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The American Dream Part 3 - Moonshine, Scam, & The Delusion Of Democracy
Submitted by Bill Bonner via Acting-Man blog,
Infection
When we left you yesterday, we were trying to connect the bloated, cankerous ankles of the US economy (Part 1) to the sugar rush of its post-1971 credit-based money system (Part 2).
Today, we look at the face of our government. It is older… with more worry lines and wrinkles. But whence cometh that pale and stupid look?
That is also the result of the same advanced diabetic epizootic that has infected American society.
Moonshine production facility in the 1920s …
Soft and Mushy
After real money and real savings left the economy circa 1971, GDP growth rates fell. Wages atrophied. And now, for the first time in 35 years, American business deaths outnumber business births. The body economic grew soft and mushy – unable to hold itself erect or to stand on its own two feet. Thenceforth, it needed the crutch of increasing credit.
The new credit-based monetary system meant that Americans had less real wealth. But until 2007, they could still get what they wanted by borrowing. Few noticed that they were borrowing from the company store and becoming slaves to their credit masters.
No one ever figured out how to create gold. So, Washington insiders changed the money system in two steps. In 1968, LBJ asked Congress to end the requirement for the dollar to be backed by gold. And in 1971, “Tricky Dicky” ended the direct convertibility of dollars to gold.
With the new dollar, unbacked by gold, they could create all the money they wanted. After the 1970s, instead of earning more money, or borrowing from the savings of his neighbors, the typical American had to grovel to the elite who controlled the credit machine.
The number of new business starts has been in a downtrend throughout the fiat money era – but in 2008, the birth rate crossed below the death rate for the first time ever, and has remained there ever since – click to enlarge.
The Making of a Modern Debt Serf
Government and its cronies in the banking sector created money ex nihilo. This money cost them nothing. Still, they lent it out just as though it were real savings. The typical American took the bait. He bought a house. He bought a car. He had a nice steak dinner and paid with a credit card.
Now, he was no longer a free man, in a free economy with real money in his pocket. He was a slave to the credit system. And he needed to work hard to keep up with it. The feds got the money for nothing. But he had to pay for it. Most often, he couldn’t pay off his debt. So, he became a debt serf – beholden to his masters for his home, his transportation, his education, his health care… and even his food.
If he wants a house, doesn’t he depend on Washington-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to help him get it? If he wants a car, doesn’t he need the Fed’s ultra-low interest rates to help him buy it? If he needs a job, doesn’t he need the Fed’s stimulus? Or failing that, at least Washington’s unemployment insurance, food stamps and disability payments?
Just look at the food-stamp program. From zero in 1970, the scheme now costs $75 billion a year – every penny of it to people who used to be capable of feeding themselves. The elegance of this scam is staggering. The banks get money at zero cost. They give the homebuyer a mortgage. Now, effectively, the bank owns the house and the “homeowner” pays it rent every month. The poor schmuck never realizes what has happened. He kisses the hand of the lender and practically begs him to sleep with his daughter.
When elections come he is ready to play his role – a proud citizen and homeowner, voting for more lashes.
In the 6th year of the “recovery” that was bought with an inflation of the money supply by more than 100% (money TMS-2 from $5.3 trn. in 2008 to $10.8 trn. in early 2015) and a similarly large increase in the federal debt, a near record 46.5 million Americans continued to receive food stamps – click to enlarge.
Flabby Income Numbers
More and more Americans vote for “something for nothing.” Because nothing is all they have to bargain with. Here are the numbers from the Social Security Administration:
- 39% of American workers make less than $20,000 a year
- 52% of American workers make less than $30,000 a year
- 63% of American workers make less than $40,000 a year
- 72% of American workers make less than $50,000 a year
These flabby income numbers are also the result of the regulatory policies and artificial money that has been drip-fed to the American people over the last 44 years. By one estimate, had the economy remained on the track it was on in the 1950s and 1960s – before the new money and crippling restrictions took hold – the average American would earn $125,000 more a year today.
Instead, since the turn of the new millennium, the average household income has fallen to $52,000 from $57,000.
Real median household income (blue line) has recovered somewhat from its trough (note that the inflation adjustment is performed by using official CPI data, which are dubious, to say the least). Nevertheless, current levels were first seen about 25 years ago – click to enlarge.
The Delusion of Democracy
But we are still talking about money, aren’t we? Let us take another look at the face of our new government and draw a measure of its character. The skull may be the same as it was in 1970 – the Constitution hasn’t changed – but gone is the smooth, youthful, open visage. Over the years, the sour creases have multiplied. They tell an ugly story. What happened?
