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Obama Not to Blame for the Economy’s Collapse
We can’t recall ever having spoken a kind word about Barack Obama, nor do we even imagine him capable of saying or doing something that might bring us around. However, we do not – repeat, do not – blame him for the terminal state of the economy. It was headed irretrievably into a Second Great Depression long before he took office, and the things he has tried so far to forestall a day of reckoning are, for the most part, the same things that any president, Democrat or Republican, would have tried. Nothing would have worked, of course, because the deflation that the U.S. and the rest of the world have been trying so desperately to counteract is drawing irresistible force from an imploding derivatives bubble valued notionally at nearly a quadrillion dollars. Small wonder, then, that a relatively puny stimulus effort amounting to mere trillions of dollars has bought us only time, not growth, and done so in a way that will burden future generations with more debt than they will be able to service, let alone repay.
To be sure, a solution has always lain well outside the boundaries of political discussion. The best we could have hoped for was a legislative sausage pleasing to the tastes of Harry Reid and John Boehner alike. But nothing those two could conceivably have agreed on would have brought the economy around. Nor would a change at the top have helped. Put someone else in the White House not handicapped by Mr. Obama’s timidity, incompetence and cluelessness – New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is our idea of the right guy for the job – and even he would have failed to slow the country’s slide into deepest recession, let alone reverse it. For in fact we face 30% unemployment, a wave of bank failures that will rival the 1930s, and a real estate washout that will double the devastation that has already occurred. All of this is coming, and even though a President Christie, in the heat of the banking crisis of 2008-09, might have proffered the only correct answer – i.e., let the banks fail, allowing the markets to clear and the economy to right itself – it is inconceivable that he could have sold this course of non-action to Congress.
What Will Be ‘Money’?
And so, we can only wait nervously for the trigger event that will cause the economy to implode, unsanctioned. There is no predicting when this will occur, but the May 2010 Flash Crash provides strong reason to think that it will be mostly over – at least, the digital-financial part of it – in time for the evening news. The morning after, the desperate concern of nearly every American will be…money. It doesn’t take a rocket scientists to recognize that credit cards will no longer be the coin of the realm at that point. And just what might be? Silver and gold coins would be our guess, along with what little U.S. currency happens to be circulating when the music stops. If you are not prepared for something like this now, you ought to be. We’ll conclude with a link to the best book we’ve read to help you get ready, Sean Brodrick’s The Ultimate Suburban Survivalist Guide.
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Of course land ownership is legitimate without government, it is simply a matter of a voluntary contract between a buyer and seller. Government is only legitimate when it functions as a deputized agent of the People who give their consent to be governed by said government.
What legitimized the original appropriation?
Well, since such appropriation ocurred, in many cases, hundreds of years ago, that is a moot point isn't it? The appropriation of land evolved throughout the centuries and has, through that evolution came down to the point that more and more people can become private property owners. At one time, the tribal leaders, or the warlords, or kings owned the property and doled it out based on service to the supreme authority, then that gradually changed and we went from a system of total ownership by one or a few to the ownership of many. Sorry, but your idea of common ownership does not fly, it has never worked throughout histor
WTF!! "Laws" are the creation of government! And laws created by "democratic" governments are, by definition, enforced on the minority without their consent and generally against their interest!
Without government, men and women are able to freely trade goods and services and to negotiate contracts with each other - whether in writing (with an agreed method of arbitration) or verbally upon a handshake and reputation ("trust, but verify" as Reagan put it). It's how life worked in the flourishing American colonies before ambitious parasites began forming governments and exponentially increasing laws, taxes and political hierarchies.
Respect for property rights is as old as civilisation itself, long before written "laws" came into being.
Actually, Law was not originally the creation of governments, but were based upon observations in human nature, such observations were then codified, as it were, through the voluntary actions of people who joined themselves together in communities. There are two essential types of law, one based upon dejure principles, the other on defacto arbritrary application of force reguardless of any underlying principle.
