harmless company before.”
Jacobsen also worries that any temporary forbearance on the part of the CPSC, which has said that it does not plan a reseller crackdown any time soon in the absence of evidence of risk, could be abrogated without notice in the future. For one thing, new commissioners appointed by the Obama administration are expected to show less sympathy in regulating business than the current commission. In addition, the 50 state attorneys general have been empowered to enforce the law on their own, and frequently take much more aggressive legal positions than those of the federal government, sometimes teaming with private lawyers who capture a share of fines imposed.
Seizing on the “collectible” loophole, commenter Carol Baicker-McKee declared: “If nothing happens to change this law soon, I promise I will spend whatever money and devote whatever space I can to buying up these older books. I’ll be happy to label myself a collector (and I’m subversive enough to leave the books lying around where kids might ‘accidentally’ read them).” But this strategy, aside from its overtones of furtive evasion, will provide limited legal help to sellers. Under the law, they’re liable if their products will commonly be understood as intended for children’s use, even if not labeled as such.
A further question is what to do about public libraries, which daily expose children under 12 to pre-1985 editions of Anne of Green Gables, Beatrix Potter, Baden-Powell’s scouting guides, and other deadly hazards. The blogger Design Loft carefully examines some of the costs of CPSIA-proofing pre-1985 library holdings; they are, not surprisingly, utterly prohibitive. The American Library Association spent months warning about the law’s implications, but its concerns fell on deaf ears in Congress (which, in this week’s stimulus bill, refused to consider an amendment by Republican senator Jim DeMint to reform CPSIA). The ALA now apparently intends to take the position that the law does not apply to libraries unless it hears otherwise. One can hardly blame it for this stance, but it’s far from clear that it will prevail. For one thing, the law bans the “distribution” of forbidden items, whether or not for profit. In addition, most libraries regularly raise money through book sales, and will now need to consider excluding older children’s titles from those sales. One CPSC commissioner, Thomas Moore, has already called for libraries to “sequester” some undefinedly large fraction of pre-1985 books until more is known about their risks.
The threat to old books has surfaced so quickly in recent weeks that the elite press still seems unaware of it. The wider pattern of CPSIA’s disruptive irrationality and threat to small businesses has been covered reasonably well by the local press around the country. Some papers have investigated particular aspects of the law—the Los Angeles Times has tracked its menace to the garment industry, and the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal the general plight of thrift stores—but almost no one has cared to consider the law’s broad array of unintended consequences, let alone ask what went wrong in the near-unanimous rush to passage of this feel-good law.
The New York Times, which last year vigorously cheered the passage of CPSIA in both its news and editorial columns, occupies a class by itself in almost completely ignoring the law’s wrenching effects as its effective date has arrived. The Times used to cover the book business, as well as apparel, retailing, and product design, to name a few of the sectors hit hard by CPSIA. Yet the paper has remained entirely silent on the law in recent weeks, aside from one brief wire-service item and a post on the paper’s automotive blog, Wheels, about the law’s effect on children’s dirt bikes (now forced off the market). On Wednesday, the Times ran an editorial solemnly condemning “book banning”; on inspection, the editorial turned out to praise an ACLU lawsuit against a school district that had removed a library book from the shelves because of its allegedly over-favorable view of Castro’s Cuba. In any wider and more systematic prospect of book banning, the paper has shown no interest.
Whatever the future of new media may hold, ours will be a poorer world if we begin to lose (or “sequester” from children) the millions of books published before our own era. They serve as a path into history, literature, and imagination for kids everywhere. They link the generations by enabling parents to pass on the stories and discoveries in which they delighted as children. Their illustrations open up worlds far removed from what kids are likely to see on the video or TV screen. Could we really be on the verge of losing all of this? And if this is what government protection of our kids means, shouldn’t we be thinking instead about protecting our kids from the government?
The world that is perceived by the vast majority is but an elaborate hoax of such stupendous creation that it beggars belief. Flip everything you know upside down, spin it around and finally invert it. Then and only then if you can make that leap of faith over the chasm of incomprehensible denial you might just decipher the rhyme of riddles.
However the truth is horrifying since to know the truth will inevitably result in the paradigm which mirrors the pattern you use to shape the unfoldment of your life on cannot then be real but is instead based on a foundation of deceit and lies. Such revelation is too much of a burden for the vast majority and to be honest the easiest path to take is one of denial and distraction. This path of ignorance I cannot all together condemn for to see the truth in all its insidiousness is a difficult sight to witness which when combined with the politics of concepts such as the bastion of "political correctness" much revered by the parasites of humanity, granted it can do your fucking head in but yet you all do nothing except accepting that all you can do is post bites.
Suckers, my scheme is reaching fruition.
I tried my best to stay with all that chess, I did.
Just when I thought I might be cracking the code I ran into that 98 word sentence near the end and my brain melted out of both ear holes.