When a group of people can control an economy’s money, they tend to direct the spoils to themselves, their cronies and their pet projects. The rich, special interests, the well connected and the elites figure out how to play the game. And how to make it pay. They throw some bones to the plain people and take the meat for themselves.
The financial sector, for example, watched as its profits went from only about 15% of total corporate profits in the 1970s to 40% in the 2003-to-2007 period. How did that happen? Easy: They were lending money they never had to earn.
The corruption of the American system of government has taken place over more than half a century. But it is only in the last few decades that the body politic has begun to curl into a grotesque new shape. In a credit-based money system, the people who control the credit are like guards at a gulag. Pretty soon, they start acting like them. They decide who eats and who goes hungry.
They are not bad people or good people. They are just like all of us – eager to take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves. Gone is the delusion of democracy. Out the window is the hope of a free market. Forget the American dream. It is all fraud, scam and the old false shuffle.
Stay tuned …
The history of the financial industry’s share of total non-farm corporate profits. It is not difficult to tell who the biggest beneficiaries of the fiat money system are.
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Moonshine... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Yes, we are living the dream - but its someone else's.
Dream? What dream? Things today look like a bad LSD trip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBCUCJNWimo
Actually ~ I never had a BAD purple microdot trip [in my days]... Trippy trips, but nothing BAD...
This is far WORSE... But in the end, it's a matter of perspective... The moment I realized that chasing the lifestyle of the joobuck moneychangers WASN'T the lifestyle I was interested in... Everything became clearer...
I realized that those motherfuckers were sad... NOT ME...
< Delusion of democracy.
< Illusion of democracy.
Or do we have both? Or a republic? Or is there no difference?
'After real money and real savings left the economy circa 1971'.
This article itself is believing in an illusion.
Bretton Woods. Probably 99% of ZHers believe it was about gold. I believed that myself for many years. But that is wrong. It was not about goold. What was the core of Bretton Woods?
FIXED EXCHANGE RATES TO THE DOLLAR.
Because of the fixed exchange rates, for example Germany and all countries which had a strong currency, were forced to buy Dollars to keep the fixed rate stable. And the USA printed and printed and nobody noticed it, that it was not a strong currency, but an inflated one, because thanks to Bretton Woods, all participating countries were forced to buy Dollars, to keep the exchange rate at the determined level.
How White's Bretton Woods system was established and not the original plan that Keynes suggested and everyone believed it was, is a thriller similar to the creation of the Fed for itself, but another story.
Because of the pegging to the Dollar and the huge Dollar inflation, countries like France or Germany sucked up big amounts of Dollars. And when France started to convert parts of their Dollar reserves into gold AND demanded delivery, that's when Bretton Woods came crushing down.
So by looking only at the gold window one does not understand the mechanism, WHY Bretton Woods failed and why the gold window was closed: the decades before the USA were already living from the printing press, Bretton Woods camouflaged that and when the huge Dollar reserves were about to be converted into gold, as promised, it was called - and collapsed.
Also very interesting: the Gold backing of the Dollar was part of international agreements and treaties. The USA simply broke these agreements. Did anyone read in the media or schoolbooks a word that a state under the rule of law would not do that? How are the USA and their World Bank and IMF treating other countries, if they do not fullfill their agreements?
So spending beyond its means in the USA started LONG BEFORE Bretton Woods collapsed.
If one takes into account the huge profits that were made by robbing all German patents in two World Wars and by conquering Europe as market, maybe it's time to view the permanent expansion, the USA has been following for more than 100 years, in a very different light... Time to adjust an illusionary self-portrait of the good old times of Bretton Woods?
I love long walks on the beach with my girlfriend.
Til the LSD wears off and I am dragging a stolen mannequin around a parking lot.
My trips weren't as bad as that...
It was more like... Why isn't this stereo system, [which included DISK CHANGING record arms, FM radio, & cassette tape deck player] shutting off???
OMFG!!!
The 'arm' on the vinyl record feeder was UP and rotated right [which = non stop "ON']...
Prolly nobody around here... NOWADAYS... would even understand that phenomenon... [Which means they're all trippin on ACID without even trippin on ACID]...
lol
Went to a SW Florida Walmart Neighborhood store and bought a 5 pound bag of sugar. $2.43 for the bag! I dont remember paying over a buck my whole life. Oh, and its not 5 pounds anymore. Its four pounds!