Once such voluntary consent is abridged, then only defacto law prevails, thus the consent of the governed is no longer required for the operation of the government, that is, by the way, the favored method of governance by The State. It is with defacto laws, generated by some either powerful or majority interests, that lead to desparity within communities, within States and within the country as a whole.
This Republic was constructed upon concurrent consent, not majority consent, thus concurrent consent could blunt the force of the majority simply by having a concurrent majority instead of a solid majority, that is one reason for the electoral college, and indeed, it is the reason that Senators from the States were elected by the State legislatures instead of by majority vote. The separation was intended to create two distinct bodies within Congress, each having different perspectives, one being the States themselves as with the Senate, the other being the People as with the House of Representatives. With the passage of the 17th Amendment and the nationalization of the Senate all that changed and the interest of the States as actual communities of volutary action was eliminated from the system. Now, we have the two houses of Congress acting as though they were not agents of either the States or the People, but as employees of the federal government.
"Respect for property rights is as old as civilization itself, long before written [laws] came into being", you are kidding, right? If you aren't kidding, you don't know too much about the history of the world, as that history is abound with tribes/countries/kings/despots stealing land/castles/homes/cities from their neighbors. You realize that, right?
There is a significant difference between the codes of conduct within a single community - whether family, tribe or culture - and the aggressive transgressions by neighbouring communities. No "laws" will ever change that - even laws passed by your One World Government.
As for kings ... they are nothing more than the equivalent of a foreign occupying power within a community (and, in the case of the UK and European countries, they generally are/were foreign to the occupied communities). Kings, like governments, don't follow laws, they just make them for others to follow.
Don't Monarchs provide many of their subjects (a term of art) with a symbol of State, some historical importance, and a continuity of national leadership?
You certainly have the right to bitch about Kings, but do really think that doing away with Britain's Queen or the Scandinavian Monarchs, and leaving their people only with the sort of criminals we have in DC, is helpful?
Do ALL of a monarch's subjects yearn for "a symbol of state", "some historical importance" and "[hereditary] continuity of national leadership"?
For example, in the case of Queen Elizabeth II Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, do ALL of the Brits, Scots, Irish, Welsh, Canadians, Australians, Jamaicans, etc welcome her family's ownership of their land and her ability to disolve their elected parliaments at will?
Wasn't America originally settled by those fleeing religious persecution in England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, Germany and France until, finally, the Founding Fathers declared their secession from King George III -- the German King of England who, while being notionally a protestant and titular head of the Church of England, was also one of the 5 prince-electors of the [Roman Catholic] Holy Roman Emperor?!
I also don't think you understand just how closely related and beholden the "current criminals in DC" are to those European monarchs [and pontiff] of which you speak.
No, I do not understand "how closely related and beholden the "current criminals in DC" are to those European monarchs ," but I am grateful for your instruction about it. Most of my experience in the conspiratorial arts has been in the realm of the "other worldly." I will be glad to share them you.
As far as Queen Elizabeth II's ability to make mischief goes, 50%+1 can tell her to stuff it, no? It must not have got that far yet.
Indeed, America was settled by those fleeing religious persecution and it only took 100 years for their offspring to begin their own journey down the same road to religious intolerance, and eventual persecution, of other religions.
I am surprised to hear that George III wore two hats (head of the C of E and prince elector of the HRE). Usually the local TPTB when, accepting a new monarch, make him renounce all other ties. You must recall the solution to the stubbornness of Charles I on this point.
"I also don't think you understand just how closely related and beholden the "current criminals in DC" are to those European monarchs [and pontiff]"
I most certainly do not understand. But I am hopeful you will be able to explain it to me before TPTB take down the internet. ;- )
The American colonies had no shortage of land (to steal). The fruits of their labour in improving the land were readily apparent, their appropriation of land denying the opportunity of others to improve land themselves not yet ...
Regardless, which law not made by government legitimizes land ownership? If you think it's some law inherent in the psychology of mankind treat me like an alien for a moment and express it into words for me (as someone who believes in the Lockean provisio rather than Rothbard style anarcho capitalism I must be pretty close to an alien to a lot of people here).