Lemme down another couple of these BV's and dark beers and I'll try again.
Beer...?
I just re-read the post and did my own head in.
Let me down a couple to catch up...
OK lemmmee no wen u got all cawt up 2 me
…the Government of the United States … gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance. … May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy. -G. Washington
YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS – George Carlin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWiBt-pqp0E&feature=related
Skippy...WTF happened...
This article brings two thoughts to mind:
1. How can a person who destroys people's lives live with themselves? This crosses my mind often.
2. "This is the time to put up or shut up. It won't come back this way again." - Lou Reed
Oh the drama! Can't handle it. I'm gonna crack a beer, turn on the tv and catch up on the news of the day.
The REFORM BILL is coming on-line tonight. Instead of bitching we should tear it up and see what they've done.
I'll put in a hour on 1) Consumer Agency.
Someone should do 2) derivatives and, someone else, 3) new Fed powers granted.
and 4, 5, 6....
whatever your personal skill is, find that section and nail it down.
“ These pictures aren’t helping.”
of course they aren't helping the political elite banksters sociopaths.....who needs truth when you can manufacture lies a mile a minute....i'd love to see those lying buttholes on msnbc and cnbc thrown into a vat of sulphuric acid and finished by pirrhanas...
amen to the ignorance defense being a total crock of shit.
I'd personally put the Bush and Cheney families at the top of the 'to draw and quarter' list, but that may just be me.
REFORM BILL amendments....
http://maplight.org/us-congress/bill/111-s-3217/435727/contributions-by-...
60 Prostitutes...
http://www.cbanet.org/government/HeadlineDetail.cfm?ItemNumber=18656
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g7ffRdswXTlfgaQS0FCOZmrvbwcAD9FQ7JBO0
with all the salutary and much entertaining badinage being expended here, did anyone actually take the time to read the piece by Martin Armstrong? Though not so quite as witty and sensational as many of the posts here, the imprisoned genius, as usual, provides some very informative and provocative analysis which it would be well worth the time to peruse, especially in light of the fact that it generally contradicts the prevailing view that the market is on the verge of a collapse. Quite the opposite in fact as he predicts new highs as errant capital flies from the Euro zone forcefully and with unprecedented velocity into gold, treasuries, equities and the dollar. This is some heady stuff and at the least bears some serious consideration in view of his already proven prescience. Check it out. Only four pages and I was looking for more. Armstrong's insights are at the very least a great tonic for the toxins released by the smug, condescending and sadistic criminality of the ubermenche Zbig which many seem to be so hypnotized by, much like the mesmeric gaze of a poisonous Cobra.
Yeah, I was suprised at his forecast. However, he did state a close below 10832 on the dow for more than a week would likely lead to lows around 9600. My count has us at day six. Therefore, we would see at least 9600 area according to him.
I respect Armstrong and wish him the best. He is obviously smart and good at economic analysis. I understand the logic in hi thinking, but I feel that once the states' municipalites start to default in large numbers, and more people start getting laid off, this could thwart the hypothesis of a flight to safety to US equities.
good point. i think he anticipated this argument when he refers to all the "repent! repent! the end of the world is at hand!" types. he basically comes to the same conclusion but his timeline is different. remember he predicted the Euro going to 117 several months ago and the dollar going to 90. We might be at that point of inflection sooner that he himself expects. Armstrong is all about currency. Capital seeks the natural equilibrium of capital formation which as Jim Willie agrees is being denied. The recent flow of billions out of germany and into Swiss banks is a testimony. Actually his waterfall phase transition of May 6 might be a lot steeper than anybody anticipated.
I'm sure Armstrong knows a vast deal more about finance and its machinations than I do, but it seems that his prognostications are based more on numbers and theory, and less on reality.
Personally, I think that's a gross oversimplification of matters. There's no way you, me, or Armstrong can predict what might happen next to throw this whole thing off the rails. And, as I'm not a trader (or in the stock markets at all), me and most of the rest of the world could care less about what number the DJIA goes to in its quest for new highs. How many uninvested average folks were helped out by its climb during 2009? Not many.
There are just so many things today that are, it seems, uncontrollably inevitable. To base predictions largely on financial grounds risks ignoring other spheres of significant influence, to our peril.
MP
How they do it....
___________
URGENT CALL ALERT ON WHITEHOUSE USURY AMENDMENT
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Today, the Senate is likely to consider amendment #3746 by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI). This amendment, opposed by ABA and the state bankers associations, would permit states to cap rates on all non-mortgage consumer loans, including car loans, credit card loans, non-mortgage installment loans, and small dollar affordable loans. Although Sen. Whitehouse has offered a modified version of his amendment, "limiting it to national banks only," the result of the amendment would still result in an immediate contraction of credit in communities throughout the country because the lack of certainty about contracts would be chaotic.