Coming up,,,,,,
STARVATION - Its whats for dinner.
Ha! I spend like $1.99 for 16 ounces to buy organic. I figure - pay out the ass now and avoid the rush. At least there'll still be sugar refiners in business in a post-Monsanto world thanks to the prices I pay now.
pay more and more for less and less...."it's what's for dinner!!!!"
Only if the manufacturer didn't load up on free money.
you have just missed the real content only to comment as - first.
Been making my own for years.
Firewater.
Get rid of the Moneychangers.
That's a nice way to put. Their cousins in the MSM and Hollywood (propaganda dept.) have spent the last 50 years browbeating whites that it's their burden to carry a permanent welfare underclass as 'reparations'. Never mind, that there are now more multi-generational whites on welfare. They never, ever, use the "Your white neighbor is a deadbeat and deserves handouts" argument.
Again you're blaming the victims and underclass of capitalism. Direct the anger where it is due—the bankers and corporations themselves. They created the expansive welfare state in the 1930s. Although relief was and is urgently needed to prevent starvation and homelessness among the poor, the only real purpose of our current programs since the New Deal is to stimulate market demand for goods and services and stave off revolution against the shareholder control system/debt-backed fiat system. If we end these two corrupt tenets of our economy, the latter of which compels the former, we could see the arrival of:
It was BIG GOVERNMENT Democrats with a leftwing bias who created the welfare state!
Democrat president Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act and the Revenue Act in 1913 that created the Federal Reserve Bank and created the income tax on individuals and corporations.
Democrat president Franklin Delano Roosevelt created as a vast welfare state with the New Deal.
Democrat president Lyndon Baines Johnson made the welfare state even bigger with his Great Society Programs and he got the United States involved in Vietnam.
Democrat presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have continued the massive welfare state.
It's the Cloward–Piven political strategy outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven that called for overloading the U.S. public welfare system in order to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system with a national system of "a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy
I'm not a Democrat but a market socialist. I don't believe in a big government at all, least of all the current form that the welfare state has taken. As you mention, it is designed not to aid the path out of poverty but to enforce dependence and create market demands for goods and services; in other words, it makes the poor a conduit to transfer wealth from the middle class to the rich. But blaming those who first recieve transfer payments is blaming the victim, still. Many of those who recieve welfare payments are the victims of out-and-out usury from payday lenders, the requirement of expensive automobiles and homes in suburban America, and the like.
They never, ever, use the "Your white neighbor is a deadbeat and deserves handouts" argument.
Say, about those "lazy deadbeats." For starters, they are human beings, not dogs to be kicked around. Next, have you considered the possibility that there simply are not enough jobs available for everyone anymore, let alone the marginally qualified? It used to be, back about fifty years ago and longer, that even the most marginal of people could find some sort of gainful employment that could pay enough to survive on; this is no longer the case, not even close, in fact there are literally tens of millions of very qualified people who cannot find appropriate work for their skills and/or who are surviving on part-time work.
What would you have those "lazy deadbeats" do? Die?
I don't like that Median Household Income chart, especially the nominal income part. It should be from 1960s onward.
From 2000 just shows puts: Greenspam put, Bernanke put, Old Yellan put.....
Speaking of taxes...
http://img42.com/WWzlP
Convert their financial asset ponzi, mark to unicorn TBTJ "equity" to gold, each and every day. That alone will force the unwind of the control fraud.
END THE FED
That is all.
End the State.
If not, they'll just make another Fed.
You're such a pathetic little paid distraction, chimp.
LOL... paid? I am the enemy of ZH's dominant hate club and against the state altogether. Who would pay for me to post?
Ok ~ I'll play...
Why do you make it a point to call people who question WHY, since 1971 & the abandonment of 'Bretton Woods', [at which point ~ money counterfeitting became the rule of the day], ALL the Fed Chairs have been jews ~ ANTISEMITES?
& Instead, wonder if, &, or why, they might have a point?
~~~
The answer to the question:
Who would pay for me to post?
Would become obvious at that point...
Why do you make it a point to call people who question WHY, since 1971 ALL the Fed Chairs have been jews ~ ANTISEMITES?
First I never said that. Your obsession, not mine.
Secondly, Volker is Lutheran.
Third, I really don't give a shit who's Jewish... your obsession, not mine.
Very funny to think Israel pays me, since Israel is a state, and I say that all states are criminal. Your obsession, not mine.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CBRz7bNWsAEv-x9.jpg
A dream is the recall of mental activity that has occurred during sleep.