PS. oh I see we are just stumbling on semantics ... instead of "law" above, read "principle" ... still would like to see it expressed into words for me though, because it eludes my alien mind.
I find the conflict of your comments odd, in one comment you say you would rather have fascism and yet here you state that you believe in the Lockean provisio, does that not appear to be diametrically opposed frames of thought?
As far as law is concerned, I think we have grown accustom to the utilization of the word from a singular perspective, that being the issue of government. Law, in its most basic state is based upon the observation of mankind, through those observations voluntary agreements were made, even, it appears, in prehistoric times. As such, whether the word law is used or principle, the definition can be based upon either natural observations and voluntary actions stemming from those observations, or as in the case of most people, they equate law with government and only government.
The Lockean Proviso is basically a justification for taxation and redistributionism. The monopolization of the limited arable land and other limited natural resources we have today requires compensation for those denied the opportunity to equal access to those resources.
Well, that’s not quite what the Lockean Proviso states now is it? Under Locke’s labor theory of property there is no provison for redistribution in the modern sense of the word, nor for the use of taxation for that purpose. In fact, the theory states that individuals indeed have the right to private property and can derive that right from his labor, mixing that labor with the available natural resources of what was once originally common property, thus making it private property. See his Second Treatise of Government, Chapter 5.
If the bonds of law have not been layed upon our government by now, I'm afraid that now, in the time of Peak Oil, the chance of that event is even slimmer than it was before.
Peak oil? Insofar as crude goes 'peak' may apply. As for so called fossil fuels? Not even close. Shale is the answer and by the time the shale has 'peaked' space based solar will be fully online.
ISEEIT,
Care to do a little more analysis on that one?
Shale oil can keep society going, for those of us not living too close the coast or rivers ... but it requires far too many resources to keep our current standard of living intact.
Oil impacts everything, the price of oil inflating is as surely to trigger inflation as money printing.
People are not naturally inclined toward revolution, the inclination comes with a heighten degree of misery and frustration. Don't under estimate the power of ideas, this country has seen a recent resurgence of the ideas and ideals upon which this country was founded. I am as hopeful as I am excited about the outcome of such revolutionary germination.
And I am hopeful you are right and I am wrong. Nothing I have ever read or seen would lead me to believe that over 300 million people, without the ties of time and genetics, running out of an essential resource, and besieged by deminishing returns will make it to the pass you so articulately describe. imo.
"....the inclination.....misery and frustration...."
That is part of it, but the number of people experiencing ever greater degrees of misery is vastly important. I am not excited that the tens of millions it's going to take to make a significant dent in the progress of things will ever be mounted in several lifetimes since over half (160,000,000) people are NOW getting support from the system as it is currently devised.
I'm sure you know the schadenfreude of little children when they build a House of Cards. They carefully lay each successive card against the last one, each new story upon the one below. But even little children know what a House of Cards is and that it will soon fall. The object is to build it bigger than all previous Houses of Cards before it collapses.
And after it falls, the children either start building another one or they find something else to occupy their time until they grow up.
Then they start building Houses of Cards again. Except this time they are in deadly earnest.
maybe so but you've got to admit he was right about the democrats being a bunch of pussies (in the worst meaning of the word).
".........and even he would have failed to slow the country’s slide into deepest recession, let alone reverse it"
I'm sorry, but thats the kind of excuse ladden hogwash that has put America in this mess. Nobody EVER dares taking ANY important issue on. I remember reading of a time when America used to produce LEGENDS, not slimy, squishy, politicos
I recall a certain maniac, genocidal, ultra patriot named Andrew Jackson, who didn't take **** from no bankers and didn't back down from a fight
"Dickinson did fire first, hitting Jackson in the chest. Under the rules of dueling, Dickinson had to remain still as Jackson took his one shot. Jackson’s pistol stopped at half cock, so he drew back the hammer and aimed again, this time hitting Dickinson in the chest. Dickinson bled to death.