ACTION NEEDED
Today, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. (Eastern Daylight Time) we are asking all bank employees to contact your Senators' offices and ask them to OPPOSE WHITEHOUSE AMENDMENT #3746. You can reach your two Senators' offices via the Capitol Hill switchboard at 202-224-3121. Your call will take no longer than one minute.
MESSAGE
I am calling to ask the Senator to OPPOSE WHITEHOUSE AMENDMENT #3746.
The Whitehouse amendment will have a major negative impact on the availability of consumer credit.
The Whitehouse amendment will harm (1) small businesses that use credit cards and small dollar loans to fund their businesses; (2) community banks with national charters that do business in multiple states; (3) consumers who have banking relationships in multiple states; and (4) the general economy as there will be a contraction of credit and increase in prices because of the interest rate caps in other states.
The Whitehouse amendment has nothing to do with the financial crisis or regulatory reform.
The Whitehouse amendment is a bad idea that creates problems, increases costs and places certain institutions at a disadvantage.
Please oppose Whitehouse amendment #3746.
"The pump don't work cause the vandals took the handle...."
bingo.!
John Fogerty is more appropriate than Bob Dylan IMO, given the dystopian outlook:
"Vanz can't dance, but he'll steal your money,
Watch him or he'll rob you blind."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eJ7-atpcpQ&feature=related
kohoutek
No one will be wriing songs about Obama.
Phil Ochs The Ballad of US steel
See the man with the glasses, his name is roger (?)
He went to see the president, say "hello" and rush out (?)
"i got to tell you we need a small price rise"
But honest john just looked at him with ice cold steely eyes
U.s. steel won't be stealing anymore
Jfk come to life and close the door
They shovel slag on the public's back
Inflation raced down the track (?)
Jfk paced up and down, he was very ill at ease
Said "my daddy told me they're a bunch of sobs
This follow the leader pricing is cake with too much icing
Adam smith is turning over if this is free enterprising"
*chorus*
Then kennedy conference it was seen all over the land
The spirit of the roosevelts was once again in command
With the public on his side, well he finally turned the time
And william buckley almost comitted suicide
*chorus*
The treasury must've had an inkling of what was to come when they added "in God we trust" on our currency. In light of the current state of the world's fiat currencies, this may be all that remains...
Yes because they are men of god, right Lloyd?
"in God we trust" was added in 1957, when Dwight was president, the interstate highway system was started, and Warren Buffet was but a millionaire. Ah, take me home toto, click, click, take me home...
My 1935 One Dollar Bill, "Silver Certificate" has "In God We Trust" on the back...so does my old silver coins.
The Senators who killed allowing states to set a USURY cap on consumer credit cards. ( Sheldon Whitehouse Senate Amendment 3746 )
The debt trap continues for some unabated. Not only does it reject state's rights to decide these matters, but it federalizes cap-free usury, legislatively.
NAYs ---60
Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Bond (R-MO)
Brown (R-MA)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carper (D-DE)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dodd (D-CT)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagan (D-NC)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Inouye (D-HI)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kaufman (D-DE)
Kerry (D-MA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Kohl (D-WI)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Lugar (R-IN)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Shelby (R-AL)
Snowe (R-ME)
Tester (D-MT)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Wicker (R-MS)
there might be some work for those of us seeking gainful employment in the building of a public gallows. hang 'em high.
Bush I & II, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Feith, Pearl, Zbignew - The Chicago School of Economics, L. Strauss, Putin, Sarkozy, Merkel et al, their lackeys and minions, the advertisers and marketers, big oil, GM, HAL, MON... not enough lamp posts... Kissenger...
Shame on me for not shouting louder? If I had I would have been hung. Can not make the Sheeple drink... oh well...
(Did anyone else buy a flag in self-defense?)
And, so it goes...
Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Keynes, Greenspan, Rubin, Summers, Geithner.... oh, my... Hollywood, CNN, PBS (sorry, true), F*X, MSNBC, and CNBC gets the award for...
Did I mention the Kossacks, those sweet lovable fuzzies.... Heart Heart.... Remember "Able Danger" - the tracking of the hijackers before 9-11- A Kossack found it - then they collectively turned to jello...
Can of worms you opened with this post, Tyler Durden... can of worms...
There is a piece mis-pricing the inflation indicator. When monie is liquid, there is an incessant lust for loans. It is a magnet from the banks holding money, to the people (corporations) that want it. This hunger brings the expectations of inflation forth. This illusion will not get the job done though. There will be no perceived "recovery" without the loans.
You want to know inflation? Watch silver.
Plan A or Plan B?
And that is all they thought of, a onesie-twosie.
If you think with parameters you will contain the possibilities.
Apparently "artists" are not the sages they used to be.
The U.S. Congress banned naked CDS today?
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=2&vote=00156