Yeah - you tell that to the f'ing monster chasing me down the street while my legs are stuck in mud...
Look at that photo ---- what is the 1st thing that comes to your mind - other than the 'primitive' methods of distillation going on...? Look at the way people dressed back then... Even 'criminals' took pride in their appearance. Today...? Fucking let-it-all-hang-out man... Sweats, morbid obesity, slumped shoulders - hunched over and mesmerized by an electronic gadget...
These people used to be the exception. Not so much anymore...
http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/
I'm going to tell you, those aren't the criminals. Those are the Revenue Men. Look at the bunch, the guy in the center, with his finger on the main still, looking over the batch ingredients, with that smug look of not craftsmanship of a good batch, but a 'Copper' who just got the bust. SOB!
The old dickface on his right, with the severe cut overcoat, looks like a veteran, not an old hillbilly, brewmaster, kind of guy. The guy on the left, just like the rest pictured, have that squad room look of old cops.
‘the biggest beneficiaries ‘
Are us. We’ll all extract more from the system during our fourth quarter on the planet.
Wake up, America! The United States is an Israeli settlement....
Wake up, America! The United States is an Israeli internment camp....
Fixed it for you.
Just because the cattle are free to roam the range doesn't mean they don't end up at the slaughter house one day.
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
-- Eric Hoffer
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/29/us-usa-election-fiorina-idUSKB...
(Reuters) - Former Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N) Chief Executive Carly Fiorina said on Sunday the chances she would run for the U.S. presidency in 2016 were "higher than 90 percent" and that she would announce her plans in late April to early May.
Fiorina, speaking on "Fox News Sunday," said she could not yet announce the bid because she was working to establish her team and put together what she described as "the right support" and financial resources.
What gets into these people's (Fiorina) heads anyway...? Is the ego so big as to create a total illusion of reality...? I'll take Mark Herd, thank you very much...
If only! They are decoy candidates for establishment. Remember Herman Cain? I wondered why he was running even before the Gloria 'All Red' incident, so I read up on him. Former FED governor, explained all I needed to know before the false bimbo eruption 'removed' him.
It's nice of the GOP to go the extra mile, and actually find a female candidate for President who is even more repellant than Hillary. That took some real doing, so kudos for the effort.
Proverbs 14:34
"Justice exalteth a nation: but sin maketh nations miserable."
A chart of legislation deviant from God's law, would find correlation with the decline of the West.
Does "thou shalt not steal" matter?
If so, ALL nations are to be condemned. The state survives ONLY via theft.
$230 trillion debt in the world.........I'd say the tribe bankers steal more than the state does.......in fact, without a debt-money system, the state would not be able to steal much at all..........
debt-money........celebrated on Rothschilds Blvd on a daily basis.......
"Then tell them, 'This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Drink, get drunk and vomit, and fall to rise no more because of the sword I will send among you.' Jeremiah 25:27. (Karma is going to be a bitch)
Proclaimed Heros: https://youtu.be/0ougnrP_hdQ?t=4m35s
Reality?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqvU83sqhPE
Someone whom I respect commented to me... the banks and system do not need us anymore . the govt. prints money . . the banks pass it back and forth and corporations or their minions buy stocks with free money .. they do NOT NEED US worker or consumer -as long as they print money . .not even the govt. needs us.... . .they have each other --- @Consuelo .. yes people did have pride back then .. even the crooks dressed like they had self respect.. if you want to make your eyes bleed . just go stand in front of a Wal MArt or at an airport .. nothing spells decline like a skinny guy in short rayon shorts weating a sleeveless T shirt or a fat guy in sweats with food stains .. like everyone dresses out of leftovers from the trash at Goodwill. ..
A crook is just someone who does not obey the rules of slavery, aren't they? Crimes against people are different from "crimes" designated by the interests that dominate government.
Take a look at sidewalk pictures from 100 years ago on 5th Ave - vs today it is amazing - how well dressed people especially men were in those days vs today - plus today the tourists are slobs - the weight difference is ?
Every office in Washington is guilty of treason and should be punished with the appropriate measure.
once the head of the beast is cut off we can start chopping up the body.
Death to them all
Cue up the scene in Swordfish when Travolta shoots the treasonous Senator (Sam Shepard) through the heart.
Just as in the movies, real treason is easy to spot and carries a heavy penalty.
I posted this reply to another article. I think its very appropriate reply to this one as well.