Doctors determined that the bullet in Jackson was too close to his heart to operate, so Jackson carried it for the rest of his life, and suffered much pain from the wound....... The bullet broke some of Jackson's ribs, and had lodged inches from his heart. While Jackson could easily have fallen from such a wound, he said later, "I should have hit him if he had shot me through the brain."....-wiki
...and during an attempted assasination attempt......."Lawrence pulled out a second pistol, which also misfired... legend told that Jackson attacked Lawrence with his cane"....wiki
had they not just gone away, would Jackson have backed down from challeging them to a fight? And not a washington pillow fight, a REAL fight. What washington weasel today would be willing to stand a take fire over anything?
I'm sorry "the systems just too hard" is just more excuses from the pathetic courtiers we have today who want to call themselves LEADERS, without having a single grain of the grit it truely takes.
As President, Obama filled his cabinet with Wall Street people and enacted legislation that added to their bottom lines. Wall Street was showered with an immense amount of support including:
The Wall Street banks say with a straight face that they paid back the bailout. But eleven of the thirteen forms of the bailout are still in effect. This level of aid is unprecedented for a supposed capitalist country. This type of cooperation between industry and government is a feature of fascism. Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama have, in effect, transformed the United States into a fascist country.
CEOoftheSOFA, beautiful comment just beautiful! You should be given a bull horn and put on a pedastal at the Occupy Wall Street movement. In fact after your speech you should tell those people to follow you to the steps of the Capitol. You get it!
tough to blame the marionette when you can see the wires.
enter stage left, and right, - facism
http://mises.org/daily/5752/The-Fascist-Threat
I love Barak, think he has a beautiful wife...and a great family as well. Voted for him and will listen to him when he actually starts running for President instead of head of the debating society as well. I'm being serious when i say that too! Of course he didn't cause the mess...but when you come in with "never let a crisis go to waste" and "go phuck yourself" simply put he and his "Chicago Gang" were not taking ownership of the issue. PERIOD. They kept the same people in charge...they never demanded any change from anyone for anything...and then they proceeded to basically "break balls and party." Well...PARTY TIME'S OVER! I don't even know where to begin with the minefield he's got to walk through just to get to the point where he says "and that's why you should vote for me in Novemeber!" Solyndra sounds like a good kick off. Throw in a peace process which looks like they want to turn into a war process. Mass demonstrations in every major metropolitan city in the nation on the way...INCLUDING WASHINGTON DC...a total collapse of the European Union, another banking crisis here at home, technology companies running roughshod over the very idea of law, the corporate head of you jobs program trying to corrupt an entire federal bureacracy, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man on the march and Les Nesman's "giant lizzard sweeping up the East Coast"...well, maybe not the last two. Thank God he's asking for more of the people money!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wML2V6crNc0&feature=player_detailpage
You have to be thoroughly corrupt to write the OP, baby. Everything Obama believes may be "wrong", but at least he believes in something (Marxism)... instead of conning the dirtiest $$$ from morons by selling a "book" than claims money has no value.
This site is populated by bloggers that haven't done an honest days work since high school, baby.
Bachman / Palin 2012, baby! Double Trouble Ticket! Followed by their photo op in Playboy, a really bad porn movie called "Double Dykes Do Washington Doggie Dildo Style", with a crescendo when they finish their term with the Fuck America - REAL GOOD! tour, followed by all expense paid trips to the FEMA camp of your choice! But wait - there's more - free meds and indoctrination into the Mama Grizzly Tribe! Fuck, yeah! Good Times!
Everything obama touches turns to crap - just look at his wife and his political career. He took a sweet promising flower and turned her into a hardened, manipulative, power-hungry political puke. We miss the old Michelle, the sweet Michelle.
Sweet as horseradish
How many Wall Street Ass clowns ?? there are ...No inoccent politicos anywhere you dumb fucking ass wipe...not one word about the WAR's, or FRAUD, or the great steaming stinking piles of fraudulent mortgage INFERED securities festering deep in every US central Bank...During the Election..couldnt shut up fast enought to get the bond holders at the Federal Reserve happy..and everybody else (like in Detroit) screwed royally,.. Chicago style ...Liars cheats and thieves..the majorityof the country voted/paid for the Senator from Chicago..And thats what you got....Hows that HOPE thing workin for you now you brain dead MORON ??? Screw you, and take your fluff piece bullshit and roll it up tight,and stick it..............
Ask yourselves this question.......................
Did he and/or has he, PROFITED personally in/from all this mess?
Yes.
Next,HE came in with an Agenda, mind screwed by radical leftist Marxists, ZERO experience,(his performance in the Senate was either NOT PRESENT), or abstention of vote, IF he was present.
SCREW the country, it was/is always has been about making America a Socialist/Marxist Utopia.
He is, was, will always be a Progressive to the core.
A man's character can be judged by the company he keeps.
You're right, McCain and Palin would have been much better.
on the things that count obama is indistinguishable from bush. you are cheering for the red team against the blue. though the cheerleaders look a little different, both teams are owned by the same people.
"..derivative cocktails nobody understands.."
President Obama (10/06/11)
"..exotic financial instruments nobody understands."
Senator Maria Cantwell (2009, 2010, 2011)
I understand, Mr. President
Why do self-described democrats continue to repeat the US Chamber of Commerce talking points?
I understand credit derivatives; I was around at their creation in the '80s.
I understand ABS CDOs, CLOs, CBOs, CMOs, CPDOs, ABCP, CSOs, securitization (and contrary to what the so-called "experts" claim, securitization didn't begin in the late '70s -- it was resurrected then, it began back in the early 1900s, and exploded during the 1920s, leading to the Great Crash of 1929), and credit default swaps in all their variations.
I understand the bivariate Gaussian copula model and why its application in hedging is a total scam.
I understand the variation on the binomial theorem applied by AIG -- and how it translated to billions in CDS sales, while keeping zero capital on hand to back them up -- another scam and the largest insurance swindle in history.
I understand the abject dishonesty of a CNN snarky reporter who falsely claims to an "Occupy Wall Street" protester that the bankersters paid back the taxpayers, when $23 trillion was given them, and according to a recent limited GAO audit of the Federal Reserve, another $16.1 trillion, and between $25 billion to $80 billion was forgiven AIG. (And that AIG paid back some of it in securitized notes --- wonder how much they'll be worth?)
I understand that when the Fed and Treasury buy toxic assets (i.e., worthless credit derivatives) that ain't no payback to the taxpayers but a definite loss, and double payment to the banksters.
I understand thousands of categories of credit derivatives, and the creation of credit derivatives in the '80s to clean up the S&L debacle.
I understand that jobs were created in the investigations of the guilty parties, and how over 1,000 banksters were convicted and jailed.
I understand that the banks have committed at least hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of felonies in their filing of false affidavits, popularly referred to as "robo-signing."
But most of all, Mr. President, I understand that laws will never be upheld as long as crooks like you, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan are in office.
Amen, brother.
Once again:
If it's always darkest before the dawn, the dawn must be about to break.I've hardly ever seen pessimism so pervasive. But ironically, it's the primary pessimism-mongers who might have the most to be pessimistic about.
Does anyone really, truly want to go back to 1997? And could the World simply regress to that point, anyway? Of course, not. The DOGs are simply longing for a Golden Age - or rather, a PRE-Golden Age - to which there is no returning.
What happened in the 1930s might have been unavoidable.
What could happen this time is easily avoidable. But it will require those who have taken nearly all the marbles to learn to share with the other 99.999999999999 percent of kiddies in the playground.
You don't even have to give up a lot.
Just a few more crumbs. And a few less cookies.
Love and kisses.
(So AmDocs IS Prefetch??? As simple as that???)
I hate both parties and agree with Rick AND those who didn't like the article, because you are arguing apples and oranges.
A. The system was unsalvageable when Obama took office.
B. He has done a lousy job as President.
Those two points are not inconsistent. This happens a lot on the web. Unless you qualify everything, someone wants to argue the obvious.