I agree that everyone can bitch about the worlds problems, but without solutions its all just bitching. Here is an example of what I see as the biggest problem, GREED at the very top. Money or fiat creation going to the very very top without it benefiting the majority. Here's a little example
"More than anything else, Tagliabue took over a league that already had already become America's game under Rozelle and took it to the next level, enriching it and restoring labor peace.
In many cases, he turned millionaire owners into billionaires. The value of many franchises has increased tenfold since 1989 -- those worth $70 million then are worth $700 million now."
The delusion here is that someone anyone created billionaires other the the FED through fiat creation. I hear talking heads sucking of the commissioners of major sports leagues in this country all the time. Like David Stern made the NBA. What made all these people, and these leagues amazing amounts of money was funneling huge amounts of money to the top corporations which in turn paid for this huge increases in teams worth, players salaries and commissioners pay (advertising, corporate boxes, tickets, and TV contracts). I remember way back in the 70'S the sports page had a "millionaire" club, listing those players with million dollar contracts. Those contracts could have been 2-3 years. Today we see players getting 250 MILLION dollar deals. Baseball players making $30 million a year. Sure some of its from globalization, but without massive Fiat printing none of this would be possible.
In 1990 David Stern made $3.5 million dollars in 2010 he made $23. Was his job 8x harder 20 years later? Did he work 8 times harder? Last year the commissioners of the NFL A NON FOR PROFIT ORGANIZATION made $44 million dollars. Are you kidding me $44 million dollars
My point is that over the last 40 years the top .001% in every aspect of society taken way more than there fair share. Its the way the fiat has been distributed with every new crisis that has caused these problems.
Until we have a more equitable distribution of where the top 60-70 % of the population can enjoy the paper printing we'll see more pain.
the top 60-70 % of the population can enjoy the paper printing...
Yup, until the suckers stop obeying them.
Decentralized, transparent crypto money FTW.
"After the 1970s, instead of earning more money, or borrowing from the savings of his neighbors, the typical American had to grovel to the elite who controlled the credit machine."
Right there is the very heart of the monster created by the Fed and it's policies. Who saves when interest on savings is net negative? And has been for year after year.
Max Kieser says it well when he asks "Which side of the interest rate Apartheid Wall are you on? On the side of free ZIRP trillions? Or on the side of consumer credit and home/car loan credit?" "Or worse, the great 21st century scam of Student Loans."
Bankers get unlimited Zero Interest Rate loans, these they borrow out to students trying to pay for inflated tuition at lousy universities. That spread is a license to print money, while the badly educated student stuggels to pay it of at his/her lousy low wage job.
Or, the banks themselves create mortgage-backed securities that they know will never be repaid, which are bought by the Federal Reserve at face value. In addition to being able to create money themselves anyway as debt, they get the highly liquid Fed currency debt-free, unlike us proles. The former they lend out to mortgage brokers and student loan companies who re-lend it at usurious rates and, by creating a chain of debt, exacerbate the problem even more.
Only our debt-backed monetary system could cause secular inflation in such a fashion, effectively stealing the labor of the people and giving it to the banks who create the new money (and, by extension, their allies in the corporate sphere who can use almost free money to boost stock prices and pay dividends back to the very same banks). By manipulation of interest rates they can create deflation and inflation in the short term, leading to hyperinflation or disinflation in the long term.
They enslave man and create a need for perpetual and even undesirable economic growth which damages the environment and even the economy's underlying health, much in the way that the growth of cancer damages the health of the organism. Destruction of the environment, double-income families in peacetime, suburban housing and automobiles, all are artifacts of the debt-backed money system and the capitalism (ownership of the economy by a shareholder oligarchy) it compels.
Its not the sole cause but a big part of the problem is that a significant minority of Americans are to be polite grossly ignorant. However the trends around the world indicate some universal pattern to rule. The best case senario may be Singaqpore. In America you have all the authoritarism and more (there is no police precece or beatings in Singapore) and none of the best practices..
Isn't it Sunday? Quit your crying and get back to work, BITCHEZ!
re They are not bad people or good people. They are just like all of us....
Uugh??? *** FAIL ALERT!!! ***
http://www.silverdoctors.com/g-edward-griffin-can-we-really-end-the-fed/
G Edward Griffin: Can We Really End the Fed?
Posted on March 19, 2015 by The Doc
So, how's that communism thing work'n?
How Franklin D. Roosevelt got the job done: https://dougwead.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/how-fdr-got-us-out-of-the-grea...
An oldie, but a goodie.