This decline had several major turning points
1. The Federal Reserve Act
2. That blithering Ivy League dictator FDR taking us off the gold standard and establishing the modern centralized government which has no respect for the Constitution.
3. Vietnam and Nixon ending the gold standard
4. Executive pay +
5. Deregulation +
6. Derivatives =
7. Privatized profits and socialized losses
Spending, esp. off balance sheet spending, took off with Reagan, continued through Bush and Clinton at the same accelerating rate, went into overdrive with Bush II, and went nuclear with Obama. End game.
You can blame both parties and every president and member of Congress since Wilson.
By the way, this is my guess for why Christie isn't running for president this time. He's clued in enough to realise that this deflation is going to chew up and spit out at least one more president before it's over (unless Obama squeaks re-election, at least). This may also help to explain why Paul Ryan and a number of other fairly smart cookies are sitting this one out as well.
My thoughts exactly when he announced he wasn't running. He knows full well the the shit is going to hit the fan, and soon. I wouldn't want that job (POTUS) for the exact reasons he has going through his mind.
you cant beat gravity
Fucking crack smoker. Credit Cards will work just fine, the morning after, as will regular cold hard fiat. Gold and Silver?? Wont work at all. And soon, VERY VERY SOON, that boom of 'coin shops' that have sprouted up everywhere, will all close at once, as the metal drops like a rock and their offer to buy at 10% below current spot price prompts angry stares and confusion.
Furthermore, let the banks fail, allowing the markets to clear and the economy to right itself – it is inconceivable that he could have sold this course of non-action to Congress. << thats BULLSHIT.
The american people WITH Obama did not want the bailout, had Christie come on TV and blasted the fools in Congress , there is a ZERRRRROOO chance the banks would have been bailed out and we would have been on our way to a REAL RECOVERY 3 YEARS AGO!!!!
Sorry bill, you and O'bama fall short. How long will you keep the bumper sticker?
Lets see what your Obama does now. why is Timmy out there teling Europe to do what you say th ebig O wouldn't do, and by the way we will be stepping up to do it again very soon.
Have you noticed the BAC and other bank websites that shut down when things get a little dicey? What makes you think your credit card will work once your bank goes insolvent?
Gold and silver will work for barter, which may be the only game in town once the ATMs run out of ready cash (measured in milliseconds). PMs will be worth more than the green toilet paper, but be careful about who knows you have any for a while - your gold may be worth more than your life, to the starving.
Obama wanted stability, domestic peace and the chance to payback his campaign debts to TPTB; there's no doubt he was owned before he took the oath, and had to serve his masters. Now, we're all paying his bills - and will until he leaves office.
Ignore anything you like, but tell me this - once the dollar collapses and ready cash runs out, what will you live on?
the guys a one-time bit player in the bush league. he's hitless in 3 yrs with more errors than a ground hog on april 1st!
georgie boy, and we haven't been hit yet, haliburtin loser,... needed a flare-up poster child for the perpetual pyrrhic victory torch changing ogligarch guard.
listen,... its easier to be a warring president than a domestic housewife? three years of babble and the drooling is drowning out the rhetoric that comes from this rear guard wannabe that about faces the countries needs with status quo maximus.
i have no idea what political party he cleaves to, or for that matter his idiopathic narcissistic plutocracy mantra disseminates as a pragmatic narrative?
what the big "O" has done to our civil liberties - our ability to think and act on our own - the flipity-floppity abuse of supreme commander is all the more reason that 4 yrs is way to much time to let this grave digger drill us a path to "China with Love".
when you promise change and hope, and deliver despair, and angst,... theirs no more reason for questions!
Mitt Romney and Ron Paul 2012
Absolutely. More open borders sweatshopping, free trade job outsourcing, debt creation, monetization, and wars. Actually, A Romney nomination will get Ron Paul to go 3rd Party. That'll throw the election To B.H. Obama, and set the stage for Civil War. First Tuesday in November, 2012. Then: 60 days to Fort Sumter.